Until the Beginning by Amy Plum
One of the guards leaves to follow Holly upstairs. The other gestures with his gun for the rest of us to move into the bookless library. My father keeps his grip on my arm and stands his ground. “My son and I need some privacy,” he tells the guard. The guy looks like he’s about to blow a fuse, but O’Donnell’s boss sticks his head out of the office and says, “Do what the man asks.” Dad’s already got the guards in his pocket. How unsurprising.
The guy gestures to the door next to the office and says, “You can use the bedroom. But don’t go anywhere else in the house.”
My father jerks me toward the bedroom. I turn to see Juneau’s guard wave her and her father into the library with his gun.
My father’s men are standing guard next to the bedroom. “Wait outside,” Dad orders, and they take position on either side of the door as he closes it behind us. And before I even see it coming, his hand shoots out and he slaps me. Hard.
I want to touch the stinging skin—I can’t believe that Dad actually laid a hand on me. But I keep my hands by my side and let the anger inside me bubble and boil and rise up from my stomach, through my chest, to sizzle and spit inside my head. I am a volcano of pain. Thousands of atoms of repressed hurt have been scattered throughout my body for years. I’ve kept them buried and spread out so they wouldn’t join up and trigger a cataclysmic explosion. But in one second, Dad’s slap pulls all those particles together and molds them into a fiery core of lava. I stand there, steam rising from every pore of my body.
“What the hell have you been doing?” my father hisses.
“The right thing,” I respond, not daring to move a muscle. Keep it inside, I think, and stare at a vein pulsing in Dad’s neck.
“‘The right thing,’” my father repeats. Crossing his arms he stalks past me to sit on the edge of a dresser. “And the right thing in this case is going against your own father, undermining one of the biggest deals of his career. No, make that the biggest deal of his career.
“I asked you to help me. And what did you do? You stole my contact right from under my nose and delivered her to my competitor.”
“Do you even hear yourself?” I ask, incredulous. “That is the most ludicrous spin on what actually happened. You kidnapped a teenage girl and kept her hostage in your home!”
My father shakes his head. “It’s all a matter of perception. Yes, I was applying pressure, but she was always free to leave . . . if she chose to. And without your intervention, I am sure she and I could have come to an arrangement. In fact, I’m still hoping to do so.”
“You are deluded, Dad. Juneau will never willingly help you. You’ll have to force her. Which makes you as bad as this Avery freak,” I say, gesturing at the door. From somewhere in the house, Avery’s still yelling.
“Force is always vital in negotiating, whether subtle or more”—my father weighs his words—“overt.”
I just stare at him, wondering when dishonesty became so ingrained in him that he began to believe his own lies. Dad is waiting for a response, but I don’t give him the pleasure. Finally he shakes his head.
“Miles, you don’t understand how dangerous this situation is that you’ve gotten yourself mixed up in.”
“Really?” I ask, and pull up my T-shirt.
My father gasps as he sees my bullet wound. “My God. What happened to you?” For the first time today he looks genuinely shocked.
“I got shot,” I say.
“By whom?” My dad’s voice is faint.
“One of Avery’s guards. They were chasing us in L.A. when we left your house.”
“What?” My dad leaps up and throws open the door. “O’Donnell!” he yells. A second passes and O’Donnell appears in the doorway. “Were you aware that my son was shot?”
“I didn’t do it,” the guard says, eyes wide.
“It wasn’t him,” I confirm.
“Your partner shot him?” Dad asks, sounding dangerous.
“He shot at him. But I didn’t know the boy was hit,” O’Donnell says. “And just after, our Jeep flipped, so I was too busy saving my own life to think about his.”
“That will be enough,” my father says, and shuts the door in the guard’s face.
“I almost died,” I say. “Juneau saved my life.”
I see a flash of pain cross my father’s face. A split second of concern. It’s the closest thing to love that I’ve felt from him for years, and my volcano cools a few degrees. Just enough for me to let my mask down. Like the shark he is, my dad spots my weakness and darts at it.
“You have feelings for the girl, don’t you?” he asks. “You think you love her.”
I hesitate, then nod.
“You’re young,” he says in a quiet voice. “You don’t know what love is.”
“Well, I know what it isn’t,” I say. “It isn’t deserting someone when they’re sick. When they’re desperate.”
“So that’s what this is all about,” Dad says with a cold glint in his eye. “You’re angry at me because your mother left. She left us, Miles. I didn’t force her to go.”
“How hard did you try to stop her?” I ask.
My father sighs. “It’s very hard to live with a person who is depressed. You can’t understand how difficult things can be.”
“Try me,” I say. “Explain. For once.”
Dad shakes his head, mournfully. “I bought your mother the best care possible while she was with us. But I have a multibillion dollar company to run. It’s not like I could sit around and take care of her myself.”
“It all comes down to you” I say. “Your business. Your success. Your money.”
“That money pays for everything you have.” Dad puts his hands up to slow things down, and sighs.
“Listen, Miles. Help me convince Juneau, and we can all go back home.”
“Why would I do that?”
“I think the question you should be asking is why wouldn’t you do that. Like I said, everything you have comes from me. Your future is in my hands. Who else is going to pay for college, support you until you get a degree, find you a decent first job?”
I cross my arms and stare at him, struggling to keep my voice steady. Fighting the volcano. “No, Dad. My future’s in my own hands now. I don’t want your money. I don’t want your help. And I’m not going to help you. Now, are you going to keep me prisoner, or am I free to go?”
“You realize what you’re saying? If you walk now, that’s the end of you and me.”
“‘You and me’ have been over for a long time.” I open the door and am immediately blocked by my father’s men.
“Let him go,” Dad says. They step aside to let me pass.
I touch my fingers to the burning slap mark on my cheek and, without looking back, I leave my father to go to Juneau.
49
JUNEAU
DAD AND I ARE USHERED INTO THE TROPHY room. The guard instructs us to sit down at a table in one corner. He moves a chair so that he has a direct view of us and sits down, setting his gun across his knees.
I speak in a low voice, but it doesn’t matter. The guard isn’t paying attention. “What’s going on?” I ask.
“Miles came to us and told us he had turned off the electric fences. He got your friend Tallie to drive somewhere nearby so that she could ferry people from the ranch to Roswell. All of the kids and some of the parents went with her, and the rest of the clan is waiting in the woods for a sign from us.”
“A sign for what?” I ask.
“For attack. We came here to rescue Badger. We were ready to try negotiation or flat-out escape. But if it takes an armed attack to save him, our people are ready and waiting. Once Badger’s safe, our only goal is to flee this place with the least casualties possible.”
I nod, one strategy after another forming in my mind. Dad catches my eye. “He’s a good one, Juneau.”
“Who?” I ask, confused by the abrupt change of subject.
“Miles. That boy shows signs of being a true leader,” he says.
“Thanks, Dad,” I say, grateful for his opinion. For his approval.
Dad watches me with a look of sadness and resignation. Like he knows things aren’t ever going to be the same. “Dad?” I ask.
“Yes, Junebug.”
“Whit told me that our ability to Read the Yara comes from the Amrit—that it widens our brains’ sensory receptors.”
Dad nods. “Your mother and I discovered that during the drug’s testing phase.”
“So it has nothing to do with our closeness to the Yara and Gaia?” I ask, trying to hide the note of pain in my voice.
“Is that what Whit said?” my father asks.
“He said that the Yara and Gaia are only metaphors, but by encouraging our faith in them, he made the clan stronger. He also told me that my Conjuring is just a result of having a stronger batch of Amrit than everyone else.”
“Do you think that’s true?” my father asks.
My face melts, and a tear runs down my cheek. I wipe it angrily away. “I don’t know what to think anymore. You and the elders lied to us. We were brainwashed.” Dad raises a finger, but I cut him off. “And don’t tell me that you did it for the good of the clan. I understand that, but it still doesn’t make it right. Nothing will make up for the fact that I grew up in a world of lies.”
My father nods sadly. “I know. But as for what you’re going to believe from now on, that’s up to you. You can believe like Whit does . . . that the Yara, Gaia, Reading, your Conjuring . . . that it all comes down to science. Or you can choose to believe that there is more to it than meets the eye.”
“What do you believe?” I challenge.
“I believe that Amrit returns us to a state we were meant to be in. A state that humankind was in at the beginning of time. Communing with nature, living long, disease-free lives. It is only over the ages, and with our misuse of the earth that our brains’ sensory receptors have narrowed and we lost communion with the Yara. And humankind has suffered the consequences through disease and premature aging. There were men in the Old Testament who were recorded as living for several hundreds of years.”
Dad rubs his hand over his head as he considers what to say. “I think that the notion of Gaia had disappeared, but we recovered it. Science doesn’t get in the way of that. Science and belief go hand in hand as far as I’m concerned. But it doesn’t matter what I think,” he concludes. “You have to decide for yourself.”
I shake my head and, unable to hide my anger, I cast around for another subject to discuss. “Saying we get out of here alive, where has the clan decided to go?”
Dad looks down at the floor.
“What?” I ask.
He looks back up at me. “There have been several discussions. Some of the young considered splitting away from the clan. But the general consensus is that if you lead, the clan will follow you.”
I shake my head. “That’s not going to happen.”
Dad nods. He understands. “What do you want to do?”
“I haven’t decided.”
“I have,” he says. “If you decide that you’re done with the clan, I will leave them. With you. We can go off on our own somewhere and start a new life.”
“But, Dad—” I start. He holds a hand up to stop me.
“But if you don’t want to have anything to do with any of us, I will understand. It might be time for you to go off on your own. To discover who you are without us. What your purpose is on earth. If you decide to do that, then I will stay with the clan and go where they decide to go.” He reaches toward me and grasps my hand in his.
“It’s up to you, Juneau. You don’t owe the clan anything. You don’t owe me anything.” He sighs. “You alone are in control of your future.”
I put my arms around my dad, and we sit like that for a very long time, holding on to each other without speaking—because words aren’t necessary for what we are telling each other.
50
MILES
I PUSH OPEN THE DOOR TO THE TROPHY ROOM and see Juneau and her father in a corner with the guard sitting across from them, looking annoyed. I pick up a chair and gesture toward them. “May I?” I ask him. Not knowing what to expect any longer, he just rolls his eyes and nods.
I set the chair down next to Juneau. She raises her head from her father’s shoulder. “You left the mountain. You came,” she says. From her neutral expression, I can’t tell if she considers that a good or bad thing.
“Well, I would have felt pretty useless sitting around by myself in the woods,” I reply, unable to repress a grin. And although the tension is thick enough to cut with a knife, Juneau gets her quirky half smile and leans forward to give me a hug. And let me tell you, that hug fills every inch of void inside of me left by the conversation with my dad. I don’t want to detach. But Walter is sitting there, so I squeeze her hard and then lean back.
“So you met my clan?” Juneau asks.
I nod, smiling. “I like Kenai. I can see why you guys are so close.”
“And Nome?”
I feel my face flush, and glance, embarrassed, at her dad. “Let me guess,” Juneau says, with a huge smile. “She hit on you.”
Now I’m blushing again. I nod, and look around the room to deflect attention from myself. Walter bursts out laughing. “She didn’t actually hit on me,” I scramble to explain. “She was just . . . complimenting me, I suppose . . .”
But before I can continue my feeble explanation, the sound of a gunshot comes from somewhere inside the house. The door at the end of the library flies open, and Avery steps in, gun in hands. He marches the length of the room, and out into the entryway, shouting to our guard, “Come back me up!”
“But, sir, what about the hostages?”
“I don’t give a flip about them, come back me up!” He yells the same thing to the guards in the office, and storms out onto the porch, gun raised.
Walter is on his feet in a second. “I’m going up to Holly. As soon as the coast is clear, I’ll get her and Badger out of here.” He disappears into the hallway, and Juneau and I are left alone.
“We should go,” she says, taking my hand.
“Just wait,” I say, “this is important.” And digging in my back pocket, I pull out two objects. The first is her opal necklace. “I’ve been keeping this for you since Salt Lake City. Didn’t think you needed it, but I wasn’t sure you wanted me to throw it away.”
Juneau turns the stone over in her hands, its colors glowing in the low light of the room. Without a word, she pockets it, and looks at me expectantly.
“And this is from Tallie,” I say and hand her the note.
“Dad said you had her come pick up the children and others.” She pauses and watches me, appraising. “Good move.”
“Thanks,” I say. “Although I would have preferred you’d said, ‘Good move, you extraordinary man. I couldn’t have planned it better myself.’”
“You took the words right out of my mouth,” Juneau says with a hint of a smile. “I’m not very effusive, am I?”
“‘Effusive’ isn’t the first word that comes to mind when I think of you,” I admit. “Which is fine. Effusiveness is totally overrated. I tend to dig the more restrained chicks myself.”
Juneau’s smile widens. I’m glad to give her a light moment before she reads Tallie’s note, I think. Reading my mind, she tears her gaze from me, unfolds the note, and takes in the words that I saw back at the clan’s encampment.
Juneau. I read the bones one last time before setting out to pick up your people. The battle that I saw coming? It’s a physical one. And it will be bloody: Some will die. I’m sorry to tell you that, but once again, I saw that the outcome rests on you. Remember the concept Beauregard gave you: invoke. When it’s all over you will have som
Juneau’s jaw clenches as she reads. She does her grow-up-a-decade-in-seconds trick, as all of the problems of the world settle onto her shoulders. I can almost see her sink in her chair as it weighs her down.
She sticks the note in her back pocket with the opal.
I raise an eyebrow. “So?”
“A bloody battle. With deaths.”
“And what about the last part?” I ask.
“It’s nice to know I have an option,” she says carefully.
“You have all the options in the world,” I say, and can’t wait any longer. I take her in my arms and kiss her. Now that I’ve met her family and her clan, all the separate brushstrokes of Juneau’s life are meeting up and taking form. I see the whole picture. And it’s a picture that I love. That I want to be a part of.
Juneau takes my face in her hands and kisses me fiercely, like she knows it might be the last time. Land mines explode through my body as the same powerful energy ricochets between the two of us. I don’t want to stop kissing her. I want to stay here, connected to Juneau, generating enough power to light up a city as my lips press her face, her mouth, her neck. But finally she pulls back from me. Taking my hand, she says, “I’m sorry I left you.”
“Don’t even start,” I say. “No explanation needed. I totally get it.”
“But I abandoned you,” she says with regret.
“You were trying to protect me.” She nods, acknowledging. “Just don’t do it again,” I say. “I don’t need protecting.”
Juneau presses her lips together.
“What?” I ask.
“You don’t have to be a part of this, Miles. Tallie says it will be bloody.”
“Are you kidding me?” I say, and catch her up in a my arms. “I’m with you in this,” I whisper into her ear, the fuzz of her hair tickling my face. “In everything. Besides, as you might have noticed, you can’t stop me. You can only slow me down.”