Darkhaven

We wound up at a dingy lunch bar. The man sweeping the floor informed us that they closed in half an hour. Stephen ordered drinks while I huddled at a table in the corner. Liam appeared out of nowhere and pulled up a chair next to me. I supposed he’d been out looking for me too, and I wondered how he hadn’t simply found me. But he’d said his visions were often unpredictable and not always what he was hoping to see. Maybe he’d just seen me coming here.

‘Are you okay?’ he asked.

‘Sure.’ I slumped onto the table.

‘Breathe, Gabby.’

I took a quick gulp of air into the top of my ribs.

‘You remind me of Donovan sometimes,’ he observed, a cheeky glint in his eyes. ‘Ferociously stubborn.’

The comment hit me in the belly, knocking any breath I did have out like a physical blow. I spluttered wordlessly.

‘Breathe,’ he said again.

I took a deep, shuddering breath, trying to hold it together. Bad enough to cry in front of Stephen like that, in the privacy of a car. No way was anyone else going to be privy to the embarrassing sobs. Especially someone who’d just insulted me.

‘I’ve lost it, Liam,’ I said. He didn’t need to ask what “it” was. I wondered vaguely if he’d ever lost his clairvoyant ability. ‘But there was something before I left the Taskforce, before I lost it. I don’t know what it meant.’

Liam gazed at me like he could read the thoughts straight out of my head. As if it would make sense if he could. ‘Tell me,’ he said softly. ‘It doesn’t matter what it is. Any information is good.’

‘It was a feeling of dread, like something bad is coming. But I don’t know what it means. What if I’m just overreacting, and it’s nothing?’

Liam pursed his lips, considering, reaching into his own place of intuition. ‘Do you know what it was about?’ he asked.

I opened my hands in my lap in a gesture of helplessness. ‘Darkhaven, I think. But, Liam, it’s gone. I can’t use my intuition at all. And what if I got it wrong? It was a split second. It could just as easily have been exams or something stupid.’

His hands covered mine and closed them back together. Warmth spread up my wrists and I realised I was shivering.

‘It’s all right.’ Liam spoke in the comforting, hypnotic tones he used when teaching me relaxation techniques. He shrugged out of his jacket and pulled it around my shoulders. I lifted my chin, still refusing to give in to being cold or on the verge of epic, gasping sobs again, but I couldn’t deny that the jacket felt like sinking into a warm bath.

Stephen appeared with three takeaway cups. I smelled coffee and the earthy tang of green tea, but mine contained chocolate. I took a sip and felt some semblance of humanity return.

‘I was joking, you know,’ Liam said, lifting a corner of his mouth into a smile. ‘About Donovan.’

‘No you weren’t,’ I replied. I hated the bitch, but even I couldn’t deny that I dealt with frustration about as well as she did. I flashed Liam a grin. ‘You don’t get forgiven that easily.’

Stephen glanced at his watch. ‘It’s time to go, your dad will be worrying.’

I wondered what I was meant to do now. All the training had been working towards getting to Luci. Maybe it was the lack of intuition, but now that the mission was over, I was directionless.

‘I have a question for you,’ Stephen ventured as we pulled onto the freeway back towards West Beach. Liam had insisted I keep his jacket, but as the heater warmed up the car, I shrugged out of it. I folded it and placed it on the back seat, mumbling in acknowledgement of Stephen’s comment. Every muscle was resistant to moving, and my neck still ached from the needle jab.

‘Why were you running away from me this afternoon?’

‘Because I wanted you to follow me, instead of Zenna.’

‘Why would I follow her?’

‘Because I was wearing the bracelet when I –’ I stopped, kicking my exhausted brain for dishing out answers without thinking. ‘You didn’t know I told her everything.’

Stephen smiled. ‘The bracelet was just for your protection at the Taskforce. Not so we could pry into your private conversations.’

‘But all this is supposed to be secret, right?’ Stupid, slow brain.

‘Yes, but all the genetic engineering in the world won’t change the fact that you’re human. Sometimes these things happen. You’ve been through a lot today. It’s natural that you would need to debrief, and she was there. Obviously I would have preferred if I’d found you sooner and we could have avoided complicating the situation.’

I hmphed.

‘So who is Zenna?’ Stephen asked lightly. Even though I’d banked on them not knowing who I’d been talking to, I was surprised again by how little information Darkhaven actually had on my life. Especially compared to the Taskforce. I supposed it was just as much for their protection as to preserve my privacy – the fewer people in the real world who could recognise them, the better. It felt weird that I could be so involved with these people, and yet if someone from Darkhaven met my dad or uncle or friends on the street, neither would know the other. Well, Dad might know everyone.

I decided a little vagueness wouldn’t hurt. ‘A friend.’

‘And she knows about your Event, and what’s been happening since.’

‘Yeah, kind of.’ All of.

‘You trust her?’

‘Sure, she’s one of my best friends. What are you going to do to her?’

Stephen smiled, but his eyes were sad. ‘To her? We’re not an evil institution. One person knowing about this isn’t going to change the world. If you trust her, so do I. You could probably use some best friend advice. But please don’t tell anyone else. I don’t want to scare you, but the less people who know, the safer it is for everyone.’

I nodded, staring out the window at the scrubby trees blurring by. Sean’s threats stuck in my head like thorny burrs. ‘What do I do, Stephen? About losing my intuition?’

He shifted in his seat. ‘You’ve been under a lot of pressure. I think you should probably take some time off. It might come back by itself.’

Time off sounded amazing. But I didn’t think time off would help with much of the stuff that was starting to pile up. I’d been hoping that my mission at the Taskforce would take care of the Darkhaven issue, but having failed at rescuing Luci, that deal was obviously off. I was back to being declared dead. And if I did find a way to make another deal, it was now nearly the middle of August. TISC applications closed at the end of September. I still had zero ideas about uni. On top of that, exams were looming and I could no longer rely on my intuition to get me through without studying. I felt like I’d forgotten how to study; it had been so many weeks since I’d actually read a chapter in a textbook. Maybe time off would help with that particular problem.

‘How long?’ I asked. I expected him to say “take a week” or “until Monday”.

‘How about we pick things up after your exams? If you feel comfortable with your sensory control. Of course you’re welcome to continue your training with Donovan if you want to.’

Ha. Donovan’s harsh approach was the number one thing I wanted respite from. But I was prepared to keep enduring that if it meant something. If it meant I could choose to keep my friends and family.

‘I was thinking…’ I began, unsure how to phrase my idea. I swallowed. ‘I could try to get into the Taskforce again. Sean would take me in. Then I can report back to you.’

Stephen shook his head. ‘It’s too dangerous. We need to find out more about what they’re up to, and if they’re abducting children to do it, we need to stop them, but I won’t send you in again. Not like that.’

I had no plan to make a case with. I sat in silence. Mental silence, even. I wasn’t thinking anything. The day had caught up with me, and I was about to crash. Stephen pulled up in Dad’s driveway.

‘Focus on your exams. Spend some time with your friends. At the end of the school year, we’ll make a plan,’ he said.

By which he meant a plan to say goodbye forever. Ugh. But I couldn’t argue. Without my intuition, exam study was at the top of my list. Except that now I was back to being conscripted to Darkhaven, and by January I would be dead to the world of TISC and ATAR exams and it wouldn’t matter anyway.

As if Stephen knew what I was thinking, he added, ‘You can still study from Darkhaven. Get your ATAR, Gabby.’

‘Okay,’ I grumbled, opening the car door and climbing out. Something flashed in the corner of my eye, and I glanced down to find the disk had fallen beside the seat. The holofoil glinted in the sunlight. I gave it to Stephen.

‘Gabby,’ Stephen called, leaning across the seat. I peered back in through the window.

He looked on the verge of saying something important. I could see doubt stacking up in his eyes. But after a moment he blinked, and then all he said was, ‘Stay safe.’

***

Opening my diary for the first time in ages delivered a rude shock: mock exams were four weeks away. After an afternoon of fuzzy studying, dinner and more studying, I stumbled into my bedroom and flopped on my bed, soaking in the softness of my feather quilt, wondering if I could be bothered having a shower. Something scratched my face. I rolled over and picked up a folded piece of paper. It was a note, in spiky handwriting.

Call me as soon as you can. K.

Odd. Why wouldn’t Keraun just ring? Then I sighed. Probably because he knew that right now, I wouldn’t answer my phone. I dialled his number.

‘Hey, you got my note,’ he said.

‘Yeah, what’s up? I’m about to fall asleep.’ I wanted to talk to him. I even wanted to see him. But the day had been too long already, and I mostly just wanted to fall into bed.

Keraun’s voice was hesitant. ‘If you could take it back, would you?’

‘Take what back, Keraun?’

‘The transformation. You said you have to leave your family. If you could go back to being normal instead, would you?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe.’

‘I stole a file from the Taskforce, one I didn’t get a chance to read before you appeared.’

I waited.

‘There’s a cure for the Praegressus program,’ he said. ‘You can reverse it.’

I was silent for so long, he must have thought I’d fallen asleep because he said something about calling soon and hung up, his voice a velvet susurrus against my eardrums.

I stared at the silver swirls on my ceiling, suddenly less tired. I was back to my original choice, with no better ideas now than I’d had at the start. With a cure on the table, Stephen would force me to choose between Darkhaven and my life here, with or without my memories of the last five-and-a-half weeks, respectively. And there was more now than just the Netica Project that I didn’t want to forget, although I wouldn’t admit to myself that I was at all interested in a boy.