The Enlightened (7 page)

“Can I think about it?”

“Sure,” she replies. “Just like with the Joining, we’ll wait until you make the right decision.”

Translation: I’m trapped in the Quiet, and in this stupid temple, and I’m not going anywhere until I agree to impregnate Julia.

Chapter 7

“I’
m taking a walk,” I say. “I need some air.”

“I’ll be in the Hall,” Paul says and heads for the door.

“I’ll join you,” Rose says to Paul.

We exit together and walk for a few moments in silence until I stop, deciding to stay here, on the frozen exercise field.

“Come get us when you’re ready,” Paul says over his shoulder.

“You’re bound to get tired of playing here sooner or later,” Rose adds.

The bitch is rubbing it in. In general, their confidence is infuriating. And in no small part, it solidifies my answer.

Fuck, no.

Could they be bluffing when they say they’re willing to ‘wait as long as it takes’? I recall Rose inadvertently saying something about Paul running out of Depth, which would make sense given how he brought over a dozen people into the Quiet and used his Depth for the Joining. But I have no idea how much Depth he has left, which means I have no idea how much time I’ll have to kill.

“Hey, Caleb,” I yell and walk toward the big guy. I have a half-formed idea on how I can pass the time until Paul hopefully runs out of Depth, and if that turns out to be unbearable, I also have a contingency plan.

Caleb acts as if he didn’t hear me, so I get up close and cough.

“I heard you, kid,” he says without facing me. “I was ignoring you.”

Usually I don’t talk to people when they’re behaving so rudely, but since I need something from him, I ask, “Are you still mad about Jacob?”

“Mad? I’m fucking furious,” he says. “Was there a good reason for you to undo years’ worth of painstaking undercover work?”

“There was,” I say. “He was going to shoot Mira. I had no choice but to pull that trigger.”

Caleb stops his exercise and gives me a serious look. “Why was he going to shoot her?”

“Because she was going to kill
him
.
”

Caleb looks thoughtful. “Looks like she figured out who killed her parents after all. Clever girl.”

“You knew?” I ask, unable to believe my ears. I bet if Mira knew that Caleb had been aware of her parents’ killer all along, she would want to shoot him right about now.

“I wasn’t certain, but I figured it was likely him,” Caleb says. “But it could’ve been his Pusher partner or someone higher up the food chain.”

“Do you know who his partner was?” I ask with little hope. I suspect if he did, he wouldn’t be here; he’d be wherever that person is, killing him.

“No, and thanks to you, I don’t have a lead on him either,” Caleb says bitterly. “I didn’t tell the girl because she was conducting her own investigation, and one way or another, she would’ve led me to the right people.”

“Wait a minute,” I say. “You used Mira’s quest for revenge for your own means?”

“And her as bait, yes,” he says.

“I thought you were friends.” I’m actually relieved. At one point, I thought there might’ve been deeper history between the two.

“We weren’t friends.” Was there some defensiveness in his tone? “When I showed interest in her little vendetta, she thought there was more to it than that and tried to flirt with me. Of course, you don’t need to worry,” he says with mock concern,
after
he sees I’m ignoring the ribbing. “I turned her down, gently. She wasn’t even eighteen at the time. Much too young for me and jailbait to boot.”

I recall how he pretended not to know why Pushers would be after her when she got kidnapped and Eugene came asking the Reader community for help, and how he then easily agreed to partake in the rescue mission. He wanted to see whether the Pusher he’d been stalking would take the Mira bait. He must’ve also been interested in seeing how Jacob would refuse to help, revealing a small clue as to his allegiance to the mystery Pusher.

These thoughts remind me of why I came over to talk to Caleb in the first place. I want to learn how to fight better. If I were a better fighter, I would have, for example, given in to my strong urge to punch him in his smug face. Today seems to be the day for violent urges.

“I’ve gotten into a couple of fights since we did that Joining,” I begin, changing the sensitive topic. “I noticed I can fight much better than before, but I still don’t really understand what I’m doing, or how.”

“Yeah. You aren’t that bad, all things considered.” Caleb actually looks serious. “I know from experience.”

This is as close to an olive branch as anyone has probably gotten from Caleb, so I say, “Thanks. How do I improve?”

“The best way, as with anything, is practice. Tons and tons of practice. I can help you with that, if you’re interested, for a small price.”

“Depends on what the price is,” I say, remembering our Joining with Haim, the Israeli fighter. That’s how I got my fighting skills, but it was a scary experience that I don’t care to repeat.

“It’s nothing, really. I just want to know what the fuck is going on here. Why did they have me bring you here? I thought it had something to do with Jacob, but now I suspect something else is going on.”

“You mean they didn’t even tell you? I thought you guys were working together.”

“Certain things are on a need-to-know basis,” he says. “But if
you
tell me, I’ll spar with you for a while. I can use the practice anyway.”

“Throw in some shooting lessons, and you’ve got a deal.”

“Fine. I’ve got some guns up in my room, and lots of bullets.”

“Okay then.” I look in the direction of the guesthouse. “You know Julia is here, right?”

“I do.” He narrows his eyes at me.

“Well, she isn’t here because she or her mom is about to take Jacob’s place. Or at least, not only because of that.” I shift my weight from one foot to the other. “There’s another reason.”

His eyes widen, and then he starts laughing. His laugh is odd-sounding, like Santa getting tickled.

I wait, arms crossed over my chest.

“This is rich,” he says between bouts of laughter. “You’re in deep shit, kid.”

“It’s not
that
funny.” Though truth be told, if I were in his place, I’d probably find this fairly amusing.

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” he says, catching his breath. “It’s funny if you know Julia.”

“What do you mean?” Maybe I’ve been looking at this from a very self-centered perspective.

“Let’s just say I’d rather be celibate, like these monks, than marry that one.” He points to the guesthouse. “Very high maintenance and way too much attitude.”

“They didn’t exactly ask me to
marry
Julia.” I look over my shoulder, as though paranoid about Julia overhearing me.

“Oh.” And the laughter is back. “They just want the stud service then?”

“Yes,” I say, realizing I’ll have to tread more carefully here, for the sake of my contingency plan. “They want us to have a kid.”

“That’s it? That doesn’t sound like a big dilemma to me.”

I resist the urge to say, “Then you go fuck her, or better yet, yourself,” and instead ask, “What do you mean?”

“They’d raise the kid here, so you wouldn’t have to worry about diapers and sleepless nights. All you’ll have to do is fuck Julia, who, all her bitchiness aside, is, let’s face it, a looker,” he says.

“I didn’t think of it like that,” I lie. My own grandma laid it out to me in almost the exact same way. “Maybe it’s not so bad.”

“You don’t have to tell Mira, you know.” This is more than just Caleb being friendly. He’s being loyal to my grandparents by pushing their agenda, even though they didn’t bother to tell him what it was—which is fine with me. Let him think I’m getting convinced.

“I’ll make my own decision,” I say. “Is that all you wanted to know?”

“One more quick question. What was Joining with
them
like?” Caleb cracks his knuckles.

“You mean you’ve never done it? You work for them.”

“No, they never deemed me worthy, with my measly Depth and lack of memories they would find useful.” Caleb looks toward the Temple. “Why would they resort to Joining when I tell them anything they need to know anyway?”

Maybe that’s why he was in Florida when I called to get his help to deal with the guy who I thought was a Pusher but turned out to be Jacob. Caleb could’ve been giving my grandparents a report on me about the things he’d learned during our Joining. Does that mean I’m still in Florida? That would be good to know.

“You’re not missing much,” I lie in response to Caleb’s statement. Then I tell him a variation of what happened during the Joining. Nothing about Mimir’s message, but I highlight my inability to glean information from the Enlightened minds.

“They’re tough bastards.” He smirks.

“So what do you get out of working for them?”

“Time,” he says. “They let me spend crazy amounts of time in their Mind Dimensions. That, and well, they’re the highest authority Readers have.”

I suspect it’s more the former than the latter, but I hold my tongue. “Speaking of payment,” I say instead. “Now that you know what’s going on and about the Joining, why don’t you teach me what you promised? A deal’s a deal.”

“I will, but first tell me why you had those thoughts. Why did you think you were a Pusher?” He gives me a hard look. “I mean, if you’re their son’s kid.”

“You said you only wanted to know what happened here,” I say. “And I got a very strong impression this was something the grandparents didn’t want you to know.”

“I won’t kill you, if that’s what you’re worried—“

“Why don’t you ask Paul?” I figure I might need another favor from Caleb some day, and if he doesn’t figure it out by then, I can trade this info for it. Then again, if we’re about to fight, do I really want to antagonize him?

“Maybe I will,” he says and stands in a semi-familiar stance. “A deal’s a deal. I’ll hold my punches, but you don’t have to.” As he says this, he punches me in the shoulder, lightning-fast. He definitely isn’t using his full strength, but it still hurts when his fist connects with my body. “You were about to block that with your right elbow, but walking out of it would’ve been more effective,” he instructs.

He throws more punches and gives me feedback on my responses to them. He claims I’m getting the hang of it, and maybe I am, but if I ever needed to fight Caleb for real, I’d still be pretty hopeless. I rarely manage to block his punches and land few of my own.

“You ready for the shooting part?” he asks after I’m barely moving from fatigue. We’ve been practicing hand-to-hand combat for what feels like a number of hours. “I’ll give you some more combat tips after. It’s good to take a break now and then.”

Pushing aside my exhaustion, I follow him and help carry the guns and ammo from his room and out of the Temple, as Caleb insists on shooting in the forest.

“You see that frozen-in-time bird?” He points to a hawk in the far distance. “I want you to hit it.”

I point the gun, a revolver he handed to me, and take careful aim.

Then I take the shot. The bird remains untouched.

“Don’t feel bad for the bird,” he teases. “You won’t really kill it.”

“Being an asshole wasn’t part of the deal,” I tell him. Truth be told, I’ve always had an aversion to hunting. His reminder that
no animals will be harmed actually does help.

“You have to pull the trigger on your exhale,” he says. “Place the front sight blade on the target, and then place the front blade in between the valley back sights.”

“Next you’ll be telling me to pull the trigger,” I say, but do as he instructed. The exhale thing must’ve helped, because the bird falls to the ground.

“Now try shooting that squirrel,” he says, and then spends a few minutes explaining how to spot my new target between all the branches.

Many bullets and forest creatures later, I tire of the lessons. My shooting has improved, but of course it would, after so many subjective hours of practice.

A different problem becomes apparent now: patience is not my virtue. There’s only so much shooting and fighting I can do before going crazy. My plan to kill time until Paul runs out of Depth has been revealed as the pleasant delusion it was. No matter how much of his Depth is depleted, Paul still has plenty left to outwait me in my worried-about-Mom state.

“All right,” I say after the last shot. “I’m ready to head back.”

“Why don’t you run and try shooting a few things along the way?” Caleb suggests.

I perform the final exercise as he said, shooting, among other things, a couple of barely noticeable beetles and a bat. I’m definitely getting better at this.

“Do you want to spar some more?” Caleb asks once we’ve returned to the dojo field by the guesthouse.

“Sure,” I say, deciding to give Paul one last chance to run out of Depth. Might as well take advantage of Caleb thinking he owes me.

We go at it until I actually lose track of time. Caleb’s feedback gets progressively less snarky and more genuine. I must be improving.

“Okay. I’ve had enough. Time to face the music,” I say when he throws me to the ground for the millionth time. “I think I’ll go tell them that I’ll do this thing with Julia.”

“Let me give you one piece of advice,” Caleb says, giving me his hand to help me to my feet—the first time that’s happened.

“Please do,” I say. “Unless it’s of the ‘how to’ variety.”

He laughs. “No, though I’m sure I could teach a mini person like you a thing or two in that department.” He chuckles. “I was going to say, you should let Julia hear about this shit from
you
. Better chance it all goes smoothly later.”

This is probably good advice, though it’ll be one super-uncomfortable conversation. “Thanks,” I say.

“Sure. If you need me, I’ll be reading in my room. Thanks to you, I’ve had enough exercise.”

As I watch Caleb walk away, I think about his advice some more. Talking to Julia—there is something to it. What if my contingency plan doesn’t work? It might be worth having a backup, and she might be of help in that regard. Also, my contingency relies on me looking as though I’m going through with this breeding thing, and if I’m being monitored, talking to Julia would show my good will.