With a touch I sent it open, the oiled hinges allowing it to move without making a sound. The bed was against the far wall, and someone was sitting on it, a man in jeans and a black t-shirt that went perfectly with his darker, more tanned complexion—something I had always thought bizarrely out of place in Minnesota, especially going into winter. “Scott,” I said quietly, and he looked up, his blond curls bobbing, his eyes only slightly puffy. I would honestly have expected more emotion, but it was possible he had been here for a long while.
“Sienna,” he said, and his voice was scratchy, like a needle run over a record. He cleared his throat and tried again. “How are you?”
“How am I?” I looked at him with incredulity. “I’m fine. I’m a little worried about you, though.”
“Dr. Perugini said I’m okay.” He held something in his hand, and I realized after a moment it was a CD, and he lay it on the bed, the clear plastic case catching the light.
“I kinda doubt she examined you in the way I’m talking about,” I said. “I realize you’re fine, physically—”
“Well, we don’t have a psychiatrist anymore to make sure I’m gonna be all right mentally, so…” He shrugged fatalistically. “I guess I’m just gonna have to limp on in my own way, kinda like every other teenager who just lost a girlfriend.”
“That’s one way to look at it.” I edged a little closer to him. “Kind of a healthy way, too, I suspect.”
“Well, I’m all about my health here,” he said, waving vaguely to his body, which I admit, was well sculpted. In spite of being unserious about almost everything, working out and eating right was something Scott did almost to distraction. And it showed. Not that I noticed, of course, but because others had told me. And I saw him with a shirt off, once, at the beach. Maybe more than once. And not always at the beach. Anyway.
“I don’t think too many people have had their girlfriend completely forget them,” I said. “That might be new territory. Something you could stake your claim to.”
“Why does that matter?” he asked with a shrug. “Lots of people wish they could forget their breakups.”
“But Kat wasn’t breaking up with you,” I said. “She sacrificed her memory of you to save your life.”
“Yeah, I get that,” he said, and I saw a flush hit his cheeks. “She’s brave and self-sacrificing, and now she can’t remember me, or any of our little inside jokes, or that we slept together every night, or anything…at all…from the last nine months. I might as well not have existed in her life.”
I swallowed heavily. “I’m sorry, Scott.”
“Why are you sorry?” he asked, and his eyes were narrowed in genuine confusion. “You didn’t make her lose her memory.”
“It was my mission.” I sat down on the bed, leaving a few feet of distance between us. “I was in charge. It’s my fault that—”
“Listen to me,” Scott said, and all the brittle was gone from his voice. His eyes were lidded, puffy, but they burned with inner fire. “I want you to hear this, and maybe it’ll make me feel better, too. What happened at the safe house wasn’t your fault. You took a beating to keep us from dying, and without you, we’d all have croaked, I’m sure, after tangling with that big bastard. What happened in Iowa was Clary’s fault, because he’s an idiot. And we knew he was an idiot, that there was nothing but rocks in his damned skull. We would have been better off without him.” The last part was spat out like a curse. “No one on that mission could have controlled Clary. No one.”
“I appreciate what you’re saying—”
“But you’re gonna blame yourself anyway?” He looked away, and his hands came behind him so he could lean back, legs still draped over the edge of the bed. “Might as well. Plenty of that going around.”
“It wasn’t your fault either, Scott.”
“Nope,” he said, staring into the window on the far edge of the room, to the blue sky beyond the tinting that made looking out bearable. “Doesn’t stop me from blaming myself, though.” He shifted position a little. “Would you mind leaving me be? I kinda just want to be alone right now.”
“Sure,” I said with a perfunctory nod. “If you want to talk, later, I’ll—”
“ If I want to talk, no offense but I’ll look for a more sympathetic ear,” he said, looking at me almost pityingly. “You’re a lot of things, Sienna—leader, badass, friend—but camp counselor you’re not.”
“Pretty sure friends listen to each other when they have problems.” I felt that curious clench in my jaw. “I want you to know…I’m here for you if you need—”
“Please don’t get sappy for the first time in your life, ever,” he said, and he looked at me with a hint of pity. Then after a pause, “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” I said, easing my way back to the door, which I drew closed behind me as I made my way out of the apartment.
13.
Technical services called me on my new cell phone an hour later, a secretary with a perfunctory message asking me to come to Ariadne’s office immediately. It was a bit of a puzzler, honestly, because usually she either called herself or a messenger slid a paper note under my door if it was considered to be an unholy enough hour to give someone a phone call that wasn’t urgent. I made my way into the Directorate lobby and rode the elevator to the fourth floor, the lift filled with administrative employees coming back from lunch. I’d skipped mine (again), not really in the mood for conversation after running through everything in my mind for an hour straight.
Ariadne’s door was ajar when I arrived, and already filled to near capacity. Clary was sitting in one of the chairs, his bulk slumped over, not as jovial as usual. His head was down, as though he couldn’t bear to look at me. It didn’t seem to be a reaction solely to my entry to the room, either; he was quiet long before I walked in. Eve Kappler was in her usual position, leaning against the hutch behind Ariadne. I had a feeling Ariadne’s skin was ready to crawl from her casual lingering there. Ariadne was not the sort given to public displays of affection, or even association, and her relationship with Eve was an open secret, much gossiped about in the halls of the Directorate. While she tried to keep it quiet, Eve did everything in her power to subtly remind every one of us that she was sleeping with the second-in-command. I wouldn’t have wanted that sort of political game played around me, but I wasn’t Ariadne, so I didn’t have to worry about it.
Roberto Bastian was looking dark as ever, leaned against the wall just past the door. “Ma’am,” he said with a nod to me. I liked Bastian; he was a pro, always respectful, and he never disregarded anything I said just because I ran the junior league version of his team. Parks was next to him, and the grey-haired older man gave me a nod as well when I came in. Reed was hanging in the corner behind Clary. Every one of them had been in these exact positions in this office before when I’d come in, as though we had fallen into some bizarre sort of rut. The only thing missing was Kat to sit in the chair next to Clary and Scott to stand behind her. I usually lingered in the corner with my brother, which was where I went now.
“Get J.J. in here and then shut the door,” Ariadne said, not even acknowledging my arrival. We waited in silence until a minute later the fuzzy haired hipster walked in, his dark, heavy-rimmed glasses hanging over the edge of his nose, his flannel shirt and skinny jeans putting him at odds with the appearance of everyone else in the room, except Kappler, who habitually wore skinnier jeans than anyone but Kat would be able to squeeze into. The whole room smelled strongly of shaving gel and masculinity, though neither Eve, Ariadne nor I were the most feminine of specimens to offset the boys, nor were any of us the perfume-wearing sort.