into his lap was just further indication of how
“So how come you dress like that,” Winston said, pointing to Tessic’s white suit. “I’ve always wanted to ask that.”
“Image is everything,” Tessic answered, “or at least my public relations staff tells me.”
The blond kid stood up behind Winston. “Excuse me,” he said, “the non-entity requests an introduction.”
“Drew Camden, Elon Tessic,” Winston said.
Tessic raised his eyebrows. “The biographer!”
Drew’s eyes lit up. “You know about that?”
“With the amount of airplay your video of the Shards received over the past year, you should have been a rich man.”
Drew sighed. “Yeah, too bad I left all the tapes in the desert, for some low-life from Vegas to find. He hit the jackpot, I got nothing.”
“Ah, well, I imagine living it was worth all the money in the world.”
“Give me all the money in the world, and I’ll tell you which I like better.”
“So,” said Winston. “I’ve heard it from a reliable source that you’ve got Dillon locked away like Rapunzel in your tower.”
Tessic considered his response, and said, “The Talmud says a man’s own chains are the strongest.”
To which Winston responded, “A man’s own chains might be the strongest, but the Talmud also says, ‘A man who puts his brother to the test is not to be trusted.’ '
Tessic shook his head, impressed. “Extraordinary! Your gift of growth has turned your mind into a sponge for knowledge.” Tessic laughed with pleasure, in spite of all of his attempts to maintain a cool, suave demeanor. “I only ask one thing: that I be in the room for the reunion.”
Winston shrugged. “Hey, it’s your tower.”
Dillon was awakened by what he thought was an alarm clock, but when morning replaced his dreams, he realized nothing was ringing. Still, there was some energy in his room he could not name, just at the edge of perception.
Maddy had left the room at dawn for her regimen of exercise, and Dillon found himself relieved that she was gone before he awoke. They had shared a bed but not each other the night before. He didn’t know who was to blame, and he wondered if their relationship had become so fragile that a single change in their pattern could cause the fabric to unravel.
He scratched an annoying itch on his lip and cheek. Maddy still needed to come to terms with the fact that Dillon had found himself again. He was no longer a boy who needed rescue, but a man, more comfortable with himself than he had ever been. If Maddy truly did love him, she would come to accept that.
There was a knock at the door, and Dillon opened it to Anselm, Tessic’s valet, a good-natured Swede who had suffered to learn Hebrew. He had pledged himself into Tessic’s service after Tessic led a campaign to find the man’s daughter a marrow donor.
“Mr. Tessic asked that I should bring you this.” He gave Dillon a hand-held mirror. When Dillon looked up for an explanation, Anselm only shrugged. “It is my understanding that it is a gift to you.”
Once Anselm had left, Dillon turned it over to see if it said anything on the back, but it did not. Well, Tessic was nothing if not enigmatic. Dillon had come to find the puzzles he posed entertaining.
Dillon put the mirror down, and dressed for breakfast. As he pulled on his polo shirt, he felt the smooth flow of the fabric over his face. There was something different about it, and it registered only faintly in his mind. It was as he slipped on his socks that it occurred to him that the shirt wasn’t different at all, it was his face. Then he looked down to the mirror he had left on the edge of the dresser.
In an instant he knew, even before he picked up the mirror to look.
The face he saw reflected in the oval was not the face he had gone to bed with. That face had been shredded and paved with scars from one cheek to the other, across his lips, down to his chin. Those scars were mere shadows now, and as he touched his face, he could feel them dissolving as good skin regenerated to replace it. There was a growing ache in his mouth as well. Blood began to spill from the corners of his mouth, and by the time he reached for a towel to wipe it away, new molars had sprouted from the empty sockets left from Maddy’s bullet.
There was only one explanation for this, and now he could put a name to the presence he had felt upon waking. Forgetting about Maddy and Tessic, he raced out of the room, his shoes barely on his feet.
He hurried down the hall toward the winding staircase that led down to the penthouse living room, hearing voices down below. But as he neared the stairs, his enthusiasm took on a flavor of apprehension.
He took the stairs slowly, letting the room below move carefully into view. Maddy was there, and Tessic. Neither had seen him yet. He was surprised to see Drew Camden there, and finally Winston. Drew, the first to notice Dillon, rapped Winston on the arm, and Winston turned toward the stairs.
Dillon found himself frozen on the last step as Winston saw him. Things were changing again for him. This controlled equilibrium Tessic had so painstakingly prepared would be violated by that final step into the room. Dillon opened his mouth to speak, but found nothing to say, and he could read the same uneasy ambivalence in Winston as well. This long-awaited reunion had brought with it an unexpected fear.
“Where the hell have you been for eight months?” Winston asked, the first to break the silence.
Dillon shrugged. “Out of sight,” he answered. “And out of mind.”
And then Winston gave him the hint of a smile. “No surprise there—you’ve always been out of your mind.”
Dillon took that final step down into the room, and crossed the floor to Winston, as Winston came toward him. Caught off guard by their own momentum, they nearly toppled one another in a bruising hug. Dillon felt a charge within the embrace—a surge of energy as Winston’s power added to Dillon’s, their harmonics fitting together like a major fifth. The tingling sensation in Dillon’s face peaked, then vanished, and he knew that the last of the scars were now gone. “I was starting to think I’d never see you again,” Dillon said.
Winston pulled away at the precise moment Dillon expected he would. “Alright, let’s not get all touchy-feely about it.”
Dillon laughed. Whatever else might change, some things would always stay the same. He turned to Drew, offering a quick greeting, then returned his attention to Winston. “The army had me in lock-down like King Kong,” Dillon said, and went on to explain his months of captivity. Then Winston filled him in on his travels, but it was obvious that he was dancing around the things that were really on his mind, as was Dillon. Finally Dillon said, “Okoya’s back.”
Winston looked away for a moment. “I know.” Dillon sensed there was more he knew, but Winston just said, “We’ll talk about it later. Tell me how you wound up here.”
Maddy watched the two of them in the center of the large room, feeling uncomfortably voyeuristic. This was a relationship she had no place in. For as long as she had known Dillon, he had been alone and unique. But now the dynamic had changed. He and Winston now spoke as if no one else in the world existed—as if the two were part of their own private universe. They belonged with each other, and Maddy wondered if it would be this way if they came together with Lourdes, too. Would their confluence serve only to push Maddy further and further away? It was small and selfish, this kind of jealousy, but she couldn’t purge herself of it.
Drew, who apparently shared the curse of the periphery, came over to introduce himself to her.
“Do you live here with Tessic?” he asked.
She wanted to be angry at the suggestion, but what was the point? “No. I’m a friend of Dillon’s.”
