“If you want our help, I mean. It’s up to you.” From the way he shifted his weight and constantly scanned their surroundings, she knew he was worried about being spotted, eager to get them on their way.
Emma tried to fold her arms, but it was too painful, so she let them drop to her sides. “But . . . how did you know I was here? The wizards said they wiped Natalie’s mind. They said she wouldn’t remember anything about this. I thought I was on my own.”
Jonah smiled a hard-edged, bitter smile. “There’s your first lesson,” he said. “Don’t believe anything a wizard tells you.”
Chapter Thirty-five
The Anchorage
In the end, Emma got into the car, because she was soaking wet and hurt and had no other place to go. She guessed a possible risk was better than certain disaster.
Jonah said little during the drive downtown, responding to questions with one-word answers. When Emma asked, “Don’t you want to put something over the seat so I don’t get it wet?” he said, “No.” And when she asked, “Are you a savant, too?” he said, “Yes.”
He’s probably exhausted from dragging me through the lake, she thought. But he seemed more tense than weary, and preoccupied, as if he were already planning his next move.
Emma tried not to stare at him. It’s really unfair for a boy to be that beautiful, she thought. Maybe
What made it worse was that he didn’t even appear to be trying. In fact, he seemed to be doing everything he could to make himself unappealing. It wasn’t working.
Get a grip, Emma, she scolded herself. She was not the kind of girl who lost her head over a pretty boy. She was too street-smart for that. And aware of just where she sat on the scale of ugly to pretty.
Maybe this dizzy, drunken feeling was an aftereffect of the concussion.
She jammed herself into the corner next to the door, but it was no use. She couldn’t escape whatever spell he was casting. The car just wasn’t big enough.
So she stared out the window at the landscape along the Shoreway . . . dark slices of the lake broken by the brilliant stadium and the lakefront museums and marinas. Opened the window and let the cold air pour over her face, cooling her fevered cheeks.
When they left the Shoreway at Third Street and turned down Superior into an area of old warehouses, Emma grew wary again. “Wait a minute. Your school is around
“You’ve heard of the Keep?”
Tyler had mentioned it, once or twice. “Yes. It’s a music venue, right?”
“Right. It’s Gabriel Mandrake’s club. The Anchorage is adjacent to it . . . he runs both. The school is arts- focused, so this way savants can use the studios and facilities at the club. Some are involved in promotions and production. It’s a great synergy. Everything is right here.”
When Emma looked closely, she realized that the neighborhood didn’t look as shabby as she’d first assumed. “Apartments Now Leasing” signs fronted many of the weathered brick buildings. Others had been converted into residential and commercial lofts, with restaurants and retail stores at street level.
Ahead, a bridge arced over the industrial flats. Far below, the river wound its way to the lake, spanned by gaunt iron bridges and lined with manufacturing and tech-company buildings. But Jonah turned off before they reached the bridge, entering an underground parking garage with a key card. He pulled into a space marked Kinlock.
“You have your own parking space?” Emma blurted. “I come and go a lot,” Jonah said. He sat there for a moment, his lower lip caught behind his teeth, staring straight ahead. Then he sighed and turned to look at Emma. “I’m going to take you straight up to Natalie’s so she can look at your shoulder. She’s here in this building.”
“You people don’t really believe in regular doctors, do you?” Emma said.
“I’ll take you to the urgent care if you want,” Jonah said, finger-combing his damp hair. “But you’re a minor. If you show up looking like that, they’ll start asking you a lot of questions, wanting to call your parents, and demanding to know who the hell I am. You’ll be entangled in the system before you know it and I’ll probably end up in jail.”
“I guess you’re right, but—”
“The truth is, a lot of our injuries and illnesses aren’t really treatable using conventional medicine,” Jonah said. “We’re usually misdiagnosed, and then the treatment makes matters worse.” He pushed open the driver’s- side door, looking back at her with the trace of a smile. “I’m not saying that a doctor couldn’t fix a wrenched shoulder. But Nat usually gets better results.”
Entry to the building required a key card, a code, and an iris scan. They took a freight elevator up to the third floor and walked down a corridor past a series of doors. Jonah pounded on the one at the end. When no one answered, he pulled out his cell phone and began punching in numbers.
“It’s late,” Emma whispered. “Maybe she . . .”
Before Jonah had finished, Emma could hear someone through the door, fumbling with a bolt.
Natalie yanked open the door. “Emma!” she said, looking delighted and relieved. Then she frowned, giving her a closer look. “How’d you get all wet?”
Emma delivered the ten-word explanation while Natalie ushered her inside. Jonah followed on his own, shutting the door behind them and throwing the bolt. He seemed at home there, and Emma wondered with a ping of jealousy if he and Natalie were going out.
Natalie’s place was high-ceilinged and spacious, a oneroom apartment that lived a lot larger, with exposed brick and beams everywhere. Glancing around, Emma noticed an electronic drum set in one corner, mikes and amplifiers, a rumpled double bed, and an efficiency kitchen.
“This is a dorm room?” Emma said. It was fancier than anyplace she’d ever lived in.
“This?” Natalie laughed. “This is the low-rent floor. Mr. Mandrake, the school director, lives in the penthouse. And Mr. Kinlock here has a much finer place.”
She’s been to his room, then, Emma thought. And then mentally slapped herself. This was so not her business.
Natalie looked Emma up and down. “You’d swim in my clothes,” she said at last. “Since Jonah saw fit to throw you in the lake, maybe he has something that would work.”
“I’ll look,” Jonah said, and was instantly gone.
As soon as he left, Natalie helped Emma out of her wet clothes and gave her a bathrobe she could have wrapped around herself twice.
Natalie sat Emma down in a chair and asked a million rapid-fire questions as she cleaned cuts and bruises. Then she examined her injured shoulder, gently manipulating it until the pain diminished.
When Jonah returned, he’d changed out of his wet clothes into a cotton sweater and jeans and toweled his hair dry. Now that he was cleaned up, Emma saw that he had a nasty scrape over his cheekbone. He set a pile of clothing on the couch and sat down next to it, watching silently. Now and then he glanced down at his gloved hands.
Finally Natalie gathered up her used washcloths and dropped them into a hamper. Emma carried Jonah’s clothes into the bathroom and changed into them: a sweatshirt and heavy canvas pants with a drawstring waist she could pull tightly around her.
When she returned to the main room, Jonah and Natalie had their heads together, talking. They stopped abruptly when she appeared.
“Not bad,” Natalie said, looking her up and down.
“Thanks for the clothes,” Emma said to Jonah. She reached toward him. “Do you—did you know you had a scrape over your—”
Jonah flinched back, avoiding her questing hand like he might get burned.
