Taylor laughed and smiled, just as Kopano had predicted. “Of course,” she replied, but her face soon clouded over. She glanced at the security camera on the kitchen’s wall. “We have to be careful talking like this.”
“I already told Lexa we’d be in here,” Kopano said.
For cybersecurity reasons cooked up by Professor Nine, all the Academy’s surveillance footage—and who accessed it—went through Lexa. That way, if Taylor slipped up or needed a break from playing the bad girl, she wouldn’t be caught on camera. Kopano had made sure to tell Lexa not to record in the kitchen that night.
“But you’re not a stalker,” Taylor said dryly, her eyes warm.
“So maybe I have arranged to bump into you here and there,” Kopano continued with an airy wave of his knife that ended with him chopping the stem off a pepper. “Is this stalking? I don’t even know what this word means, but I think not.”
“Oh, sure. Play dumb,” Taylor said. She hopped onto a clear section of counter and sat there with her legs dangling. “I’m not complaining. Hiding out together beneath the training center isn’t the same as actually hanging out. I’ve missed it.”
Kopano flashed a grin. “I still take my pledge to you very seriously. I am dedicated to making your experience here as boring as possible.”
Taylor snorted. “I think boring has pretty much gone out the window. Thanks for trying, though.” She reached out and pinched Kopano’s sleeve. “This sweater looks good on you.”
For all his attempts at being smooth, he couldn’t keep the dumb grin off his face.
“Huh? This? Just something old I tossed on.”
Chapter Nine
TAYLOR COOK
THE KITCHEN
THE HUMAN GARDE ACADEMY—POINT REYES, CALIFORNIA
TAYLOR HAD BUILT UP A TOLERANCE TO CHORES. It came from her old life, when she spent every day after school and most of her summers helping out around the farm. School, chores, homework, sleep. It was a rhythm that Taylor was used to. She could turn off her mind and just get stuff done.
When a student got in trouble at the Academy—and Taylor had made a point of getting in trouble a lot lately—the administration favored two kinds of punishment: extra training sessions with Professor Nine or community service around the campus. Both punishments boiled down to basically the same thing—a loss of free time. Taylor didn’t mind that so much. All she did in her free time was worry, so better to have a bunch of dull tasks to take her mind off things.
Mopping floors on Christmas Eve, though? That was something that would happen to a desperate orphan in one of those sad British holiday stories. And yet, Taylor had been looking forward to it.
Normally, she didn’t wear any of her nice outfits when she was going to be spending her off time scrubbing grime out of crevices. But, she’d had a feeling that Kopano would show up tonight. Or, maybe more than a feeling. A hope.
Sitting on the counter beside him, occasionally brushing her shoulder up against his—entirely by accident, of course—Taylor felt at ease. Like she could be herself. Not the old, nervous, homesick Taylor who had first come to the Academy, or the angry, revenge-minded Taylor who had emerged after the incident with the Foundation. With Kopano, she was in her sweet spot, perpetually. Kopano made her feel comfortable and hopeful, like they were always on the verge of some great adventure where things would work out perfectly.
“He’s hot,” Isabela had said to her earlier that day, in their suite, when Taylor mentioned she thought she might see Kopano that night. “You should hook up with him. A Christmas miracle!”
“God, Isabela, it’s not always about hooking up,” Taylor replied.
“Not always, no. But this time?” Isabela wiggled her eyebrows. “This time? Yes. So much yes.”
“I don’t know, I mean—I like him. We’re friends. And he’s, um—I mean, yeah, sure, objectively, he’s an attractive guy. But I don’t know if he even likes me that way and, if he did, I don’t know if I’d want to mess with the friendship—”
“Oh, he likes you that way,” Isabela said with a smirk. “Please. That you guys haven’t done it yet is crazy. Everyone knows it’s going to happen.”
“Isabela!”
“What else is there to do around here? Besides plan our secret war against a bunch of rich assholes? Might as well have some fun.”
“You’ve got a one-track mind,” Taylor replied with a nervous laugh. She looked across the suite for help, where Ran was listening with a faint smile. The Japanese girl shrugged.
“I agree with Isabela,” she said simply.
The memory made Taylor’s cheeks warm, the flush luckily covered by the steamy kitchen. Kopano stood over the stove, shaking a heavy pan filled with fried rice. There was a light sheen of sweat on his forehead. Without thinking about it, Taylor grabbed a clean towel off the counter and lightly wiped his forehead.
“Ah, thank you,” he said with that infectious grin of his. “You make a very good assistant chef.”
“Happy to help,” she replied, glancing down at his growing vat of fried rice. “With whatever this is . . .”
“Christmas rice!” Kopano declared again. “You think it’s strange, eh? I should’ve maybe made desserts like all these others, but that’s not how we do it in Nigeria.”
“You don’t have desserts there?”
Kopano stuck out his stomach and slapped his free hand against it. “Of course we do. But the rice . . .” He tilted his head. “This story might be boring.”
“No, tell me. I like hearing about your home.”
Kopano beamed. “Before I was born, there was a revolution in my country. My mom and dad were very poor. Dirt poor, you’d say. I guess most people were back then. They would consider themselves lucky if they had a cup of rice to eat for dinner.”
“Wow,” Taylor replied. “That’s terrible.”
Kopano shrugged. “Terrible, maybe, but it turned into a cool thing, in a way. For Christmas, the people who could afford to would make big pots of rice like this one and invite their neighbors over to eat. It was a tradition in the village my mom was from that carried on even after the revolution was over.”
Taylor eyed the pan of dark, chopped meat that Kopano was gradually stirring into the rice. “Is that liver?”
“Shh, it’s the secret ingredient,” Kopano replied, chuckling when Taylor wrinkled her nose. “Anyway, every Christmas my mom would cook this and invite all the neighbors in our apartment building over to have some. My dad didn’t like it. He’d forgotten the lessons of the hard times and would always complain. Why do I have to feed all these people, huh? These freeloaders. But my mom did it anyway and, I think, my dad secretly enjoyed having all these visitors he could brag to about his wife’s cooking. It was fun. I liked having a full house back then, everyone around.”
“That’s a nice tradition,” Taylor said, but there was a creeping sadness behind her smile. She folded her hands between her legs and looked down at them. “My dad and I . . . we didn’t do big celebrations like that, didn’t really invite anybody over. It was cool, though. He would buy all these frozen appetizers from the store—like, real unhealthy stuff that we didn’t normally eat, and we’d just binge on them all day and watch movies in our pajamas. It was . . . it was kinda awesome, now that I think about it.”
Kopano put a hand on her shoulder. “It will turn out okay, Taylor. I promise.”
Taylor nodded. She wasn’t so sure.
“It’s hard to believe that place is gone now,” Taylor said after a moment, swallowing. “Gone because of me, basically. I know my dad agreed to it and I know it’s for a good cause but—” She shook her head. “He’s staying with a cousin, sleeping on his futon. I hate to imagine that’s what his Christmas is like.”
Kopano put his hand on his heart. “You have my solemn promise that, when these Foundation people are brought to justice, I will return to South Dakota with you and we will rebuild. As you already know, I am very strong.”
Taylor snorted and wiped the back of her hand across her eyes. “I’ll hold you to that.”
Kopano put a lid on his vat of rice and stepped back with a satisfied exhale. “This needs to simmer a bit. Come on, let’s get some air.”
Taylor hopped down from the counter and the two of them headed out of the kitchen. As they went, she noticed Kopano sneakily grab a small package from a shelf by the door. He tried to hide it behind his back.
“Hey, what’s that?”
Still hiding the package behind his broad back, Kopano turned around and walked backwards through the kitchen’s swinging doors. He smiled sheepishly at Taylor.
“This? Um . . . it’s a present.”
“Kopano. What did you do?”
Taylor followed him into the student union. The lights were still on, but the place was completely deserted at this time of night. After the heat of the kitchen, the cool air was a relief. The strings of blinking lights were reflected in Kopano’s eyes.
“Before you say anything, you should know it was just dumb luck. I pulled your name for Secret Santa.”
Taylor advanced on him, eyes narrowing. “But I didn’t sign up for Secret Santa. We all agreed it wouldn’t make sense with my jerk attitude.”
“Oh,” Kopano replied. “Really? Hm. Then I must have written your name and put it in the hat, which, um . . . was not the hat everyone else put names in but one of Caleb’s that I found in our suite. You know, I did think it was weird you were the only name in there, but I don’t know how Secret Santa is supposed to work!”
“You are so full of it,” Taylor replied with an incredulous laugh.
Kopano finally stopped with the dopey excuses and held out the little box to Taylor. “Happy Christmas,” he said.
She took it, eyeing the slapdash wrapping job he’d done, the corners all wrinkled and uneven. Guys never knew how to wrap presents.
“I hope . . .” Now Kopano’s face was suddenly serious. “I hope I didn’t overstep or something.”
Taylor held up the box and shook it. “Why? What is it?”
“Open it. I’ll explain.”
Taylor ripped away the sloppy wrapping paper and revealed the small box within. She glanced up at Kopano, who shrugged like he didn’t already know what was inside. Taylor pulled off the lid.
Inside the box was a small chunk of wood, dark brown, the edges sanded smooth. “TC” was carved into the soft surface, the grooves worn and darkened with age. The chunk of wood was wedged into the open side of a seashell. At least, that’s how it looked at first glance. Upon further examination Taylor noticed that the shell and the wood were melded together, the edges of the cedar at points seeming to grow right out of smooth shell. The whole thing was attached to a leather cord—a necklace.
Taylor picked up the amulet cautiously, almost afraid she would break it. As she ran her fingers over her initials, she felt bumps on the shell’s reverse side. She turned it over and found a delicate pattern of azure stones—Loralite—the tiny shards embedded into the shell’s light pink surface.
“Kopano . . . wow.”
She blinked her eyes, mouth open slightly. She traced her thumb over the initials and the memory came back to her—the barn, a boring day in the summer a couple of years ago, and Taylor had secretly carved her mark into the wall. She’d felt guilty and stupid about it afterward—covered it up with bales of hay so her dad wouldn’t notice—and, as far as she knew, he never had.
“How . . . ? I did this,” Taylor said, dragging her thumbnail through the carving. “This is from home.”
“Yes, um . . . so, I emailed your dad. I hope that’s okay,” Kopano replied, his nervousness unfeigned.
“You emailed my dad,” Taylor replied in disbelief.
“Yes. He’s very nice.”
Taylor stared at him.
“It was after you hatched the plan with Nine to have his people, you know . . . destroy the place. I thought, if that was me, I would want a piece of what was left. I wrote to your dad and that is what he sent me.”
“So he did know,” Taylor said absently, looking down at the gift.
“The shell is from outside on the beach,” Kopano continued. “I guess that’s kind of obvious.”
“It’s like they’re growing together,” Taylor said, fingering the spot where smooth shell met rough wood.
“I used my Legacy to fuse them. Made the wood transparent, slid it into the shell, and released. Same thing with the Loralite.”
Kopano turned the piece over so Taylor could examine the Loralite embedded in the shell, their fingers brushing as he did. The azure slivers were arranged in the shape of a Loric glyph—Taylor only knew what they were because of a TV special she’d seen about Loric mysteries in the wake of the invasion.
“Where’d you get . . . ?”
“After our little adventure,” Kopano said. “I may have pocketed some of the broken stones. Not enough to teleport, at least I don’t think so. But still cool. I got Lexa’s help with the symbol. It means ‘home’ in their language, but it can also mean ‘here,’ like where you are at any given moment. I don’t know. It seemed fitting.”
Taylor gave a small, disbelieving shake of her head. “Kopano, it’s amazing. I love it.”
He clapped his hands and blew out a relieved exhale. “I’m glad!”
Taylor pulled the necklace on over her head and fluffed her hair loose from the leather band. She turned it so the Loric symbol was facing out, liking how the rough wood felt against her skin, a reminder of home.
Kopano grinned. “Ah. Prettier than I’d even imagined.”
“Ha, shut up.” Taylor laughed, rolling her eyes. Her lips pursed suddenly as a thought occurred to her and her shoulders slumped a bit. “The thing is, Kopano, we all agreed we weren’t doing presents, and it’s not like there’s somewhere for us to shop, anyway. Not that that stopped you from making this awesome gift, which—I’m not good at crafts, my art projects always got thrown in the garbage . . .” She realized she was rambling. “What I’m saying is that I’m sorry, but I didn’t get you anything.”
Kopano waved this away like he was offended at the very thought. “I didn’t expect you to. The point of the holiday is giving, not receiving, yes?”
Taylor’s gaze drifted away from Kopano as an idea hit her. More an urge than an idea, really. Her eyes darted across the many holiday decorations that the faculty had placed all around the student union. She knew it was here somewhere . . . ah, there, right over the entrance, of course. She squinted and put her telekinesis to work.
“There is something I’ve wanted to give you for a while, though,” she said, and gave her eyebrows a goofy pump so that Kopano would look up.
A piece of mistletoe hovered above them.
“What is it?” Kopano asked. “A plant?”
As usual, Taylor couldn’t tell whether Kopano was joking or not. She didn’t care. Without another word, she went up on her toes and kissed him. Maybe she’d surprised him at first, but he caught on quickly, returning the kiss, his hand on the small of her back. Taylor leaned against him, not wanting to stop, her fingers tickling the stubble on his jawline.
Taylor lost track of time, forgot about all the burdens and dangers she was facing, and could think of only Kopano’s warm mouth.
When they finally pulled apart they were both out of breath, which made them laugh. Taylor reached out and held Kopano’s hand.
“Merry Christmas,” she said.
Chapter Ten
CALEB CRANE
THE CRANE RESIDENCE—OMAHA, NEBRASKA
CALEB SAT IN ONE OF THE STRAIGHT-BACKED living-room chairs and fed wrapping paper into the fireplace, watching cartoon snowmen curl into themselves as the little blaze consumed them. Presents were over. His gifts were stacked in a tidy pile next to him. He’d received the usual—socks and underwear, plain white T-shirts in a plastic package, a few solid color polo shirts, a good pair of blue jeans, and a pair of sturdy boots.
Every year, Cal
eb’s dad made it very clear to Caleb’s mother that the boys were to receive practical gifts that they could use. His dad was a sergeant at Offutt Air Force Base, where he was known as a stern disciplinarian. He brought that attitude home with him and didn’t let up, even on holidays.
Thinking about it, Santa had always been a real drag in the Crane household.
Caleb’s most exciting gift every year, if you could call it that, was whatever hardcover book of history his dad picked out for him. Without fail, it would be something that Charles Crane had read before, so that he could quiz the boys come January.
This year’s selection was about the mysterious death of George Patton, written by some newscaster Caleb had seen on TV ranting red-faced about how dangerous Garde integration was for the future of the United States.
Caleb resisted the urge to toss the book in the fire.
Caleb’s mom was in the kitchen, preparing dinner. His dad was in the den, watching a football game. And his brothers . . .
Well, they were sitting on the couch opposite Caleb, grinning like wolves.
Charles Jr.—or Charlie, as he was called around the house—was the oldest, six years Caleb’s senior. Christopher was the middle son, only 18 months younger than Charlie. Caleb often wondered if things would’ve been different if his two older brothers hadn’t been so close in age, if they’d all been spread out more, or if there had been a fourth brother, younger than Caleb, to even the odds—he wondered if they would’ve ganged up on him less if any of those things were true.
They all looked alike, a fact that Caleb couldn’t help but find ironic. All the Crane boys possessed the same sandy-blond hair, square jaws, and ears a little too big for their heads. Charlie kept his hair buzzed short and proper, like their father. He was already something of a big shot at Offutt—an officer at only twenty-three—following in his father’s footsteps. Chris kept his hair a little longer and Caleb got the sense that he’d trimmed it off his ears and shaved his sideburns fresh for this trip home, not wanting to invoke their dad’s ire. Not that Chris would ever admit to that. He was at Omaha Community College, studying engineering, after he’d gotten the boot from the Air Force Academy last year. What he’d done to land in trouble was a big secret, but Caleb knew from a whispered conversation with his mom that Charles Sr. could’ve pulled some strings for Chris’s benefit and kept him enlisted. His dad had refused. No special treatment for his boys. They screwed up, that was on them.