16. RAVEN

16

RAVEN

Maddy approaches slowly, her hands in her scrubs. She gives me a quick up and down and then focuses on the kid. She stops in front of him and ruffles his hair. "Hey, Little, everything okay?"

Right away, his face splits into a grin. "Yeah, talking to Raven." He leans into her and looks between us.

I lock eyes with her. I know she wants to have the upper hand of how much I nudge myself into her daily life. At least with the kid. To be fair, he is the one who seems to stalk me. I should be thanking him. He seems to be in love with Maddy who now has to talk to me because of him.

Yesterday, after I turned on her porch camera, I couldn't help myself—as I sat on the balcony of my bungalow late at night, I opened the app and rewound the previous footage. Two hours before that, Maddy appeared on the porch. My breath stilled at the sight. Next to her was the little dude. They disappeared into her bungalow. An hour later, Kai and Callie stopped by and left with him shortly after.

If there's anything I learned about Maddy, it's that she is the closest with Guff, Bo, and Ty. I am still trying to figure out if she had anything intimate to do with them. Next in line are Kai and Callie, and lately, Katura. Maddy prefers to be around men. That's fine as long as they keep their hands to themselves. Sonny "Little" hangs around her more than anyone else. Kai and Callie might have rescued him from Port Mrei, but he is like a puppy who runs from one person to another looking for the best owner.

Maddy seems to be the kid's favorite. I don't blame him. That sweet girl is quickly becoming my favorite thing at Ayana, too.

She is still gazing at me when she says, "You want to come with me?" then turns her eyes to Sonny, because that's who she is talking to.

"Nah," he says.

"Sure?"

It's as if she is afraid that I will use him to blackmail her, too.

He nods importantly. "We got things to do."

Her brows lift in surprise. "You do?" She crosses her arms at her chest and offers me a daring stare.

A bit defensive, beautiful girl?

"Where?" she asks.

"Out and about," I say, staring her down. "Would you like to join us?"

Of course, she will decline, but I'm curious to see her reaction.

Her gaze brings all my senses to high alert. When she looks at me like that, I wonder if she has flashbacks of our little interaction in the patient room the other night. I certainly do.

"Wanna have breakfast with us, Maddy?" the kid offers, grinning like a Cheshire Cat. "Bu'gers?"

He is clearly obsessed with burgers.

She shifts and disentangles her arms, slowly turning away from me and toward the kid. She smoothes his hair with her hand in soft, motherly strokes, and his impossibly big grin grows even wider. He glows at her touch.

"No, I have to work," she says, scratching at a small stain on the front of his shirt. "Be careful, okay?"

I wonder if she says it to him all the time or just now, knowing he is with me.

She gives me a once-over before she turns around and walks away.

I know she's waiting for more from me. She'll get it. I'm making her wait, gloating as I feel her tension around me. I know she's constantly wondering what's next. And I want her to wonder, thinking about me, analyzing everything I say, replaying our conversations in her mind.

A party at Ty's is coming up. I wonder if she will go. If she does, I might, too, though that's not my scene. Everywhere I go, every day, my eyes search for Maddy. She is the prettiest of girls. Barely any makeup, simple summer dresses, tennis shoes, half-smiles. She has this soft caramel tan. Some tans are ashy, others are pinkish, but Maddy's is perfect, like she was licked by the sun, cast in gold, then covered with matte finishing.

Among the exotic flowers that are the pampered rich girls of Ayana, Maddy is a Mayflower. Simple. Precious. Fresh. She pulls me in like some magical spell. And I want to have this spell under my control.

Mayflower —I repeat the word in my mind, lost in my thoughts of what I can do to her as I watch her walk away.

"How 'bout we have 'em burgers now?"

Sonny's voice snaps me back to reality. And my reality is the little dude whose eyes glint mischievously as they move from Maddy in the distance to me like he knows something's up. Kids are uncomfortably perceptive sometimes.

"How about you say it the right way?"

He squints at me sneakily. "Burgers. Fo' lunch?" he says, carefully picking the words that he is sure will work.

Like I said, trickster. I know dealing with him will be a pain in my ass. But it's just this one time.

"Yeah. Burgers, then we'll go to the Center."

"Yeah! Same place I wen' when you show' me drones?"

"Say that again?"

In an instant, there's that sneaky squint in his eyes as he realizes his mistake.

"Place with drones, yes?"

Again, he is slacking, but he's trying.

"Good enough. Yes, you are going to teach me and the smart guys about Port Mrei and Ashlands."

He starts talking excitedly as I help him mount my bike, then rev up the engine. And God, am I glad to hear it roar, because the kid doesn't shut up, and I might bleed out of my ears by the end of the day if I keep him around much longer.

As we sit at the Burger Shack, he devours the burgers and, mouth full, tells me about everyone he hangs out with. About the get-together at Kai and Callie's last week. About the yoga center, and that he tried to do yoga classes because Maddy does yoga in the mornings.

Maybe I don't need to check on every resident of Ayana. I'll just take this kid out for lunch every day, and he'll spill every secret.

Next, we go to the Center, the little dude wrapping his arms around me as we ride my bike. He feels like a monkey clinging to me, making me extremely uncomfortable. Maybe I should get him a scooter so he can get around the resort faster.

At the Center, I set him at a desk with a giant computer screen and call Stewart, one of the IT guys and a drone operator. Other IT guys walk up and high-five the kid.

While he is chatting them up and they laugh at his jokes—people are happy to see a child around—I call Kai.

"I have your kid here, at the Center," I say.

"Is he bothering you?"

"No. Actually, brought him for some help."

"You asked him?"

I hear concern. "Yes. Listen, I just need some help figuring out Port Mrei. He knows it like the back of his hand. He volunteered. I didn't harass him, okay? Don't worry, Maddy knows," I reassure him.

"Good, good."

I know why he's so finicky—because Maddy fawns over the kid. The kid loves everyone, but for some reason, he also likes me, or so it seems. Odd, really.

"He doesn't know how to read," I say with slight concern.

"Yeah, that's a problem."

"He needs to get a teacher or something."

"Callie is on it. She ordered books. She is sitting down with him daily, but they just started a week ago."

"Good," I say, right away wanting to take it back. What do I care?

"She is making him do classes on the computer, too," Kai continues. "Some educational stuff she got from the archives. He loves computers and technology."

I can tell. When I throw a glance at the kid, he's smiling broadly and waving his arms in the air as he's explaining something to the IT guys, who circle him like he is a miracle.

When I cut the call and approach the group, the IT guys go quiet and disperse. Stewart pulls up a drone and gets the live feed on the giant screen in front of the kid.

"Let's do a tour of Ayana," I say, and Sonny is excited like he is about to watch a movie.

I let the IT guy talk. He and Sonny seem to click, but then, everyone adores this kid. Afterward, I will get the kid to carefully follow the drone through the Ashlands and Port Mrei and hopefully find more secret storages and bunkers. The last time Sonny did that, we found one in Ashlands loaded with ammo. If there's ammo, there are guns. And we have to find as many as possible.

It's unfortunate that the reason Sonny can help us out is because of him being homeless for years. But everything in this world is a butterfly effect. Nothing is coincidental. Everything is connected. I was once just like this kid. But I didn't have so many people wanting to make me happy.

The little dude makes me think of Mac.

We don't talk often, but when we do, we discuss his involvement with college programs for the ones from the quarantine zones, then usually drift to discussions about life. I love hearing Mac talk. He is like a psychiatrist—he asks quite a bit.

So, I remind myself to give him a call.

As I watch Stewart guide the drone above the road that goes to Port Mrei, he tells me another bit of unsettling news. "We saw a drone earlier today."

"And?"

"It wasn't ours."

Butcher's, then. "Did you report it to Archer Crone or Marlow?"

"Yes. We shot it down, too."

Good.

But that's probably not the first and won't be the last. Butcher is now spying on us.

With a sigh, I look at the kid, who is wiggling in his chair, all excited. "Ready?"

He does a military salute—he's either seen it in a movie or one of the guards doing it. But it makes me smile. "Let's do a tour."

After hours in the Center with Sonny and the IT guys, I snap a picture of the maps we drew based on Sonny's info. I will go through them later and make a chart for Archer. I've had about enough of the kid's chatter, but I reward him by taking him to the new Thai place and then dropping him off at Kai and Callie's.

"Wanna come in and hang out?" he asks. I swear, he will grow up to be a party person.

"No. See you."

Later in the evening, I make my way to my alcove and for a while, watch the sun setting over the orange ocean. The scenery helps me to decompress from the day's events.

I pick up my phone, and right away, warmth spreads in my chest—a feeling of home, ephemeral and distant, yet the one I truly ever had. Mac is the only one who makes me feel like I have family.

My thumb hovers over his name on the screen. I always hesitate for just a second before calling him, dreading that there will come a day when he won't pick up. Ever.

I press call .

The first ring is always anxious. The second even more so.

Then there's a click and his deep voice, always somehow older for his age, always letting my chest rise with a relieved inhale. "Hey, kiddo."

I smile. "Hey, Mac. How is it going, old man?"

I started calling him that more often after the heart scare incident when he refused to be flown to the Colorado hospital, so I had to get Archer to fly the former White House physician to Mac.

"Same old, same old. You doing good?"

"Yeah."

He always waits for me to talk, a man of few words. "Zion?"

"Zion is Zion. Things are always happening."

"You all right though?"

"I'm great." I think of Maddy. "Perfect," I add without realizing it.

"Hmm. What's going on?"

"Just life, Mac." I actually chuckle.

Mac hears everything. He reads people's moods. Looks into people's souls. He can hear a smile in a cold voice. See hurt in smiling eyes. He notices anger in strained breaths. He is uniquely perceptive.

"Everything is just…peachy," I say, thinking about Maddy again.

"Good. That's good. Good," he says, his voice softening. "What's her name?"