23
Penance
Sam hit her room with every intention of snatching up her bags, stuffing every last thing she had brought with her into them haphazardly, and then waiting defiantly for one angry adult or another to come drag her off to the airport. But she hadn’t even finished hauling her suitcase out from the back of the closet when an overwhelming sense of wrongness threatened to suffocate her where she stood.
OMG, seriously? Now? NOW? Of all the worst possible times to show back up, you pick now???
There was no denying it. Her sense of destiny was back, and it was screaming at her, in no uncertain terms, that this was not the time to leave.
Really? she thought. You couldn’t have let me know this five minutes before I shot my mouth off and insulted the kid?
She wasn’t sure who she was talking to, exactly, but as she finally began to cool off, she discovered that she was starting to feel kind of bad about what she had said to Sketch. Sam had never had a brother or sister to fight with, but she imagined it probably felt a lot like this—intense rage, followed some time later by the warring emotions of sullen anger and halfhearted regret.
On the one hand, the little snot kind of deserved it for staring at her. On the other hand, though, she had to admit, now that she was thinking a little more clearly, that the look Sketch had given her might not have meant anything quite so accusing as she had made it out to be at the time.
I hate people, Sam thought to herself. They’re so freaking complicated.
She retreated from the depths of the closet, leaving her suitcase where it was, and took a flying leap for the bed, twisting in the air to land on her back and folding her hands behind her head so she could think properly.
OK, so I feel like I shouldn’t leave, but maybe that’s just because I don’t really want to leave. Which is weird, because I do want to leave… don’t I?
But did she? Sam turned the idea over in her mind for a while, trying to feel it out, but she couldn’t seem to wrap her head around it. She thought she wanted to leave, but then again, she felt somehow like she didn’t. Eventually, without really intending to, she just gave up and fell asleep.
When she woke up again, it was dark outside her window, and she felt disoriented for a moment until her mental clock adjusted to the unexpected change. 9:47 p.m. Apparently, no one had come to cart her away, which meant they probably weren’t going to. But was she disappointed? Or relieved?
Sam rolled onto her side and started idly running her fingers over the luxurious bed cover. If she was being truthful with herself, maybe she didn’t really want to leave, after all. Maybe what she wanted was to be special, like everyone else at the ICIC, and to have a pathway of her own. Any pathway. A talent for gardening even. Or for skiing. Or blacksmithing. Or yodeling.
Well, maybe not yodeling.
Sam chuckled to herself. OK, she had to admit, things could be worse. She cheered herself up for a while by imagining all the strange and wonderful talents she was grateful not to have: raising leeches, roasting termites, lancing boils…
Somehow I always know exactly where to lance the boil so all the nasty pus just explodes out of it all at once!
Sam laughed and sat up. Honestly, she had been getting far too upset about not having a talent—
And there it was, the real reason she had snapped at Sketch. She wasn’t angry. She was hurt. She wanted to have a talent, but she didn’t. She felt left out, and ordinary, and boring, and she was taking it out on the kid.
Not cool, Sam. Not cool at all.
She didn’t want to admit it, not even to herself, but she knew immediately that it was true. Even worse, she knew what she had to do about it. Sighing deeply, she swung her legs down to the floor and stood up. She was going to have to find the kid and apologize to him.
I freaking hate dealing with people, she thought to herself grimly. I mean I really, seriously hate it.
• • •
If Sam wondered where everybody was as she walked through her empty suite toward the hallway, her question was answered when she got to the guys’ suite and found the door propped open.
She poked her head in to find Rush, Sketch, Daniel, and Kaitlyn all sitting on the couch, with Mackenzie sitting behind them on a chair she had pulled in from the kitchen, watching Rush and Kaitlyn play. All five pairs of eyes locked onto her immediately, making her wish she were just about anywhere else in the world, but she took a deep breath and stepped into the room anyway, her heart rising into her throat, her hands in her pockets to keep them from trembling noticeably.
“Hi,” she said lamely.
“Hi, Sam!” Kaitlyn replied. Her voice was as cheerful as ever, but nobody else said a word. “You want to play?” Kaitlyn held her controller out toward Sam, but Rush was already protesting.
“She isn’t invited,” Rush growled.
“Come on, guys,” Kaitlyn protested. “She was just upset.”
“I’m sorry, Sketch,” Sam said quietly. “I didn’t mean what I said. Kaitlyn’s right. I was just upset. But I shouldn’t have taken it out on you.”
“Her name’s ‘Gears,’” Sketch replied, his eyes watching her closely. The flames twirling around her were still a little bit blue, a little bit slow, but not like before. “And that’s Disco,” he continued, pointing to Daniel.
“OK,” Sam agreed, not knowing what else to say. “I’m still sorry. Are we good? Or am I gonna have to do some kind of penance first?”
“Penance?” Sketch asked, looking at Rush.
“It’s when you have to do something to make up for doing something bad. Like a punishment.” Rush pretended to eye Sam suspiciously, but there was a hint of playfulness behind it. He and his gaming team blew up at each other on a fairly regular basis. As long as she was apologizing, everything was good in his book. “I’d make her earn it if I were you.” He said this with a wink for Sketch, and Sketch grinned back at him.
“Get me some chips,” he said to Sam, who rolled her eyes.
“OK, fine. What kind of chips?” Sam wandered over to the kitchen and opened the pantry door.
“Salt and vinegar.”
“Ugh,” Sam commented, but she took a bag of salt and vinegar chips out of the pantry and brought it to Sketch. She walked behind the couch to hand it to him so she wouldn’t get in the way of the television, leaving her standing next to Mackenzie, who was watching her guardedly, her expression carefully neutral.
“Here,” Sam said, handing Sketch the bag of chips. “Are we good now?”
“Yeah, we’re good,” Sketch said, grinning. As far as he was concerned, anyone who got mad and didn’t try to beat him up was worth being friends with.
“Dude!” Rush exclaimed. “You can’t let girls off that easy, bro! You’re seriously going to let her off the hook for a lousy bag of chips?”
“I like chips,” he said. He ripped the bag open and stuffed a handful in his mouth, and then he looked up at Rush, grinning while he chewed.
“Ugh. Fine,” Rush said grudgingly. “But we’re seriously going to have to work on that. You just blew a huge opportunity there, man.”
Sketch just laughed and shrugged, throwing another handful of chips in his mouth while Kaitlyn giggled.
“You sure you don’t want to play?” Sketch asked Mackenzie over his shoulder.
“No thanks,” she replied. “I just want to watch you guys. I’m learning the maps this way.”
“OK,” Sketch said easily. “Sam? You want to play?”
“That’s OK,” Sam said. “I don’t want to interrupt you guys.”
“It’s not like that,” Kaitlyn assured her. “We’re all taking turns.”
“You can have all my turns,” Daniel said. “I suck.”
“You do not,” Kaitlyn protested. “You’re still just learning the game.”
Sam looked at Sketch.
“He does kinda suck, Gears. Be honest,” Sketch said.
“Sketch!” Kaitlyn objected, reaching past Daniel and threatening to swat his head.
“What? He does!” Sketch ducked under her pretend blow and laughed.
Kaitlyn put her controller down on the coffee table, got up, and grabbed another chair from the kitchen, shooing Sam out of the way so she could set it behind Daniel. Kaitlyn sat down on it and started rubbing Daniel’s shoulders.
“Poor Disco,” she cooed at him. Daniel leaned back and closed his eyes happily.
“Go ahead, Sam,” Sketch said, picking up the controller and trying to hand it to her across Daniel’s slouching body.
“How come I don’t get a nickname?” Sam asked.
“You have to kill someone on the game first,” Sketch explained.
“Oh.” Sam sat next to Daniel on the couch and took the controller.
They played for another hour before they called it a night, but Sam never did get a kill. She could have killed Sketch a few times, but she always let him kill her instead. It was her silent way of making it up to him. As for Rush, he wasn’t going to let her off the hook that easily. Every time he found her, he shot her in the face, just for good measure.