Uninvited (Uninvited, #1)(54)

Mom skims the papers. It’s doubtful she’s even reading them the way her hands tremble. Like me, she probably only hears what the agent is offering me. She clutches the papers like someone might dare to wrest them away from her and steal this future from me.

Mitchell cocks his head. “Why Davy?”

Stiles studies him a moment before answering, “Your sister was an exceptional student. A talented musician and singer. We’re looking for carriers like her that showed promise in their past lives. . . .”

Past lives? Like I’ve died and am now reborn into something else, something less, something bleak and undesirable. A blight.

She continues, “Young carriers who possess special qualities and skills we can optimize.” Her gaze falls on me, and she smiles vacantly. “It is our belief that you can be taught . . . your violent urges redirected into something more positive.”

You can be taught. Something about those words makes me feel like a dog being sent to obedience school. I dismiss the feeling though. She’s offering salvation, an escape from a detention camp.

“How long is this . . . training?” Mom asks, and I hear what she’s really asking. When will I come home? Will I ever?

“However long necessary for her to reach a level where she can be assigned a duty and perform with adequate success.”

I shake my head. Isn’t that bureaucratic smoke-blowing at its finest? “Perform with adequate success.” What did that even mean?

“What if I can’t?” I hear myself ask.

She looks at me, her expression mildly annoyed. “If we decide you’re untrainable, then you’ll be moved to a detention camp. Where you were headed before you were flagged for special ops training. It’s not a fate I would choose, were I you.” Again, the empty smile is back, and this time it feels vaguely threatening. “So don’t fail.”

I nod mechanically.

Agent Stiles adjusts her grip on her satchel and glances at her watch. Her gaze drifts toward the front door before looking back at me. “You need to decide now. It’s your call. Training or detention camp?”

There’s really no choice. As she stares at me, I see she knows this, too.

I nod at Mom. “Sign it.”

She moves to the desk. I follow closely, watching as she signs her name and then hands me the pen to sign.

“Excellent,” Stiles announces, taking the papers from me. “A van will be collecting you tomorrow morning between seven and eight. Be ready.” She takes a satisfied breath, squaring herself in front of me. “You’re one of a chosen few. You should consider yourself very honored.”

Honored? I want to point to my throat. Did she miss that?

She continues, “We’ve been granted permission for roughly fifty carriers. We conducted a nationwide search. It was difficult to choose. Harder to find quality females.”

She makes me sound like livestock. Not a person. Not human.

Then that other thing she said sinks in. Fifty carriers nationwide. That’s not many at all. But she mentioned needing to visit other houses in the area today. Could Sean be one of them?

I have to know. Even if our last encounter left a bad taste in my mouth, I have to know he’s not going to be behind that barbed fence being guarded by all those men with guns. I can’t wait until I’m on some van headed God knows where to learn he’s not headed there, too—to discover that he’s been shipped off to a detention camp with all the rest of the carriers and that I will never see him again. I’ll never know what happened to him. Or Coco. An image of her fills my head. All she put with . . . the Cage, Brockman. For nothing, it seems.

“Who else?” I blurt. “Who else are you taking?”

Out of the corner of my eye, I notice Mitchell studying me curiously, and I know I’m giving myself away. At least to him. He knows me well enough to read me, to see that I care a lot about Agent Stiles’s answer. That I care about someone.

“I beg your pardon?” She slides the papers into her satchel efficiently, already finished here and eager to move on.

“You said you had other houses to visit nearby. Other carriers. Did any of them go to Keller with me?”

She angles her head, considering me. “I believe so. Gilbert Ruiz scored perfect on his ACT. And his computer knowledge is nothing short of astonishing. He can write code and hack into the world’s most complicated programs.”

Anxiety trips through me. Just Gil? Not Sean. I see the buses in my mind, the people being shoved onto them. Their wide eyes, their faces stark and haunted. My stomach twists sickly, hoping that Sean possesses some skill, some talent that can get him away from that.

“Oh, I almost forgot.” She fumbles for another sheet and hands it to my mother while I wait breathlessly, hoping for her to say another name.

“Here’s a list of what to bring. Only the essentials. It’s not a summer camp.”

“No one else from Keller?” I press.

She turns for the door. “You’ll see for yourself tomorrow.”

“Please.” I can’t stop the whisper from slipping free.

She looks back at me, her expression shifting, awake with curiosity. “Who do you want to be there, Davina?”

Heat swamps my face. I feel Mom and Mitchell staring at me, sensing their surprise. They wouldn’t have expected me to grow so attached to another carrier.