UnWholly (Unwind Dystology #2)(57)

Lev paces the living room. There are no bars on his window. Still, they might as well have put him in solitary for the sudden claustrophobia he feels.

“I should speak out against unwinding,” Lev says, dispensing with all their coded talk. There’s nobody listening anymore anyway. Now that his life has settled into this reclusive version of normal, surveillance feels like a nonissue. The Juvey-cops have better things to do these days than to keep their eyes on a kid who’s not doing anything but hanging around his brother’s house, trying to disappear.

“If I speak up, people will listen to me—they had sympathy before, didn’t they? They’ll listen!”

Marcus slaps the letter down on the table. “For a kid who’s been through as much as you, you’re still so damn naive! People don’t have sympathy for you—they have sympathy for the little kid who became a clapper. They look at you like you’re the one who killed him.”

“I’m tired of sitting here and doing nothing!” Lev storms into the kitchen, trying to distance himself from the truth in Marcus’s words, but Marcus follows him.

“You’re not doing nothing—you still have your weekend ministries with Dan.”

The thought of it just makes Lev furious. “That’s my punishment! You think I like being partners with the Juvey-cops? Keeping kids in line for them?” If there’s one thing he knows, it’s that Connor would never do the Juvies’ dirty work.

“You’ve done more than anyone to change things, Lev. It’s time for you to have your own life, which is more than you could have hoped for a year ago. So if you want any of it to mean anything, live your life, and let the rest of us take over.”

Lev storms past him again.

“Where are you going?”

Lev picks up a headset and game controller. “My head. You wanna follow me in there, too?”

In a moment, he’s losing himself in Firepower and Magic—a game that takes him far from his life and memories—but even so, he knows Marcus has indeed followed him into his head. And so have Connor, and Risa, and Mai and Blaine, and Cleaver and CyFi, all fighting for space. He’ll never lose them, he’ll never leave any of them behind, and he’s not even sure he wants to.

? ? ?

Everything changes the day the Girl Scout comes.

It’s a frigid Monday morning, after another Sunday of ministering to divisional-risk kids and jogging in spite of the cold. Dan, whose car has ignition issues, stayed overnight rather than being stranded on the road on a Sunday night. He cooks breakfast while Marcus gets ready for work.

“You know I’m against unwinding, but the ADR is a little too antiestablishment for me,” Dan tells Lev as he serves up scrambled eggs. “I’m too old to rage against the system. I just whine at it.”

Lev knows he does a little more than that. He speaks out against unwinding to anyone who will listen—something Lev is not allowed to do and, according to Marcus, will do no good anyway.

“I’ve been approached by the resistance, of course,” Dan says, “but I’ve had enough of organizations for a while, no matter how good the cause. I prefer being a free-agent rabble-rouser.”

“So . . . ,” asks Lev, “what do you think I should do?”

The former pastor ponders the eggs that tenaciously cling to his spatula. “I think you should clean your room. I’ve seen it, and it appears to be unwinding itself into God knows what.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I.” He puts down the spatula and sits beside him. “You’re fourteen, Lev. Most fourteen-year-olds aren’t actively trying to fix the world. Cut yourself some slack and try dealing with normal fourteen-year-old things. Believe me, compared to saving the world, cleaning your room will be a vacation.”

Lev picks at his eggs. “Back before everything happened, my room used to be spotless.”

“That’s not necessarily a good thing either.”

Marcus comes to sit at the kitchen table just as the doorbell rings. He sighs and looks at Lev, who has just finished eating. “Can you get it?”

Lev figures it’s Darcy, his state-appointed tutor—because even former terrorists must know their quadratic equations. She usually doesn’t come this early, though.

He opens the door to find a Girl Scout standing there, carrying a carton full of multicolored cookie boxes.

“Hi, would you like to buy some Girl Scout cookies?”

“Aren’t you a little old to be a Girl Scout?” Lev asks with a smirk.

“Actually,” the girl says, “you’re never too old, and anyway, I’m only fourteen. But yes, usually it’s the younger girls who sell cookies, so you’re right in a sense. I’m helping out my younger sister, if you must know. So can I come in? It’s cold out here.”

The girl is kind of cute, and kind of funny, and Lev does have a weak spot for Samoas, as well as cute, funny girls. “Sure, come on in—let’s see what you’ve got.”

She practically waltzes through the door and sets the box down on the dining room table, pulling out one of each variety.

“Hey, Marcus,” Lev calls, “you want some Girl Scout cookies?”

“Sure,” his brother calls from the kitchen. “Get me the peanut butter.”