Tremor by Patrick Carman Page B

because it’s you three who were given the power we don’t have. But make no mistake— ever : you do not have the good judgment to run this show. You don’t get to call the plays. That’s on us. And if you don’t like the calls, there’s the door. You can follow Dylan and make your own damn plan.”
    Faith and Hawk had never heard Clooger talk like this. It came straight out of nowhere, and it had the effect of shutting them up.
    â€œYou both know Dylan is as good as they come,” Clooger went on. “But you didn’t know him before. You two have only been in his life for what, six months? A year tops? He’s come a long way.”
    â€œWhat’s that supposed to mean?” Faith asked.
    â€œHe was angry, like you,” Clooger said, staring at Faith with those fiercely independent eyes of his.
    â€œAngrier,” Meredith added.
    Clooger leaned forward from where he was sitting.
    â€œBelieve it or not, you’ve settled him down,” he said. “Don’t ask me how, but you have. He can handle this now. At the beginning he was way too young. He wouldn’t have understood. Then he figured out what he could do, and he had a hard time controlling it. He was as wild as a hurricane and twice as destructive.”
    Faith thought about how difficult it was for her to control her own outbursts. Wanting to throw a desk through a window was a daily temptation. She was in a relentless internal struggle, holding her power in check.
    â€œThe drifters took Meredith and Dylan in,” Clooger said. “I was top dog. I ran the drifters. It was my call, not hers, not to tell anyone else.”
    â€œDylan would have found a way to see his father,” Meredith said, staring at the floor. “And that would have been a disaster.”
    â€œHow so?” Hawk asked, snapping his Tablet to small and cradling it in his palm like a tiny bird.
    â€œIf you spent any real time with Andre Quinn, you’d know Dylan wouldn’t have stood a chance if they’d met before he was ready. Andre is very persuasive.”
    It had defied logic, not telling Dylan; but Faith began to see that in very real and important ways, it had made sense. And like any good secret, the longer one kept it, the harder it became to share it.
    â€œLet’s carry that forward,” Clooger added. His eyes were still glued to Faith. “What kind of chance would we have—hell, what chance would anyone have—if Dylan was on the other side of this thing. We wouldn’t even have you to count on, because it was Dylan who found you and trained you. We’d be a ragged bunch of single pulses, picked off one by one.”
    Meredith turned to the whiteboard and began writing with a dry-erase pen. “At this stage of the game a balance of power is our most useful weapon. Right now we have that balance, and they know it. They have three second pulses, but we have two—it’s enough to give them pause.”
    â€œPause from what?” Hawk asked. “If you expect us to trust you, you’re going to have to start giving us more information.”
    Meredith didn’t answer. She moved away from the board and let the words she’d written speak for themselves.
    Protect the States at all cost. They will soon be under siege.
    â€œSo they want to do what? Destroy the world?” Faith asked. “But it doesn’t make any sense. Why?”
    â€œThat’s a question for which we currently lack an answer,” Meredith responded in a cold, monotone voice. And on this score, even Clooger wasn’t sure if she was telling the whole truth.
    â€œThen how do you know they even want to destroy anything?” Faith asked.
    â€œThey did plan to kill the president,” Hawk said. “Until Clara Quinn went rogue.”
    He was immediately sorry he’d drawn attention to Clara and what she’d done to Faith’s best friend. Putting that