Chosen Ones Read online

  “Sloane.” Her mother sighed. “He’s the best you’re gonna find. Trust me.”

  Sloane didn’t respond.

  “I gotta go,” her mom said.

  To do what? Sloane didn’t say. She hung up without saying goodbye. That wouldn’t surprise June. They usually spoke only once a year, on Christmas, for about five minutes. They hadn’t exchanged “I love you”s since Sloane was a child. Since before her dad left, then turned up dead in a morgue in Arkansas—killed by a Drain—and June had to go identify the body.

  He’s the best you’re gonna find. She was right, obviously, because Matt radiated goodness so hard, you wanted to punch him sometimes. Not loving him was like not loving freedom. Or puppies.

  But there was something about the way June had said it that grated on Sloane. He’s the best you’re gonna find. And that, too, was true—what was she supposed to do, join a dating app? Pretend to have a regular job? At what point would she mention that she was one of the five saviors of humankind? Was that a third-date conversation or more of a fifth-date one?

  But it would have been nice, she thought, for June to say something kind and reassuring for once.

  Sloane sat with her phone in her hands. The sun was setting, and the eye-searingly blue fairy lights had turned on across the street. She felt uneven, like the room had shifted around her. But she also knew that whenever Matt proposed to her, she would say yes, because it was the only rational thing to do. They would get married and he would take care of her and she would try as hard as she could to be good enough for him.

  TOP SECRET

  AGENCY FOR THE RESEARCH AND INVESTIGATION OF THE SUPRANORMAL

  SUBJECT: UNEXPLAINED DISASTROUS EVENTS OF 2005, TRANSCRIPT OF DEBRIEFING SESSION WITH LEAD OFFICER [redacted], CODE NAME BERT

  OFFICER S: Please state your name for the official record.

  OFFICER K: My name is [redacted], but for the purposes of this mission I have been assigned the code name Robert Robertson.

  OFFICER S: Noted. We are here today to make an account of your collection of Project Ringer Subject 2, Sloane Andrews.

  OFFICER K: Correct. I received notice on 17 October that Subject 2 had been identified and her retrieval was to occur immediately.

  OFFICER S: The record shows that there was a twenty-four-hour delay on action, despite this order. Can you account for this?

  OFFICER K: Yes. I requested a delay of one week to allow Subject 2 to attend her brother’s funeral. My request was denied, but I was granted a delay of twenty-four hours. I deemed this to be insufficient but did as ordered and arrived at the Andrews residence on 18 October at 1500 hours.

  OFFICER S: And how did you find the Andrews residence?

  OFFICER K: As anticipated. Our intel indicated that the Andrews family was of relatively low socioeconomic status, so I was prepared for the dilapidated house as well as the worn quality of the rest of the neighborhood.

  OFFICER S: And you made contact with Subject 2 directly upon arrival?

  OFFICER K: She was sitting on the front steps. Her appearance was disheveled. I confirmed her name and introduced myself with my code name.

  OFFICER S: And her reaction?

  OFFICER K: She said, “That sounds like a fake name.”

  OFFICER S: Astute. Your reply?

  OFFICER K: I confirmed that it was indeed a fake name. I thought I might begin to gain her trust if she felt that I was being honest with her.

  OFFICER S: Noted. Go on.

  OFFICER K: I asked if her mother was home and if I could speak with her. She looked uncomfortable. She asked me who I was and what I wanted, and I said I could only talk to her if her mother was present. Her reply was that if I was waiting for her mother to be “present,” I would be waiting a long time.

  OFFICER S: Ah.

  OFFICER K: At that point I deemed it necessary to change my procedure. Typically with the subjects of Project Ringer, I speak with the parent and the subject at the same time, but this was a special situation. A dead father and brother and what appeared to be an incapacitated mother. The subject was essentially alone. So I decided to speak with her alone. I asked if we could go inside, and she refused. Said she wasn’t about to let a strange man into her house. So I simply stood where I was.

  OFFICER S: How did you begin?

  OFFICER K: She asked who I was again. I replied that I was with a clandestine part of the government, the exact nature of which I was unable to disclose, and that I was there about a prophecy.

  OFFICER S: Let the record reflect that the officer is referring to Precognitive Vision #545, regarding the Dark One and his equal, colloquially known as the Chosen One. How did the subject react to the notion of a prophecy?

  OFFICER K: She said, “I don’t believe in that stuff. I just stick to what I can see and touch.” I asked her how she was able to account for what the Dark One had been capable of. It was perhaps a poorly timed remark, given that her brother had just been killed by the Dark One earlier that week—

  OFFICER S: Did she become upset?

  OFFICER K: The opposite, actually. She took on a flat affect. No expression. And she said, “I don’t know.” I decided that it might be best to appeal to her logical side and suggested it was the word prophecy she didn’t like. I then cited Newton’s third law.

  OFFICER S: Let the record reflect that Newton’s third law states that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

  OFFICER K: . . .Thank you for that.

  OFFICER S: Not everyone remembers physics, Officer.

  OFFICER K: I explained that the prophecy simply predicted that for the Dark One, there would come an equal and opposite individual. We had, in other words, received a list of criteria for who that person would be. We had acted in cooperation with Canada and Mexico to narrow down our options, since the attacks have thus far been exclusive to North America. When Sloane’s brother died at the Dark One’s hands, she became one of those options.

  OFFICER S: You don’t mince words.

  OFFICER K: It was my theory that a young woman forced to be so independent due to parental negligence would interpret my bluntness as respect for her autonomy. It seemed I was right—she took in this information with no apparent reaction. I further added that my job was to prepare all five potentials for this eventuality so that humanity had our best chance of survival.

  She asked me, “Are you saying I’m . . . ‘the One’?” With finger quotes around the phrase “the One.”

  I answered, “Yes and no. I’m saying you might be the One.” I cited some of the criteria she met—the death of her father and brother, her birth during a harvest moon, a mother who did not share her last name, the rare blood type AB negative—

  OFFICER S: Also known as the preliminary identification criteria, or PIC.

  OFFICER K: Correct. I would characterize her reaction to that as “incredulous.” She asked who’d made the prophecy and why the government would pay attention to, I quote, “some crazy person spewing poetry.”

  I had been given clearance to disclose details about the clairvoyant. I said that her name was [redacted], and this individual had repeatedly demonstrated a talent for knowledge beyond our ability to comprehend. That she had made 746 predictions that had come to pass in our observation.

  OFFICER S: The subject’s reaction to this?

  OFFICER K: It’s strange—the other subjects had demonstrated disbelief or fear or even, in the case of Subject 1, steely determination. But Subject 2 was the first one to ask what would happen if she said no.

  OFFICER S: No?

  OFFICER K: Yes—no. No to fighting the Dark One.

  OFFICER S: [Laughing] Did you tell her she didn’t have much of a choice?

  OFFICER K: I believe that would have been unwise. She reminded me a little of a stray dog—if you try to grab it, it might bite you. But if you are careful, you might be able to persuade it to come to you.

  OFFICER S: If you know what it eats.

  OFFICER K: Correct.
And I think in this case, respect was the right bait, so to speak. So I said, “I think that if you said no, you would dramatically increase the chances of the world ending.” Citing repercussions rather than restrictions—a choice without an acceptable outcome.

  OFFICER S: It did the trick?

  OFFICER K: It did. She was very still for a while. I had rarely encountered a person of her age who could be that still. But she simply said, “This sucks,” and started discussing the logistics with me.

  OFFICER S: Profound.

  OFFICER K: Contrary to what you may have seen in movies, our Chosen Ones rarely make poetic declarations. In this case, I believe she was the only subject who truly grasped what was ahead of her.

  OFFICER S: What logistics did you go over?

  OFFICER K: The training that awaited her at [redacted] in [redacted], the preparations she would need to make before she left, and when I would return to pick her up for the move. I asked her how long she would need to prepare, and she told me a day. When I asked if she would prefer to take more time to bid farewell to family and friends and explain the situation to her mother, she said it wouldn’t take that much time. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m alone here,” I believe she said.

  OFFICER S: She didn’t think her mother would object to her child being taken away by a government agency she’d never heard of to fight the Dark One?

  OFFICER K: No, she didn’t. And by all accounts, she was right. When I came back a day later, she was sitting in the same spot with a backpack and an old banker box.

  OFFICER S: I gotta be honest with you, she’s not the Chosen One I’m betting on. My money’s on Subject 4.

  OFFICER K: Let’s just hope we got at least one of them right.

  TOP SECRET

  5

  SLOANE STUFFED another bite of spanakopita in her mouth. She stood with Esther at one of the high tables near the buffet in the ballroom where the Ten Years Peace gala was taking place. They had their heads bent toward each other as if they were having a serious conversation. It was the only way anyone would leave them alone long enough for them to get some food in their mouths. Being one of the Chosen Ones at the Peace gala was like being the bride at a wedding.

  They were in the grand ballroom at the Drake Hotel. The room was white and gold—a white marble floor lined with pillars decorated in gold filigree with chandeliers casting white-gold light over the space. Along one wall, floor-to-ceiling windows showed the bend of Lake Shore Drive and the lights of the buildings along it and the stretch of dark that was Lake Michigan at night.

  All around them were men in tuxedos and women in gowns, forming little clusters, clutching glasses of champagne by their stems. Sloane made eye contact with one of the guests and immediately turned away, not wanting to provoke conversation.

  “You keep wincing,” Esther said to her.

  “I gave myself armpit razor burn this morning, and sweating is like literally rubbing salt in a wound,” Sloane replied. A bead of sweat had just rolled across the raw part of her armpit, and she did not appreciate it.

  Esther grimaced. “The worst.”

  Esther was wearing something only she could have pulled off, a drapey, elaborately pleated gown in a muted mint color. Her hair was tied back in a simple knot. She wore a thick layer of makeup, as usual, but tonight it suited the occasion, her eyes framed in gray eye shadow, like a puff of smoke had settled on each lid.

  “I miss it here,” Esther said. She was poking olives from a pasta salad with her fork, trying to get them all on one tine. Her hyperfocus on her plate was part of what made their disguise complete; when you were looking down, people thought you might be crying, and they avoided you. That combined with Sloane’s effortless death glare would keep them safe for at least a few minutes.

  “How’s your mom doing?” Sloane said.

  “Not great.” Esther shrugged. “Her oncologist says there’s not much we can do at this point except . . . delay things.”

  “I’m so sorry, Essy,” Sloane said. “I wish I had something more profound to say, but it just . . . sucks.”

  It didn’t seem right, really, that they could save the world by taking down an entity of supreme evil using magic, but they still couldn’t keep their families safe from mundane dangers. To humanity, they were Chosen Ones, saviors, heroes—but cancer made everyone equal.

  “Better to be honest than profound,” Esther said distantly.

  Over Esther’s shoulder, Sloane spotted a trim young man in a tuxedo with a blue bow tie who was watching Esther with interest. Sloane narrowed her eyes at him and shook her head when he glanced at her. He moved away.

  “We miss you, though,” Sloane said. “Grumpy as we might seem.”

  “Oh, do we seem grumpy?” Esther raised an eyebrow. “Slo, I can see all the way from California that you’re losing your shit. What’s going on with you lately?”

  Sloane gave her a sideways look. She thought about calling the man with the blue bow tie back over so he could distract Esther from this conversation.

  “Don’t think you can glare me into submission,” Esther said. “I asked you a question.”

  She and Esther always had conversations like this. They both communicated like battering rams, for better or worse, which meant they frequently collided with each other, to catastrophic effect. But they also didn’t waste each other’s time. If Esther was thinking something, she would say it, and there was no guesswork involved.

  “I requested some documents from the government,” Sloane said. “Reading them has been . . . eye-opening.”

  “You know,” Esther said, “sometimes it’s better to keep your eyes shut.” She sipped her champagne. “Okay, get that chunk of spinach out of your teeth, because I’m pretty sure Matt’s about to call attention to you.”

  Sure enough, the musicians in the corner had stopped playing their cellos and violins and . . . was that a standup bass? They were all looking across the room to where Matt stood in his immaculate tuxedo with the gold bow tie, his smile wide. He tapped a champagne flute with a butter knife, trying to get everyone to quiet down.

  “May I have your attention, please!” His voice boomed through the space. Commander Matt, they had called him when he spoke like that during their fight against the Dark One. There was no way anyone else could have led them but him; none of the other four could have been heard over the din of the Drain.

  Sloane hurriedly stuck her fingernail between her two front teeth to free the chunk of spinach.

  The room finally quieted. Everyone turned to Matt, as obedient as students in a classroom.

  “Thank you, and I’m sorry for the interruption,” Matt said, softening from Commander Matt to Politician Matt. “I was hoping you would all indulge me for a moment. Where’s Sloane?”

  Sloane pulled her finger out of her mouth and straightened up. Matt beckoned to her, and she joined him in the middle of the ballroom under one of the chandeliers. Her chest was so tight, it hurt. He took her hand. She looked at him expectantly, noting that her hands had gone numb. She knew she should have had a third glass of champagne.

  “I knew I was in love with Sloane about eleven years ago,” Matt said. “There was this little kid near one of the Drain sites where we had gone to investigate the Dark One, and he had lost track of his parents. And Sloane was carrying him around to every person she could see.”

  Sloane remembered the kid. She had picked him up because he had refused to move, and she didn’t feel like arguing with him. She had been surprised by how easily he fell against her hip, given that she had never held a child before.

  “She was just interrupting conversations to ask if anyone knew him. In that way Sloane does—if you know her, you know.” A low laugh spread through the crowd. Even the people who hadn’t met her could likely imagine, if they had read the dozen profiles that had been written about her in the past ten years calling her unstable, taciturn, moody, grouchy, a bitch. An antiheroine. Her cheeks flushed hot. Why was he making a joke
of that now?

  Matt went on. “Sloane’s like one of those Easter chocolates—she’s got a hard shell, but once you crack it, you get to the marshmallow-y good stuff in the middle.” He smiled, his eyes sparkling.

  It was supposed to be sweet. Instead, Sloane felt like a child standing in a woman’s dress.

  He took the ring box from his pocket, opened it, and got down on one knee. A few people around them gasped.

  “Sloane, I love you. I’ve loved you for a long time.” His eyes were on hers, but all around them, people had taken out their phones and were aiming them in Sloane and Matt’s direction. This footage, like most videos of Sloane taken by strangers, would likely appear on television shows and in newspapers and on gossip blogs and be analyzed half to death. Her expression, her posture, her outfit, her goddamn lipstick.

  Matt continued. “And I want to spend the rest of my life cracking that hard candy shell. Will you marry me?”

  The crowd was like a giant animal, sighing as one.

  Don’t let them see you, she told herself, the same thing she had told herself when the Dark One’s minions—all dead now; they had died with him—crept close in the middle of the night. But in this case, it didn’t mean that she should run away; it meant that she should hide in plain sight.

  Sloane summoned everything she had ever learned about pretending from all the post-battle interviews she had done and smiled wide, hoping her eyes were sparkling. “Yes.” The word came out almost as a gasp, making her sound choked up—which was perfect, because then Matt leaped to his feet, hugged her, and spun her around, and no one was analyzing her expression anymore.

  Everyone cheered, and there was a chorus of digital clicking sounds from all the smartphones, and news cameras rotated around them, capturing them from every angle—Matt in his tuxedo, Sloane in her beaded dress. The Chosen One and his blushing bride.

  Who was, apparently, a goddamn piece of Easter candy.

  Sloane was there, wishing there were a socially acceptable way to sponge sweat off one’s armpits so they would stop stinging, but she also wasn’t there.