The Archived by Victoria Schwab Page B

toward the bedroom.
     Toward me. He is covered in blood. Her blood. My stomach turns, and I have to resist the urge to scramble away. He is not
     here. I am not there.
    You killed her, I whisper. Who are you? Who is she?
    He staggers into the room, and for a moment he breaks, slides into a crouch, rocking.
     But then he gets back up. He looks down at himself, the glitter of broken glass at
     his feet, and over at the body, and begins to wipe his bloody hands slowly and then
     frantically on his bloody shirt. He scrambles over to the closet and yanks a black
     coat from a hook, forcing it on and pulling it closed. And then he runs, and I’m left
     staring at the girl’s body in the hall.
    The blood is soaking into her pale blond hair. Her eyes are open, and in that moment,
     all I want is to cross to her and close them.
    I pull my hands from the floor and open my eyes, and the memory shatters into the
     now, taking the body with it. The room is my room again, but I still see her in that
     horrible light-echo way, like she’s burned into my vision. I shove my ring on, tripping
     over half the boxes as I focus on the simple need to get the hell out of this apartment.
    I slam the door to 3F behind me and sag against it, sliding to the floor and pressing
     my palms to my eyes, breathing into the space between my chest and knees.
    Revulsion claws up my throat and I swallow hard and picture Da taking one look at
     me and laughing through smoke, telling me how silly I look. I picture the council
     who inducted me seeing straight through the worlds and declaring me unfit. I am not
     M, I think. Not some silly squeamish girl. I am more. I am a Keeper. I am Da’s replacement.
    It’s not the blood, or even the murder, though both turn my stomach. It’s the fact
     that he ran . All I can think is, did he get away? Did he get away with that?
    Suddenly I need to move, to hunt, to do something , and I get up, steadying myself against the door, and pull the list from my pocket,
     thankful to have a name.
    But the name is gone. The paper is blank.
    “You look like you could use a muffin.”
    I shove the paper back in my jeans and look up to find Wesley Ayers at the other end
     of the hall, tossing a still-wrapped Welcome! muffin up and down like a baseball. I don’t feel like doing this right now, like
     putting on a face and acting normal.
    “You still have that?” I ask wearily.
    “Oh, I ate mine,” he says, heading toward me. “I swiped this one from Six B. They’re
     out of town this week.”
    I nod.
    When he reaches me, his face falls. “You all right?”
    “I’m fine,” I lie.
    He sets the muffin on the carpet. “You look like you need some fresh air.”
    What I need are answers. “Is there a place here where they keep records? Logs, anything
     like that?”
    Wesley’s head tilts when he thinks. “There’s the study. Mostly old books, classics,
     anything that looks, well, like it belongs in a study. But it might have something.
     It’s kind of the opposite of fresh air, though, and there’s this garden I was going
     to show—”
    “Tell you what. Point me to the study, and then you can show me whatever you want.”
    Wesley’s smile lights up his face, from his sharp chin all the way to the tips of
     his spiked hair. “Deal.”
    He bypasses the elevator and leads me down the flight of concrete steps to the grand
     staircase, and from there down into the lobby. I keep my distance, remembering the
     last time we touched. He’s several steps below me, and from this angle, I can just
     see beneath the collar of his black shirt. Something glints, a charm on a leather
     cord. I lean, trying to see—
    “Where are you going?” comes a small voice. Wesley jumps, grabs his chest.
    “Jeez, Jill,” he says. “Way to scare a guy in front of a girl.”
    It takes me several seconds to find Jill, but finally I spot her in one of the leather
     high-backed chairs in a front corner, reading a book. The book comes up to