37. Time's Up
Tick…tick…tick…
…
Automatically Karter lifts his wrist to check his suddenly silent watches.
His wrist is bare.
Panic rushes down on him, and he staves it off with an effort. It's ok. Everything is ok. If he doesn't have Father and Halstein's watches, it must be because they're still alive, still wearing them. Right? He's pretty sure.
But they said they'd be home by five o'clock and it's ten minutes after, then the phone starts ringing, ringing, with news he's too young to hear. He already knows what the man on the other end of the line is going to tell him….
With a muffled shout, K wakes, thrashing in his tangled sheets.
Just a dream. It was just a dream.
Not that waking is an improvement, because his father and brother are still dead. But at least the warm clasp of the three watches is still there, the one analog timepiece ticking like a tiny heartbeat against his own pulse.
Pressing his hands to his forehead, Karter struggles to even out his breathing. He's parched. He needs a glass of water. The plastic cup on his bedside table is empty.
After refilling it in the bathroom sink, he splashes some cold water on his face, swiping back the wild curls that stick to his face. His bright blue eyes look just like Halstein's; he knows because he remembers a little old lady at church telling them so, a lifetime ago. For a moment he tries to hold his own gaze but he can't do it for long.
According to schedule, Karter usually sleeps until 7:00 am sharp. He doesn't feel much like sleeping, though, and what does it matter? The memorial is tomorrow, so everything will be all wrong and at different times anyway. Carrying his water with him, he wanders down to the foyer. Tonight, he thinks he can get away with it. Tonight the aides are busy with kids who are in a lot worse shape than he is.
He likes mornings—literally, the time from 12:00 am til 11:59 am, before the military watch moves on to 13, 14, 15 and the other digital watch rolls back to 1, 2, 3. During those twelve hours his watch and Halstein's are perfectly synced, with Father's watch counting the march of the seconds out loud. Watching the numbers change simultaneously calms him. Inside and out, all three watches are different—from Father's heavy old gold-and-lacquer antique, to Halstein's professional steel-and-gadget army issue watch, to Karter's watch, a plastic piece of crap that he saved his allowance to buy from the convenience store while still in foster care. It's a miracle that it's lasted this long. But they all count time the same.
Karter wonders what happened to Mr. W's watch. It was a pretty one, silver-plated with a mother-of-pearl face. Of course, nobody, including Mr. W, would ever have considered for a second to give it to K. He has no right. Still, he feels like he'd feel a little better if he knew where it was.
Their benefactor's body is on the other side of the world right now, though, and the closest he has are these paintings in the entryway.
K likes Linda's the best, though he would never tell that bossy loudmouth so. It's the only one with the watch clearly there.
One of them is actually Karter's, though technically he can't say it's a portrait. Art is not exactly a talent of his. A couple summers ago during the week-long Broaden Your Horizons seminar series, he'd been stuck with either braiding lanyards, Tagolog for beginners, or painting. K figured learning English was bad enough, he wasn't about to take on some obscure dialect that he'd probably never use again, and what the heck was he going to do with a lanyard? So he'd splashed some paint around into a vague gooey blob with orange tentacles, and when the teacher dubiously asked him what it was he jokingly replied in a hurt-child voice that it was Mr. W, obviously.
He and Nina and Lazlo thought it was hilarious when they actually put it up on the Wammy wall with the others, N commenting that next to Aris's blue-octopus version of the man it didn't really look so out of place. Now he wishes that he hadn't said that, or that he actually had tried to do a real picture.
"I can't believe they didn't even tell us for a week," comes a voice from the stairs, making Karter almost jump out of his skin. A glance at his watches shows he's been staring at the paintings for nearly twenty minutes, unaware of his surroundings.
With a humorless huff of a laugh, Aris unfolds herself from her seat on the bottom step, padding almost silently across the foyer to stand a few yards away, examining the only photo print on the wall, taken by Quinn right before Mr. W and L left for Japan.
"Just cuz none of us gonna be successors," the girl goes on bitterly. "Jeez, Warden. Let the Twins have their stupid L. He fail anyway. But Mr. W belong to all of us."
It's not the first time since they were briefed on L and Mr. W's deaths that he's heard this sentiment. Of course, many of them knew what had happened before the brass finally told them, thanks to the overlapping network jumble of wiretaps and bugs in the place. In any case, though, a lot of fights have been breaking out between distraught kids, some of whom now resent L, some of whom staunchly defend him. Nina even blurted out that it was L's fault Mr. W had died, and Lazlo hadn't reasoned with her like he often does when she goes too far, just shrugged dispassionately and went through half a pack of cigarettes in what Karter figured had to be some sort of record time.
Should he be angry? He was at first, but K has never been able to stay mad for long. Usually he replaces his anger with laughing at something funny about the situation, and it makes everything a little better.
There's not much that's funny about this, though.
The Kira jokes started to fall flat over a year ago, when it became clear that the killer was going to be around and killing for a good long while and the death toll continued to mount. And now, the future of the House itself is in question. It's taken the brass a week just to tell them L and Mr. W are dead; how long might it take before they tell them what's going to become of them? Karter's not really sure how these things work. Does the House still have money without Mr. W? Will the House stay as is, or will they all be scattered, sent away to other facilities?
Even the succession isn't a joke now. It has always had a sort of satiric irony about it, the whole song and dance of pretending they might succeed L, when clearly that was a place reserved for Mello and Near. A month ago he would have found it hysterical that Mello would walk away like this, leaving Near to deal with the mess by himself.
Actually he did think it was kind of funny until yesterday morning, when he caught a glimpse of Near sitting with his back to the wall in a little-used hallway, balancing an unsteady tower of markers. It had collapsed after only eight tiers, and the frustration had been clear on the older boy's face. K had almost, almost laughed, until it occurred to him that that was L now. That was the new champion of the House, possibly the only person who could stop Kira before that crazy nutter decimated the population. Karter had found himself wondering:
What if Near failed too?
Near had looked rather as though he were wondering the exact same thing. Suddenly it wasn't so funny anymore, and K had hurried on his way without saying anything.
He's not angry anymore, or trying to laugh it off. He's just…sad.
"You unusually quiet," Aris comments, snapping him back to the present. "Awake in there?"
"Yeah, guess so."
"What, no stupid jokes?"
Karter forces a smile. "I let you know if I think of one."
"Hnn. You a lot less annoying this time'a day." A seems to consider this a green light to continue venting. "This just all so wrong. Kira better be born a slug next time round. A half of a slug, that get eaten by a bird almost immediately, then puked out in a volcano! If anyone shoulda died it shoulda be him. Mr. W never do anything wrong, never hurt anyone! It just not fair," she concludes, seeming suddenly worn out by her own tirade.
According to his watches, it's almost five in the morning. Sighing, he drops his arm to his side and traces the face of his father's watch with one finger. "Everybody time run out eventually."