Raiden snorted awake beside me, causing another little jump. Blinking, he looked first at me, then at the flight attendant.
She shifted her attention to him. “Something to drink, sir?”
“Coffee,” he said, voice gruff. “Two cups, please.”
“Vodka,” I said, finally finding my voice. I settled the journal on my lap. “And orange juice, please.”
I copied Raiden, unlatching the tray table from the seatback in front of me while the flight attendant poured his coffees. She handed him two steaming cups of Joe, along with a small pouch of accoutrements like cream and sugar, then plucked a miniature bottle of vodka from a drawer in her cart, glanced at me, stare-assessing, then pulled out a second bottle. Apparently, I looked like I needed it. She poured juice from a carton into a plastic cup already loaded with ice, then handed it all to me.
“Dinner service will begin shortly,” the flight attendant informed us. “The menu is on the card in the seatback pocket in front of you.” She flashed me a tight smile. Apparently, her saintly patience wasn’t endless. Next time, she wanted us to be ready.
I returned her smile and nodded. “We’ll be sure to take a look,” I promised, already unscrewing the cap on one of the little plastic bottles.
Her gaze slid past me, and she wheeled her beverage cart farther down the aisle. “Cocktail?”
I poured as much vodka into the cup of orange juice as it would hold, then brought the bottle up to my lips and tossed back that half-inch that remained. I coughed as the splash of liquor burned down my throat.
Raiden watched me as he sipped from his first cup of coffee black, the plastic-wrapped pack of accoutrements untouched on his tray table.
I took a gulp of the screwdriver, swallowed, then took another.
“You doing all right?” Raiden asked.
I froze, cup to my lips. “Yep,” I said before taking another sip. I set the drink down on the tray table, tapping the sweating plastic with the nails of my index fingers.
He was still staring at me.
I cleared my throat. “How’d you sleep?” I asked, glancing at him sidelong.
“Fine,” he said, though he didn’t sound happy about it. He took a swig of steaming coffee, not the least bit deterred by the heat, then another.
I was getting the impression that he didn’t intend to fall asleep again—that he hadn’t intended to fall asleep at all and was more than a little miffed about it. I wondered if it was hesitancy at letting his guard down on the plane that was making him reticent to sleep or if it was something else, but I didn’t want to intrude. I kept my wondering to myself.
Raiden chugged the remainder of his first cup of coffee and stacked the second in the empty cup, then raised his tray table, locking it back in place. He stuffed his little pouch of coffee things into the seatback pocket and unbuckled his seatbelt.
“Mind if I set this here for a sec?” he asked, placing his double-stacked cup of coffee on my tray near the edge.
I shook my head. “Go ahead.”
“Thanks,” he said, then stood. “I’ll be right back.”
I watched him walk up the aisle and slip into the bathroom. Once he was out of sight, I uncapped the second mini bottle and poured the vodka into my drink. I stirred the precariously full drink with my finger, then carefully lifted it to my mouth to sip. I had to choke down the barely diluted vodka.
With another throat clearing, I set the drink down and shifted the journal from my lap to the tray table, in front of the cups. I quickly turned the page, not wanting to stare at the sketch of the suit Demeter had been wearing in my dream. The implications were too unsettling. Out of sight, out of mind. At least, for a little while.
The heading on the next page read: PERCY FAWCETT. I tried to study the bulleted notes filling the page, but my attention kept wandering to Raiden’s empty seat. He would be back soon. And now that we were both awake, there would be talking. About the journal. About aliens. About me. How could there not be?
I’d given him the journal, but I’d fallen asleep shortly after. I had no clue how far he’d made it into the thing, let alone how he’d reacted.
Though my eyes skimmed over the letters on the page, the words written there didn’t mean a damn thing to my preoccupied mind. My thoughts raced, swerving and veering off course, constantly circling back to the same questions: What did he think of what he read? Was it new information to him? Or had he known about me all along? I wanted to think that at least one person in my life wasn’t a liar.
I reread the heading on the page: PERCY FAWCETT.
“You finding anything useful in there?” Raiden asked as he eased back into his seat. He buckled his seatbelt. “I didn’t make it past the journal entries at the beginning. Not that it wasn’t interesting,” he said, raising his eyebrows for emphasis. “But it just didn’t feel right . . . reading through it without you.”
I looked at him, eyes unblinking.
He studied my face, his shrewd gaze scrutinizing. “Do you believe it?” His eyes flicked down to the book lying open on the tray table, then returned to my face. “What she wrote in there . . . about you?”
I gulped, staring at the seatback in front of me. I could already feel the tears welling in my eyes. I nodded. “Did you know?” I asked, not looking at him. I couldn’t. I was terrified of seeing the truth written across his face.
“Did I know?” Raiden said, clearly taken aback. “Are you serious, Cora?” He lowered his voice to an outraged whisper and leaned in closer to me. “Are you seriously asking me if I knew you were an alien and what—lied to you your whole life? You really think I could have done that to you?”
His affront caught me off guard, and I looked at him. The hurt in his eyes was genuine. Hurt I’d put there by doubting him.
“You know me, Cora,” Raiden said. He was so close that I could smell the coffee scenting his breath. “Have I ever lied to you?” His eyes searched mine. “Ever?”
“I—” I shook my head, flustered by both his reaction and his close proximity. “I don’t—how would I know?” A hysteria-tinged laugh bubbled up from my throat. “How would I know, Raiden? How? My mom and Emi—”
“Lied to me, too,” he said. He sat back in his seat. “Did you think about that?”
I opened my mouth, but found I didn’t know what to say, so I pressed my lips together, once more.
Raiden inhaled and exhaled deeply. “If I’d known, Cora—about you, about the danger you were in—I never would have left.” His stare was hard, reinforced by the conviction lacing through his voice. “Never.”
My eyes stung, the tears returning with a vengeance. I swallowed roughly, nostrils flaring with each breath as I tried, desperately, not to cry.
“I wish I hadn’t, you know,” Raiden said quietly, staring ahead. “I wish I’d listened to you—to what you didn’t say.” He took a deep breath. “I wish I’d stayed.”
But he hadn’t. Raiden had come home with a Purple Heart and a pronounced limp, but other than that, I didn’t know much about what had ended his military service. I hadn’t wanted to intrude, let alone pry—after how we’d left things all those years ago, I wasn’t sure he even wanted to talk to me about anything. But now I could see that keeping my distance as I’d been doing was more about hiding from my shame than about being considerate of Raiden. I suddenly felt like the most self-centered asshole in the world.
I took a shaky breath, looking at him, but averting my gaze before I spoke. “I’m sorry, Raiden,” I said softly. “About how I’ve been since you got home, I mean. I didn’t know how to—” The words caught in my throat, and I shrugged one shoulder. “I was so mad at you for so long, and I was so scared that you would never come back, and then you were back, and I didn’t know what to say to you . . . so I just didn’t say anything at all, and—”
Raiden nudged my shoulder with his, and the unexpected contact froze my tongue. “Don’t worry about it,” he said, just the faintest edge of hurt in his voice. “
I understand. I really do. You and me—we’re good.”
I glanced at him, not quite believing him. “Cross your heart?”
The corner of his mouth lifted in a half-smile. “Hope to die,” he said, completing the exchange just as he’d done thousands of times when we were kids. It had never sounded sinister then.
It did now.
18
I finished reading the final lines of writing within the journal and slowly raised my head, setting the book down on top of my closed laptop on the tray table. I looked at Raiden, excitement making my breaths come faster.
Raiden peered at me without changing his arms-crossed, tough-guy pose. He didn’t even move his head. “What is it?”
“I think I know where my mom went,” I told him. “In Rome, I mean.” I placed my hand palm-down on the open journal, covering the floorplan my mom had drawn of the Order’s headquarters, located underground beneath the Apostolic Palace in Vatican City. It was all right here, a million tiny clues pointing me in a single direction.
Raiden looked at me, one eyebrow raised.
“There’s a vault under the Vatican,” I explained. “It’s where the Custodes—” I paused, shooting a quick, paranoid glance over the back of my seat. “Where they stored this”—I fished the pendant out from the neck of my T-shirt by the chain—“along with the crystal orb and a few other artifacts.” I figured those were still in the vault, probably too large for my mom to grab and run, as she must have done with the pendant and orb.
I curled my fingers around the pendant, enclosing it in my fist. “Whatever my mom found in South America must have made her think I needed these. She must’ve already known these were in the vault from her time with the Order, so she went back there to get them.” I tapped my mom’s final page of notes with the tip of my index finger. “If we’re going to find her, I think we need to start in that vault.”
Raiden narrowed his eyes, the corners of his mouth angling downward. “But she sent you the pendant and the orb, so obviously she made it out of the vault. We won’t find her there.”
I was nodding before he even finished what he was saying. “I know, but we might find something—a clue or a sign or . . .” I shook my head, holding my hands out and raising my shoulders in the international sign for “I don’t know.” I took a deep breath, then started over. “If that’s where her path ends—at least, her traceable path—then I think it’s where we should start.”
Raiden’s eyebrows climbed higher. “But that’s not where her path ends. She went to that convenience store . . . sent you the package . . .”
I chewed on the inside of my cheek, tilting my head from side to side as I considered his point. “Then we retrace her last known steps.”
Raiden inhaled deeply, like he was about to respond. Probably to argue.
I held up a hand to stop him before he could start. “Just hear me out, OK?”
Raiden blinked, and I took it for his eyes’ equivalent of a nod.
“We know she made it to the store,” I started. “We have the receipt, but what we don’t have is any idea of where she went after that. Maybe she made it to the post office, maybe the shop owner shipped the package for her. We just don’t know.”
“Right,” Raiden said. “But we can go there. We can ask . . .”
I acknowledged his point as valid with a sideways nod. “But if her trail ends there, we have nowhere to go but backward,” I said. “By retracing her steps, we might be able to figure out where she was headed next. Who knows—after the hidden message on the receipt and the secret passage in the house, it seems highly likely that she purposely left some other clues—clues meant just for me—along the way.”
Raiden’s eyes remained locked with mine for a few more seconds, then he returned to staring ahead. “Vatican City is the last place you should be going right now.”
“Or,” I said, “is it the best place for me right now? It’s certainly the last place the Order will expect me to go, which means they won’t be looking for me there.”
Raiden blinked, but made no other response.
“Hiding in plain sight—there’s a reason it’s a thing,” I said. “Because it works.” I raised my eyebrows. “Right?”
Raiden’s jaw tensed.
“I think it’s worth a shot,” I said. “If the convenience store turns out to be a dead-end . . .” If he wanted to start there, we could start there. No skin off my back.
Raiden inhaled and exhaled through his nose, then nodded once.
I blew out a breath, relieved. “All right, so . . . from what I’ve gathered in the journal and online”—I tapped my laptop with the tip of my index finger—" the vault is only accessible through the Apostolic Palace—the library, specifically. It looks like, for the right price, you can take a super exclusive group tour of the Vatican Palace, including a quick stop in the library. Once we’re in the library, we’ll lose the group—”
“Lose the group how, exactly?” Raiden asked.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ll say I have to pee, or something.” I waved a hand dismissively. Sneaking away was never an issue in any of my games. There was always a way. How hard could it really be? “Then we’ll break into the vault—”
“Which will be locked up tight,” Raiden said.
My lips spread into a broad grin. “My mom wrote the combination to the lock in her journal,” I revealed. Before Raiden could voice the glaringly obvious flaw, I continued, “And the combo must still be the same, because she got in . . .”
Raiden’s expression remained stony.
“So, we’ll pop into the vault, look around, and get out.” I dry-washed my hands. “Easy peasy.”
“Right,” Raiden said dryly. I chose to ignore the skepticism in his voice.
“It’s a good plan,” I said, the words coming out sounding more like a question than a statement.
Raiden gave me a look that wilted my optimism.
“It’s not a good plan?”
“No, Cora,” Raiden said, laughing derisively under his breath as he shook his head. “It’s not a good plan.”
I deflated, right there in my seat.
“But,” he said, “it’s a start.”
19
I stood beside Raiden, watching the sloped belt spit suitcase after suitcase out onto the baggage carousel, thinking the whole contraption was a strange, antiquated looking thing. It was also, hands down, my favorite thing about airline travel so far.
“Hey!” I exclaimed, spotting a black duffel bag making its way down the belt. I pointed to the bag. “Is that your—”
“No,” Raiden said. For the third time.
I dropped my arm and sighed.
Raiden had been a grump ever since we agreed on breaking into the Order’s vault. I was excited. I was out of the country for the first time ever—in Rome, no less—and we had a multi-pronged plan to find my mom.
A bevy of rolling suitcases made their way down the belt, and finally I spotted my navy duffel bag—the teal piping was a dead giveaway. “Oh! There’s mine,” I said, stepping toward the carousel.
Raiden grabbed my arm, just above the elbow, stopping me mid-step. Even through my coat, his grip was tight, verging on painful.
“Ow . . .” I turned partway, attempting—and failing—to twist my arm out of his grasp. I speared him with a glare. “What are you—”
“We’re being followed,” Raiden said. “Time to go.” He spun on his heel and started walking away from the baggage carousel, dragging me right along with him. His strides were long, eating up the airport’s smooth tile floor, and even with my not-short legs, I practically had to jog to keep up with him.
“But my bag—”
“Leave it,” he said, tone low and words clipped.
“But—”
The protests died on my tongue, and my heart leapt into my throat. I craned my neck as we hurried away, scanning the crowd scattered throughout the baggage claim area for whoever had tripped Raiden’s internal de
fenses.
Sure enough, a pair of young men were trailing us by twenty or thirty yards. Though they wore jeans, T-shirts, and sneakers, their build and the way they moved gave them the look of trained soldiers.
I gulped and faced forward, the excitement of moments earlier replaced by mounting panic.
Ten seconds later, I spotted another pair of disguised goons making a beeline for us ahead. Once I knew what I was looking for, it was easy to pick them out of the crowd. “Raiden . . .”
“I see them,” he said, veering to the left, toward the pair of sliding glass doors leading out of the airport. The sidewalk beyond was lined with a string of parked cars, gleaming in the mid-morning light.
Raiden sped up, and I was definitely jogging now. We swerved around slow-moving travelers toting their wheely bags toward the exit.
A driver dressed in a black suit flagged us down as soon as we were through the doors. “Signore, you look like you are in a hurry,” he said, his Italian accent strong but his English intelligible enough. “Where can I take you?” He already had the back door to a black sedan open.
Raiden ushered me into the car, then slid in beside me. “Roma Termini, per favore,” he said as the driver settled into the front seat.
“Si, prego,” the driver said, turning the key in the ignition. He edged the car away from the curb.
I stared out the side window, watching for our pursuers. As the four men jogged out through the airport’s sliding doors and onto the sidewalk, I locked the car door and gripped the door handle tightly.
“Sbrigati, per favore!” I told the driver, asking him to hurry. Even I could tell my accent was awful, but I didn’t care. I quickly added that we were late for our train.
“Si, capisco,” the driver said just a moment before stepping on the gas.
The car jerked forward, pressing me back into my seat, and we were suddenly speeding away from the airport.
The motion of the car had lulled my brain into a post-adrenaline daze as I stared out the window, watching the Roman countryside pass by. After about fifteen minutes, the agricultural fields gave way to hillsides stacked with apartment buildings. Another ten minutes, and we were leaving the highway behind for the narrower, backed-up streets of Rome.
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