Fearless

by Sarah Tarkoff

  “You want me to put this gas in the whole stadium?” My father was appalled.

  Again, perhaps I hadn’t phrased this delicately enough. After weeks in the rebels’ underground city, maybe I’d forgotten how to talk to people like my father. “Maybe,” I said, trying desperately to reel him back in. “I’ve never used the machine, I’m not totally sure how it works. But if I’m right and it’s real, and you could do it to a bunch of people at once, wouldn’t that be better anyway?”

  “Who’s giving you these ideas?” He was panicked now, pacing the room.

  “The people I’m working with.”

  “Let me get this straight. A stranger told you to ask me to go into a room and push some buttons and unleash a gas over a stadium full of people?”

  I was not making my case particularly well. “They’re not strangers . . .” I tried to explain.

  But my dad wasn’t finished. “These same people are filling your head with blasphemous ideas, sabotaging your relationship with Prophet Joshua and the good work you can do with him . . .” I could see the fire and fear in his eyes.

  “Dad . . .” I tried to interject, but it was too late. I’d lost him.

  “Grace, I want you to think very carefully about what you do next.” My father’s voice was level, projecting authority, certainty. “I am in a position to help an enormous number of people through my influence, and I think I do a pretty good job. If you damage my reputation, I may lose that influence, and an untold number of people’s lives might be hurt.”

  I saw it suddenly—my father’s denial wasn’t about spirituality; it was rooted in his own sense of self, his own importance. He would never believe me, even if every single sign pointed to the truth, because accepting the truth would mean that instead of a great man, he’d been a great fool. That all his hard work had amounted to nothing, that he’d wasted his life—no, that he’d been an agent of the very devil he’d spent his life trying to combat. That he’d devoted a decade to spreading ignorance instead of wisdom.

  Realizing the futility of our conversation gutted me. My father was a lost cause. We’d never be able to connect the way we used to, we’d never get to live in the same world again. He was still my father, but he was separate from me now, maybe forever.

  And my failure meant my friends were still in danger. My father had been our one shot, our one chance. I despaired, imagining what horrors Joshua might unleash on everyone I cared about. But I drew on my reserves of resilience. I had to find another way. I had to get into that stadium myself.

  Which meant, I had to leave now. I hugged my father, not wanting to let him go. Worried this might be the last time I saw him. “I love you,” I told him, eyes brimming with tears.

  “Is this the end now?” he asked, a note of caution in his voice. “No more talking to those people, no more crazy talk about computers in my brain?”

  I nodded, composing myself. “I’ll keep quiet, I promise. I won’t damage your reputation.” It was a promise I never intended to keep—a promise I knew I probably couldn’t keep.

  “I have to get ready for my sermon, but please. Let me help you,” he begged me.

  “I will,” I said, voice as bright as I could muster.

  “I hope you’ll come to the service. Get some inspiration.” The eagerness in his voice broke my heart.

  I nodded. “Wouldn’t miss it.”

  I remembered the man in the black suit who’d seen me come up here. If he was still waiting for me, he’d be watching all the exits. I glanced out the window of my dad’s room—fifteen stories down, no way I could survive that jump. I had to find a safe way out.

  For now, I put on a smile. “I’ll see you soon, Dad.”

  But as I exited my father’s hotel room, the futility of making any kind of plan became even clearer. Zack was standing at the end of the hall.

  “You never came to meet me,” he said. He seemed hurt, almost as hurt as Jude had been about Nova Scotia.

  “Yeah, I got tied up,” I said warily, remembering Dawn’s warnings about him.

  He tensed in response to my standoffishness. “No. You never intended to see me again, did you?”

  I felt bad—it was true. But it had been the right call. “Not like we would’ve hung out much once you got me locked up in some government prison.”

  Zack’s face was somber. Apologetic. “There are agents stationed all through the hotel. I’ve been sent to bring you in.”

  2

  He moved toward me, and I began to back away. “If you run, they’ll catch you,” he warned me.

  I was afraid of him now, in a way I never had been before. As he closed the distance between us, I turned to bolt, but in a split second, he’d grabbed my arm, was holding me in place. “Let go of me!” I cried, but this time he didn’t, and no one else was around to hear.

  “I trusted you,” he hissed. “I told you everything. You said you’d help me . . .”

  “I didn’t promise you anything,” I countered. “And I was right not to, wasn’t I? You turned me in.”

  Zack was spitting mad. “What choice did you leave me? For all I knew you were running to the prophet to tell on me. Maybe you were monitoring me; maybe my whole assignment was just a ruse. And then you vanished and I was screwed.”

  Zack’s dizzying paranoia felt familiar, and after the story he’d told me about Jenna, I could see why he might not trust me. “I’m not monitoring you,” I promised, and a fear I hadn’t even noticed was inside him seemed to ease. Then I remembered, “In Israel-Palestine. Did you help me?”

  He seemed totally confused. “What are you talking about? I’ve never been to Israel-Palestine.”

  I couldn’t help but be disappointed. “It wasn’t you who called the prophets and told them to let me go?”

  Zack shook his head. “No. How would I do that? I don’t have any authority, especially not in some other country.”

  So it hadn’t been Zack who’d arranged my release from prison. And it hadn’t been Dawn, or anyone on the side of the resistance.

  Could it have been Great Spirit? I had prayed in that cell—and my prayer, in that dire moment, had been answered. Could it have been a miracle after all?

  “My offer still stands,” Zack was saying. “I still think we can work together. But if you won’t work with me, I don’t have a choice. I have to protect myself; I have to be honest with my employers.”

  “Okay,” I said carefully, knowing I was backed into a corner. “Let’s work together. Can you get me into the conference tonight?”

  He seemed suspicious, surprised by my sudden turnaround. “Why? What does the resistance want with this conference?”

  I had no patience for his games. “You don’t get to know why. If you really want to help me, help me.” Off his hesitation, I added, “You turned me in. You don’t get any more than that right now.”

  Zack seemed less than pleased as he eyed me warily, trying to figure out if he could trust me. “Fine. You want me to prove myself to you again? I’ll do it.”

  Don’t trust him. It wasn’t Zack who said it—it was that voice in my head, the one who had spoken to me in my moment of need. The one I’d assumed was a hallucination, now echoing louder than ever. I’d felt sober for some time now . . . was I wrong? Or was some mystical presence actually making itself known to me? I lived in a world where so many prophets claimed to speak to Great Spirit. Maybe I could actually communicate with a higher power, for real. Don’t trust Zack, is that what Great Spirit was telling me?

  My hesitation was clearly unnerving Zack. “Well? Are we going or not?”

  I’d already told him half of Dawn’s plan—it seemed irresponsible to cut and run now. But Great Spirit had guided me well so far. This voice had prevented me from taking a cyanide pill, it had saved my life once before. Was I walking into a trap if I followed Zack?

  “We have to go now,” Zack was saying. “If I don’t bring you downstairs soon, they’re going to come up after us.”

 
What should I do? I thought frantically to myself. I got no additional advice from Great Spirit this time. And I couldn’t think of any other good options. At the very least, if that man in the suit by the elevator had been one of Prophet Joshua’s agents, I could probably use Zack’s help getting out of this building.

  I had to take this chance. “Okay, let’s go.”

  I followed Zack down to the opposite end of the hall, where he swiped a room key, and we entered what looked to be an occupied but currently empty room.

  “Whose room is this?” I asked.

  “No idea,” he said flippantly as he opened the window, which led to a fire escape. “You ready?”

  I looked down the fire escape—it was a frighteningly steep descent. “Yep.”

  Zack hesitated before stepping out. “Don’t screw me over again, okay?” He tried to sound casual, but there was a vulnerability in his eyes that seemed genuine.

  I nodded. But as I slowly descended the ladder, nervously looking down at the honking cars so many stories below, I became more and more convinced that I was the one who was going to get screwed.

  If the voice was right, I was walking right into a trap.

  3

  We moved through a massive, eagerly pious crowd, all heading into the stadium.

  “Should I try to disguise myself?” I asked Zack.

  “You mean with a pill? They’d never let an Outcast into this place.” As little as I trusted Zack at this moment, I had to admit, he was probably right.

  As we passed a cluster of security guards, I heard, “Zack? Grace?”

  I turned to see Macy heading toward us, jaw hanging open. “Macy!” I angled my head away from the guards as best I could, giving her a bright, surprised smile.

  As she approached, she wrinkled her eyebrows in confusion. “You guys didn’t tell me you were coming! What are you doing in South Africa?”

  “Work,” Zack said quickly, looking at me.

  “Helping out my dad,” I said at the same time.

  Macy narrowed her eyes at me. “Your dad said you weren’t coming. He asked me to help him with stuff.” She glanced back and forth between us, clearly seeing how nervous we were. “Oh, heck, you’re dating, aren’t you? You’ve been secretly dating this whole time, I knew it!”

  From the corner of my eye, I saw Zack’s cheeks turn red. “I’m here for work, I can’t stop and talk,” Zack said, quickly walking off.

  Macy now looked at me, expectant. “Uh, I’ve gotta go help him with his . . . work thing,” I said, quickly moving off after him.

  Macy called after us, “Best man and maid of honor at the wedding, I’m calling it now!”

  I rejoined Zack, keeping my head down as we moved toward security. “Well, that wasn’t awkward at all.”

  Zack seemed almost as embarrassed as I was. “Tell your dad to stop inviting my sister to things.” He gently nudged me toward an unmanned door. “This way.”

  He scanned his badge, and the door opened immediately. “That was easy,” I whispered.

  But then we walked into a room full of guards. I tried not to panic, gave a polite smile. Zack nodded to them—he clearly knew at least one or two—and then pulled me toward a stairwell. Having him here for cover seemed to be working out well so far.

  “You’re going to have to direct us from here,” he said.

  Dawn had told me where the maintenance room was—I’d needed that information to pass it to my father. Just a few flights of stairs and a long corridor remained . . . our objective was within reach! But as I climbed the stairs, the voice in my head returned: Run.

  Great Spirit had led me well so far. Did I really want to ignore His advice now that we were so close? Now when it mattered more than ever?

  I turned and looked at Zack, and he gestured for me to move forward, harried. “We need to move,” he whispered.

  If he was, like I suspected, still playing me, I needed to ditch him now that I was inside. “I’ve got it from here,” I told him.

  Zack was flummoxed. “Grace, don’t be stupid. There are a million other doors I may need to open.”

  “I’ve got it,” I insisted, a little rudely.

  Clearly not wanting to argue with me anymore, he threw up his hands. “Fine, I’ll be down here when you realize you need my help.”

  That had gone better than I expected. But as I continued up the stairs, I heard that voice again. Run.

  Something was still wrong. And the fact that I didn’t know what filled me with unease. Run! The voice was getting more insistent. I tried to ignore it and looked down at Zack—he was almost out of sight now.

  The voice wanted me to run, so I ran. Up one flight, and then another. But when I got to the sixth floor, I reached another locked door. Zack had been right; I needed his card to swipe myself through. I kicked myself. What was I supposed to do now? Run away! the voice screamed at me. Why, why was it so insistent? What did I need to be afraid of?

  I peered through the glass window in the door. I couldn’t see anyone at all on the floor, no one I could signal to let me in.

  I was ready to give up, go back and ask Zack for help again . . . but then I heard the voices. Two women. Though I couldn’t figure out where they were, their voices must have been coming from somewhere on the other side of that door: they were so loud it sounded like they were right next to me, screaming in my ear.

  “Is she here yet?” one asked.

  “The prophet will be so happy,” said the other. “He’s been dying to torture Grace Luther.” Their tinny laughter echoed, and I felt sick.

  The voice in my head had been right all along. This was a trap. Zack had led me straight to the people who were going to arrest me, and I’d been stupid enough to follow.

  I finally came to my senses and ran. Back down the stairs, past a startled Zack. “Where are you going?” he called after me, but I ignored him. Backstabber.

  I was out the stairwell door, out of the building, but I kept running. The voice in my head kept urging me on. Run!

  I was close to ten blocks away before I finally stopped to catch my breath. Run! it kept insisting.

  But I didn’t, because Dawn pulled up in a car next to me. “What the hell are you doing?” she asked me.

  “I got into the stadium . . .” I panted, out of breath. “My dad wouldn’t help, but Zack did . . . he scanned a key card.”

  Dawn looked relieved. “So he is on our side? Why did you leave?”

  And then the voice in my head piped up again. Don’t trust her.

  4

  Dawn? I couldn’t trust Dawn? I’d always been suspicious of her, true, but she’d recently seemed like the best option I had, outside of Jude.

  Don’t trust her, the voice in my head repeated, louder. I didn’t have time to argue with it, so I listened. I began to run, and Dawn’s car followed me.

  “Grace? What’s going on?” Dawn called out the window at me.

  But I kept running. Block after block, turning unexpected corners, pushing through the pain that was throbbing deep in my chest, my lungs aching to stop. I was getting away. Until—a figure cut in front of me, blocking my escape.

  I cried out, stopping myself before I ran headlong into Zack—in my panic evading Dawn I’d ended up right next to FNB Stadium again.

  He grabbed me by my shoulders. “Where are you going?”

  “Away from you!” I cried, struggling to find a way past him.

  Get away! the voice was screaming.

  He was scared, angry. “Away from me? What are you talking about?”

  Dawn ran up next to us. “What the hell is going on?”

  Zack’s attention was diverted for a moment, and I took that opportunity to bolt—only to have Dawn grab my arm this time. Her grip was surprisingly strong. “Grace, are you okay?”

  “I know what you’re up to,” I said, trying to cover. “I know you’re working against me. Both of you.”

  Zack and Dawn exchanged a look. Zack didn’t know who Dawn was, but D
awn had clearly figured out who he was, and I saw her make a decision. “Get her in my car. Now.”

  Zack squinted at her. “I’m sorry, who are you?”

  As he hesitated, I begged him, “You can’t trust her.”

  Dawn moved closer to Zack and said, hushed, “I’m with the resistance. I’m the person you’ve been trying to get in touch with. If you want to help us, get her in the car. There’s something wrong with her, and I think I know how to fix it.”

  Zack was convinced enough by that to take me by the shoulders again and push me toward the car.

  “There’s nothing wrong with me!” I cried, trying to attract a scene. “Zack! Let me go!” A few passersby gave us strange looks, but no one would do anything about it, I knew—we all looked pious, so no one would suspect any of us of criminal activity.

  Run! Get away! But I couldn’t obey the voice this time. There was nothing I could do except allow Zack to force me into Dawn’s car and glare defiantly as the two of them interrogated me.

  “Now, Grace,” Dawn said, “why do you think I’m working against you?”

  Don’t tell her! Get away from her!

  “I just know,” I said, embarrassed to admit the reason, and nervous to show my ignorance about any details.

  Don’t trust either of them!

  And then, ever so delicately, she said the words that chilled me to my core. “Grace, is there a voice talking to you?”

  She knew.

  5

  How could she know? Zack looked at me expectantly, perhaps waiting for me to contradict her. But, dumbfounded, I nodded.

  “Oh, great, so she’s a crazy person,” Zack muttered, and I could see his mind working through the implications of that.

  But Dawn shook her head. “Not crazy. Infected.”

  “Infected?” I asked.

  “Remember those bugs you destroyed? At the hospital in New York?”