by Rysa Walker
“So you actually were partially right about the Myron memories. I’m finally working through them to some extent. You remember the dream I used to have, the one about the homeless woman?”
There’s a long pause, and the walking-on-glass expression is back. It’s almost like a flinch now, but she pushes on.
“You mean memory of the homeless woman, right? The memory you blocked but sometimes dreamed about.” It’s a gentle correction, but I can tell that she wants me to acknowledge the difference. To admit that I know it was my foot, even if I wasn’t controlling it. Even though the thought that any part of me could have participated in something so evil makes me want to gnaw off that foot and fling it as far away from me as possible.
“Yes. The memory. I’ve been dreaming about it again. But there’s something new. Do you know if there’s anything else I may have blocked dealing with Myron? Something about a woman who died from a fall?”
There’s a faint, almost imperceptible scratch along my wall, like a branch scraping at a window. Cregg. It’s the first I’ve heard from him in about eighteen hours, and even though I barely feel it, it unnerves me. But I don’t have time to harp on it, because in that instant, something finally clicks into place.
The reason the woman in the photo I saw earlier seemed vaguely familiar is because I have seen her before. Not in person—she died years before I was born. But I’m reasonably sure now that the recurring nightmare about the woman on the patio isn’t just a dream. It’s also Graham Cregg’s memory of the day his mother committed suicide.
Kelsey is watching me. “I don’t remember you talking about anything like that. But judging from your expression, you’ve just had an epiphany.”
“Maybe. I need to check before I can be sure. I’ll call you back later, okay? Either tonight or—”
“Okay, but wait. Before you go, there’s another reason I called. Magda and Miller arrived earlier today with seven new adepts.”
“Wow. That’s a large group of stragglers. Aaron was saying on the drive up to DC that he thought something was going on when Magda went with Miller herself, instead of sending a team like she usually does. Taylor and Deo were even joking that it was a lovers’ getaway.”
Kelsey wrinkles her nose at the last comment. “I would hope even Magda has better taste. But yes, I’d wondered that too. She usually doesn’t leave Chloe and Clara. But she said she went because this trip required negotiation skills, something that’s not exactly Miller’s strong suit. And when she got back today, I realized what she meant. These adepts weren’t stragglers. They were in Nevada with Senator Cregg.”
A cold chill runs down my back as I remember Graham Cregg’s words just before he died. You and I have a common goal and a common enemy. Magda Bell will turn on you in an instant if it is in her interest to do so.
Taking in these new adepts doesn’t necessarily mean that she’s turned. It’s definitely not a good sign, though.
“It’s mostly siblings who were separated when The Warren was destroyed,” Kelsey continues. “Magda said the exchange was a goodwill gesture on the part of the Senator.”
“Wait. Exchange? And earlier, you said negotiation. Those words imply some sort of quid pro quo. What is Magda getting in return?”
“I have no idea.”
“And why would Magda negotiate with the Senator at all? Why would she trust him?”
“According to her, we’ve misunderstood the Senator’s motives. I’m paraphrasing here, but she claims he really has the best interests of the adepts at heart. The public comments he’s made, and all the fearmongering—it’s just grandstanding, the kind of thing all politicians do during a campaign. He’s convinced her he had nothing to do the WOCAN terror attacks or the various murders. All of that was put into motion by Graham Cregg before his death, and the Senator is merely endeavoring to undo some of the harm his son caused. And she claims he’ll be in a much better position to help the adepts if he wins . . . Anna? Are you okay?”
Cregg is raging now. I sense this, sense his anger, even though what makes it through the wall is little more than a thin wail. “I have to go,” I say, hopping off the table to head back toward the cabin. “I need to tell the others so that we can figure out a plan.”
“A plan for what? Anna, if Magda has decided to cooperate with the Senator, what can we do? I mean, Deo and I could leave Sandalford, but I’m not willing to abandon the other children like that. Yes, I know all about the training that Maria has them doing, but they’re kids. They’re no match for Magda’s security, let alone whatever forces Senator Cregg might bring into the picture.”
“Do Maria and Stan know about Magda?” As soon as the words leave my mouth, I realize that’s a stupid question. Of course Maria knows.
“Maria does, at any rate. She stopped by right after I finished talking to Magda. But she’s not upset. She seemed happy, and said that this is all part of the bigger picture. That the paths are aligning, whatever that means. Of course, I’m not surprised that she’s happy, since her friend Pavla is part of the transfer.”
Pavla. I picture her in my mind, sitting with Maria in the cafeteria at The Warren, leaning so close to Maria that their heads nearly touch. Giggling over their ongoing game of peeking at the other adepts in the shower. Pavla is telekinetic—I’m not sure what else she can do, but she’s the one who left a message in the fog on my bathroom mirror. Peekaboo. Welcome to The Warren.
“I thought you said the exchange was sibling reunions?”
“It is, for the most part. I believe Pavla was the exception.”
“What about Stan’s brother? His name is Harv. Is he there, too?”
“Yes,” Kelsey says. “Why?”
“I’ll call you back.” I pick up my pace. “I’m a little bit worried we’ve been played. Don’t—” I stop, realizing what I was about to say is pointless.
“Don’t what?”
“I was going to ask you not to tell Maria what I just said, but never mind. You can’t hide anything from her. And . . . I could be wrong. I really, really hope so.”
Aaron is in the kitchen pouring himself a bowl of Cheerios when I burst through the door. “You okay?”
“Not so much. Where’s Daniel?”
“In his room,” Taylor says.
“Go get him, okay?”
She frowns, but tosses her iPad aside and does as I asked. I take a bottle of water from the fridge and tip it back. There’s no point starting until everyone is here. I’d just have to repeat myself.
As Taylor comes back into the room, her phone buzzes. “You are wrong.”
Daniel follows her, yawning and a bit grumpy about being awakened. “Wrong about what?”
“No clue,” Taylor says. “I’m just reading the text. ‘You are wrong.’”
“Well, that was fast. It’s from Maria, right? Is that all she wrote?”
Taylor gives me a quizzical look. “It’s from Stan, actually. Maria doesn’t have a phone, so I guess—” The phone buzzes again, and she shoves it toward me after reading. “Yeah. It’s from Maria.”
Yes we know about it but we do not PLAY you. So you are WRONG. This is still the paths.
“What the hell does that even mean?” Daniel asks when I read it aloud.
“Maria should have Stan translate before she hits send,” Taylor says. “Please tell me she’s not getting information from Jeffrey.”
“You mean Snoop?” Daniel asks.
“I mean Jeffrey,” Taylor says. “Deo told me he hates that name. He’s the only one we know who has this kind of range without Deo there to boost the signal. Jeffrey said he was done spying on other adepts, though. He kind of . . . promised.”
I hand the phone back to Taylor and sink down onto the sofa. “It wasn’t Jeffrey. Maria picked up on something I told Kelsey. And if she got it that quickly, she must have been monitoring our entire conversation.”
That pisses me off. Not so much that Maria listened in on our discussion about Magda and the new arri
vals, or even that she overheard me questioning whether her motives and Stan’s might be suspect. Any of that I’d say to her face. But the first part of that conversation was private. Kelsey was upset, and . . .
I shake it off and focus on relaying the information about the new arrivals and Magda’s arrangement with Senator Cregg. “The real question,” I say when I reach the end, “is exactly what the Senator is getting from Magda in return. Because I’m not buying the whole goodwill angle.”
“Neither am I,” Daniel says. “I’ve said from the beginning that, as soon as Magda’s interests diverged from ours, she wouldn’t hesitate to make whatever kind of deal she thought was best for her daughters. I’m not saying that makes her a horrible person, but . . . Magda has her priorities, and I don’t think they necessarily sync up with ours.”
“Cregg said the same thing. Graham Cregg,” I clarify. “At the airport just before Jasper shot him. And he’s emphasized it repeatedly.”
“Oh, big whoop,” Taylor says. “Did any of us ever really trust Magda? I know I didn’t. But Maria? I trusted Maria. I trusted Stan. And . . . I still do. Even though I’ll admit that all of this paths-aligning stuff is a little wack, we know where their interests lie.”
Aaron agrees, although his expression suggests that he’s a bit more on the fence. Daniel, the perpetual skeptic, isn’t convinced. And for once, I think he’s got a point.
“It’s not that I distrust them,” I say, “but . . . just to play devil’s advocate, Maria and Pavla seemed pretty happy at The Warren. I got the sense that Stan and his brother were, too. Jaden was happy, more or less—at least until the older adepts he was friends with started disappearing. Sure, he missed his parents and he wished he could let them know he was okay, but he said it was the first time he’d ever felt that he wasn’t a freak. Knowing there were others like him, in a place where people believed he had visions—where they didn’t assume he was crazy? That was a really big deal for him. Half of the kids at Sandalford, maybe more, don’t even have families. And whatever we may think about Magda, she’s no Graham Cregg. She’s not killing the adepts. If they were reasonably happy at The Warren—underground and subject to Cregg’s research agenda—how much happier do you think they are in an oceanfront mansion?”
“So what exactly is your point?” Taylor asks. “Maria made it clear she doesn’t want a cure. Many of the others don’t either. Do you think they’re all lying?”
“No. But I do think some of them might be willing to use their abilities in exchange for living at Sandalford.”
A look that I can’t exactly decipher passes over her face, and I raise an eyebrow.
“Some of them already are,” she says. “Well, one of them, at least.”
“And you didn’t think this was something we should all know?” Aaron asks.
She gives him a pleading look. “This was in confidence, okay? Deo wasn’t even supposed to tell me. Jeffrey asked Deo to give him a boost for a task Magda assigned to him. He was having trouble making a connection. Deo agreed, but he had second thoughts after it was too late, wondering exactly what it was he’d helped him do. It was financial information, something to do with the stock market. But Deo said he really couldn’t be mad at him, because Jeffrey was upfront about it. D has been boosting the adepts during training for months, and he can’t usually tell what they’re doing. Jeffrey could have lied, and . . . Deo wouldn’t have known. And the only reason Jeffrey was doing it was because Magda told him she needed cash to expand, so she could help more adepts.”
“Well, that does explain a few things,” Aaron says. “One day Magda’s bitching about how Sandalford is draining her dry and the next she’s buying half an island to house Caleb without a single complaint.”
“It’s a pretty pathetic island,” Taylor says. “I doubt it cost half as much as the beachfront lots she bought. But . . . yeah. She stopped muttering about expenses right after that.”
“Do you think Jeffrey is still giving her stock tips?” I ask.
Taylor shrugs. “His gift is a bit like mine. If he doesn’t have some sort of personal item from the target, he can’t read them. He hasn’t asked to use Deo’s amp ability again, though. Deo said Jeffrey could tell that it bothered him. But sure, I guess he could still be getting tips from the same—”
A loud scream comes from down the hallway. Sophie.
Aaron and I are closest. I reach the door a split second before he does and twist the knob. It’s locked, so I pound on the door. “Sophie? Open up!”
There are more sounds of scuffling, followed by a thwack and then what I’m pretty sure is the sound of a body hitting the floor.
“Sophie!”
“Step back,” Aaron says. “I’ll kick it open.”
Before he can even try, the doorknob turns. Sophie stands there, her dark eyes wide. “He attacked me,” she says, clutching Aaron’s arm. “I was trying to get away, and then he just . . . passed out.”
My father is sprawled facedown, his upper body draped over the collapsed gurney that’s wedged between the beds. One of his legs twitches a few times, as though he wants to get up, but then stops.
I push past Aaron and Sophie, kicking aside a shattered floor lamp, and crouch down next to Pfeifer. The area above his left eyebrow is already starting to swell. It’s the same spot as the bruise in my vision.
“Did he hit his head?”
Sophie nods. “On the nightstand.” She’s still clutching Aaron like he’s a life raft. I know she’s frightened, and it seems petty to be jealous. But it bothers me.
Aaron calls out for someone to get some ice while I check Pfeifer’s breathing. It’s even and steady, but a thin stream of blood is running down his arm toward his elbow.
“He’s bleeding,” I say.
“I must have scratched him. When I was trying to get away.”
Something under the bed catches my eye. I stretch my arm out, trying to grab it, but it’s a few inches out of reach.
I can see it now, however. It’s a syringe. And that mark on my father’s arm looks a lot more like a puncture than a scratch.
Sophie’s not holding on to Aaron because she’s frightened.
She’s blocking him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Mathias, West Virginia
April 26, 2020, 7:28 p.m.
I yell out a warning to Aaron, but my words are swallowed by the sound of breaking glass. Not just a single explosion but a rapid-fire cascade. It sounds like every window in the house is shattering, except for this one. Taylor screams, and I hear a burst of gunfire as I push to my feet.
Sophie shoves Aaron straight at me, knocking both of us off-balance, and then sprints off toward the living room, slamming the bedroom door behind her. “It’s me, Dacia!” Sophie yells. “Hold your fire!”
Dacia. And she’s clearly not alone. There’s a lot of noise outside the cabin. People moving around, and now I hear an engine. Maybe two.
Aaron draws his pistol. “Stay here. Lock the door.”
Normally, I might argue about staying put. But I’m unarmed. I don’t even have my pepper spray. And my father is unconscious. I can’t leave him here alone.
I scan the room for something, anything, to use as a weapon. The floor lamp is the only candidate. It’s pathetic, but it’s better than nothing, so I grip the lamp pole and move toward the door.
They’re going to be okay.
I was reasonably sure of this in the vision, and now I have a decent idea of how far into the future that vision goes. It has to be long enough for the red bump that’s rising right above my father’s eye to turn from red to blue. So at least a day, maybe two.
Taylor’s okay and Aaron’s okay. Daniel’s okay. Deo and Kelsey, too. Or at least I’ll believe they’re all okay in the vision.
I want to believe all of this. Jaden’s visions have never failed. But Sophie was there, in the vision. With me and my father, calling for us to hurry. And yet she has just handed us over to Dacia Badea.
I hear voices in the distance, but I can’t make out what’s being said. One of the voices is Aaron’s, though. I also hear crying. Not an adult. It’s higher pitched, interspersed with a sound like muhmuhmuh. And that noise is coming closer.
Two sharp raps on the bedroom door. I jump back, nearly dropping the lamp.
“Open the door, Anna.” It’s Dacia. Her voice is lilting, almost like she’s singing, and it still carries strong traces of her native Romanian. When I don’t answer, she laughs.
The baby continues crying, calling for her mama.
“Shhshhshh,” Dacia says. “You see mami soon. Who do I tell my people to kill first, Anna? I think maybe your little redhead dívka, then we watch her brothers—”
She pauses when she hears the door lock release. “I did not say unlock. Open. And if you have weapon when you open, someone will die. Maybe you, maybe me too if you have gun. Maybe this little one. But definitely your friends will die.”
I drop the lamp onto one of the beds and open the door.
The Dacia Badea who occasionally visits my nightmares towers over me, but the real-life version is about my height. I glance down and realize that she’s traded in the stilettos she was wearing before for a slightly more sensible heel. Her ice-blue eyes are unchanged. They stare back at me with a barely repressed fury.
Dacia is cultivating a punk dominatrix Barbie look these days—all black leather, including her trademark glove. But the baby she has gripped awkwardly against her chest totally wrecks the vibe. The little girl is about a year old, maybe a little older, wearing footie pajamas, pink with white hearts. She shares Sophie’s dark skin and eyes, and it would be obvious that she was Sophie’s daughter, even if she weren’t crying for her mother and trying to wriggle out of Dacia’s grasp.
I’ve been interrogated twice by Dacia. Both times she grabbed my arm and I felt a popping sensation across my forehead as she scanned my mind for information.