by Rysa Walker
She doesn’t grab my arm today. Maybe because she has her hands full with the crying baby, but I think she’s also scared. If she scanned my mind today, she might get a response from Graham Cregg, and that’s not something she’s willing to risk.
Miller stands a few steps behind her in his uniform. Gray, with a red arm patch that reads Vigilance Security. And he’s holding a very familiar-looking mask in his hand.
Well, if I had any doubt about what Magda traded, I know now. She traded us.
They’ll be okay.
I have just enough time to wonder if it will be the vanilla-scented mask or the orange. And then the guard grabs me and forces the mask over my face.
Vanilla.
Bwap-bwap-bwap-bwap.
I open my eyes slowly, disoriented both by the sound and shuddering of the seat I’m strapped into. My head is heavy, too heavy to hold upright. As my eyes close again, I hear a whimper. It reminds me of the noise Ein makes when he’s dreaming. My head lolls to the left, and I feel a brush of fabric beneath my cheek. A hard, unwelcoming shoulder pushes me away. I reposition toward the wall, and bump the knee of someone across from me as I slide back under the fog.
Bwap-bwap-bwap-bwap.
They’ll be okay.
That thought—or really the memory of having that thought, with Dacia standing there in front of me at the cabin—pulls me toward consciousness again.
It’s dark. Not pitch dark, though. There are tiny lights along the floor. Enough for me to make out Sophie, sitting in the center of the row of seats facing me. She’s no longer gripping my father’s arm, but he’s unconscious and likely to stay that way, judging from the IV tube in his arm. In her lap is the baby Dacia was holding.
To Sophie’s left, directly in front of me, is Daniel. He’s unconscious, too. No IV, but his hands are bound with one of those plastic tie cuffs. Miller is sitting next to me.
A few stars dot the night sky, visible through the windows. I thought we were in a plane at first, but the whirring sound suggests a helicopter. Not as big as the ones we saw that night at The Warren. This sound is different, smoother. The interior is drab and functional, though. I would have expected any vehicle Ronald Cregg owned to be a bit flashier.
“Is that your daughter?” I ask Sophie.
Miller jabs his elbow into my side. “Boss said no talking.”
“When you say boss, do you mean Magda or Dacia? And where is Dacia?”
“No. Talking,” he repeats, tapping his sidearm. I’m oddly relieved to see that it’s an actual gun, not a taser. He’s not going to fire that inside a helicopter. Also, if we were expendable, we wouldn’t be here. So his guidelines are the same as the Fudds’ back at The Warren—he’s not allowed to kill us.
I look back at Sophie. She glances down at the little girl, who’s half asleep now. Then she looks back at me and gives a wordless nod.
As much as I want to blame Sophie for turning us over to the Senator’s crew, I can’t. Dacia was holding her child as a hostage. And Dacia is perfectly willing to kill kids, something Sophie almost certainly knew. I am a little curious about how Sophie managed to get word to them, however, and also where exactly she was hiding the syringe that she used on my father. Taylor and I had searched her. It wasn’t a strip search—neither of us could quite bring ourselves to invade her privacy to that extent—but it was a serious TSA-style pat down.
I’m guessing the fact that I’m currently housing Graham Cregg, the man who no doubt pulled Sophie into all of this, may have played a role in her decision as well. Was she pregnant when she came to The Warren? I flash back to my mercifully brief encounter with Lucas, and comments that Maria made about the other girls who hadn’t been lucky enough to escape him. Was Sophie one of those girls?
Sophie really isn’t the one who’s to blame for us being here, anyway. That distinction belongs to Magda. What I really want to know is how long Magda has been colluding with Senator Cregg. Because I don’t believe for a moment that she was only interested in helping to reunify divided siblings. That’s too Hallmark Movie to jibe with my knowledge of Magda. The only siblings she’s that interested in are her daughters.
Cregg must have promised Magda the cure she’s so desperate to find. Or what she thinks is a cure. Is it a drug to manage their symptoms, like the one my father was working on? Or is it pure snake oil, packaged up by Senator Cregg, who knew she’d take the bait?
“Where are we going?”
Miller backhands me, his arm jerking toward my face so quickly that I don’t have time to dodge. His knuckle catches me square on the mouth, splitting my lower lip.
“What did I say, freak? No talking.” He doesn’t exactly smile as he speaks, but I can read in his eyes exactly how much pleasure that gave him. He’s been wanting to hit me since the day he first arrived at Sandalford.
I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. It comes away bloody, and I glare at him. At some point, he will regret that. Two can play payback.
Thankfully, the little girl is asleep, but Sophie clutches her a bit tighter, keeping her daughter’s face turned away from Miller. Her mouth is set in a firm line. I don’t think she likes me much, although it could just be that she hates my hitcher. But she also didn’t like Miller hitting me.
The baby wakes up about twenty minutes later. Her complaints become a full-fledged cry, and Daniel begins to stir, too. Sophie looks over at Miller.
“Her dinner time is usually seven. Do you know if Dacia fed her?”
“No clue.”
“That was nearly three hours ago. She’s probably starving. When will we land in Knoxville?”
I send Sophie a silent thank-you. She managed to answer my question and also give me an approximate idea of how long I was out.
Miller realizes this, too, because he shoots her an annoyed look. “No clue,” he repeats and then nods toward Daniel. “Are you sure he’s neutralized? Blocked or whatever you call it?”
She taps her knee against Daniel’s, and I realize that her left ankle is bound to his right with one of the plastic cuffs. “As long as I’m touching him, as long as I’m anywhere close to him, he’s blocked. That’s how it works.”
Miller curls his upper lip, and you can practically see the word freak written on his face. He keeps that opinion to himself, though, possibly because he considers Sophie a useful freak. Sophie rocks her little girl back and forth, and the crying tapers off to a few hiccupping sobs as she falls back asleep. Daniel seems to have drifted off again, too. Eventually, Miller’s shoulders relax and he resumes staring out the window so that he doesn’t have to look at the cabin full of freaks.
Sophie wasn’t telling him the truth, though. In the lab at The Warren the other night, after the Furies killed Whistler and Davis, she told Daniel she wasn’t trying to protect them. That they basically deserved what they got and she didn’t intervene. That’s the opposite of how Maggie’s blocking ability works. She’s an instant null-zone, blocking any psychic waves within her radius unless she turns the ability off. Maggie even blocks when she’s asleep. But it takes a concerted effort for Sophie to block my father and Daniel. She has to want to block them.
Daniel’s foot twitches against mine. Four small taps, then two more. And again—four twitches, then two.
Hi. Or, technically, hi hi, but he had to repeat it before I recognized the pattern as Morse code.
I repeat the message back and risk a quick glance at his face. His eyes are still closed, but he’s making the OK sign with his right thumb and forefinger.
Is he saying he’s okay? Asking if I’m okay? Or trying to tell me that the others are okay?
The tapping starts again, but I press Daniel’s foot against the wall to stop him. I recognized the SOS sign he made a few months back at the hospital, and I figured out his two-letter message just now, but that was mostly a matter of deduction. Anything more complex would require me to dig around in Abner’s memory files, and those are behind the wall with Cregg.
I watc
h his face from the corner of my eye. He mouths two words: “They’re okay.”
And then he “wakes up” officially, stretching, asking where the hell he is. It’s a pantomime, clearly for Miller’s benefit. Daniel looks at me for the first time with his eyes fully open, and his jaw tightens. “What happened to your mouth?”
“Same thing that’s gonna happen to yours if you don’t stop talking,” Miller says.
Daniel’s hands curl into fists, and Miller looks nervously at Sophie.
“Hey, I only block psychic ability. If you’re worried he might get physical, you’re on your own.”
“I’m not worried.” But Miller’s hand moves toward his pistol.
In the distance, I see the lights of a city. We’ve passed over little pockets of light on and off since I woke up, but this is more of a widespread glow. I’m just thinking it might be Knoxville when Miller jerks suddenly, grabbing his right leg. He sucks air in through his teeth as he frantically massages his calf.
“Which one of you freaks is doing this?”
Sophie huffs. “Just breathe. It’s a leg cramp. You’ve been sitting in tight quarters for nearly three hours.”
Miller’s eyes are squeezed shut, so he misses both the warning look she gives Daniel and the tiny quirk of a smile Daniel wears as he stares at Miller’s contortions.
A man’s voice comes from the cockpit. “You okay back there, Miller?”
“Yeah,” he says through clenched teeth. “Just a leg cramp.”
There’s a privacy panel between the cockpit and the cabin, so I can’t tell if the man who spoke is the pilot or a passenger.
“Speak up if you need assistance.”
“10-4,” Miller says.
Daniel snorts at Miller’s cop code, and mutters under his breath, “10-96 says 10-4.”
I’d love to ask what 10-96 means, but Daniel turns to stare out the window. And as soon as he does, Miller relaxes. He’s still flexing the leg, but it’s clear the pain is gone. He gives us all a threatening look, at least partly because he doesn’t like that we saw him in a moment of weakness.
This city we’re approaching is a lot like any other city at night. The only distinctive thing about the skyline is something that looks a bit like a giant lollipop—a butterscotch-flavored Dum Dum that towers over most of the other buildings. I’m guessing it isn’t Knoxville, since we don’t slow down at all.
A fine, misty rain begins to fall as the buildings thin out, and the copter veers off into the mountains. About twenty minutes later, we descend. At first, it looks like there’s nowhere to land—mountains surround us on all sides. But then the lights pick up an area shaped like an arrowhead that appears to have been carved out of the mountainside.
A cluster of buildings sits at one end. Most are your typical rectangle. One is a cloverleaf shape, and the main building is shaped like an inverted cross. As we drop lower, a high wall topped with razor-wire comes into view.
The chopper lands in the clearing between the cloverleaf and the main building, and Miller turns to me. “Hands out.”
I hold my wrists out in front of me, side by side. He grabs them and twists so that the insides touch, then fits me with my own plastic cuffs.
When he motions for Sophie to do the same, she glances down at the baby. “Her diaper is wet and leaking. You want to carry her?”
Miller wrinkles his nose in disgust. “Fine. Keep one arm free.” Once he cuts the tie binding their ankles, Miller grabs Daniel, shoving his hands into a loop. Then he slides the other end over Sophie’s hand and yanks it tight.
The rotors gradually wind down, and after a moment, someone opens the door. He’s middle-aged, average height and weight, about as nondescript as they come. The only distinguishing feature is his nose, which is hawkish and looks like it’s been broken. He’s dressed in military camos, rather than the gray Vigilance Security uniform that I expected. In the Navy, the eagle on his collar would mean he’s a captain, but I’m not sure if it’s the same across all branches. The name tag reads Smith. As he moves aside to let me disembark, he glances at my lip, which is now swollen to at least twice its normal size, and then at Miller, but his expression doesn’t change.
The exterior of the helicopter is as drab as the inside, painted a flat gray-green. Lettering on the long, thin tail reads: US Army. Not good. Yes, this all began as a military project, but to the best of my knowledge, the military hasn’t been directly involved in any actions against the Delphi adepts. If they’re now working with Cregg and Dacia, we are so screwed.
Sophie and Daniel have a harder time getting out, since their wrists are hobbled together. She also has to balance the baby, who is now screaming at waking up to the wind and rain. Miller doesn’t bother to help, and Smith has disappeared around the side of the helicopter to assist a man who’s trying to maneuver my father into a wheelchair.
Miller uses his pistol to herd us toward the main building. I walk a few steps behind Daniel and Sophie, holding up my cinched hands as best I can to ward off the icy needles of rain. As we approach the door, Daniel looks back over his shoulder. “Walls up, Anna. As tight as you can.”
I don’t think Miller was able to hear what he said, but he did pick up the fact that Daniel said something. That earns Daniel a shove in the back, which nearly causes all three of them—Daniel, Sophie, and the baby—to fall.
Daniel’s warning wasn’t really necessary. I was already quite sure that this is, or at least used to be, a prison. And the very last thing we need is for me or my father to take on any additional hitchers while we’re here.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary
April 26, 2020
Daniel, Sophie, and I press close to the side of the building and wait for Smith and the other man, who I presume is the pilot. It’s slow going for them, since the ground is rocky and not well suited for a wheelchair. They nearly dump Pfeifer out of the chair, and I’m both relieved and worried to see they removed the IV from his arm. The good news is they didn’t rip the needle out of his vein as they bounced him across the yard, but the bad news is he’ll be waking up soon.
Beyond them, near the cloverleaf building, is a ray of sunshine in this otherwise dark and rainy night—a van. I can’t tell for certain in the dim light, but it could be blue, and it’s the same model as the one in my vision.
The wind shifts, and the baby’s wails grow more frantic. “Shh, Lily Bee,” Sophie croons. “Mama’s here.”
Daniel pivots as best as he can to shelter them from the blowing rain. But Miller isn’t down with that. He shoves Daniel back against the wall, wedging the pistol into his ribs.
“Stay where I can see you, freak!”
My breath catches in my throat. I know Sophie and I make it out of here. I know my father makes it out of here. So does Miller, although I’m a bit more ambivalent in his case. But I didn’t see Daniel in the vision. I didn’t see the baby, either.
“I was trying to keep the kid from screaming,” Daniel says evenly.
Miller pulls the gun away. I don’t know if it’s because Daniel is nudging him or if there’s actually a smidgen of humanity inside the man. “Okay. If it will shut the kid up.”
It doesn’t entirely, but Lily does dial back to a loud whimper rather than a howl.
The pilot tosses a key ring to Miller, an exchange that could have happened back at the helicopter and kept everyone a lot drier. Miller opens the large padlock and, after a few tries, finds the key to the door itself. The door is metal, and a good six inches thick. It creaks as it opens, adding yet another horror-movie touch as Miller shoves me forward into the pitch-black building.
Smith pushes past with a flashlight. We wait in the dark for several minutes, and then a loud, whirring noise ushers in the light.
We’re in what may have once been a cafeteria. Exposed ductwork runs across the ceiling. Someone endeavored to cheer the place up with a bit of color by painting the pipes red. Murals cover the upper walls
between the windows, painted onto the cement by artists with varying degrees of talent. Drawings cover many of the columns, as well. Most of the artwork is outdoor scenery—a herd of deer running through the woods, a pair of raccoons peeking over a log, a large blue fish swimming lazily between the roots at the bottom of a stream.
One long cafeteria bench remains at the center of the room. Miller shoves me down on one side and tells Daniel and Sophie to take the other. The pilot parks the wheelchair next to them and slings the diaper bag over one handle of the chair. Pfeifer’s head hangs to one side, and I’m reminded of Magda’s daughters at the window of Bell Isle. Chloe, I guess. Or rather Chloe’s shell, since she’s not in there.
Smith frees Sophie’s hands so that she can tend to the baby. Sophie pulls out a diaper and then tosses me a couple of wet wipes. “You’ve still got blood there.” She taps the side of her mouth. I dab the area around the cut, wincing at the sting, until she gives me an all-clear nod.
“Aaron’s going to kick my ass,” Daniel says. “I told him I’d watch out for you.”
I raise an eyebrow. “You weren’t even conscious. And a split lip is the least of our worries.”
Lily is rightfully indignant at having her diaper changed on a cold metal table, but the discomfort is brief. Soon she’s the one person in the room who is in dry clothes, happily taking her way-past-bedtime bottle.
Miller joins the other two men, and once he’s out of earshot, Daniel leans across the table and whispers to Sophie, “Our odds of getting out of here are better once Pfeifer is awake, but only if you can block him from taking on any extra hitchers. This is a bad place.”
“No kidding,” Sophie says. “Dacia said this is where the guy who shot Martin Luther King was held, although she didn’t mention she was sending me with you. Hannibal Lecter was supposed to come here, too, but—”
“Lecter wasn’t real,” Daniel says.
“I know that. But in the book, this is where he was being transferred when he escaped. My point is that plenty of serial killers were housed here. Not the kind of guys you want to have in your head. But I don’t know if—” She falls silent when Miller looks our way for a moment, and then continues. “I’ve never blocked someone from taking on ghosts. I guess it’s the same principle as anything else, though.”