by Rysa Walker
“As for the Senator himself,” she says, “I’ve only seen him once, and that wasn’t for long. He arrived home maybe five minutes before Whistler showed up with Pfeifer. They ran their test, which took forever, and then we left for The Warren. Anything else I know about the Senator is via Dacia. I know he told her not to touch you, Anna. That he had questions for you. Dacia wasn’t happy about that one little bit. I think she has a score she wants to settle, but I’m not sure whether it’s with you or with Graham Cregg.”
“Most likely both.”
We’re all yawning, all fighting the inevitable, when we finally roll Pfeifer’s wheelchair next to the bunk where the baby is sleeping and Sophie crawls in next to her. We debated pulling down the mattress and moving my father out of the chair but finally decided it’s better to wait until he wakes up on his own.
The fact that he’s still unconscious worries me. Sophie must sense my feelings, because she presses her fingers against his wrist.
“I’m not an expert. But it feels okay to me.”
“Do you have anything in that diaper bag that we can use to tie your arm to him?”
“Probably,” she says. “But that was mostly for show back at the cabin, and my arm hurt like hell the next day. This cell isn’t large enough for him to get outside my range anyway. You should get some sleep, too.”
As we’re making up our bunks, Daniel mentions the other thing that’s had me concerned since we entered the prison. “Are you worried about picking up other hitchers if you sleep?”
“A little. But more worried for Pfeifer than me. I was me in that vision. And . . . you were on board when I picked up Hunter. Remember how crazy those first few days were? If I had a new hitcher, it would have crossed my mind during the vision. Plus, I haven’t sensed anyone in this cell.”
“That’s not a good sign for the paranormal tourist business,” Daniel says.
“Just because I haven’t sensed anyone in this cell doesn’t mean the entire place is empty.” I don’t add that if I could just walk into a room and tell for certain whether there were hitchers hanging around, I’d simply avoid touching anything.
“At least the mattress is new. I don’t think anyone died on it. And it even has that plastic smell, so if it was the site of someone’s last happy memory, he or she got lucky at the mattress factory.”
I crawl into the top bunk and look over at Sophie to be sure she’s asleep. We’ve been really open with her, but some sixth sense told me to wait on this question because I felt that it might make Daniel a little uncomfortable.
“So . . . exactly who is Smith? You recognized him when we came into the building, and he was trying to figure you out when he left.”
“Remember when I was telling you about Sariah? I mentioned a supervisor at Bragg.”
“Yeah. You said I didn’t think it was entirely a coincidence that you wound up with that assignment.”
“Exactly. That was Colonel Smith. And . . . um . . . I may have kind of nudged him a few times back at Bragg. Not to do anything he didn’t want to do. Smith wanted to find out what the hell was going on with the Delphi research, too, he just wasn’t willing to push things. When I got back, I tried to tell him that Decathlon was testing new versions of the Delphi serum. But he was up for promotion, and keeping his nose clean, so he chose not to believe it. Higher-ups had assured him, blah, blah. It was clear he wasn’t going to be any help in stopping them, and he might even be a hindrance if he mentioned it to anyone else. So I nudged him to forget I’d ever spoken to him about it. He probably scratched his head a few times trying to figure out why he pulled strings to get me that Italy assignment. He’s a decent guy, but he puts too much faith in the chain of command. I was hoping to get him to remember just now, but . . . maybe I nudged him too hard the first time.”
My father coughs, a dry rattling noise. It’s the first sound I’ve heard from him since we got here.
“I really wish we had that risperidone.”
“I thought Taylor gave you another shot?”
“I didn’t mean for me.” I nod toward Pfeifer.
He gives me a warning look, but my father still seems to be out. Plus, from what I’ve seen, we have very few secrets from the hitchers in his head. They must know about the medication, and they don’t seem worried.
Once we’re in the bunks, though, neither of us can sleep. So we play a whispered game of twenty questions. The pauses grow longer, and our words grow more slurred, but each time I’m about to drift off, another wave of panic grips me.
“I feel like this cell is Schrödinger’s box.”
“What?”
“Schrödinger’s box. Or maybe that’s a bad analogy. It’s more like everything outside this cell is the box. It’s past midnight, so Miller either did or did not call Dacia. And Dacia either did or did not keep her word. As long as we’re in here, as long as we don’t know, it’s like Aaron and Taylor are both alive and . . .” I can’t bring myself to even say the alternative. “Like the cat. In the . . . experiment.”
“No,” Daniel says. “They’re okay. I’m not basing that on Dacia. She probably lied. But . . . they’re smart. Both of them. And I’d know. I don’t get Aaron’s vibes, but I’d know. They’re okay.”
NEWS ITEM FROM THE WASHINGTON TIMES
April 26, 2020
Alexandra Cregg, the granddaughter of Senator Ronald Cregg, has been taken into custody for psychiatric evaluation. Witnesses say that Ms. Cregg, 21, attempted to stab the Senator following a campaign rally earlier this evening. The attempt was easily averted by Cregg’s bodyguard, and no one was seriously injured.
A spokesman for the Cregg campaign noted that Ms. Cregg seemed to believe that the Senator was a member of the WOCAN group that held her captive for two days earlier this week. “This could simply be post-traumatic stress,” the spokesman said, “although we are not ruling out the possibility that someone was manipulating Ms. Cregg’s mind, hoping to use her as a weapon against her grandfather. That sort of terrorism could happen to any of us, but it’s even more likely that Senator Cregg would be a target due to his strong stance against psychic terror.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary
April 27, 2020
The lights on the sparkly pink sneaker flick on and off as I kick.
No, Myron, no.
I watch the lights go on and off. On, off. On, off.
Hands grip my shoulders, pulling me away from the old woman curled on her side, clutching her abdomen. She stares at me with a look of complete horror as I try to kick again.
Unexpectedly, the woman grabs my foot and twists. “She jumped to get away from you.”
The woman’s wrinkled face morphs into Senator Cregg, and then into Graham Cregg. I can’t hear what he’s saying because someone is screaming, but I can read his lips.
We’re more alike than you know.
I sit up so quickly that the top of my head scrapes the ceiling. The small room is in a state of chaos—baby crying, Daniel asking if I’m okay, and Pfeifer in the bunk below me, yelling at me in a foreign language.
And then he yells in English. “Keep the spider in its cage!”
As I’m telling them that he is in the cage, I get a visual from Will.
NOT A SPIDER NOT HIS FAULT
Yes, Will. It’s not really a spider. It’s Cregg. I know that.
JUST PASSING ON A MESSAGE.
I lie back down, rubbing my injured scalp. “Sorry. It was a dream. A nightmare.”
There’s a tiny bit of doubt in my mind, given the words that jolted me out of the dream. But I’m almost positive those words didn’t come from behind the wall. Everything seems quiet back there. Not even the scritch of his spider legs against the brick. I was remembering Cregg’s words. Only a memory.
I curl up facing the wall, in almost the same position as the old woman from my dream—memory—and try to block out the noises in the cell until I get my head together. No matter wh
ere this particular dream ends, I always wake feeling as though someone has kicked me in the stomach. But it also seems right that I should feel that way, like long-delayed justice.
“Anna?” It’s Pfeifer, standing next to the bunk. “Are you okay? One of our . . . hitchers picked up on your nightmare, but Leah calmed them down.”
“I’m okay.”
He stands there for a moment, and then he pats my shoulder. It’s such a hesitant, awkward gesture that it makes me want to cry. “It was just a nightmare. Not real.”
I blink away the tears and sit up, more carefully this time. Pfeifer steps back quickly, like he’s worried about invading my space now that I can see him.
“I’m okay,” I repeat. “Sorry if I woke you guys up.”
“What happened to your mouth?” he asks, tapping his lower lip. “It was bleeding.”
I run my finger over it, and a few flakes of dried blood fall onto the bed.
“Miller happened,” Daniel says, adding several choice words to illustrate his opinion of the man. “He’s been wanting to do that since last December.”
“It doesn’t hurt much,” I say. “But I’m going to make him pay for it later.”
Pfeifer gives me a grim nod. “You didn’t wake us, actually. We’ve been up for several hours.” He takes a seat in the wheelchair. The bruise on his head is no longer raised and has deepened to a reddish-purple. “Daniel said you haven’t slept much this past week. I guess you had some catching up to do.”
The facial expression, as much as the tone, indicates that I’m talking to Scott, not Leah. I don’t know if the others can tell them apart, but I’m getting good at it. It was like that for Didier, my hitcher from Rwanda. He had identical twin boys, and it was difficult to tell them apart when they were sleeping. But he could always tell Jean from Joseph when they were awake, even as infants. If pressed as to how, he could only say it was the light in their eyes.
Sophie and Daniel are sitting on the lower bunk across from me. The baby, who looks like she might start crying again at any moment, stands next to Sophie with her head against her mother’s knee.
Daniel’s concern is clearly etched on his face. He knows my nightmares better than anyone, since he’s lived through quite a few of them. I can’t remember if I had the dream about the old woman when he was inside my head, but it seems likely. And I know for certain that he was around for some rip-roaring Myron dreams.
“Who is Myron?” Sophie asks.
“Someone she doesn’t want to discuss,” Daniel says with a slight hint of venom.
“Hey,” Sophie says. “Back off. She screamed his name. Just wondering if it’s someone I need to be worried about.”
“Myron’s been gone a long time,” I tell her. “But . . . another dream seems to have stirred those memories up a bit. And it’s connected to Graham Cregg, so I think maybe that’s why it caused a commotion with his hitchers.”
“Yes,” Leah-Pfeifer says. “I’ve seen that dream before. It’s the memory I mentioned the other night, or at least part of it. The one I tried to latch on to right before he forced Scott to shoot me. And even if I don’t actually know whether he made her kill herself, it’s still sad. He loved her. That’s why I latched on to that memory in the first place.”
For the first time since my conversation with Kelsey, I feel movement behind the wall. Nothing that concerns me, really, but Pfeifer’s expression tells me that his hitchers sense it, too.
“My walls are solid,” I say, holding his gaze firmly, even though I’m pretty sure it’s no longer my father or my mother behind those eyes. “He’s not getting out. But he doesn’t like us talking about this subject. I think it hurts him.”
My words are somewhat calculated. The hitchers in my father’s head certainly won’t object to making Cregg feel a little pain. But the fact that I know this, the fact that it weighed into my calculations when I decided to make the comment, would be obvious to Will or any other mind reader he’s housing. They’d know I mentioned it purposefully.
“It’s still true,” I say aloud, feeling a little sorry for Sophie and Daniel. They’re only getting my verbal cues and not the mental game of chess that’s going on beneath the surface.
“Is not chess for you,” one of Pfeifer’s hitchers says. “More like checkers.”
I have no idea which one is speaking, but I ignore them and ask about the message Will telegraphed to me a few minutes back.
“You don’t think Graham Cregg killed his mother?”
Leah-Pfeifer says, “I didn’t send a message, but no, I don’t. She’s hard to read, though. Thirty years is a long time to just . . . hover. And she was unstable even before she died.”
It takes a moment for me to realize who she means. “Penelope Cregg?”
“Yes. That was the Senator’s test at his home in Virginia. The kind of test that his son gave you at The Warren. That’s why he wanted Sophie there, too . . . so she could block his late wife’s ability if she decided to give him too much of a bad trip.”
“That’s what happened in the cabin, isn’t it? And in the tunnel with Daniel and Deo.”
“I didn’t try to calm her down in the tunnel. Not even sure that I could have, since Sophie wasn’t blocking. Penelope had only just come on board, and she went wild when Davis pointed the gun at us. He and Whistler got a taste of what she could do as well. I don’t know what they saw, but that’s when Davis peed himself. She doesn’t want to hurt you or anyone here . . . but she’s not happy about the current situation with Graham.”
“So that’s why she sent that message through Will? Not a spider. Not his fault.”
Pfeifer nods.
I hesitate. The last thing I want is to anger a hitcher with her ability. I definitely don’t want to watch my father morph into the title character from a drive-in creature-feature again. And while Sophie might be able to block it, she said her ability gets weaker if she uses it too much. So I need to step carefully.
“I agree on the first part. I’d much rather he took a different form, too, but it’s not something I know how to fix. If she’s claiming he’s innocent . . . well, people can change a lot in thirty years. There’s solid evidence back at that townhouse to show that she’s very, very wrong. My memories of Molly Porter make it crystal clear that, even if Graham Cregg is not a mutant spider-rat, he’s most definitely a monster.”
“I can back her up on that,” Daniel says. “He ordered people killed. And he forced people to harm themselves, to harm others. Might not be easy to hear that about your child, but like Anna says, a lot changes in thirty years.”
“Where did you pick up Penelope?” I ask.
“At the house in Alexandria. Like Sophie said earlier. The Senator was testing us.”
“No. I mean where at the house. Was it on the patio?”
Sophie and Daniel both give me an odd look, and maybe they’re right. It’s not really important. But this is the first time I’ve been able to talk to someone else who picks up hitchers, and I’m curious. Was she still hanging out where she died? Or was she in her last happy place?
“Not on the patio,” Pfeifer says. “But that is the first place he took me. I spent ten minutes there, touching the bricks, the rosebushes, the metal edging around the bushes.”
Scritch. Scritch.
Pfeifer’s eyes widen and he falls quiet. Someone in that head of his is definitely monitoring the activity behind my walls. After a moment, he goes on. “Then they took me to the kitchen, a couple of bedrooms, onto the balcony that overlooks that patio. I ran my hands over most of the surfaces, even though some of the stuff wasn’t anywhere near three decades old. Senator Cregg was starting to get annoyed, I think, but then we stopped in this library up on the second floor. There was a piano in one corner. A few Impressionist-style paintings. All very expensive looking, and that’s probably why the small sketch drew my attention. It was in a plain wooden frame on one of the shelves, next to a leather-bound edition of Shakespeare’s collected works.
The drawing was decent enough, although the perspective seemed—” His face goes blank for several seconds. “Okay. Guess I’ll keep my art criticism to myself. Anyway, the sketch was of a boy sitting on the patio outside. I think it was drawn from the library window. I picked up the frame, and nothing happened. But my thumb brushed over the canvas briefly as I was setting it down, and then . . .”
“Then everything went crazy,” Sophie says. “I saw it happening. That’s how I block. It’s like these little waves radiating out of a person when they use their ability. I focus on pushing the waves back.”
Lily has gotten braver now and is exploring the room, keeping up a steady stream of chatter, mostly nonsense syllables mixed with an occasional emphatic no or mama. She’s pulled most of the food packets out of the box and is now gnawing on the edge of a bag of freeze-dried lasagna. I don’t know if she’s hungry or just teething.
“So, sort of like an aura?” Leah-Pfeifer asks.
“Maybe,” Sophie says. “But no colors. Just sort of a pulsing in the air around them.”
Her description reminds me a bit of Caleb—how the door of Room 81 at The Warren pulsed outward, and the strange hovering waterspout offshore near Sandalford.
“I only see a small pulse for something like that leg-cramp trick Daniel did. But it’s bigger—way bigger—for the stuff Oksana and the others did to Whistler and Davis.” Sophie startles, and I guess she just received a mental flashcard from Will, because she says, “Yes. They did deserve it. I wasn’t passing judgment, just stating a fact. The waves coming off his body when they killed those guys reached clear into the middle of the lab. I couldn’t have pushed them back even if I’d wanted to.”
The baby shoves aside the food packet and pulls herself up to standing using my leg. Maybe that means I’m forgiven for frightening her when I woke up. I tug the collar of my T-shirt up over my eyes to play a few rounds of peekaboo and finally get a smile from her. Then she toddles back over to Sophie repeating the word boo.