Huge pine trees flashed by the windows. Clover closed her eyes as the car went around a curve and her stomach turned over in protest. They were driving toward Lake Tahoe. Was he going to put her in the Veronica right now?
He finally stopped talking, and she didn’t want to get him started again, so she didn’t ask. She figured she’d find out soon enough anyway. She tried to breathe slowly, to focus on not letting motion sickness take hold, and imagined each mile they drove as a mile that West and Jude and the others were traveling from his reach.
The slow breathing didn’t work. “I’m going to be sick,” she finally said. The only thing worse than getting Bennett talking again would be puking all over herself in front of him.
“You’ll be okay,” he said, and she felt a spike of irritation that actually helped cut through the nausea. How the hell did he know if she was going to be okay or not? “Look, we’re here.”
Oh. Bennett turned the car into a driveway, then stopped at a massive gate. She had to lean toward her window and tip her head back to see the top of it. The driveway veered sharply to the left beyond the gate, and all she could see were trees. “Where are we?”
Bennett rolled down his window and reached out to push a button. A few seconds later the ornate, heavy gates opened as if by magic. Only the Company would waste energy on magic gates, she thought as she watched them. She was terrified, but excited, too.
This was what she’d come back for. This was what she should have been doing when she came back the first time. She needed to find out Bennett’s secrets—the things the rebellion didn’t already know about.
Bennett rolled through the gates as soon as they were open. When he drove around the curve in the driveway, a house came into view, and Clover gasped.
It looked like a huge, ornate sand castle, decorated with sparkling stones and glittering with snow that must have fallen at this higher elevation the night before. She’d never seen anything so beautiful.
“Welcome to the Cottage,” Bennett said as he pulled to the front door and stopped the car.
The Cottage? Clover opened her door and looked up at the house. It had towers and spires. All it lacked to make it a fairy-tale castle were a moat and drawbridge. “What are we doing here?”
“You’re going to live here .”
A shiver ran up her spine. She didn’t like the tone of his voice. There was a finality in it that could have meant anything. Bennett got out of the car as the front door opened. She found Mango’s lead and attached it before letting him out and standing up herself.
A woman stood in the doorway with an unnaturally cheerful smile on her face. She looked as old as Mrs. Finch, but far less grandmotherly. She was big boned and soft with bright white hair cut short that stood up in spikes around her head. Her startlingly smooth skin was completely unmarred by virus scars.
Clover looked at Bennett who was busy at the back of the car.
“Anna,” Bennett said.
“Mr. Bennett. It’s wonderful to see you, as always. If I’d had more notice, I could have had the children—”
“I’ve brought some things for Clover.” He stood up and used an elbow to close the trunk with a loud thunk that cut Anna off. He held a box in his arms. “You might need to fill in the gaps. Karen called you, didn’t she?”
“Of course she did. Oh, we’ll set Miss Clover right up. Don’t you worry about her.” The woman’s voice was as artificial as her smile. Something about her made every one of Clover’s nerves stand on end. Clover stood there, wishing she could disappear, while they talked about her like she wasn’t there at all. “I think we can scrounge her up some breakfast, too. Poor girl looks like she hasn’t had a decent meal in weeks.”
“Come on,” Bennett said as he passed her.
She followed him, because she couldn’t think of anything else to do. For the first time since leaving the motel in Carson City, Clover had serious doubts. She wasn’t going to do anyone any good if Anna locked her in the basement of this castle they called a cottage the second Bennett drove away.
She actually wanted to beg Bennett to take her away, back to the city, back to her room in the barracks. It was only the thought of her brother and her father and her friends, of Jude, that kept her moving forward, following Bennett into the house.
The Cottage’s entryway was nearly as big as the entire house Clover had lived in her whole life. A massive split staircase rose in front of her and their footsteps echoed off the veined marble floor. Anna walked with purpose toward the stairs, and Bennett followed her up them. Clover and Mango lagged back a little, because every step she took was through a mire of apprehension that made walking feel the way she felt in the pool when Jude took his hands away.
“You didn’t mention the dog,” Anna said. Her voice was squeaky and too high-pitched for her body.
“I’m sorry, I should have,” Bennett said. “He’s not a problem is he?”
Clover’s anxiety blossomed into full-blown panic in her chest. “I can’t be here without—”
Anna waved a hand behind her. “Don’t worry. There are a couple of others here with service dogs. We’ll be just fine.”
Anna took the right wing of the staircase, and Bennett followed with Clover and Mango trailing behind. She couldn’t see a sign of any other people. Everything about the Cottage was extravagant, though. The carpet under her was cream colored and so thick her feet sank into it with each step. The walls were covered from waist-height down with wallpaper a few shades darker than the carpet and swirled with shimmering gold.
Questions were backing up in Clover and making it hard for her to maintain her resolute silence. Where were these other service dogs? Where were the kids they belonged to? What happened here? Why did Bennett bring her here? Before she could ask, though, Anna stopped at a door with a crystal knob and opened it.
“This is your room, Clover,” she said, addressing Clover directly for the first time. “You get it all to yourself for now.”
The room had two beds with ornate, white-painted iron headboards and footboards. Both had thick white comforters and white pillows that matched white lace curtains over two huge windows. Each bed had a dark wood desk next to it, and a matching dresser with a huge mirror stood against the opposite wall. Each desk had a large bulletin board above it.
It was like the dormitory at the Academy, only dialed up to impossibly rich. Clover looked up at Bennett. He set the box he carried on the floor at the foot of the nearest bed. Clover twisted Jude’s watch around her wrist.
“Do you have time to visit?” Anna asked.
“I need to get back to the city.” He stepped into the hallway. “I’ll be back in a day or two.”
He left, down the hall, down the stairs, without looking at Clover again. All of this work to get her back, and he just dropped her off without a second thought.
Clover was left alone with Anna. The false cheerfulness was gone. Anna’s upper lip quirked up and she looked like she’d stepped in a pile of goat manure. She pointed to a door in the wall to her right. “You have a bathroom there. Take a shower before you come down, hmm?”
A shower actually sounded like heaven to Clover, but she didn’t say so. “Down where?”
“I’ll meet you in the entry in thirty minutes. I trust that will be enough time to make yourself presentable.”
Anna left and Clover checked the door, but it didn’t have a lock. That was good and bad. She couldn’t be locked in, but she couldn’t lock anyone else out either.
The bathroom was as lush as everything else. The bedroom’s hardwood floors gave way to small white tiles. An old-fashioned claw-foot tub stood against one wall. A pile of thick cotton towels sat on a shelf over the toilet.
Clover closed Mango in the bathroom with her. There was no lock on this door either. She ran the water until it was as hot as she could stand it, then took off her jacket and her shoes, then
the jeans and T-shirt she’d been wearing for several days.
The water felt good enough that Clover let her guard down and allowed a soft sob to escape her. Where were they now? Fifty miles away? A hundred? She let the water stream over her face, wetting her hair. She would find them again. As soon as she figured out what the hell was happening here, in this strange, opulent castle of a cottage, she’d find them again.
“I am not alone,” she said out loud. It helped.
—
The box Bennett carried into her room had three pairs of pants and three tops. The pants were all dark gray and the tops were long-sleeved white button-downs. She also found a gray cardigan sweater. Everything was a size too big but fit well enough when Clover tucked the top in and put on the black leather belt she found in the bottom of the box.
She put on white socks and a pair of plain black shoes that miraculously fit her perfectly. Bennett had taken Clover’s pack as soon as she stepped out of the gate guard’s car and she was sure she’d never see it again. He’d put a canvas bag in the box, but Clover didn’t have anything to put in it.
Bennett had been right. She had nothing of her own, except the filthy clothes she took off in the bathroom and Mango. And Jude’s green plastic watch, which she’d put on as soon as she was dry enough. She picked up her dog’s lead and led him out of the room.
Anna wasn’t the one who met her in the massive entryway. A girl Clover’s age stood there, wearing the same dark gray pants and white button-down top. Even the same plain black shoes. A uniform, then. Her hair was so pale it was nearly as white as Anna’s, and her skin was covered in freckles.
“Come on,” she said without looking at Clover.
Clover hesitated, suddenly afraid to get swallowed up by this huge house. “What’s your name?”
The girl turned and looked Clover up and down. “Elaina.”
“I’m Clover.”
“I know.”
Clover tightened her grip on Mango’s lead and walked with Elaina out of the entryway, down a hallway, and into a room with a long, polished table surrounded by at least two dozen matching chairs.
Most of the chairs were filled with people. Clover saw a boy as young as Emmy, and two men who looked Anna’s age.
“I’ll take your dog to the kennel,” Elaina said.
“No.” She held tighter to Mango. “No way.”
“Anna said—”
“I don’t care.”
“It’s okay, Elaina.” Clover turned and saw Anna come into the dining room from a door to the left. “She can keep her animal with her today.”
Today. Clover crossed her free arm over her body and fiddled with Jude’s watch again. What had she gotten herself into? This was such a bad idea. Such a bad, bad idea.
Clover did her best to choke down a few bites of oatmeal. She was hungry, but her throat wouldn’t work. The dining room was as over-the-top as the other parts of the Cottage that Clover had seen. A massive chandelier hung overhead with every one of a hundred small bulbs lit, despite the sunlight filtering in through a row of windows along one wall. They ate out of delicate china bowls with spoons that Clover thought were probably real silver, and drank orange juice from heavy, cut-crystal glasses.
Clover counted eighteen people, including herself and Anna. She didn’t see any other dogs. If some of them had service dogs, they weren’t with them now.
One girl rocked in her chair, simultaneously pushing away and leaning into the hand of another girl who sat next to her and fed her bites of breakfast.
A boy who couldn’t have been older than eight sat on his knees and beat a rhythm on his place mat with one hand while he ate with the other. He sang under his breath, which caused bits of oatmeal to fly out of his mouth.
Several of the people talked or made noises, but none of them seemed to be talking to each other. Anna sat at the head of the table, arms crossed over her chest, watching. Eventually she lifted a bell from the table in front of her and rang it. Without any other prompting, everyone stood up and picked up their dirty dishes. Clover did, too, because she didn’t know what else to do.
“I need to feed Mango,” she finally said after rinsing her dishes and putting them in a dishpan with everyone else’s. When no one responded, she said, “Please.”
Anna sighed, loudly. “Can I have a volunteer to take Clover down to the kennel where she can feed her dog?”
“I’ll do it.” Clover looked around but couldn’t place the boy the voice belonged to.
“Thank you,” Anna said, then left the room. Everyone else did, too. They all seemed to know exactly what they were supposed to do next.
Clover was left alone with—not a boy, a young man. He looked a little older than West. His eyes were on the floor and he held himself stiff and tight as he started back to the entryway with quick, short steps, not waiting to see if Clover followed.
“Rain today,” he said when they were outside. He finally looked up from his feet to the sky—which was clear blue as far as Clover could tell. He nodded, as if agreeing with himself. “Rain.”
He walked several more feet down a path that followed the side of the massive house. As soon as it curved away from the front, he stopped and looked at the sky again, then slowly turned, and finally, for the first time, looked at Clover.
They stared at each other for a long moment. Long enough for Clover to start to fidget. Something about him made her want to reach out to him, and that feeling was so foreign and so familiar at the same time—
“That’s my watch. My watch. ”
All of the air went out of Clover in one hard, painful exhalation. She covered her wrist with her other hand, against the face of Jude’s watch. His voice filtered to her. The first day that they’d been on the ranch. He always wore it. He left it behind for me.
“You’re Oscar.” Her voice was barely above a whisper. Oscar was taller than Jude, more filled out—he’d had more to eat, she suspected. But suddenly she saw Jude’s face in the face of his brother.
“Oscar.” He reached out, his fingers toward her watch, then pulled his arm back without touching her. “That’s my watch.”
“Jude gave it to me,” she whispered.
Oscar looked up at the sky again. Looking for rain maybe. Jude had told her that he loved rain. A soft, low noise escaped him. He was crying. Clover reached out for him, pulled her hand back, then finally rubbed her palm down his arm. “Shhh . . . Oscar, stop that. Please, you have to stop that.”
He stiffened under her touch, but didn’t pull away. “Jude’s alive.”
“Yes. And he’s safe. He’s safe.” Clover wasn’t sure which of them she was trying to convince.
If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher.
—ABRAHAM LINCOLN, “LYCEUM ADDRESS,” JANUARY 27, 1838
Dear Jude—
I had to go alone. This is what I should have done the first time I went back to the city. Don’t be angry. We all have our jobs and I need to know you’re safe if I’m going to do mine. I should be able to keep Bennett occupied long enough for you and West to get everyone to Southern California. Don’t let West change his mind and go back to Virginia City. It’s too dangerous. The one thing we know for sure about Bennett is that he’s a liar.
I love you. And I will see you again. I promise.
Clover
West looked up at Jude. Shock was a block of ice in his belly. “What is this?”
“Just what it looks like.” Jude paced toward the door to West’s motel room, then turned and came back. “We have to go find her.”
Oh God, Clover. West felt fragmented. He couldn’t pull the parts of himself together enough to process the idea that his sister was gone. “Have you looked for her? Maybe she’s not—”
“She’s gone,” Jude said. He shot out one fist against the wall. “She left me her
e and she’s gone.”
“Left you here.” West contemplated the carpet between his feet, then looked back up at Jude. “You knew she was leaving. You knew—”
West was on his feet, Jude’s shirt in his hands, pushing him against the closed motel room door. “Where the hell is she?”
Jude didn’t fight back. He lifted his chin and said, “She went to Bennett. We were supposed to go together. Jesus, I fell asleep.”
The anger drained out of West, along with just about everything else. “What was she thinking? What could she possibly—”
“She wanted to go back to work for Bennett when Leanne told us he wanted her to. She thinks that’s how she can help the rebellion. And—” Jude inhaled slowly. “She’s right. She was right then and she’s right now.”
“Christ. How can you say that?” West realized suddenly that he was holding back tears. He was so tired. A wave of nostalgia washed over him—for Mrs. Finch and her chickens, for the house that had felt like a prison for so long, even for the cantaloupe farm—and choked him. He was drowning. “How long has she been gone?”
“I don’t know.”
“Jude.”
“I don’t know, okay? I can’t believe she left without me. I can’t believe I fell asleep.”
West stood up. “We have to try to find her. My dad drives fast. He can catch up with her.”
Jude shook his head. “It’s too late. She’d never wait so long to leave.”
West left the room. He didn’t know where he was going or what he should do. Jude was right. Clover was gone. She wouldn’t wait until morning to go—she would have left when everyone was sleeping. When she had plenty of time to get to the gate before anyone came after her.
The motel was teeming with more people than it had seen since the virus. Kids milled in and out of the rooms, making a low roar of noise as they prepared to leave. West leaned against the railing, looking down on the parking lot below. Vertigo brought the faded yellow lines closer and suddenly he knew exactly what it would feel like to jump.
“West?”
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