by Rysa Walker
Deo’s eyes are still closed, but he sniffs, and then gives me a ghost of a smile.
“That’s right. Bacon. Toast. You have to eat something, kiddo.”
I spend the next few minutes trying to coax him into eating, even waving a slice of bacon under his nose. His nostrils seem to flare a little, like he’s breathing it in. But it was such a tiny change in expression that I could have imagined it.
Aaron is in the doorway now. “Maybe we should try to prop him up? See if we can get some liquid into him, if nothing else?”
I nod and grab Deo’s upper arm, trying to avoid the swollen area on his bicep. Aaron grabs his other arm, and we lift. We’ve managed to halfway prop him up when Aaron jerks back abruptly, banging his head on the top bunk.
“Ow!” Aaron rubs his head as Deo slumps back down onto his pillow. “What the hell?” He takes another step backward, into the main cabin. His windbreaker, with the gun in the pocket, is slung over one of the kitchen chairs, and he grabs it.
I follow him back into the main room. “What’s wrong?”
“Vibes.” He opens the blind partway, looking out at the campground. “Something’s wrong. The thought I picked up . . . well, one of the thoughts . . . was about slamming a guy into the side of a school bus.”
He nods toward the window. The RV life seems to attract a lot of folks who hit the road at the crack of dawn. It’s not even seven thirty, and most of the slots near us are already empty. No school bus, though.
“Maybe it was another camper and not a school bus that you saw?”
He shakes his head. “No. It was a high school student. He was even thinking how the guy’s head would look as he bashed it against the words on the side of the bus . . . Marietta City Schools.”
Aaron pulls out his brand-new burner phone. He and Taylor reluctantly tossed their phones into the trash outside the Walmart where Porter handed over the RV. I’d chunked mine and Deo’s out the window before we even got there, spooked by that last text from Cregg. Porter didn’t even grumble (much) about buying four replacements. I guess living with Molly taught him that teens are more willing to share a toothbrush than a phone. The phones aren’t the latest model, but they’re still better than the refurbished one-step-up-from-flip-phones that Deo and I had.
Aaron turns the screen toward me. “Look at the map. The school is nearly eight miles away.”
“What’s your usual range?”
He huffs anxiously. “A city block. Maybe two, depending on how angry the person is.”
“You’re sure it was at the school? Maybe the guy was waiting for the bus somewhere closer.”
He sinks into one of the recliners near the door. “I don’t think so. And . . . that’s not even the weirdest part, Anna. Like I said, that was just one of the vibes. There were four, maybe five, others that came rushing in all at once. A bit of road rage from someone on the I-77. An office worker who wants to bash her boss with a coffee maker.”
“Does this happen a lot?”
“No. This happens never.” He leans over and looks out the window again. “I mean, yeah, sometimes, when I’m in a crowded place, I’ll get multiple signals. That’s only if there are a lot of people really close by, though. A mall, a theater, an amusement park. And . . . the vibes I picked up just now are miles away from here. It doesn’t make sense! I don’t have that kind of range. If I did, I’d have gone totally crazy long ago.”
He’s seriously freaked out. I’ve only seen Aaron this way once before, at the jail after our little run-in with Dacia. His pupils are dilated, and his knuckles are stark white against the deep green of the jacket he’s clutching.
A jacket that I’ve just remembered has a gun in the pocket.
Aaron follows my eyes down to the windbreaker and then laughs nervously, handing it to me. “Yeah, maybe you ought to take this.” He looks a little embarrassed as I carefully drape the jacket back over the chair. “On the good news front, none of the premonitions were Cregg or Lucas.”
I sit down next to him and take his hand. After a few minutes, he begins to relax.
The camper is oddly quiet, however, and after a moment, I realize why. “Where’s Taylor?”
“Said she was going over to the bathhouse to grab a shower.”
After the experience of emptying the various tanks yesterday, the four of us reached a mutual agreement to use the campground facilities whenever possible. We’d also agreed to follow the buddy system, however.
“I told her to wait until you could go with her, but . . .” Aaron shrugs, knowing he doesn’t need to finish the sentence. It’s Taylor. Of course she didn’t listen.
When I get to the bathhouse a few minutes later, I see Taylor’s bright-blue toenails peeking out from under the shower door closest to the exit. I toss my backpack onto the floor, pull out my shower bag, and enter the second stall. I wait a few minutes, hoping the water will heat up, then simply sigh and step under the tepid spray.
Taylor’s shower falls silent. “That you, Anna?” Her voice is slightly muffled, so she must be toweling off.
“Mmhmm.”
“Did you sleep okay? I mean . . . after . . .” There’s a hint of guilt dimming her usual chirpy tone.
“Yeah. Not too bad.”
“See?” Her voice is back to full chirp now. “You’re better off with Aaron in there, just like I said.”
I ignore her and rinse the soap from my hair as quickly as possible. I mean, she’s right, but I’m still annoyed at the way she’s been treating Deo, so I’m not inclined to concede any point that will make her feel vindicated.
Even though I half expect Taylor to ignore the buddy system again and leave without me, she’s sitting on the bench when I step out of the shower, absorbed in something on her phone. As I’m brushing my teeth, she says, “Breaking news. The government is officially pinning responsibility on a group with ties to West Coast separatists.”
It takes a second for me to realize she’s talking about the fire at the Delphi facility in Port Deposit where Deo and I were being held. The Warren, as it was called by the kids they were experimenting on.
“Really?” I ask around a mouthful of toothpaste. “That seems . . . convenient. Any mention of Cregg or the others?”
“No mention of Graham Cregg, although Cregg Sr. is still spouting off on Twitter about how this is just one more indication of lax port security, yada yada. And how it shows the Western separatists aren’t as peaceful as they claim. Twelve bodies were found in the wreckage. No mention of that Dacia person, but . . . Lucas died shortly after he was taken into custody.”
“Good.” The word surprises me even as I speak it, and I feel a wave of guilt for being glad that anyone, even a monster like Lucas, is dead. But then I remember that he killed Molly’s mother and turned Molly over to Cregg. That he was one of the people who kidnapped Deo. That he raped Molly and would have done the same to me if Ashley hadn’t intervened.
The wave of guilt is barely a trickle now.
I begin shoving things back into my bag, and then Taylor grabs my arm. “I know, okay? You aren’t exactly quiet when you dream, and . . . I know. Aaron does, too.”
“You know . . . what?”
“What Lucas did to Molly. Why didn’t she . . . ?” Her voice trails off. “Why didn’t you tell us?”
I’m pretty sure she knows the answer, but I give it anyway. “Because Molly asked me not to. I think it was the one bit of dignity she felt she could hold on to. And really, Taylor, what difference would it have made?”
“I’d rather have found out some other way than hearing her screaming in your dream. Besides, it wasn’t Molly’s fault.”
Taylor, who has apparently decided she’s tired of this conversation, stalks out of the bathhouse. I follow after her.
“I know it wasn’t her fault, okay? I’m sorry you found out like that. But it was Molly’s decision. Not mine.”
She gives me a curt nod, and continues toward the camper, but not before I see the tears
in her eyes.
Which sucks, because Molly also wanted to spare Taylor and the others any additional pain. And I blew it.
As soon as that thought is formed, I hear Jaden sigh.
Girl, you need to stop beatin’ yourself up. Molly’s moved on. She’s not worried about whether you kept her secrets. And you don’t need to feel guilty about Lucas bein’ dead, either. There’s a dozen or more girls in The Warren who would tell you that him being dead is a very good thing, and some of them weren’t even as old as Molly. Personally, my only regret is that Cregg’s still alive.
He laughs and then continues.
Oh, damn. Now you’re gonna feel guilty about that, too. Girl, you need help.
Jaden’s right—Lucas was a monster, and I don’t regret that it was my hands that dealt the deathblow, even if I wasn’t fully in control of them at the time. But I’m pretty sure the bigger monster is Graham Cregg. He’s still out there, and that’s on me.
The world would be a better place without Graham Cregg in it, even though I’m certain Lucas would have abused more of the girls in The Warren if Cregg hadn’t made it clear that he disapproved. Cregg clearly saw himself as superior to Lucas. And yet Cregg didn’t seem to have the slightest qualm about violating the minds of those girls, making them harm themselves and each other. Making them kill.
But shooting someone who was writhing in pain on the floor wouldn’t have been self-defense. And even though I wasn’t thinking about it at the time, right now, I’m kind of glad I didn’t kill him. I’m pretty sure he knows more about my origins, how I’m connected to the Delphi Project, and whether I still have family who are alive. Even more important, however, is the fact that he knows what drug they used on Deo.
A thin wisp of something brushes against my forehead, and I wipe it with my sleeve instinctively, thinking at first that I’ve collided with a spiderweb. That seems unlikely, however. I’m in the middle of the dirt road that runs through the RV park, so it would either be one hell of a spider or else a fragment of web picked up by the wind.
I can’t really pin down why the sensation unnerves me, but it has me on edge to the point that I startle when my phone vibrates, signaling an incoming text. It’s not a number I recognize. The area code is 240, however, one of the two that serve the Maryland suburbs around DC. Probably Kelsey’s new phone, although I’m not sure how she got this number. Either way, I wish she’d called instead. It would be nice to hear her voice.
When I open the text, I read:
Conscience is but a word that cowards use, devised at first to keep the strong in awe.
I very nearly drop the phone. I don’t even have to comb through Emily’s memory banks to identify this quote as Shakespeare. Richard III. It’s quite possible that Deo and I would have watched that, even if I’d never picked up Emily, even without her memories of a repertory group she acted with back in the early 1950s. In the version we watched last year, Richard was played by Benedict Cumberbatch, who I like on general principle, and who Deo likes because he also plays Doctor Strange.
Graham Cregg peppered me with Shakespeare quotations, mixed with the occasional pithy biblical quote, when they were holding Deo and again when we were leaving Maryland, so I have no doubt that the text is from him. His texts are the reason we tossed our old phones. The reason that we all have burner phones that Cregg should not be able to locate.
While I don’t know how Cregg got the number, the fact that he clearly does have it is not good news. I run the rest of the way to the trailer. Aaron is in the main cabin, right where I left him, still scanning the local newspaper. He looks tense, and I suspect he’s trying to see if anyone acted on the barrage of angry thoughts he picked up earlier. As much as I hate to add any additional worries, I don’t have much choice.
I drop the phone into his lap. “Text message from Richard III.”
“Hmm,” he says, after reading it. “No misspellings, so I’m guessing it’s Cregg, not Dacia?”
“It’s Shakespeare. So, yeah, definitely Cregg. How could he have gotten the number? I haven’t called anyone. Porter, Kelsey—none of them have my number. I didn’t even use it to answer e-mail. The only time I’ve used it other than browsing was day before yesterday when you and Taylor went on a food run and she called to see what I wanted. Should I respond?”
“Uh, no,” Taylor says from behind me. “Why would you do that? Responding would enable him to pin down our location. Right, Aaron?”
“Probably,” he says, then all three of us jump as the phone buzzes again.
Full fathom five thy mother lies, of her bones are coral made.
I’m pretty sure that’s a misquote, but I ignore it for now, continuing with my line of thought.
“This time yesterday, I wouldn’t have even thought of texting him back. But Deo is burning up, Aaron! I don’t believe for a moment that it’s not connected to that injection. We can’t just roll into an urgent care and expect them to have any idea what’s going on with him. Cregg is the only person I can think of who knows what was in the needle they used and how to reverse those effects, so yes—I want to keep that line of communication open . . .”
Jaden’s voice cuts into my thoughts.
It’s connected. Like I told you before, we were their lab rabbits. They shot us up with all kinds of crap to see if they could get a little more bang for their buck, you know? Ramp the psychic stuff up a bit. Never saw a reaction like Deo’s with my own eyes, but there were enough stories at The Warren that I’m sure he ain’t got the flu or whatever. And . . . that smell you noticed in his room earlier? I didn’t want to say nothin’ then, didn’t want to worry you. I picked up that scent all the time in The Warren. I’m guessin’ Daniel did too.
I don’t hear anything from Daniel, but he must nod, because Jaden pauses briefly and then continues:
That’s what I figured. Always the new ones, right, just after they got there? Anyway, Anna, the thing you need to remember is that whatever you grabbed out of that fridge is just one of . . . hell, I don’t even know how many magic potions that they cooked up in that place. Will said they kept spreadsheets comparin’ the different formulas and side effects, so there must have been a bunch of them. Most of them got better in a few days.
But some of them didn’t?
Yeah. But I don’t have any numbers, any statistics. Mostly just rumors that spread around The Warren. Maybe it’s on that thumb drive Daniel sneaked out of the place.
I’m tempted to push for Daniel’s input on the issue, but getting information out of him is torturous at the best of times unless it’s some pointless little factoid. I feel Aaron and Taylor watching me, waiting for me to continue what I was saying. So I set aside my questions for Daniel until later.
“Jaden says he’s seen Deo’s symptoms before,” I say. “It’s definitely a side effect of what they gave him. And some of the kids didn’t get better, so I may have no choice but to respond to Cregg. I don’t want to put the two of you at risk, though. Just . . . help me get a weapon. A gun, or even a knife. Leave me and Deo at—” I scratch my forehead again in response to that weird tickling sensation and then continue. “Just leave us at a hotel and keep going. If all goes well, we’ll meet up later.”
Daniel and Jaden are both struggling to be heard, but I ignore them, stacking the bricks up to keep them out of this discussion. Aaron’s expression tells me that he’s about to argue my point, and I can’t hold down two fronts at once.
“No way,” Aaron says. “We’re not splitting up. I get that we need to keep our options open, but can’t we just hold off a little longer? Unless you think we need to get Deo to a doctor right now . . .”
Another buzz from my phone interrupts Aaron. Even knowing that it’s my only line of communication with Cregg, I’m sorely tempted to grab the phone and hurl it against the wall.
Is this a dagger which I see before me, the handle toward my hand?
“Hey, wow. I recognize that one,” Taylor says, reading over Aaron’s sh
oulder. “We just finished reading Macbeth, and that’s the scene where he imagines he sees a knife pointing toward King Duncan’s—” She looks up suddenly. “Wait, didn’t you just mention a knife?”
“Yeah,” Aaron says, casting a suspicious eye around the RV. “You did. What about the other quotes?”
He hands me the phone and then goes back into the bedroom. I try to remember what was happening when the first text came in. Conscience is but a word that cowards use . . .
“I was thinking about what Taylor told me. That Lucas is dead.”
Aaron is back now, with a small device that looks like a walkie-talkie. He walks around the room scanning as I speak.
“And also feeling bad that I didn’t shoot Cregg when I had the chance, but I didn’t want to have that on my . . . conscience.”
“Ah-ha,” Taylor says. “So what about the other one? Full fathom five, blah, blah.”
“It’s from The Tempest, but it’s a misquote. It should be father, not mother. And I wasn’t . . .”
I stop, remembering the other reason I was glad I hadn’t shot him. “Wait. I was thinking that he might have information about my parents. Whether they’re still alive. What they did at Delphi.”
Aaron starts to take the scanner back into the room where Deo is sleeping, but I stop him. “There’s no bug here, Aaron. The other two texts came while I was outside. I was walking from the bathhouse, out in the open.”
He takes a step toward me with the scanner.
“No. I didn’t say any of it aloud. Those were thoughts. Just thoughts. So unless that scanner can pick up a psychic bug, I don’t think it’s going to help us.”
Another buzz, but this time, my phone is dark.
“Not mine,” I say. “Seems to be coming from over there.”
Aaron’s windbreaker is draped over one of the chairs. He pulls his phone from the pocket. “Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice.”
“Obviously Shakespeare,” Taylor says, “judging from the thys. And it’s a very appropriate quote for the person who was just scanning for listening devices.”