by Hilary Duff
I stole a glance at Ben, expecting to see him cowering in the farthest corner of the seat. He wasn’t. His jaw was clenched, and the sweat was beading on his face as he breathed hard, his nostrils flaring with the effort . . . but he was sitting straight up, eyes wide open and waiting for what came next.
If he could be that strong, so could I. I stared at the oncoming wall.
A memory flashed in my head—me at six years old, looking up at my father.
“Daddy, what happens when you die?” I asked.
He sighed, then lifted me into his lap. “Physiologically? You just . . . stop.”
“But what about heaven?”
We weren’t religious, but Rayna’s parents were, and they’d been talking a lot about heaven since Rayna’s grandmother had died.
Dad pursed his lips together, as if wondering whether to tell me the truth or what he thought I needed to hear. “I don’t know. I want to think there’s an actual heaven, a place where our souls go after we die. Sometimes I do think that. Sometimes I think our souls come back to earth to learn something new. But sometimes . . . sometimes I think we just stop, and what we think of as an eternal afterlife is simply the last thought we have before we die.”
I furrowed my tiny brow. “So if I think about you right before I die, I can be with you forever?”
Dad smoothed my hair. “Something like that.”
I nodded. “Then that’s what I’ll do. But maybe I’ll think about puppies, too. And candy.”
The whole scene flashed through my mind with vivid detail in less than a blink. Now was my chance to make good on my promise, but I wasn’t going to think about Dad, or puppies, or candy. I concentrated on Sage. On the two of us together, living in peace for eternity.
The Hummer screeched to the side at the last possible second. We fishtailed wildly, the squeal of the tires echoing back to us a million times over. My stomach somersaulted as I was thrown back and forth against the door and then Sloane, and for an instant I bounced off the seat entirely. I was sure I’d be thrown from the car, or it would roll over, crushing us.
Instead, the driver regained control and drove back into the darkened tunnel from which we’d come. About halfway back, he pressed a button on the car visor—it looked like a garage-door opener—and a steel panel I hadn’t seen on our suicidal drive the other way lifted so we could drive through.
“Hope you didn’t wet yourself,” Sloane said. She grabbed a folding knife out of her jeans pocket and whipped it open. The blade was dangerously sharp.
“Nice gut hook,” I said.
Sloane grinned. “You like it? Thanks. Don’t move.”
It was easier said than done. We’d slowed down, but the car was bouncing and swerving. Not moving wasn’t exactly an option.
“Just keep in mind, I’ve got hundreds of soldiers down here who’d kill you if you tried anything. There.”
I felt the rope around my hands loosen and fall away.
“Turning my back on you now. You can either be good, or dead. Your choice.”
As she turned to cut the ropes on Ben, I looked around for the first time since we’d gone through the steel door.
No, not the steel door. We’d gone down the rabbit hole. This place was nothing like the hundred-year-old abandoned subway Ben and I had been exploring. We were in a tunnel, but this one was bright from the giant lights built into the ceiling. The place was crawling with people, most of them as buff and tattooed as Sloane and her driver, and in constant motion. From where I sat, I could see men and women rappelling in competitive heats down the walls. Others ran an obstacle course equipped with tires, rope swings over mud pits, climbing walls, hurdles, and football sleds. Still others did calisthenics to the screaming cadence of a drill sergeant.
“This is . . . incredible,” Ben said, rubbing his wrists where the rope had dug in. Sloane had pulled away the remnants of his gag and sliced the rope from his legs, and now bent to do the same for mine.
“’Course it is. We work our asses off down here. Have for years. I’ll show you the place, but you need to move. The Hummer’s for the outer tunnels; here it takes up too much space.”
Sloane’s driver pulled the Hummer into a parking spot. He got out of the car and opened Ben’s door so we could pile out, then Sloane led us to a golf cart. Her driver followed, but she waved her hand dismissively.
“I’ve got it,” she said. She climbed into the cart, then nodded for us to join her. I sat next to her in the front seat while Ben slid onto the bench behind us. “Should go without saying,” she said as she turned the keys and started driving us along the tunnel, next to the soldiers-in-training, “but you try anything and you’re dead. If I don’t get you, my team will.”
“Your team?” I asked.
“I run this place,” she said. “Elder statesman. Have been for three years now. If I’m lucky, it stays mine for another four months.”
“What happens in four months?” Ben asked.
“I fucking croak,” she said, then winked at me. “Unless I kill your boyfriend first. That’s the plan.”
“So you can get rid of the curse,” Ben said.
“Oh, that’s what you bring to the party,” Sloane said. “You’re the smart one. Yeah, so I can get rid of the curse.”
“You believe the curse is real?” I asked.
Sloane gave a single barking laugh. “Ask that again and you’ll see how fast my gut hook can take out your jugular.”
My heart pounded against my chest, but I kept my voice calm. “I’m sorry. That was rude. What I mean is that we don’t know very much about the curse, beyond that one exists.”
“Damn straight it exists,” she muttered.
We kept driving through the retrofitted subway tunnel, surrounded constantly by the beehive of people going through what seemed like Navy SEAL training. Everyone was focused; if anyone ever rested down here, there was no evidence of it. Nor was there anyplace to do it—there wasn’t a spot of open space that wasn’t designed as part of a workout area. Even the tall wooden crates that could double as stools were occupied by people grunting as they did two-footed leaps on and off them while another of the drill sergeants screamed at them.
Eventually we moved out of the tunnel and into what must have been created as another station, though it was impossible to tell from its current condition. It had become a giant barracks: rows and rows of beds and footlockers. The CV were masters of using their small space to its best advantage: They’d built multiple platforms up the sides of the station, each with identical rows of the beds and lockers. Ladders extended up the open ends of the platforms, giving access to the beds on the higher levels. The lights were dimmer in this part of this station, and I noticed that several sections of the barracks were occupied by sleeping people.
“We operate twenty-four/seven,” Sloane explained. “We sleep in shifts.”
“Are those . . . kids?” Ben whispered.
I followed his gaze. He was looking at one of the higher platforms, which was hard to make out in the dim light, and from so many feet below. But a couple of the sleepers had their heads close to the edge of the bed . . . and I could see the puffy roundness of baby-faced cheeks and lips.
“Speak up,” Sloane barked. “I can’t hear you when you whisper.”
“Sorry, I just . . . People are sleeping. . . .”
“They need to grab sleep when they can, even if bombs are going off around them, so don’t whisper. And yeah, they’re kids. We stick them up top so they get over any fear-of-heights bullshit right away. Not on the very top—that’s reserved for people getting their party on. Gotta keep the new soldiers coming, right?”
“I don’t understand,” Ben said. “You act like you’re training for war, but as I understand it, and forgive me if I’m wrong . . .” He didn’t sound frightened, but I could tell he was choosing his words carefully. “. . . the entire mission of Cursed Vengeance is to find and destroy one man: Sage. Your ancestors were cursed because they stole
the Elixir and forced him to drink it. Now you need to undo that crime by returning the Elixir to the earth. That’s how to break the curse, and to do that, you have to empty the Elixir from Sage, killing him in the process.”
I didn’t care if he was just placating Sloane—it turned my stomach that Ben could talk about killing Sage as calmly as if he were leading one of his college advisees through a tricky mythological passage.
“You know your shit,” Sloane said. “But you’re clueless about what the hell that means. We’re after one guy—one guy who is fucking immortal, and has gotten very good at disappearing and protecting himself. He’s also got the Saviors on him, so we know if we want him, there’s a good shot we’ll have to fight them for him. And we can’t kill him unless we have the dagger, so we’ll probably have to fight for that, too. All that’s part of why we’re so organized, but it’s not the most important part.”
“What is?” I asked.
Sloane drove the golf cart out of the station and into another stretch of tunnel. This one was apparently an ammunitions training ground. The wood beams on the floor had been pulled up so the ground was soft earth, and CV members commando-crawled over it with rifles, then rose up to shoot at targets before ducking down again. Sloane smiled at the sight of one soldier who was particularly adept with the rifle—a girl who couldn’t be any more than twelve. She was slight, but she looked tough.
“Nice shooting, Jaymes!” she called. “Proud of you.”
The girl looked up and gave a rock-on sign, then went back to obliterating her target.
“Look around at my soldiers,” Sloane said to us. “Notice anything about them?”
I noticed they were well-oiled fighting and killing machines, but that seemed like it would be stating the obvious.
“They’re under thirty,” Sloane answered. “That’s the curse. We die before our thirtieth birthday, which is usually the capper to a life of pure shit.”
I took a closer look at the soldiers swarming around us. It wasn’t easy to make out most of their faces while they were crawling and shooting, but I did see what looked like a whole group of very young kids—some as small as the local kindergarteners whose classrooms Mom would visit every year to tell them about how the government works.
“What about Damian?” That was what Sloane had called Rot-Face. I could smell the reek of his breath, and see his black teeth and scarred and abused body. There was no way he was under thirty.
“Twenty-one,” Sloane said. “We didn’t find him and bring him in until he was nineteen. If we hadn’t, he’d be long gone.”
“Bring him in?” I said. “But aren’t people born into the CV? You’re descendants of the same group of three people.”
“Three people who scattered, stayed on the run, and had piss-poor lives where everything went wrong. They did sleep around though, and left kids who had no idea who their fathers were, or what they had done. Those kids grew up with the curse over them and died before they were thirty too, but not before they had another generation of kids with even less idea of what the fuck their grandfathers had done. It was a couple hundred years before anyone had their shit together enough to figure it out. Those people started the CV, but it took even longer to get seriously organized. That’s a lot of years and a lot of short generations. So yeah, you’re born into the CV, but there’s a shitload of kids out there who have no clue they’re part of the club.”
As she spoke, Sloane drove the cart out of the long ammunitions-training tunnel and into another station area, this one bigger than the other two had been. Much of it was dedicated to a mess area, with large group tables and a cafeteria-style kitchen line. This was the part of the underground network that seemed to offer a chance for relaxation. There were open areas where men, women, and children wrestled like lions struggling for dominance within a pride. Groups of sinewy soldiers sat against the wall and smoked cigarettes and cigars, their crass jokes and gritty laughter echoing through the room. A jungle gym, rope course, and zip line doubled as both further training grounds and a playground on which knots of people shoved for position.
Like the last station area, this one had been maximized with several vertical levels. These were walled off by what looked like Plexiglas, so anyone inside could see what was happening outside and below. Inside, they resembled the kind of offices you’d find anywhere, outfitted with desks, chairs, and computers.
“Those offices?” Sloane said. “About half of them are for our computer jockeys. They research the genealogy. When we find family, we bring ’em in. It’s their one shot at a life with purpose and hope. Out there they’re lucky if they die young. If not, they get caught in the kind of shitstorm that spits ’em out like Damian.”
Sloane stopped the golf cart and got out, beelining for one of the ladders that stretched to the upper levels. She didn’t ask Ben and me to follow her, nor did she look back to see if we would, but of course we did. Without breaking a sweat or even breathing heavily, Sloane scaled four ladders, climbing up to the very top of the station. Even with his newly developed muscles, Ben couldn’t keep up with her. I was impressed, though—before, a climb like this would have been impossible for him. Even if he’d had the strength to do it, he couldn’t deal with heights. As it was, I had to work hard to remain just behind him as we rose higher and higher toward the ceiling.
“What do you think?” I asked, huffing as I tried to take advantage of our time out of earshot of Sloane. “Is she telling the truth?”
“Doesn’t contradict the mythology,” Ben said. He tried to cover it up, but I could tell he was huffing too. “And it explains why getting Sage is so important to them. It’s life and death.”
Ben clambered up to the top platform, and I climbed out after him. We’d entered a kind of command center. One wall was covered in monitors showing portions of the two-mile underground subway system, both the renovated ones and the older areas Ben and I had struggled through at first. These were dark, but were scanned with heat sensors that showed any motion in fiery colors.
Sloane was already seated, feet up on a utilitarian metal desk, a beer cracked open in her hand. Looking at her, I imagined what it would be like to have a time stamp on your life. I suppose I had one too—none of my lives had lasted very long—but there was something merciful about not knowing when it would happen.
Since I’d found out about them, I’d been certain the CV were the bad guys—cold, heartless, and evil. But there was more to it than that. Knowing the full story, I felt sorry for them. I wondered if there were other things I’d misunderstood when it came to the Elixir.
“So what do you say?” she asked. “We have a deal?”
I looked at Ben, but he shook his head. He was just as confused as I was. As far as I knew, Sloane hadn’t offered us a deal.
“A deal for what?” I asked.
“Your boyfriend,” she replied. “You find out where the Saviors of Eternal Life have him; we’ll help you get to him, and we’ll help you fight them off. If you can get away with him, you go on the run and live happily ever after . . . for as long as you possibly can.”
“What do you mean if I can get away with him?”
“If you can get him away from us,” Sloane said, taking a big swig of her beer, “before we kill him.”
fourteen
* * *
I LAUGHED OUT LOUD.
“That’s it? That’s why you broke into my room and left the message on my computer? You thought I’d help you get Sage?”
Sloane looked at me like I’d sprouted another head. “What message?”
“The message,” I said. “‘Charlie Victor . . . beneath the flying pig . . .’”
“What are you talking about?”
I looked at Ben, but he wasn’t even paying attention to the conversation. He was scanning the monitors, no doubt taking mental notes for the book he would one day write about the fascinating mythology of the Saviors, the CV, and the Elixir of Life.
“Here’s what I know,” Slo
ane continued. “The Saviors of Eternal Life grabbed your boyfriend in Japan. Because you set them up. Hell of a girlfriend.”
“She saved his life,” Ben said. Apparently he was paying attention.
“Whatever,” Sloane said. “When the Saviors got him, they got the dagger, too. We intercepted them crowing about it before they cut off known communication lines. We’ve been trying to find them, but we can’t.”
“And you thought I could help you. That’s why you left the message on my computer.”
“Stop with the message. I did not leave a message on your computer. If I wanted to bring your ass here, I’d have had my soldiers grab you, tie a cute burlap sack over your head, and bring your ass here. My plan was to watch you and tail you if you got intel and went after your boyfriend. When I found out you were coming to visit, I changed it up. You got our whole sob story, you know why we do what we do, and now I’m offering you a damn good deal—your best shot at getting your guy out alive.”
“For the two seconds before you grab him and kill him.”
Sloane shrugged. “I didn’t say it was a good shot, just that it was your best. Hell, we might find him before you—then all this is b.s. But I know the history—you have a way of meeting up with this guy. Thing is, you go after the Saviors by yourself, you’re screwed. They’re not as organized as we are, but there’s a bunch of ’em, and they won’t give up Sage without a fight. They’ll trap you, they’ll kill you, but they sure as hell won’t be stopped by you. You work with us, we got your back. We’ll take on the Saviors, and believe me, we’ll win. So tell me . . . we got a deal?”
I stared at Sloane, kicked back in her chair. She guzzled her beer and grinned around her stub of a cigar.
“What if I say no?” I asked. “Won’t you just watch me and follow me anyway?”