I frowned at Julie. “What does Aeternus...do? I mean, what’s the money used for?”
“It helps us to find new people who want to join, like you,” said Julie. “And some of it goes to help everyone: even Outsiders. It helps to bring Beautiful Order.” She grinned as she said the last two words. “That’s what we call it when we fix things and make the world a better place. But it’s not just about donating money. Sometimes, we can help in practical ways, too.”
I was about to ask her what she meant by that, but we were gathering into a circle again. We all shared life experiences where we’d needed someone but, because we’d been Outsiders, we hadn’t had Aeternus to call on. I didn’t want to remember, didn’t even want to imagine how life had been before I’d met my new friends. It made me go cold and shaky. But with Julie holding my hand for strength, I told them about trying to make ends meet in New York, Alec getting injured and my deal with Rick to save Alec’s life. My heart started to pound...I’d forgotten what it felt like to feel so alone—
But then Julie was folding me into her arms I realized that tears were running down my cheeks. I gradually relaxed, the shaky feeling dropping away. “The world is dangerous,” Julie told everyone. “That’s why we need each other. Most Outsiders don’t think like us. They don’t care about each other, only about themselves.”
I frowned a little because Aedan had helped me, even though he was an Outsider. Then I smiled. I’ll have to bring him into The Group. Aedan could know what it was like to be safe and warm, too.
Julie opened up a big cardboard carton and took out some thick wads of paper, stapled at one corner like an examination paper. The newcomers were each given one. “This will help us get to know you,” said Julie.
I looked at the first question. How strongly do you agree with the following statement: I feel happy and secure when I know exactly what I’m meant to be doing.
“It won’t take long,” said Julie.
But it did. The test must have been fifty pages of closely-spaced questions. I started to nod off again, but James brought around more of the delicious coffee and I woke right back up. For a while, the Guides withdrew and it was just us three newcomers sitting with our pads, our pencils scratching away on the paper. I don’t think I’ve ever concentrated so intensely on something in my life.
There was another meal: a dark, home-cooked chili with little crackers. I can’t eat again! I just ate! But I was surprisingly hungry. James came around with a camera and took a photo of each of us for The Group scrapbook.
There were more questions, this time about our jobs. Melanie had a very junior role at the Mayor’s office. Frank was an engineer with a mining company. The Guides seemed very interested in both of those. “There’ll be lots of little ways you can help,” Julie told them. When I looked questioningly at her, she said, “Everyone can help in some way. Doctors can help get medicine for people who really need it, or make sure someone gets special care. Or, sometimes, the immigration people at airports can harass our people for no reason, but if we have someone who works at the airport, they can make sure our people go straight through.”
I nodded. Then frowned. “But I just....” I flushed. “I just teach fitness classes at a gym. That’s all I can do except...fight.”
Julie rubbed my back. “Everyone is valuable, Sylvie. There will be plenty of ways you can help. People who can fight can even become Primes. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves here.”
Time seemed to stretch and blur. There were more meals and more sitting in a circle. I felt like I’d known Frank and Melanie, Martin, James and Julie forever. Sometimes, one of the Guides would go away for a little while but there were always two of them there.
Julie told us some stories about how there were some people who didn’t trust movements like ours. They didn’t like the idea of people helping each other and helping make the world a better place. They wanted to keep the world under their control. Sometimes, they even tried to hurt us. “But we’re stronger than them. As long as we work together to Protect The Group.” She motioned for us all to join hands: by now, it felt natural. “I’m Julie and I will protect all my friends,” she said, looking around at us. “I will Protect The Group.”
We went around the circle saying it. Then, after a little more talking, we did it again. And again. It started to get frustrating. I understand! Enough, already! But after a while, the words started to sound reassuring and familiar, like the lyrics to a song you love. They seemed to resonate in me. Hearing the others say them felt right and, each time we went round, I couldn’t wait for it to be my turn.
“I’m Sylvie,” I said. “And I will protect all my friends. I will Protect The Group.”
But later, when we were all quiet, I frowned. A memory was coming back to me, hazy and faint. Aedan. Aedan was one of those people who didn’t trust Aeternus. And he’d convinced me. I’d even come here to...I suddenly felt dirty. To spy on my new friends. I must tell them!
“Are you alright, Sylvie?” Julie was looking at me strangely. “Is something wrong?”
I nodded. Aedan and Carrick and Kian and Sean...they were wrong about Aeternus. So wrong. They might hurt us by mistake. And we must Protect The Group. “There are some people who don’t like you,” I blurted. “They sent me here.”
Julie leaned forward, suddenly very serious. “Oh?” She led me off to a corner. “Tell me all about them.”
At that moment, the door opened and Martin walked in. I hadn’t even noticed that he’d left. He’d changed his clothes: is that why he’d been gone?
The door had swung almost shut behind him when it flew open again, so hard the whole room seemed to shake. A man burst in: a big man with very dark hair and heavy brows. I knew him instantly but in that way you recognize an old classmate you haven't seen in years. Aedan!
But Aedan was an Outsider.
More men rushed in behind him, with the same dark hair. His brothers. They were Outsiders, too. They didn’t understand. They wanted to hurt us.
As if to prove it, Aedan grabbed Martin and slammed him up against the wall, pinning him there by his throat. Melanie was screaming over and over again. Julie, who had been sitting on the floor, was crawling backwards frantically, trying to get away. James rushed forward to protect us but the man in a leather biker cut—Carrick!—swung a shotgun up and slammed the butt across James’s face. I screamed as he fell to the floor.
“No!” I said, trying to stand up. “They’re my friends!” But my legs felt like they were made of matchwood, crumpling under my weight. Why was I suddenly so tired?
Aedan was punching Martin in the face again and again. Kian and Sean ran over to me but I seemed to see it in slow motion. They trampled on our lovingly filled-in personality tests leaving big, dirty boot prints on them. I snatched my test up before it could be trodden on.
Kian grabbed one of my hands and Sean grabbed the other and they hauled me up, supporting me between them. But their hands didn’t feel like holding hands with Julie and Martin. These people were Outsiders and their grip was hard and cold. I started to panic. What if they— No, they wouldn’t—
Martin fell to the floor, his face a bloody mess. Aedan ran towards me and scooped me up into his arms, cradling me with one arm under my back and another under my legs. “It’s okay,” he said. “It’s okay.”
And it was. All my love for him flooded into my mind, a warm sea that fought against the cold and panic. Everything was going to be okay.
“We’re getting you out of here,” Aedan told me.
What? WAIT! I tried to tell him that he was wrong about Aeternus, that he didn’t understand, but he was looking towards the door. Then I heard a woman’s voice, quick and efficient, saying, 911: What is your emergency?
“There are people in my house!” yelled Julie into the phone. “Armed men!”
“We need to go,” growled Carrick.
And suddenly Aedan was moving, carrying me towards the door. Away from The Group.
I took a huge, panicked gulp of air and dived out of his arms. When I landed, my legs were so weak I almost fell.
“Sylvie!” There was real fear in Aedan’s voice. He tried to pick me up again, his arm encircling my waist.
“No! I don’t want to go!” My voice was shrill, hysterical.
He lifted me.
And I punched him as hard as I could.
His head snapped to one side and there was a sickening crack as his nose broke. He stared at me, dumbstruck. And the fear that had been on his face before was replaced by sheer terror.
The room was silent for a second. I stood there staring, unable to believe what I’d done. The shock of it cleared my mind just enough and a big, hot swell of love broke through me. Oh Jesus! Aedan! I ran into his arms.
Kian and Sean and Carrick surrounded me—to keep me safe or to stop me running again, I wasn’t sure which. They hustled me and Aedan outside. The Mustang was there and they pushed me into the back seat, jammed between Carrick and Aedan. Sean and Kian jumped into the front and we roared off.
I twisted around to look at the house as it receded. The loss of leaving The Group started to hit and suddenly I couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe. Tears started to stream down my face. “Why did you—” I asked. My face crumpled. My heart was broken. I felt like I had when Aedan walked away from me in the rain. “I was Inside!” I screamed at them. “I was Inside and it was so good! Why did you take me away from them? I only got to be with them for a few hours!”
Aedan cradled my hot, red cheeks in his hands. “Sylvie,” he said, his face deathly pale. “You’ve been gone for three days.”
31
Sylvie
No one, including me, realized just how many drugs were in my system, at first. The best thing would have been for me to sleep: that’s what my body needed. But they drugs had left me far too wired. So as they began to fade, I got to lie on a bed, wide awake, as all the carefully-engineered fear and loneliness and need flooded through me. I wasn’t just withdrawing from the drugs; I was withdrawing from The Group. I cried until the pillows were dripping wet. I threw up five times.
And through it all, Aedan was there with me, holding my hand. Carrick had helped him set his nose and Annabelle had taped it but he refused to go to a hospital until I was okay.
It took forty-eight hours for most of the drugs to seep out of my system. Some would take longer still, but I was able to finally sleep. I curled up in a fetal ball and Aedan curled up around me, a barrier of warmth and strength that would keep anything out.
When morning broke I still felt shaky and tired but I felt more like me again. Aedan was already awake, still cuddled around me but half sitting up, looking at something small in the palm of his hand. I tried to look but he hid it away in his pocket as soon as he realized I was awake.
There was a knock at the door. I sat up and, a second later, Kian put his head around the door. It hadn’t registered, when they’d rescued me, but one side of his jaw was swollen and bruised. “You okay?” he asked. “You need anything?”
I shook my head, trying not to stare at his jaw. Then, “Actually, could I please try some coffee?” I felt like my stomach was finally returning to normal.
Kian nodded and disappeared, his eyes troubled. “He blames himself,” said Aedan.
“What happened to his face?”
“I hit him,” said Aedan, looking away.
I put my hand on his chin and gently turned him back to look at me. His nose seemed to be healing okay but I was going to make sure he saw a doctor today. “I’m sorry,” I said, looking up at him. “You hitting Kian, me hitting you...I caused a lot of trouble.”
“You didn’t cause anything,” Aedan told me, pulling me close. “It’s all on the cult.”
I gingerly touched his cheek, not daring to touch the nose itself. It was the first time I’d really injured him, despite all our fights in the ring. “Does it hurt?” I asked.
He gripped my hand in his big, warm one. “No.”
“Liar.”
“Well, it’s my own fault. Should have had my guard up.”
He meant it as a joke but the memory of hitting him kept playing on loop in my mind. Fresh tears sprang to my eyes. “I’m sorry!” I sobbed.
He smoothed his hand through my hair. “It wasn’t you,” he said, and crushed me against him. I sat with my cheek against his chest, my tears wetting his skin. I loved this man. Loved him like I’d never loved anyone my whole life. The fact that Aeternus had managed to overcome all that, to hotwire my brain to be so scared of being separated from them that I’d lash out at him...that truly terrified me. I didn’t want to think there were people like that in the world. If they did it to me, they could do it to someone else.
And then my stomach twisted. They had done it to someone else. Melanie and Frank. And, God, five thousand other people! All of them had people they’d loved, normal lives...and Aeternus had turned them against them. I made up my mind, in that moment. This wasn’t just about finding Bradan, anymore. We had to stop them.
“How did you find me?” I asked when I eventually felt strong enough to move back from him.
He told me how they’d searched the fair without finding any clues. How they’d eventually had to settle for going to more fairs over the next few days, until they’d finally found one with an Aeternus tent, and then followed Martin to his car and then to Julie’s house. “We were going out of our minds,” he said. He couldn’t look at me for a moment. When he did, his eyes were wet. “Jesus, Sylvie, I thought I was never going to see you again.”
He threw his arms around me and hugged me so tight my ribs ached, his arms like bands of iron that were never going to separate again. It was exactly what we needed. Kian knocked again and brought in two steaming mugs of coffee but Aedan didn’t let me go. I felt him lift his head, though, and nod to his brother over my shoulder: an apology. Kian put one big hand on Aedan’s shoulder and squeezed it in reply.
When he’d gone, Aedan and I sat on the bed and I told my story. I couldn’t bear to be out of his arms: if I couldn’t feel them around me, I started slipping back to Julie’s house. Then everything she’d forced into my mind started screaming at me. That was the problem: with the drugs gone, I knew what was in my head was wrong, but it was still there, telling me I needed to run back to The Group. Trying to ignore it was like trying to ignore music blasting at ear-splitting volume from speakers right next to your head.
So Aedan sat with his back against one of the posts of the four poster bed and I pressed my back against his chest. He wrapped his arms around me and that seemed to quiet the memories down. I told him how I’d entered the tent. How something had happened in there, something that had made me receptive and pliable. “I don’t understand it,” I said, shaking my head. “He must have drugged me but I was so careful! I didn’t drink the water!”
And then, replaying it in my mind for about the twentieth time, I saw it: the drug had been in the ice cubes. Martin had put them in my drink but not his. And that realization unlocked everything: I started to see how I’d been played. The room, so bakingly hot. The safe, shrink-wrapped cans of Coke, so temptingly sitting there in my eye line. I’d thought I was being so clever but I’d done exactly what I was meant to.
As I related it all to Aedan, I closed my eyes and put my head in my hands. It all seemed so obvious, now. The balding, overweight Martin, so unintimidating. Not really a cult member at all, just an accountant. Putting me at my ease, always there to disarm me just as I was getting suspicious. He’d probed me gently. He’d asked if I had friends and he must have seen the sadness in my eyes and steered the conversation that way. “He figured out my weakness and used it,” I said savagely.
Aedan’s arms tightened around me. “What weakness?”
I shook my head, embarrassed. “Doesn’t matter.” Martin had used every reverse psychology trick in the book on me. Instead of asking me to go with him, he’d said he had to leave...and I’d begged him to take me wi
th him. “I feel so stupid,” I said, my voice thin.
“You’re not stupid. These people are just the best at what they do. I don’t know who that guy was, but he wasn’t a fucking accountant. Professional con man, maybe. Or they’d trained him up.”
I remembered what Julie had said: one day, you might be a guide. A few years and they would have had me bringing new people in. I felt sick. I thought back to Gwen, the student I’d met at the fair, the one who’d shown me where the tent was. “God, that poor girl,” I said. “She nearly wound up in Aeternus instead of me, and no one would have come to rescue her.”
Aedan went quiet, as if there was something he didn’t want to say.
“What?” I asked.
“We saw her at the fair today, the one we followed Martin from.”
I stared at him. “Gwen was in on it too?!”
I felt him nod.
I groaned. It was all so obvious, now. Martin stayed in the tent and Gwen and probably others—patrolled the floor, looking for likely candidates, befriending them. Appearing eager and just a little naive, so the targets felt protective and slightly superior. Telling us how great Aeternus was, a personal recommendation. Marketing companies had a name for it: social proof. Oh, but there was always that little bit of hesitance: I think it’s for people a couple of years older than me, Gwen had said. And of course I’d gotten all excited because that described me. If she’d latched onto a man, she would have said, I think it’s more of a guy thing.
The whole process was perfect. Practiced. Young members like Gwen to spot potentials and bring them to more experienced, trained members like Martin, Julie and James who’d drug them, transport them to the house and then tag-team them for days to break them down. The terrifying part was how well it had worked. I’d always thought of myself as smart and independent and—at least since Aedan—I could stand up to people. But in the space of three days, these people had rewired me.
I pulled myself from Aedan’s arms, ran to the bathroom and threw up. When I came out, I told him I was okay but I was lying. I said I needed some space and, even though I could see it killed him to do it, he hugged me and left me alone.
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