by Clara Kensie
“Check in her dress,” Kellan said.
“No,” I begged.
He held up a roll of duct tape. “Not one word, or this goes over your mouth.” He motioned to the guard. “Get the phone.”
I shrank from the guard’s touch as he lifted each layer of crinoline until he found my phone. He pulled it from the pocket and handed it to Kellan.
Except for the hum of the tires on the road and the pounding of my heart, the car was silent. I saw nothing but Tristan, lying dead on the floor, his eyes staring into nothing.
But...Tristan had known these people. He’d known Kellan’s name. He’d said, ‘This isn’t the way we do things.’
We.
Tristan wasn’t who he said he was.
Tristan was one of them.
Burning panic rose in my chest, nearly choking me. This was all my fault. I’d told Tristan everything, every secret, and he’d betrayed me. I groaned. Heaved.
“Kellan! She’s gonna puke,” the guard to my left said.
“Damn it,” he sighed from the front seat. “Get a bag.”
The guard opened a plastic bag under my mouth just before I vomited. The driver shouted in disgust. Unable to control myself, I retched a few more times.
“You done?” the guard asked.
Moaning and sniffling, I nodded, my head rolling back against the seat when he pushed me upright again. He opened the window and tossed the bag out, then dabbed my mouth and chin with a cloth. “I could tranquilize her.”
“No,” Kellan said. “If Carson can’t see through her, he’ll think we killed her already. We need to keep her awake until they surrender.”
I closed my eyes, and tears squeezed past my lids and down my cheeks. I couldn’t even wipe them away.
More silence.
Tristan was dead. Tristan betrayed me.
I forced myself to stop thinking about Tristan. He was dead. He was the past. I had to think about what was happening now.
My family wasn’t dead. Not yet. Not if Kellan wanted them to surrender. My parents thought I was at Tristan’s house. My dad hadn’t used his mobile eye on me in weeks, and the chances were slim he would do it before two in the morning, when I failed to come home.
But at least there was a chance. If he was watching through me right now, he would find a way to rescue me. I opened my eyes and glanced around to give him clues. I looked at the men in the front seat, and at the guards sitting on either side of me.
I turned my sight to the windows. The sky was dark, but the illuminated signs on the road showed me—and hopefully my father—that we’d already left Illinois and were heading north on I-90 in Wisconsin. We passed a town called Shanoka. Red Oak. Jeffersonville. Why were they taking me so far away?
Kellan turned around. “She’s reading the road signs. Take that ribbon from her dress and tie it over her eyes.”
Panic surged once again. “No. Please. I’ll stop.”
The guard blindfolded me anyway. Music, classical music, the kind Logan liked, started playing through the speakers. Kellan was playing music so my father would hear it. I was unable to show him anything through my eyes, but he would still hear what I was hearing, and know I was still alive.
“That’s right, Miss Carson,” Kellan said. “That’s exactly what I’m doing.”
Did Kellan know what I was just thinking? Could he read my mind?
Of course he could. He worked for Dennis Connelly.
How could I possibly plot an escape if Kellan was telepathic?
“You can’t,” he said.
The fog that always held me prisoner during times of fear loomed. I surrendered to it.
Awareness returned like a slap when my cell phone rang from the front seat. It must be two in the morning. My parents knew I was gone.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Kellan didn’t answer my phone.
My dad would be sending out his mobile eye for me now, but because of the blindfold, he wouldn’t be able to see anything. But he would still be able to hear me. “Daddy!” I cried into the darkness. “Run!”
I heard a ripping noise, then felt pressure over my mouth. Duct tape. All my father would be able to hear now were my muffled sobs.
My phone stopped ringing, and a minute later, it rang once more.
It rang again, a few minutes after that.
Then it stopped. It didn’t ring again.
* * *
Minutes or hours later, the SUV slowed, then stopped. I took hard, jagged breaths through my nose to get enough air. I flinched as I heard the car door open and I was pulled out. Icy wind whipped my bare skin. Was it snowing?
Stumbling, I was dragged, blind, over a sharp, cold ground. We entered a building, the sudden warmth like fire on my arms and legs. Kellan pulled me along, the patter of my bare feet barely audible over his boot-heeled strides. We might have been in an elevator at one point, going down, down, down, into an echoey place that stank of mildew and death. I staggered as he towed me behind him, barking out orders. I tried to memorize the twists and turns but quickly lost track. Men shouted. Footsteps pounded. Doors creaked open and slammed shut.
Kellan’s hands gripped each of my shoulders, and he sat me on a hard chair. “Stay.”
I stayed. Fear had broken me. Guilt had destroyed me.
He pulled the ribbon from my eyes, then grabbed my jaw. “I hope you’re watching, Carson, because this is the only time I’ll tell you,” he growled, glaring into my eyes. “Follow the instructions I left in your mailbox. My men are following you. Any funny business and your daughter will pay the price. Now come and get your darling Tessa.”
He peeled the tape from my lips and released my wrists from the handcuffs before pivoting on his heel and stomping away, slamming a door behind him. I collapsed into tears, head to my knees, stomach and sides aching with each sob.
Eventually I stopped. I had nothing left. Sniffling, I lifted my head and looked around. A tiny windowless room. A surveillance camera over the door. Unpainted cinderblock walls. A black metal cot. A thin sheetless mattress. A dim light bulb hanging by wire cable from the low ceiling. A small bathroom at the back.
A cell.
I stood, supporting myself on the back of the chair until my head stopped swimming, then stumbled to the door. It had no knob. I tried to pry it open with my fingernails but the seam was airtight.
Giving up, I sank to my knees. I understood everything now.
Dennis Connelly had planned for this night for a long time. He worked with Kellan. He worked with Tristan. As soon as I’d told Tristan all of our secrets, he’d reported them to Dennis Connelly. And then, because my dad would see him if he came close, he had Kellan capture us.
Dennis Connelly had won.
Dennis Connelly was a cruel man. A patient man.
Tristan had lived in Twelve Lakes for five months before my family had moved there. They’d somehow known we would come there long before we did. And then Tristan had courted me for four more months. He’d given me a tiny bit of hope. He’d made me believe he would rescue me.
But none of it was real. Tristan wasn’t real. And now he was dead.
Mom, Dad, Jillian, Logan. We were going to die in a matter of hours. And it was all my fault.
Waves of dizziness and nausea crushed me. My cheekbone throbbed. I touched it lightly, feeling the tenderness and swelling. I touched my chin, and my fingers came back bloody and dirty from the eye makeup I’d cried off. My bare feet were filthy, and a little bloody. My dress, now missing the silver ribbon, was wrinkled, damp, and stained with blood and dirt. My entire body was cold.
Breath coming in rasping sobs, I crawled to the back of the cell and pressed myself into the far back corner. I slid down the wall and drew my knees up, making myself a tight little bal
l. I stayed that way, stiff, shaking, not taking my eyes off the door.
“Dad?” He would be watching, listening. I was sure of it. “This is all my fault. It was all a trap. Tristan was a trap. You didn’t trust him and I did. I told him all of our secrets. I told him everything! I am so sorry.”
If Kellan heard me, via the surveillance camera or his telepathy, he didn’t burst in to tell me to shut up. Maybe he knew there was nothing I could say to my father that would change anything now.
Except for this: “Don’t come for me, Daddy,” I pleaded. “Tristan is dead. They killed Tristan, and they’re going to kill me, whether you come or not. I can’t let them kill you too. Take everyone and run. Don’t come for me. Please. Don’t come. Don’t come. Don’t come.”
I grappled with the fog, begging it to stay far enough away so I could focus. I could not allow my family to come here.
Don’t come, don’t come, don’t come.
I heard nothing but my whispered pleas.
I saw nothing but Tristan’s eyes, staring blankly into mine. Empty. Dead.
Don’t come. Don’t come. Don’t come.
Chapter Thirty
Hours passed.
I hadn’t moved. The only sound was my desperate chanting. Don’t come, don’t come, don’t come.
With a bang, the door flew open. I cowered as Kellan and two guards strode into the cell. “It’s time.” He yanked me up, turned me around, and slapped handcuffs around my wrists again. “March.”
I could not make my legs work. I could not walk myself to my own execution. Kellan grumbled and dragged me from the cell. Accompanied by the guards, he pulled me down long dim hallways, into an elevator, then another hallway. Their footsteps echoed. My bare feet made no sound, but my breath came in ragged gasps.
We reached the exit to the building and a guard opened the door. “Please,” I begged Kellan. “Don’t do this. Please.”
He towed me outside without reply. The frigid air stole my breath. Partially hidden behind falling snow, the sun peeked over the horizon. Wind clawed at my skin, protected only by my short strapless dress, and whipped tiny snowflakes into my hair, on my shoulders, on my eyelashes. I struggled against the handcuffs in a fruitless attempt to shelter myself from the cold.
Kellan dragged me through a patch of trees, down a path of sharp white pebbles that cut my feet. The path ended at a parking lot. We waited, shivering, my feet so cold they were in flames. Men with black jackets and serious faces hovered along the perimeter of my vision, and in the trees. All of them had guns.
I heard a car approaching, and my heart sank when I saw a rusty maroon minivan. Our getaway car.
I was no longer cold.
All I felt now was utter terror.
Kellan rumbled to the guards, “Get in position.” He pushed me to my knees. Pressed the barrel of a gun to my head.
Two guards, guns at the ready, signaled for the car to stop. The headlights shone in my eyes, then turned off.
The guards opened the doors.
My mother sat behind the steering wheel. Her gaze traveled from my knees in the snow to my bruised and bloody face, then focused on the gun pressed against my head. “I’m sorry, Mom,” I mouthed.
She glared, sharp enough to cut stone, at Kellan.
“Don’t even try it, Mrs. Carson,” he shouted. “I’ve got men stationed everywhere, and they’ve all got guns pointed at your daughter’s head. You can take my gun, you can attack me, but if you do, you have my solemn vow that Tessa is dead.”
She sobbed, then lowered her eyes in defeat.
I knew, then, my parents would surrender without a fight. Dennis Connelly’s plan had worked perfectly.
“Out of the car and put your hands on your head,” Kellan commanded.
Shaking, my mother did as ordered.
“Your turn, Mr. Carson,” Kellan said. My dad slumped on the passenger seat, chin to chest. A guard took him under his arm and dragged him out.
I shrieked when I saw him. Blood poured from his nose. It trickled from his mouth, dribbled from his ears, dripped from his eyes. His shirt was soaked with it.
I looked through the minivan windows for Jillian and Logan, but the car was empty.
The guards forced my parents to their knees. My mother knelt, trembling chin held high. My father collapsed with a groan, unable to lift his head, the white snow beneath him peppered with crimson.
The guards pressed their guns to my parents’ necks. Kellan whispered the command. One word. “Now.”
The gunshots were quiet, not the loud bangs I’d expected.
But the results were the same.
Their heads jerked back, then they crumpled to the ground.
And now it was my turn.
I squeezed my eyes shut.
Kellan cocked the gun—
Chapter Thirty-One
—and lifted it from my head.
“Do it,” I whispered.
No shot. No high-pitched whistle.
“Do it!”
Still no shot.
Footsteps. Running, pounding, going, coming.
Someone—tall, strong, male—pulled me to my feet. Pressed me to his chest. “It’s over. You’re safe.”
I opened my eyes, peeked over my shoulder, peered through the fog.
Trees. Snow. Guards. Kellan.
Not over. Not safe.
Kellan stood over my parents’ bodies, gesturing wildly and shouting orders at guards in black jackets. My mother’s neck was angled obscenely; a mask of blood covered my father’s face. Guards lifted their bodies onto gurneys, then wheeled them away, into the fog.
“They’re dead,” I informed the person holding me.
“They’re not dead,” he said.
“But I heard the shots. I saw them fall.”
“They weren’t shot with bullets. Just tranquilizers.” He scooped me up, one arm under my shoulders and the other under my knees. “Let’s get you inside and out of those handcuffs. Warm you up.”
Through the fog, a guard with yellow spiked hair appeared. “Kellan wants the girl back underground.”
“I’m taking her to the clinic.”
The guard tapped his gun. “Kellan’s orders.”
He sighed, but following the guard, he carried me back inside and down the hallway, into an elevator. My head wobbled and fell back, and he used his shoulder to push it forward until it rested on his chest.
“He was going to kill me,” I told him. “The man with the red beard. Kellan.”
“He was never going to kill you. He just needed your parents to think that.”
The elevator door opened, and we followed the guard down another long hallway. “Are Jillian and Logan here?” I asked.
“No. We don’t know where they are.”
They must be hiding. Hiding in the fog, where it was safe.
He carried me through a door and propped me on a cot. I recognized this little gray room. I’d huddled in that back corner all night.
The fog danced and swirled as he unlocked the handcuffs. From far away, I watched as he unbuttoned his shirt, then put it around my shoulders and pulled my arms through the sleeves.
Automatically drawing my hands up inside them, I looked down at the shirt and saw a little pink horse embroidered on the pocket. “My boyfriend had a shirt like this.”
“I know,” he said, his voice tight.
“He promised me he would keep me safe.”
He paused. “I know.”
“But he couldn’t...he wasn’t...real...”
He deflated, burying his face in my lap, layers of crinoline and silver billowing up around him. “I’m sorry, Tessa. I am so, so sorry.”
I blinked, forced myself
to focus through the fog.
Blue eyes, dark with guilt, stared up at me.
Tristan’s eyes.
“Please, Tessa,” he said. “Please forgive me. Please.”
Dark and thick and rumbling, the fog swept me up and took me away.
* * *
“Tessa?”
I blinked, and the fog thinned a bit.
A woman with dark brown skin and a white lab coat knelt in front of me as I lay on the cot. Tristan stood above her, pulling his hands through his hair. The gray cinderblocks of the cell surrounded us.
“Hello, sweetheart,” said the woman. “My name is Kendra Sheldon. I’m a physician. Mind if I take a look at you?”
I looked at Tristan. He nodded, so I nodded too.
She helped me to sit up, then shone a light in my eyes, listened to my heart and lungs, felt my throat. Examined my cheek and chin. “I need to see what’s in your mind. It won’t hurt.”
She placed one hand behind my neck and another hand on my forehead. “Don’t move.” Closing her eyes, she bowed her head. I relaxed into her gentle touch. Her hands were soft and warm, like my mom’s, when she would feel my head for a fever.
But my mom was dead now.
The doctor opened her eyes. “She’s not dead, sweetheart. Neither is your dad.”
“Remember, Tessa?” Tristan said. “They were shot with tranquilizers. Like I was.”
Tranquilizers. Not bullets. Tristan was alive, so maybe my parents were too.
I heard them talking but understood nothing. I flinched at an angry tone in Tristan’s voice. “She’s neutral,” he was saying. “Totally defenseless. That’s why Kellan could do this to her in the first place. Look for yourself.”
The doctor placed her hands on my head again. So warm. A long minute of silence passed. I was about to slip away again when she spoke. “You’re right. Completely neutral.”
The doctor-woman talked calmly, and Tristan paced, saying angry words like trap and punch and shot. Then he said something that made the cell stop spinning: Dennis Connelly.
And I suddenly understood why we hadn’t been killed yet, why my parents had been shot instead of sliced open. “You’re keeping us alive so he can kill us himself.”