The White Rabbit Chronicles

by Gena Showalter

  Reeve patted my hand. “What’s Cole angry about? What does he think you’ve done?”

  “I...” How could I explain? “My mom...wasn’t my birth mother. My real mother worked for Anima and even helped arrange his mother’s death. That’s why the guys were so freaked about my ability. It came from my mom. And I...I’ve been talking to her, like I talk to my little sister. I trust her. Cole wants me to stop.”

  “Oh,” she said, a thousand emotions dripping from that one word. Clearly, she agreed with Cole.

  “Not helping,” I said on a sigh.

  Should I apologize to Cole?

  Answer was immediate. No! Helen was my mother. The only one I had left. I didn’t want to lose her the way I’d lost everyone else. I would talk to her—believe her—if I wanted.

  Kat tapped her chin and said, “Let’s look at this situation like a math test. There are four possible answers. A, Cole’s wrong and you’re right. B, Cole’s right and you’re wrong. C, you’re both wrong. And D, you’re both right. You’ve selected A, and he’s selected B. Meaning, you’ve both flunked. The correct answer is D, and if you guys are too stubborn to see that, you’re going to lose each other.”

  I rolled to my side, sighed. “I need to think.”

  “My genius usually has that effect. Take all the time you need.”

  Kat and Reeve switched topics, and I might have joined...if I hadn’t seen Helen kneel beside the bed. The source of my problem.

  Actually, no. That was Cole.

  Our eyes—so identical in color—met and I found I couldn’t resent her. Couldn’t even work up a spark of upset. She was here. For me. Part of me loved her for it.

  She reached out as if she meant to smooth the hair from my forehead, smiled sadly just before contact that would never happen and dropped her arm to her side.

  “Close your eyes,” she said.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Why what?” Reeve replied.

  Note to self: must guard my tongue.

  “I’m going to close my eyes for a bit,” I said, attention locked on Helen. “You guys continue on without me.”

  Kat patted my shoulder. “If you insist.”

  “When you were five, I made molds of your hands....” As she spoke, the scene began to crystallize in my mind.

  I sat at the edge of a red-and-black rug playing with a toy car, rolling it over dolls. Bowls of powder and water circled me. Helen was in front of me, a black ink pad and several towels beside her.

  “I made molds of your hands,” vision Helen said, “and now we’re going to add your fingerprints to the ends of the fakes. That way, I can upload your prints into Anima’s system.” She smiled at me. “One of their greatest flaws is their cloak of secrecy. The medical side is never told what the security side is doing, and so on and so forth, so that no one can ever reveal all of their schemes. I’ll create a fake name for you, call you an agent, give you the same security clearance I have, and they’ll never know, never remove it, because you’ll never be reported as missing or dead.”

  She cleaned my hands, smiling triumphantly, almost manically. “If ever they capture you, you’ll be able to free yourself. Just hold your palm to their scanners. Hopefully, I’ll have destroyed Anima long before anything like that can happen. But if not...” She pressed each of my fingers into the ink pad. “I want you taken care of.”

  Thoughts raced through my mind. Helen had loved me. Did love me. Cole was wrong about her. She wasn’t here to harm me or betray me. She would die first—as she’d proved.

  Because of her, I could get in and out of Anima. I could free Justin, keeping my promise to Jaclyn.

  I just had to find him first. But Ethan would help me with that.

  Thank you, I mouthed.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t appear to you sooner,” the real Helen said. “I’m sorry you were captured and tortured, and the way out was within your reach, you just didn’t know it. They have ways of blocking Witnesses from their buildings, and I couldn’t get to you. Knew you wouldn’t believe me even if I could. People don’t listen to what they’re not ready to hear. Now you know everything, and if you want me to leave and never return...for you, I will. For you, anything.”

  Never see her again?

  It’s what Cole wanted.

  “Stay,” I said.

  Chapter 25

  ZOMBIE SEE, ZOMBIE EAT

  I thought about Helen—my mother...my beloved mother—all night. Alone. Cole never snuck into my room.

  In his defense, I never snuck into his.

  The next morning, however, he banged on my door. “Ankh’s office. Now.”

  That’s it? That’s what I got from him? Where was the cuddler I’d left at River’s?

  I rushed through a shower, brushed my teeth, dressed. Cole, River, Frosty and Bronx were already assembled in the office.

  Cole wouldn’t meet my gaze. “Call Ethan. Set up the trade.”

  Bleeding inside.

  But I’d made my choice, hadn’t I? I’d have a relationship with Helen, no matter what.

  I gulped and dialed the number. The phone rang over and over, but Ethan never answered.

  I texted him, and though we waited five minutes...twenty...forty....he never replied.

  It made me nervous. Was Justin okay, or had he—

  No, don’t go there.

  We spent the rest of the day on a hunt for Dr. Wyatt Andrews. The name Helen had given us. But we found absolutely no hint of him.

  It was as we were stomping back into Mr. Ankh’s house that Cole finally looked my way—and I really wished he hadn’t. His violet gaze proclaimed: Told you so.

  He was certain Helen had lied about the doctor’s identity.

  I stopped hurting, stopped bleeding and got angry all over again.

  A day passed, then another and another. Still no word from Ethan.

  Cole and I barely spoke, the tension between us like needles in my skin. He felt as if I’d betrayed him, and in a way, I had. But he’d betrayed me, too. We were supposed to put each other first. Right now, we were closer to last.

  Every night I climbed into my big bed, alone, and cried. We weren’t even having visions anymore.

  By choice?

  If so, it was his, not mine.

  Helen came to see me only once. I suspected she was keeping her distance, even though I’d asked her to stay, in an effort to make things easier for Cole and me. I was relieved—and angrier.

  I asked her how she was able to visit, when Emma struggled more and more to do so as the bond between us weakened. She said it was the slayer side of her—used to operating in the spirit realm, she could do more than the average dead girl.

  She also told me where one of Anima’s laboratories was located. I told Cole. He knew where I’d gotten my information and dismissed it. So, I did the only thing I could. I called River and made plans to raid the building with him.

  When Cole found out about that, he utterly lost it.

  He stomped into my room, slammed the door. “You don’t go to River for anything.” He was savage, intense. “You come to me.”

  I was in the process of gathering my things, expecting River to arrive at any moment. I stopped to glare. “I did. You ignored me.”

  “I’ve never ignored you. I just didn’t mention that I told my dad about the lab and intended to do a stakeout tonight.”

  Wait. “You were going to do a stakeout without telling me? Why?” Did I really need to rack my brain? “Never mind. You didn’t want me to warn Helen.”

  A muscle ticked under his eye.

  Bingo.

  Blood boiling, I pointed to the door. “Get out. Now.”

  Features as cold as ice, he planted his feet. “Make me.”

 
; I pushed him.

  He didn’t budge.

  I pushed again, harder, and finally, movement. He stumbled back a step. I could feel his heart racing under my palm. It was the only thing that kept me sane. He was affected. He might not want to show it, but he was.

  “I’m only trying to protect you,” he said through gritted teeth. “Helen is going to betray you, and if it doesn’t get you killed, it’s going to break your heart.”

  “I don’t need your protection, Cole. I need your support.” Why couldn’t he see that?

  “You can’t have it. Not in this. I will always give you what you need, even if it’s not what you want.”

  “Need, according to you.”

  “You aren’t objective.”

  “Neither are you!”

  He wrapped his fingers around my wrist, squeezing just enough to hold me steady. At first, I thought he meant to bring my knuckles to his lips and kiss me. Wishful thinking. He let go, severing contact.

  “I’m going with you to the warehouse,” he said.

  Calm. “Fine. I can’t stop you.” Didn’t want to stop him. “Dress in black. We’re not stopping with a stakeout.”

  He opened his mouth to say more, but closed it. Then he said, “Let’s try to force a vision. See what happens.”

  Now he wanted to try? “No,” I said and turned away. I didn’t want to see our future. Not anymore.

  He left the room without another word—and he was the one to break my heart.

  Compartmentalize.

  No. Just...no. I wouldn’t start that again. At best, it was a temporary fix. I’d pour my anger and hurt into destroying Anima.

  I finished arming myself and marched to the foyer. River, Camilla and Chance were already waiting. As were Cole, Frosty, Bronx, Veronica, Gavin and Mackenzie. How had Cole gathered the troops so quickly?

  I can do this. I kept my attention trained on River. “Bring everything we’ll need?”

  “More than.”

  Good.

  We headed outside.

  Frosty threw his arms around my shoulders and whispered, “This is hard for Cole. The situation scares him, that’s all.”

  “He’s not the only one,” I muttered.

  “Yeah, but you’re a girl. The braver species.”

  “This is true.”

  The lab was just outside of Birmingham. We parked down the street, watching the front doors, taking pictures of the employees who entered and left the building. River told Cole our strategy, and though the muscle below his eye started ticking again, he agreed it was sound.

  Finally, darkness fell. Time to get to work. My adrenaline jacked up as we took our places around the building. Only two guards manned the reception desk.

  “In five...four...three...” River’s voice whispered through the tiny bud in my ear. “Two. One.”

  Camilla approached the glass doors in front and knocked frantically. Her shirt was soaked with fake blood, and she clutched the “wound” as if she was in terrible pain and even wavered on her feet as if she was about to faint.

  Guard Number One popped to his feet. Guard Number Two grabbed his arm to hold him in place. From the shadows outside, I watched as One and Two engaged in a fiery conversation. Ultimately, Two picked up the phone to call...911? His boss?

  Taking it up a notch, Camilla fell to her knees, then tumbled the rest of the way to the ground, where she sprawled, still as death. One ignored his buddy and rushed to the door. The moment it was open, and he was leaning down to help her, Camilla shot him point-blank with a tranquilizer gun.

  Cole did a mad dash from the shadows to the doorway, leaping over Camilla and the guard to shoot Two with a tranq. He collapsed, and Cole swiped up the phone to listen.

  “Hadn’t finished dialing,” he said.

  Frosty and Bronx dragged One inside. The rest of us came in behind them. I made sure to lock the doors. As we tiptoed through the narrow corridor, part of me expected a million guards to rush out of hiding and Frosty to go bat-crap crazy and kill them. When would the visions come true?

  We reached a thick, red door without incident. The ID pad on the left was like a neon sign flashing the words You’ll. Never. Get. Past. This. Point.

  Could I? Even though Helen had said my prints would not be wiped from Anima’s system, eleven years was a long time. Anything could have happened.

  Chance withdrew a bunch of equipment I didn’t recognize, hooked this to that, and that to this, pushed buttons, rewired and boom, it was Open Sesame. No fingerprint ID necessary.

  Which was probably for the best. Cole would freak, and everyone else would claim Helen had done it to trap me in some way. To trap us.

  We found offices and, under Camilla’s direction, copied the hard drives. We found rooms with medical equipment and a vast array of medications and, again, under Camilla’s direction, took samples. “We need that. And that. And that,” she said, expecting us to grab the items.

  As River’s sister, she was used to taking charge. I got that. But I wasn’t her lackey, and she wasn’t my boss. Her commands scraped my nerves raw.

  In the back was an unlocked door. I checked behind me. No one paid me any attention. I breezed through and found myself in a hallway. Alone. At the end was another door, but it was locked. Licking my lips, I performed another quick check before resting my palm on the ID screen. Lights glowed between my spread fingers. I waited with bated breath—

  And the lock disengaged.

  I couldn’t... It was... Wow. Just wow. It had worked.

  “Ali,” Cole barked.

  I jolted, guilty.

  I raced around the corner, chasing the sound of his voice. Everyone had gathered in the back of the building, where at least fifty cages with grunting, collared zombies lined the wall. We ashed the creatures and stole their collars.

  We checked the rest of the building, found nothing, no one, and dragged the unconscious guards outside. Then we did what we’d all been waiting for. Destroyed. Everything.

  River claimed to be something of an explosives expert and set a charge. The entire structure imploded, tumbling down, dust pluming in the air without any debris flying out to harm a civilian. A sense of triumph.

  At Mr. Ankh’s, we poured into the entertainment room to celebrate.

  I lost interest, my mood dark.

  Cole stood off to the side, chatting with Camilla.

  Jealousy prickled at me as I strolled over. I placed my hand on his shoulder. Rising on my tiptoes, I whispered, “Guess Helen wasn’t lying after all” straight into his ear.

  He stiffened, giving his back to Camilla to glare at me. “Not this time.”

  “Not ever.”

  “Why can’t you see the truth? She is the spider, and you are the fly. She’s just lured you into her web.”

  My hands tightened into fists, and I looked pointedly at Camilla. “I could say the same to you. Enjoy your time together.”

  I walked away, hating him...hating myself.

  * * *

  Over the next few days, a routine developed. Mr. Ankh tested the samples we’d stolen, becoming increasingly frustrated with the results. Everything was useless. The more tech-savvy people dissected every word on every computer file pulled from the slip disks, but again, there was nothing of value.

  It was as if Anima had known we were coming, removed everything incriminating and let us have the lab. Let us waste our time searching for answers that weren’t there, either to pacify us or distract us.

  If that was true, we had a mole in our midst—which might also explain how Benjamin the assassin had gotten free, despite what he’d said.

  The idea sickened me. I trusted everyone in my group; we’d fought together, bled together. And I wanted to trust River and his friends. But could I
? I mean, they supposedly had spies inside Anima, and yet, there was never any new information to report.

  Cole would say Helen was to blame for all of this. Only Helen.

  My stomach twisted, wringing out bile. Oh, glory. What if he was right?

  Can’t doubt my instincts now. In too deep.

  Every morning, the slayers worked out in the gym. Our job was physical; we had to stay in shape. On more than one occasion I noticed Camilla eye-stalking Cole, making it (more) obvious she wanted a piece of him. Today, she even trailed him when he finished on the treadmill. It took every bit of my willpower not to go after them.

  Stupid fight. And stupid Cole!

  Stupid Camilla!

  At least he glanced over his shoulder, meeting my gaze. Every cell in my body lit up. I almost cried his name. Almost. I wouldn’t crumble first.

  He looked away and continued on. Still no spontaneous visions.

  I wasn’t sure how much more of this I could take.

  Though I wanted to chase after him, I hopped on the treadmill he’d just abandoned, letting my mind explore the visions the other slayers had been having. Just this morning, Frosty had seen himself digging through a pile of rubble, and Bronx had seen himself holding Reeve while she cried.

  Gavin had seen himself fighting to reach an injured Jaclyn and an unconscious Justin, and Jaclyn had seen herself taking a bullet to the leg.

  Bad, but at least we knew Justin was still alive despite Ethan’s lack of communication.

  Another point in our favor: no more daylight zombies. However, they did come out every night and cluster around Mr. Ankh’s property line. Every night but yesterday, that is, and I wasn’t sure why. Still... The frequent attacks had allowed me to practice using the push-ability. I was getting good. I would focus, drawing energy into the center of my being, and then imagine it shooting out of me. And it would! I allowed myself one push, and that was it. So far, I hadn’t experienced another leak.

  But the frequent attacks were also the reason more and more of River’s slayers were moving into the mansion. We needed backup.

  The new females were all over Cole. Not just Camilla, but most of her friends, too. A sly touch here. A suggestive remark there. I was no longer sure of my position in his life, so I kept quiet. But deep down, rage simmered.