by Nic Joseph
• • •
And just like that, we were on.
Franny and the woman arranged to meet later that day. The woman had insisted that Franny wait until the following week, but she’d done a great job in pushing back. I’d worked with her a few times and knew that she was pretty fearless, but she’d held her own on the phone with the woman.
“Please,” she had said. “The flyer said you could help. I need to get out of here now. Please.”
“Okay,” the woman had finally said. “We have another meeting planned for today, so you can join us for that.”
She provided an address and a time.
They were meeting at Jerry’s Café. It was in the middle of the city square. To get to it, we’d had to descend a long flight of stairs and walk through a crowded patio filled with families, couples, and friends out enjoying the warm afternoon.
Gayla and I arrived half an hour early and were seated near the back of the café. I was facing away from the door; she sat across from me, carefully watching the door, ready to duck out of sight if necessary. She also had a line of sight to Franny, who was sitting by herself in a booth near the door. Franny was miked, and I had an earpiece in. Gayla wasn’t wearing one, since she would be visible to anyone walking in.
I took a deep breath.
“Someone’s coming,” Gayla muttered. “A woman, white, late twenties, blond hair.”
“Yes, I’m Franny,” I heard the detective say in my earpiece.
And then silence.
“What are they saying?” Gayla asked.
“Shit, I can only hear Franny. The mike’s not picking up the other woman. From body language, do you think it’s the Friends of Frank woman?”
“No, probably the other recruit. She looks scared. Someone else is joining them,” Gayla said. “Thin, redhead. Looks like she’s never seen the sun a day in her life. She just sat down at the booth.”
“Yes, I’m Franny,” I heard over the mike.
“Well, my husband put me out yesterday,” Franny said, answering a question I hadn’t heard. “I was staying with my sister, and he came by and demanded that she let him in. She wouldn’t, and he forced himself in anyway, looking for me. I hid in a closet. I was so scared of what he was going to do if he found me.”
It was scripted, but Franny delivered it so perfectly that I almost believed her.
“Shit,” I heard Gayla say.
“What?”
“The redhead keeps looking back here.”
“At us?”
“Yeah. She looks real nervous. I think she’s gonna—”
As she said this, I heard Franny speak again into the microphone. “Already? That’s all for today?”
“Shit,” Gayla said, standing up. “She made us.”
I stood, too, whipping around. But the redhead was already walking toward the door.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
I jumped out of my seat and spun toward the front of the café. Franny and the other recruit were still seated in the booth, and they’d turned to talk to each other. There was a woman in a white blouse and jeans, her hair gathered back in a long braid, walking quickly out the front door. As she did, she turned back toward us, and we made eye contact.
Gayla and I moved quickly to the front of the room. “I’ll stay here and talk to the woman who showed up, see how she got here, if she knows anything,” Gayla said, stopping at the booth.
“Okay.”
I rushed out the door after the woman from Friends of Frank. As I stepped onto the warm patio, the sun beating down on me, I blinked a few times. There she was, rushing through the middle of the square. I took off after her. There were people buzzing all around us. Families out playing, couples strolling slowly. I wondered if they’d picked the square because it would be so crowded. Had we underestimated them? This group was determined to stay hidden, and maybe we should have been better prepared.
I kept my eyes on the long braid bouncing against the white shirt. She wasn’t running, but she was moving quickly and with purpose.
And then, suddenly, I felt the chalky taste in my mouth. I stopped abruptly, and a man walking behind me bumped into me.
“Hey,” he said before stepping around me and continuing.
The heat, the people, the adrenaline. I knew that a vision was coming, and I longed for my mints, wished I could have that soothing sensation right then and there. I blinked a few times as suddenly, my vision doubled.
The family that had been playing just to my right multiplied, and there were two of each of them, standing side by side. The man who’d stepped around me a few minutes ago had a twin, and they hurried off in perfect synchrony. I blinked a few times.
What the hell?
I stared straight ahead, and the woman in white was gone.
I felt my chest clench. I couldn’t have lost her. Gayla had stayed behind to talk to the women. My job was to not let the woman out of my sight, and yet I had. I swallowed, trying to calm myself down, but it wasn’t working.
A movement across the square caught my eye. I let out a sigh of relief when I saw that the woman was still there. She was standing near the bottom of the stairs that led out of the square. Her shoulders were hunched over, and I could see that she was talking on a cell phone. I inched closer, the doubles still moving all around me, and I tried to block them out. I was within ten feet of her, standing behind her, when suddenly, she took the phone away and turned to dart up the stairs.
Shit.
The chalkiness still in my mouth, the people still buzzing around me, I ran to the stairs to follow her. She was small and quick, and she ascended them easily. I was a few paces behind her, breathing heavily as I ran up the stairs after her.
She reached the top and then was just out of sight. I kept pushing until I made it to the top and then let my gaze scan the streets.
And then I saw her.
Not just the woman from the café but the woman she was talking to.
Standing ten feet away, next to a black sedan, was the woman from the hospital.
I froze, the visions still swimming around me, my head spinning, and watched as the woman from the café spoke quickly and excitedly to the other woman. She was dressed similarly, in simple, solid colors, with her hair pulled straight back from her face. She was listening to the woman, and then she let her gaze sweep the area by the stairs, immediately landing on me.
We stared at each other, and I couldn’t tell if she recognized me or if it was simply the fact that I was standing there, out of breath, watching them. But she didn’t move, didn’t turn away, didn’t try to get in the car. I leaned forward and tried to catch a glimpse of the license plate. I could just make out the numbers…
I heard a noise to my left, and I turned. Standing just a couple of feet away from me, just out of my line of sight, was a figure.
I gasped when I saw who it was.
The tan suit, the beady eyes.
It was the man from the woods and Lara’s house.
I blinked a few times, the chalkiness oppressive now, and I was afraid that I would lose it completely.
He didn’t say anything, just stared at me, and I began to run through the questions in my mind.
One: Can anyone else see him?
Two: Can you touch him?
Three: Can you interact with him?
Before I could stop myself, the words fell out of my mouth. “Are—are you real?” I whispered.
I saw something change on his face, and I realized what was happening too late.
His expression changed from anger to stunned surprise.
“No, I’m not, Detective,” he said, his voice low, his hot breath on my face and undeniably real.
The minute I felt it, I knew that I’d made a mistake.
He leaned even closer to me.
“Boo
.”
With that, he lifted both of his hands and pushed, hard, and I only had a moment to hate myself before there was nothing below my feet, and I went tumbling back down the stairs into the square.
Chapter Forty
Then
There were five of them.
They stood shoulder to shoulder in the auditorium, their backs pressed against the wall. In the last few months, they’d plotted and planned and strategized. To anyone watching them closely during that time, they would have seemed much older than they really were. But now that they’d made it—now that they knew the truth—they’d reverted back to children, and they stood there shaking, none of them able to come up with a single idea for what they should do next.
Brat was the first to make a noise, a large gasp escaping her lips as she stared at the body of the small boy being carried away. Her hands flew up to her mouth. She was sobbing now, quietly, and it was only a matter of seconds before the cries exploded from her body.
Gumball looked up and saw what was about to happen. Darting to her sister’s side, she put her arms around her and pulled her close. The girls cried together, their small frames shaking as they let out their fears and sorrow through the streaks of water that dripped down their cheeks.
Shy Perry was the first one to make a move toward the door. He was devastated like the rest of the children, but he knew they needed to get back downstairs before the auditorium emptied. He stepped forward. “Let’s go,” he whispered. “We have to get out of here.”
Lill nodded. She wasn’t crying but was staring off into space as if the events that had just taken place hadn’t fully registered. She stepped away from the wall to follow Perry, and the twins followed her. As they moved in a line toward the exit, they noticed that Jack hadn’t moved at all.
“Jack,” Lill whispered. “Come on, let’s go.”
But Jack still didn’t respond.
As he stood there, staring at the stage, Jack was completely still besides the tears that danced at the edges of his eyes. He finally knew the truth—Mother Breanna wasn’t coming back.
In a way, he’d known it. He’d known that he’d never see her again. But seeing what happened to the boy, he knew that she had seen it, too, and that she hadn’t been able to handle it.
She really had left. And now he knew why.
“Jack,” Lill said again, and she walked back over to the boy, who was a different child than he had been the past few months. That boy had been confident when the rest of the team was not, excited when they felt nervous, and calming when they got overwhelmed. The boy standing in front of her looked terrified and lost, and Lill reached out and put a hand on his shoulder. “It’s horrible, I know. But we have to get out of here. Come on.”
Jack looked up at Lill, and he could see the sadness in her eyes, but there was strength, too. He nodded. “Thanks,” he said, and he followed the rest of the children through the door.
The children stepped into the storeroom behind the auditorium. It was strange—they’d been there an hour ago, and while they’d been nervous, they’d also been excited about what they were about to find out. Now, they moved through the storeroom in a panic.
“Why did they do that?” Brat exploded. “What is wrong with them? I can’t believe they all just sat there and watched it happen.”
“Let’s get back downstairs,” Gumball said. “We can talk about it later.”
Jack walked to the door and opened it slightly. Through the slit, he could see a group of the mothers standing next to the security table. “We’ll have to go one by one and quietly,” he said.
The others nodded. Shy Perry went first, inching along the wall and quietly opening the stairwell door before slipping inside. He left it ajar, just slightly, as Brat made her way, and then Gumball. Lill was next. She took a look at Jack over her shoulder before she stepped out of the storeroom and walked slowly toward the stairs. When she was safely inside, Jack took a deep breath and stepped out into the hallway.
When he stepped into the stairwell, they all breathed a sigh of relief as he shut the door behind him. The only bit of light in the stairwell was the soft glow that came from the small window in the door to the eighth floor.
“Let’s go,” Lill said.
“Wait,” Jack said. He walked over to where he’d left his warrior behind the stairwell door. He picked it up and held it out to Brat.
“Take this with you. Get down there as quickly as possible, get inside, and make sure you sweep your footprints, okay?” he asked. “And be careful with the squeaky gate.”
“Wait, where are you going?” Lill asked.
Jack shook his head, the tears filling his eyes again. “I don’t know, but I can’t stay here. Not now that I know what happened to Mother Breanna.”
“You what?” she hissed.
“You guys go ahead,” Jack said. “Don’t worry about me.”
“I don’t want to go either,” Brat said softly, and the others turned to look at her. Brat stared at her sister. “I don’t want to go back down there.”
“Okay, we won’t,” Gumball said. She looked at Jack. “We’re coming with you.”
“What are you talking about?” Lill asked. “Where are you going to go?”
“I don’t know,” Brat said. “There has to be somewhere else we can go.”
Lill looked at Perry, and he was wringing his hands together in front of him quickly.
“Perry?” she asked. “What about you?”
“I don’t want to stay either.”
“Come on, Lill,” Jack said. “I know it’s scary, but we have to go. After that, how can we stay?”
Lill seemed at a loss, and finally, her shoulders slumped. “How in the world would we get out of here?” she asked.
“Up there,” Jack said, pointing to a small ladder on the wall above their heads.
“The roof?” Perry asked.
“It’s not the roof,” he said. “It’s the top floor.”
“I thought we were on the top floor,” Brat said.
“I heard some of the mothers talking about a ninth floor,” Jack said. “They use it for storage. There’s also an exit up there. But we have to be quick.”
“You had this all planned,” Lill said. “You never were planning to go back.”
“I wanted the option,” Jack said. “I needed it, just in case. You all ready?”
He looked around the small circle in the dim light. Brat and Gumball nodded emphatically. Perry crossed his arms over his chest and gave a quick nod. Lill and Jack stared at each other for a moment, and finally, she took a deep breath and nodded, too.
“Yeah,” she said. “Let’s get out of here.”
Chapter Forty-One
The Last Day of Emily Lindsey
The end
Emily drove away from the meeting point with both hands on the wheel. She was having a hard time concentrating on the road. She looked back and forth between the open road in front of her and the woman sitting in the seat beside her.
Matilda had changed so much. Where she’d been encouraging, open, a friend before, now she sat sullenly in the passenger seat, her chest heaving up and down, her eyes unfocused. Emily felt bad; she really did. But the woman was nuts. Absolutely psycho.
“I’m only trying to help you, Matilda,” Emily said.
Matilda was wearing a jacket, and both hands were shoved into her pockets, and she stared out the window, not speaking.
“We’re friends, right?” Emily said.
This got a reaction, Matilda’s head whipping to the side to stare at her.
“That’s what I thought,” Matilda whispered. “I wanted that more than anything.”
“We are friends,” Emily said, slowing down. She frowned when she saw a car a few feet behind them. It was completely empty on the road, and she slowed down a little m
ore. When the car didn’t go by, she had a sinking feeling it was someone from Friends of Frank.
“They really won’t let you go anywhere alone, will they?”
Matilda didn’t say anything, just continued to stare out the window. “You could’ve just left me alone,” she said softly. “I thought you needed help, that we could help you and make you better. I thought you were my friend.”
“Matilda, I am your friend,” Emily said. “I’ve enjoyed getting to know you over the last few months. But that place is dangerous, you have to know that. You can’t do what you did. The children, the boys.”
“That’s in the past,” she said. “Don’t you think it was hard for me to stay? I stayed because I know that we help people. We help women who need it. That’s what Friends of Frank is, and I thought we could help you, too. Why can’t you just let it go? If you don’t want to be a part of the group, that’s fine. But you could just let it go.”
“Let what go?” Emily asked, glancing into the rearview mirror again. The car was still there, trailing them. “The fact that you killed nine babies? Maybe more?”
“Shut up!” Matilda said.
“That’s not something you let go,” Emily said. “I’m telling you, you’re a victim here. I know you are, so you can tell them you didn’t know anything about it. Tell them that when you joined the group, you were brainwashed, whatever. I really do care about you. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.”
With that, she pushed her foot on the accelerator and rocketed her car forward again. In the seat beside her, Matilda gasped, but Emily ignored it. She made a hard right and sped through the dirt roads before turning again through the woods. She turned again and wedged her car into a small cove off the side of the road. Then she turned off the car and her lights and waited.
“What are you doing?” Matilda asked.
“Someone was following us. It was probably one of the men,” Emily said. “Don’t you understand that it’s not okay that they won’t let you out of their sight? It’s controlling and disgusting, and it’s a power thing that’s not okay.”
Matilda’s eyes were wild now, and she looked around them, out the back of the car. “Let me out,” she said.