“You mean after him.” Danae hissed. “They pulled their guns when they saw you, Regan! Whoever you killed, you managed to piss off Eye in the goddamn Sky, and now we’re all going straight to—”
“I didn’t kill anyone!”
“How do you know?! You can’t remember anything!”
That stopped him. Cold panic gripped his lungs, and sweat started to sneak up the back of his neck. A now-familiar chill began to creep up his arms, and he fought to remain visible. Do not fade. Stay in the moment. “I… don’t.”
Evelyn shook her head as Rose sat down between her and Danae. Jack, still whimpering, wiggled between his mothers and tried to hide behind them. “You were with me all last night, you couldn’t have killed anyone.”
Regan swallowed, remembering the boy on the floor. The eyes of the mechanical cat, staring at him. “But I don’t remember anything from before then. I don’t even remember helping you. I must have killed someone, I—”
“I don’t believe that. SkEye lies constantly, it’s what they do.”
Regan remembered something else. Something even worse. He gasped. “I was supposed to.”
A moment of silence, broken only by Jack’s muffled sobs and cries for Dandy.
“What?” Evelyn said at last.
“I was supposed to kill someone. I remember that.” Regan said flatly. “But I didn’t. If I killed someone, I’d know!”
“How can you be sure?” Danae demanded.
“Danae, calm down for just a second,” Rose said, level. “Hear him out.”
“Oh no, no!” Danae shook her head stiffly. “I am not having this. I am not letting you endanger my family. You must have killed someone pretty important to SkEye to piss them off that bad, and frankly, good for you! The enemy of my enemy is always my friend. But now they’re shooting at my wives and little boy—”
“We don’t even know who’s dead, if anyone really is,” Rose said calmly. “How many times have people disappeared in this city when they really just don’t want to be found? Or fallen through the cracks—sometimes literally? Regan, I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. The moment we start jumping all over each other without a very good reason is the moment we’re doomed.”
“Then why did SkEye shoot up our house looking for him?” Danae put her hands on her hips, looking around at all of them in disbelief. “How can you trust him?”
“Stop it.” Evelyn glared, voice hardening for the first time. “When has SkEye ever told the truth? Hm? When have they ever done a thing that wasn’t Godawful? And Danae, sweetness, when have you ever trusted the Eye over us? I’m not letting anyone get arrested and killed for something they might have done. Everyone deserves a fair trial, and you sure as hell won’t get one in this city.” She took a deep breath, shoulders rising and falling. “The ground’s burning right from under our feet, dears. Times like these… we all have to stick together.”A moment of quiet. Then Evelyn’s eyebrows came together as apprehension crossed her face. “Rosie…did you save your notes?”
Rose groaned. “Ohhh, no, I dropped them when I picked up Jack …”
Evelyn sighed, stroking the little boy’s hair. “Well, I’d rather have Jackie than… anything else. We’ll find another way.”
“In any case, we need to find a permanent place to lay low.” Rose furrowed her brow in thought. “Evelyn, how about the Bar?”
Danae shook her head. “No way. Those guys come by every month to badger me into making more bombs. They know us, they know who we run with, they saw Evelyn today… and they know where she sings. If they survived the wrath of Toto-Dandy, they’ll stake out Garrett’s place too.”
“You two don’t need to run.” Regan frowned. “You haven’t done anything. Or you, Evelyn.”
Danae gave that awful, mirthless laugh again. “You think that matters to SkEye? They’ve seen you with us. Now we’re involved—hell, right now we’re aiding and abetting. They won’t stop until we’re all in custody, and they will interrogate us. Nobody wants that, trust me.”
“So where do we go?” Rose said, tone suggesting she was asking herself as much as any of them. “The Bar?”
“Still haven’t heard from Garrett,” Evelyn shook her head, voice tight. “Nobody knows a thing, everyone’s running dark—I don’t like this. We lie low until we know more.”
“The library, then?”
“That’s our last safe house,” Danae cut in. “And SkEye is after us. We could lead them right to it, if the library goes down we lose everything, we’re dead—”
“I think I know a place.” Evelyn said quietly. “I could… take you all home.”
“But you just said—”
“No, not there … Home.”
Rose gasped, put a thornless hand on Evelyn’s arm. “Oh—oh, no …”
“It’s the safest place in Parole. If there’s anywhere we can hide out until this blows over… it’s the Turret House.”
Danae looked at Evelyn as if she’d grown a second head. “Well, yeah. It’s absolutely ridiculous to even think about going there.” There was a moment of silence, and then she sighed, muscled shoulders sagging. “Which is exactly why we’re gonna do it, aren’t we?”
They sat in silence for a few long moments. Then Jack looked up, face wet and red from tears. “I never showed you the picture of you,” he said mournfully to Evelyn.
“I’m sorry. I’m sure it was beautiful.”
“It was, ‘cause you are.”
“Thank you, Jack-o-Saur.”
“Well,” Regan said, moving toward the alley mouth, “I’m not sitting behind a dumpster while there’s a price on my head.”
Evelyn lagged a few steps behind, dialing on the black cell phone he’d seen earlier when she’d met her contact. And as before, the first few words of the call were the same. “Celeste? Evelyn. I need a…”
“I wouldn't worry about anyone following us,” Rose gave Regan a making-the-best-of-it sort of smile. Beside her, Danae folded her arms and resolutely refused to look at any of them except for Jack. “It’s… a ways.”
“Long walk?” Regan’s shoulders sagged as he realized what now seemed obvious. “Guess Parole doesn’t have stuff like taxis anymore, does it?”
“Well actually …” Evelyn pointed over his shoulder at the yellow car with the checkered stripe that had just pulled up at the mouth of the alleyway. She hung up her phone, looking quite satisfied. “You’d be surprised.”
“Gooood morning, Parole! It’s a beautiful day in everyone’s favorite great big bubble in a government quarantine, and I’m your Radio Angel, saying wakey-wakey, eggs and bakey!”
“Oh God,” Regan slumped in the front seat and stared out the window, teeth clamped down over rising bile. The voice on the radio was familiar, but right now he was focusing more closely on not losing his lunch. “Can you change the channel? She’s talking about food and I’m gonna be—”
“Sorry, buddy!” the cab driver, a 20-ish young man with round, freckly cheeks, a bright smile and brighter orange hair chirped. “Only get the one station. And it’s important to stay current, right? Safety first!”
Evelyn sat stiff and straight, hands clamped on her knees, ignoring the screeching tires and yells from the streets. There were barely any other cars on the road (gasoline was almost as rare as water), but their driver still managed to almost hit everything even vaguely in their path. He didn’t seem to understand the concept of driving in the right lane or what a stop sign meant, and Evelyn wasn’t going to tell him. She hadn’t said a word since directing the hyper kid behind the wheel to “the Turret House, please. Quickly.” Their driver apparently knew exactly where it was, because he didn’t stop to ask them for directions, or, apparently, stop signs.
Jack climbed up on the seat back and pressed his nose against the back window as a crack in the arid ground belched out a spurt of flame. Regan held onto his seat as they whipped around a corner, and wished he could be half as calm as the small child watching fi
re erupt from the ground.
“I don’t want to go,” Jack said while Rose lifted him down onto her lap to where she sat squashed between Evelyn and Danae. She wrapped her arms securely around him, giving him the hug they both needed. “I wanna go home. I want Toto-Dandy.”
“It’s not forever, sweetie,” Rose reassured him. Danae looked up at her and started to say something, but Rose shook her head. For a moment they looked straight at each other and the rest of the world disappeared while they held something like a duel with their eyes. Rose won, and Danae looked away with a reluctant nod. “We’re going to stay with Evelyn’s family for a little bit. Tomorrow I’ll call somebody to pick up some things from home.”
“And I’ll fix Toto,” Danae promised softly, gnawing at her lower lip, eyes narrowed. “I’ll fix this whole mess.”
“See? So it’ll be just like… a vacation.”
“It’s not a vacation,” Jack said in a cold, flat voice that made everybody turn and look at him. He wasn’t crying, or gearing up for a tantrum. He just stared out the window with an expression of strange intensity and understanding his three parents had never seen before. “The policemen hurt Toto, and they were trying to get us. I don’t like it.”
“Neither do I,” said Evelyn quietly. Rose couldn’t hug her while holding Jack, but she leaned her head against Evelyn’s shoulder. Evelyn rested her head on top of Rose’s, and they sat in silence for a few seconds. The driver had turned the radio down, but the girl’s voice still continued as background noise.
“… Is still missing, if you have any information please call me; I want all my babies safe and sound, and I bet his family’s real worried too. Radio Angel’s always here for you, and you know where to find me. Stay beautiful, Parole…”
“What is that?” Regan croaked, still trying to keep down his lunch. “The news?”
“Huh? You, uh new in town?”
“You could say that.”
“I was kidding—nobody’s been new in Parole for ten years. Except for babies,” he said thoughtfully.
“I don’t listen to the radio much?”
“How do you live, man?” Thankfully, he didn’t wait for an answer, because by now Regan was getting afraid to open his mouth. “Well that’s Radio Angel. She’s the only source for good information in Parole! She lets me know if there’s anybody who really needs a lift, traffic jams, new fire craters in the road…Anyway! Eye in the Sky shut down all TV and internet—or they tried to! ‘Till CyborJ brought it back! But Radi—”
“What?” Regan blurted.
“I know! They took the internet, evil, right?”
“No, no, who brought it back?”
“CyborJ! He’s—” the excitable young man answered immediately, then stopped. “Wait, you’ve never heard of him, or Radio Angel?”
“Amnesia,” Evelyn supplied, as Regan fell silent from a combination of nausea, embarrassment, and something else he was having trouble putting into words. “He won’t have heard of a lot of common Parole knowledge.”
“Oh. Wow. Sorry about that!”
“It’s fine,” Regan mumbled, bent over with his head almost on his knees and eyes shut. Maybe if he couldn’t see the world blurring by…
“That sucks. I mean, that really sucks. I mean, at least we’re all used to this weirdness. Can’t imagine just waking up in Parole one day.”
“Mm-hmm.” Something their driver had just said was important. One of those things. There had been a lot of things. He might have an easier time picking out exactly what his brain was currently vibrating with recognition about once he was out of a car that seemed determined to break the sound barrier and all traffic laws, but right now, all Regan could focus on was avoiding hyperventilation.
“But anyway, yeah, that was Radio Angel! And she keeps us connected. On the air, anyway. But yeah, listen to the radio! That’s how you stay alive!”
“How’d she know where to find us? And how does she keep SkEye from shutting her down?” Regan asked to distract himself from his pitching stomach.
“I dunno! She does something really cool so they can’t grab her signal or something, jumping frequencies or whatever. Almost everyone here has some kind of power. I guess that’s hers! Knowing where the radios are, broadcasting through all of them, and turning ‘em off whenever SkEye’s around. She’s saved us all so many times, it’s just like, really important! So I always listen. Most people do! Woah, was that stop sign always there?”
“It’s all a little much, isn’t it?” Evelyn asked in a lowered, sympathetic voice. Regan could only nod back. She forced a smile, and somehow the sunny voice on the radio made it easier. “It’ll calm down. It has to. Everything really will be okay.”
“Yeah, it will!” The driver’s bright voice made them all jump. “So, the Turret House, huh? You know, I was actually already headed there! Cool coincidence, huh? If by ‘cool’ you mean ‘kinda creepy,’ because it’s just about the last place anyone really wants to—hey! I know you!”
“Hmm?” Evelyn suddenly looked concerned.
“You’re Evelyn Calliope, aren’t you?” A wiggly little grin appeared on the baby-face in the review mirror. The young driver with the bright orange-dyed hair was definitely blushing.
Evelyn sighed, but had to smile. “Yes, that’s me. I’m, uh, traveling incognito. And I’d really appreciate if you just forgot you saw me, or anyone else here.”
“I could try, but it wouldn’t work. I could never forget you! I’m a huge fan!” He started bouncing up and down in the seat now, making the car swerve noticeably back and forth. Regan clenched his teeth and shut his eyes, briefly wondering what religion he’d been before his memory loss. “I’ve seen all of your shows! Hey, what happened last night? The fire alarm, everybody getting kicked out early? Was there an actual fire? I mean, it’s Parole, but I thought the Emerald Bar was like, super good about that stuff.”
“Oh… just a false alarm,” Evelyn’s eyes slid over to Regan, who was pressing his fist against his mouth. The little knot in Evelyn’s stomach clenched even tighter—and not from the way the taxi zoomed through a stop sign and crosswalk. She’d actually forgotten her own problems in all the recent confusion. “Uh, but I’m really glad to have come across a fan! Because I know I can trust you to keep my secret, right?”
“Of course! It’s safe with me, I promise. I’m Finn, by the way! It’s amazing to meet you, I really mean that!”
“That’s very nice of you, Finn.” She couldn’t help but feel a little better; the young man’s smile was contagious. Even if he talked almost as fast as he drove.
“You know, I’ve always wanted to go inside the Turret place. Everyone says you gotta have a death wish to actually go there—but I really do, you hear the weirdest stories, and I gotta know if they’re true.”
Evelyn looked up sharply, frowning. “What kind of stories?”
“Well, some people say it’s the only way out of Parole, like they have a secret door or something,” He turned all the way around to talk to Evelyn, driving with one hand, unbothered by the screams and shouted curses as people dove out of the way. Regan clutched his stomach and gasped, eyes jarred open, as a streetlamp scraped a nick of paint off the side mirror. “But I don’t think that’s it, ‘cause if that were true, everyone would know about it, right?”
“For the love of God, keep your eyes on the road!” Regan shrieked.
“Sorry!” Finn said, but didn’t turn around. “But like, they can’t actually have a way out, and just keep it all to themselves, can they? Everyone says the Turrets are evil, but nobody’s that evil.”
“Sidewalk—sidewalk, you're on—sidewalk!”
“Sorry again! Oh wow, how’d we get all the way over here?” Finn briefly glanced out at the road again, but quickly went back to his conversation. “Anyway, speaking of death wishes, other people say it’s haunted—like actually haunted, like by a real ghost—well I mean, not like a real ghost-ghost, more like a bunch of psychic people live there
? And it’s like they’re making the ghosts!”
Regan resigned himself to staring out the window, turning as a large, ornate sign flew by. He caught a glimpse of the word “Turret,” just before his eyes crossed and his stomach made one final lurch.
“Anyway, a friend of mine actually got a chance to look in there—like I said, I was going there right now to pick them up! Can you believe that? An actual invitation. To the Turret House. Lucky! But they’re not gonna tell me anything, bet you a million bucks they don’t tell me anything, they’re just gonna say it’s for my own protection or something boring like that. I’ll go ‘what’s in that place that’s got everyone so freaked out?’ And they’ll say—”
“Nothing!” Evelyn yelped as they swerved around a corner. “It’s just an old house, and there’s nothing to be afraid of!” She was definitely trying to convince herself as much as anyone else.
“Well, that’s good, ‘cause we’re here!” Finn jerked the cab to a halt. He popped out of the car, opened the back seat door and bowed, offering his hand to assist Evelyn out of the car. She accepted, not sure if she could stand on her own after that roller-coaster ride from hell.
Regan leaned out the door and hurled his guts onto the asphalt.
“Thank you, love.” Evelyn gave Finn a tired smile, digging in her purse to give Regan a tic-tac. “You did a wonderful job getting us here so quickly.”
“He sure did.” Danae grumped, leaning noodle-legged against the cab. Rose got shakily out, with the uncharacteristically pale and silent Jack, who clung to her like a traumatized baby koala. “You gonna live?” she asked Regan, who grunted and waved her away, still heaving.
“And more or less in one piece.” Evelyn smiled as the young man waved away the compliment with another squiggly little grin. “How many cups do we owe you?” Evelyn grimaced, remembering the state of their rusty rain barrel at home. “It’s not going to taste that great, but it’s clean at least. Just got a new filter.”
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