The Golden Order

by Heidi Tankersley

  I made my way steadily down the steps.

  “She’s right,” I said. “Step one, get Sage. We don’t even know if Finn’s going to live. And if he doesn’t, we don’t know that Sage will even care to meet her father.”

  Beckett stopped pacing. His eyes narrowed to slits. “You talk about him dying like it doesn’t matter to you.”

  I stiffened. I couldn’t take Beck if he was going to act like this right now. We had work to do, things to get done. His attitude was getting to me.

  “I accept what is happening. I do what needs to be done,” I said. Then, irritated, I added, “That’s more than you’re ever willing to do.”

  “Don’t you talk about what I’m willing to do.” Beckett’s speech slowed. “I buried Aunt Peg. Uncle Jeff. Sage’s mom.” He said each name as if they carried enormous weight and required work even to speak them.

  “And whose fault is that?”

  Like always, I was throwing words out there, not attaching myself one way or another, just letting the sentence fester in space. It was a low blow, knowing how much guilt Beckett already carried about it all. Why did I say it? Maybe this day was getting to me more than I realized. Maybe Dr. Cunningham got under my skin in a way I wasn’t prepared for. Maybe Beckett’s attitude pushed me too far.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” His body tensed, livid.

  My stomach tightened, but I didn’t let my discomfort show. I raised my eyebrows in a sign of indifference and shrugged.

  Beckett’s arms raised slightly from his sides, his arm and shoulder muscles contracting. “Do you really think I’m the reason they died?”

  I didn’t respond, unwilling to apologize or contradict.

  “Do you?” he repeated.

  I wouldn’t answer his question, because he hated when I did that that, and we both wanted a good fight. The tension had been rising between us ever since I stepped into that cell on the island.

  “Go on,” Beckett said. “I can tell you want to punch me. That’s what happens when things don’t go your way. When everything doesn’t happen according to your plan. I know you’re pissed at yourself because you didn’t save Sage from Dad. So go ahead. Punch me. Get it out. I’d like to hit your jaw a few times, anyway.”

  I felt my blood start to heat up, and I was afraid of what that would mean for Beck. Three years on that farm in Canta had beefed Beck up a bit, and he was stronger than I remembered, but when we started in with a fight and it got too deep, I lost myself in it.

  I needed to walk away. I had too many emotions pent up: Caesar’s death, failing Sage, Finn dying.

  “I’m not fighting you right now. Not worth it,” I said.

  “Boys,” Imogen said, stepping closer. She looked exasperated. “We’re not doing this right now. Can we make it a full twenty-four hours before I have to stave off another brother brawl, please?”

  Beckett ignored Imogen. His eyes narrowed in on me.

  “At least I don’t run away when it’s time to be real with people. You roll through the motions without feeling anything at all. No one matters to you. No relationship, no person. Which is good.” He smiled, like he was pleased with whatever he was about to say next. “It means I’ll eventually get her because all you’ll do is shut her out.”

  The words hit too close to home.

  I dove for him, and Beckett was ready. It’s why he said it.

  His left hook connected with my jaw. Heat exploded from my jawbone up to my ears, the pain intensely gratifying.

  I aimed my shoulder for Beckett’s waist.

  Imogen backed up as Beckett and I rolled from the concrete sidewalk to the grass.

  “Aaand … yes, people, congratulations. We’ve reverted back. We’re nine years old again.”

  Beckett’s fist connected with my side, right at my kidney. I reveled in the throb that spread through my torso.

  Just before I let myself get fully lost in the bliss of the fight, I heard Imogen sigh.

  “I can’t believe we’re really doing this right now.”

  15

  IMOGEN

  I just love cleaning up other people’s messes. Especially two testosterone-filled teenage boys who want to act like nine-year-olds and fight over some girl.

  We all knew who the winner of this brawl would be.

  Beckett had to know this wouldn’t end well for him. But ever since Sage got taken, he’s been pushing Jack’s buttons like he wanted it to come to this.

  Beckett was a smidge taller than Jack, muscular, and in decent shape. But his torso was narrower than Jack’s solid frame, and even though his shoulders were broad, he had less raw bulk.

  Plus, come on, it’s Jack. This fight, it was like … cheetah versus lion. And not just any lion. A genetic anomaly kind of lion. A lion with extra slaying power.

  Beckett’s body hit the ground underneath Jack, but he just kept slamming his fist into Jack’s side.

  The boys rolled across the grass.

  I rolled my eyes.

  Might as well go get some bandages.

  They were both going to need it.

  16

  BECKETT

  My breath came out heavy as I struggled to pin Jack’s arms down. I’d managed to get on top of him, but my body felt fatigued already, after just a few minutes of fighting.

  Jack used my own body weight as leverage against me. He grabbed my shirt and jerked to the left, shoving his hips upward. We rolled, heading right toward a tree.

  Great.

  My cheek smashed into a tree root, and my forehead hit, too. Skin above my eyebrow split open. Blood dripped into my eyes.

  Jack held back, though. I knew it. And that knowledge sent me over the edge.

  I grabbed for him again, to wrap him up, but Jack freed himself from my grip and pushed against my chest to stand up.

  Oh no, he wouldn’t. He wasn’t leaving. Not now.

  I shoved myself up from the ground, my chest heaving for air. “Come on, fight me! Fight me like I know you can!”

  Jack waved me away and took a step toward the building. “Forget it.”

  “Fight me! Come on, just do it, knock me out!” I dove toward him, but he stiff armed me with his left hand. I lunged again, and this time as he stuck his arm out, I grabbed his hand and twisted as hard as I could.

  The bones in Jack’s left pinky and ring finger snapped. The sound satisfied me, made up for the last twenty hours of crap from him. The injury didn’t matter—Jack’s fingers would heal by the end of day. It was the infliction of pain that mattered.

  Jack cursed. His eyes lit up.

  I’d sent him over the edge.

  Good. It’s what I wanted.

  Revenge for his pain was instinctual, automatic. I knew it would be. He dove into me, aiming for my belly. He plowed me backward toward the tree, and we hit it full force. The air left my lungs in a single gush, and my head flew back against the trunk.

  The world went dark.

  17

  SAGE

  The headache came on fast, like someone had slammed my skull with a wooden baseball bat.

  I rubbed my temples, wishing Dallamore would be quiet.

  I’d endured almost two hours of his talking and pretzel crunching. He’d slept most of the time on the airplane, but since we climbed into the car, he hadn’t stopped yapping.

  “Beckett brought your pup with him when he came to the mansion, you know. Cute little thing. Even wanted to follow Beckett into the house.

  “We’re getting close to the mansion now.” Dallamore pulled a handkerchief from his suit pocket and proceeded to twist the kerchief in his hands while he babbled.

  “I remember Jack and Beckett when they were little, you know. Nice little boys, well-mannered, too. Although there was a bout of time right after their mother passed when the two of them ran the halls of Vasterias headquarters like little terrors. Dr. Adamson was beside himself for some time. But when the doctor came back, he was back. Shame to see his sons turn on him in their te
enage years. He’s doing his job so well, and they resent him terribly for it.”

  Dallamore talked like he was far removed from the suffering inflicted on the boys, as if he wasn’t affiliated with the very organization dispensing the pain. Perhaps this was the only way he could deal with the reality of ruining lives. He had to ignore it, mentally separate himself from it, make it outside of his responsibility, his control, his ability to help.

  Bile rose up in my throat as he rambled on. I leaned my head back against the black leather, my headache pounding away. The tinted windows darkened the daylight outside; Dallamore and I remained contained in a world of our own that no one could see. Even the driver felt far away, a tinted glass divider between our back seat and the seats up front.

  I tried to drown out Dallamore’s voice by focusing on the muted sound of the tires maneuvering through the windy, tree-lined highway.

  “I’m sure you’ll enjoy the gala tomorrow night. People from all over the world dressed in their finest. It’s a delightful time, really delightful time.” His hands twisted the kerchief.

  I pursed my lips together. I wanted to rip the handkerchief from his hands and throw it out the window. Instead, my fingers wrapped the bag of pretzels in my lap.

  “So many people want to meet you, to see you and thank you for your contribution.”

  Contribution?

  I blinked, unsure whether to punch him in the face or dive out of the car. After I took a few deep breaths, I could only come up with two explanations for Dallamore. He was either completely daft, or he was being fed false information about my willingness to be here. He talked of my body—my cells, my eggs—as if they were something totally separate from me, like I was donating a plaque or a potted plant for some sort of memorial.

  “Beckett must love you very much to hold out for so long. He didn’t give in to Smalls. The beatings didn’t seem to affect him at all, and it was just so he could get to you on the island, even though he was lying to do it. He didn’t have any information of Dr. Cunningham’s whereabouts.” Another twist of his handkerchief. “Yes, he must really love you to hold out for so long.”

  I gazed out the window and blinked back tears. Beckett hadn’t mentioned anything about getting beaten. A sharp spasm of guilt struck my heart.

  Beckett. Why would he do it? Why would he do that for me? And then when he finally made it to the island, I’d treated him so horribly ….

  Beckett’s face flashed in my mind—the Beckett I remembered, without all this; the way he looked after a long day outside in the fields: shirt soaked, tips of his sandy hair wet with sweat, that smile on his face.

  Perhaps Dallamore finally realized he’d said something wrong. “Forgive me,” he said. “I’m rambling. My wife’s been out of town for three weeks on a cruise across Europe. I’m afraid I’ve had no one to talk to around the house but my cat. Of course there’s the housekeeper and my chauffeur, but you know what I mean.”

  Another twist of his handkerchief, and I realized something.

  Dallamore was nervous. About what? Returning back to the mansion?

  Whatever the cause of his apprehension, his fidgeting made me uncomfortable.

  “I’d like to see my dog right away, if that’s okay with you?” I kept my voice light, innocent.

  For the first time since settling into the car, Dallamore didn’t talk for moment.

  His eyes narrowed at me; he blotted pretzel crumbs from his mouth. When he spoke again, his voice was low, more serious, like he was attempting to give me a warning. It sounded like a joke.

  “There are thirty-foot stone walls around the entire property, and we have surveillance cameras on every angle. You can’t run. You can’t hide.”

  He tugged at the ends of his kerchief now. “Dr. Adamson told us you won’t kill yourself as long as your brother remains alive,” he paused here, scanning my face, as if to discern my agreement or dissension of the fact. He must have concluded I was at no risk to myself because he added, “Very well then.”

  He pulled himself up in his seat and straightened his jacket, puffing out his chest a bit. He wiped his mouth one more time and then tucked his kerchief into his pocket at last.

  “At any rate, once we arrive, I plan to wash my hands of you. I got you to the mansion, and that’s all that was requested of me. I’ve become something of an errand boy amongst my colleagues, and I’m not quite sure why. I’m putting my foot down about it tomorrow when the board arrives for the gala.” Dallamore lifted his chin. “We have a meeting at noon, and I’m letting them know I refuse to do more of this.”

  He stopped talking then, gratefully, as our car turned off the highway.

  Our driver entered a code into a keypad on the dash of the car, and the wrought-iron gates opened slowly. We traveled on the black asphalt for at least a mile, and then the dense forest thinned to reveal a wide manicured lawn and giant trees. The driver pulled the car past a fountain, steering us toward the front steps of the mansion, a castle-sized house which boasted an exorbitant amount of brick and stone.

  “They might be down there now,” Dallamore said.

  “What are you talking about?” I said.

  “Your puppy and the gardener, down by the gardener’s cottage on the northwest side of the property.”

  Dallamore pressed a button to call the driver. “Pull over here, please, Benson.”

  I craned my neck to look behind us out the darkened window. Beyond the rolling green grass on the north side of the mansion, I spotted a cobblestone gardener’s house. I saw a golf cart, and a man beside it, loading things into the cart. By his feet, a small dog.

  But why couldn’t I see further? Why wasn’t the view crisp, even from this distance? I couldn’t distinguish the brown spots on Ollie’s white hair. I couldn’t make out the shape of his ears. Shouldn’t I be able to do that? What happened to my abilities? My hearing? And why did the hum of my numbers remain in the background, hard to reach?

  The gardener raised his arm, throwing something, playing fetch with the dog. The dog sprinted after it, and I recognized him for sure, then. It was Ollie.

  My heart jumped in my chest.

  Grab Ollie, and get out of here. I didn’t have more of a plan than that, but it felt like enough for now.

  I jerked the pretzels off my lap and shoved them into the waistband of my tights. As soon as the car pulled to a complete stop, the door locks clicked open, and I burst from the car and sprinted for my dog.

  18

  BECKETT

  We sat on the steps of the building.

  Jack wrapped his fingers together with a piece of sport tape—one of the many first-aid items Imogen brought outside at some point during our brawl. I tried to ignore my guilt at his injury.

  The tension in my body had deflated with the physical exertion—or maybe the concussion.

  “Well, I hope you’re both happy.” Imogen sat on the step next to me and handed me another piece of gauze. I placed it on my eyebrow where I’d hit the tree root. “How do you lads think you can actually accomplish the job of getting Sage back if you’re going at each other’s throats every fifteen minutes?”

  “The two are completely unrelated,” I said. I took a bite of the tasteless granola bar Imogen found somewhere inside as well. It felt chalky and dry between my teeth, but it’d been so long since I’d last eaten that it didn’t even matter.

  “Oh, yes, that’s it. They’re unrelated, completely.” Imogen looked at me in disbelief. “Did you actually just say that out loud?”

  The door at the top of the steps opened, and Dr. Cunningham slipped his head out. “We’ve got Sven on the screen.”

  Jack didn’t look up from his wrap job.

  “We’ll be right in,” he said, speaking his first words since he rammed me into the tree.

  Cunningham stood there for a moment, observing the three of us.

  “Trust me, you don’t want to know,” Imogen said. “Like Jack said, we’ll be right in.”

  Cu
nningham nodded once, pulled the door closed, and disappeared back inside. I still didn’t like him, and I still didn’t trust him.

  “We don’t need these people to help us, you know,” I said. “We can do it without them.” I knew if I prodded enough, Jack might agree.

  “What if I go in alone and take inventory? Scout it out while faking my loyalty to Dad’s side?” I said. “Before Dad left the island, he told me he hoped I’d join him and help him expand the reach of the code. What if I went in and pretended I’d agreed? We get the intel, and then get Sage out.”

  Jack pondered this, looking partway sold on the idea.

  Imogen’s voice was skeptical. “If we bail on Cunningham now, how are we going to get there?”

  “We can walk to a bank, wire money, buy a car.” I nodded between me and Jack. “We both remember Dad’s bank account number, assuming it’s the same.” I tossed my granola bar wrapper into the basket with the bandages and tape, and stood up. “But I don’t want anything to do with Cunningham.”

  Jack lowered his hands to his lap, the roll of tape still attached to his fingers. “Wiring money makes no sense. It would let Dad know exactly where we are.”

  “Well I don’t care. Let’s hitchhike then, and get there without money. All I know is, now that we’re in the States, we can do this alone, and it’d be better than partnering with him.” I nodded toward the building.

  “What about Finn? Cunningham won’t help Finn if we bail,” Imogen said.

  It’s his son, why wouldn’t he? I wished I could say that. I wanted to say that, but now that I’d met Cunningham, I wasn’t so sure he would.

  “Part of your plan works,” Jack said. “You go in, get intel of the mansion, scope it out. Find out how many extra guards they’ve brought in for the gala, what parts of the mansion they’re opening up for the party. I don’t want to rely on just Dr. Cunningham’s guy feeding us information, because I agree with you, something is off.