The Golden Order

by Heidi Tankersley

  Sven pushed through the door then, holding a white bag up in my direction. He raised his eyebrows. “Hungry?”

  The doctor lifted her chin and smoothed out her lab coat.

  “See you soon, Sage. You’re just a pretty face for one night, and then the real fun begins.”

  She turned on her heel and stalked past Sven into the hallway, her hips swaying after her.

  36

  IMOGEN

  The guard came back later that morning and stuck his head through the doorway, holding out an apple and some crackers.

  I took them and stared down at the meager portions in my hands. “What did you get for breakfast?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “So it’s official? We’re prisoners now?”

  The guard locked the door behind him.

  “Whatever,” I said.

  I took the food and went back to sit next to Finn.

  My knuckles were really drying up. Painfully so.

  I cursed the soap.

  But it was hard to get too upset, with Finn lying there in front of me. He was the one in real trouble, not me.

  I positioned myself on the chair next to his bed and took a bite of the apple.

  “Hey, you want to hear a story? It’s not a good one, I can promise you that. Nothing uplifting, if that’s what you’re looking for.”

  I don’t know why I started talking, perhaps to keep Finn from thinking the silence meant he was alone, or perhaps because it had been nearly twenty hours in this room. Or, more likely (and the truth I’d never admit to a single soul), I finally had someone who would listen. So what if he was unconscious.

  Actually, it comforted me that the kid was totally out of it and only part human. That meant my words weren’t going anywhere.

  I chewed slowly, swallowed a bite of apple.

  “Once upon a time, there was this little, bitty girl. She had curly red hair that hung down in her face. It always got in the way when she tried to play, which really annoyed her. Everywhere she went—in the streets, to the market, to the brothels—people complimented her on her ‘pearly skin’ and ‘shiny, white teeth,’ and ‘beautiful hair.’ She didn’t much care for all the compliments and attention, but there was one thing she cared for more than anything else … her mother.

  “Her mother loved her so, so much. Her mother told her so all the time. And if—”

  Some sort of itchy spot hit me in the throat. I cleared it away and tried again.

  “And if the little girl and the mother had only been left alone, their life would have been very happy. But they were not, and so their life was not.”

  I paused and ate a cracker.

  My mouth felt dry.

  This would not be an easy story to tell.

  37

  SAGE

  I hated the dress. I hated the golden, shimmering satin. I hated why Vasterias was having me wear it.

  Gold for money, power, prestige. They wanted to make a statement. I wanted to puke. But Sven warned me not to cause problems. He insisted I go along with it.

  I stared at myself in the mirror. The dress flowed down to my ankles; the material hugged my hips and went wide at the knees. The neckline dropped into a V, far lower than I was comfortable with. I tugged it upward for the twentieth time.

  A maid I’d seen dusting the staircase early that morning, Giselle, came to the room to style my hair.

  I knew she’d been ordered to come, but it still felt good to have physical contact with someone who didn’t want anything from me.

  Giselle didn’t even demand conversation. Her hands gently brushed through my hair and pulled it upward into a twist. Her fingers worked with my loose strands, and I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed the touch of another human being—someone who meant me no harm.

  The past week weighed heavy on me. The way Giselle stood over me, with me sitting in the chair below her, it felt so … mothering. It reminded me of my mom and the first day of school. Until I was eleven years old, my mom always did my hair on the first day of school. Even if all I wanted was a ponytail.

  While Giselle gently brushed and smoothed long sections of my hair into perfect placement, the rest of me was unraveling.

  I couldn’t push away the images.

  Finn’s face flickered across my mind’s eye—not the way I saw him last, but the way he looked sitting across the kitchen table from me, with a goofy grin.

  My mom in her purple garden gloves, scrubbing potatoes at the kitchen sink.

  Beckett, standing in the summer sun just outside the barn doors.

  The never-ending Kansas skyline at dusk.

  My home.

  I was nearing eighteen years old, and yet, in that moment, I felt very, very young. I swiped away the tears before Giselle could see them in the mirror.

  She finished her work and nodded silently when I thanked her for her help. Then she patted me on the shoulder and slipped from my room.

  For a long time, I didn’t move from the chair, didn’t move away from the mirror.

  I didn’t recognize myself. Neither the fancy dress and styled hair, nor the hard, emotionless face of the girl in front of me.

  Through the angle of the mirror, I could see that woman in the painting staring at me from the fireplace, her harp in one hand, scroll in the other. She didn’t look happy to be holding her harp or her scroll. And she didn’t look smug anymore. She looked as depressed as me. Last night, it felt like she was mocking me, but perhaps my interpretation was merely a reflection of myself in the moment?

  I’m vengeful, she’s vengeful.

  I’m sad, she’s sad.

  What would this woman look like if I returned to my room tonight instead of escaping successfully? What if Beckett and Jack never showed up?

  Would I see her jaw set in determination? Would I see tears running down her face?

  My thoughts were interrupted by chatter filtering up to my window from the front entrance.

  Guests were arriving.

  The gala had begun.

  The satin of my dress made as soft swishing sound as I traipsed across the room and pulled back the window curtain. Late afternoon had transitioned into early evening—the sun had lowered, casting a soft light over the final sections of the front lawn. A light breeze stirred the leaves in the trees.

  People arrived, one group after another, all dressed in black ties and elegant dresses, women on the arms of men, everyone drifting in the front doors. People smiling, laughing. I could pick out the ones who were a part of Vasterias. Those men moved more stiffly, their wives smiled less. This wasn’t their vacation; this was their pay day.

  How would my dad fit into this scene? And my mom? Would they have come here together? My mom all painted up for the event? I’d never seen her in formal attire in all my life. What sacrifices had my dad made to hide his family from this? To hide me from this? Did he want to do it—send us away? Had he wished he could come with us? Why hadn’t he? And how many things would look different if he had?

  I wanted desperately to meet the man from my dreams, to know in my heart he was real, and that it was true—that he loved me.

  I kicked the wall with my bare foot. Why was I wasting time thinking about this? It didn’t matter. My dad wasn’t like that. He only wanted the code. He’d already proven that on the island. Who cares that he was working with the boys to come and get me now. That didn’t mean anything. Nothing.

  Why, oh why, then, did my heart still wish it was true?

  I watched for the better part of an hour, scouring the faces for Beckett, eying the side bushes beyond the entrance, but his face was not among the attendees.

  The stars and moon slowly appeared as the sun lowered behind the mansion.

  I started counting the stars.

  More people trickled in.

  Still no Beckett.

  With every passing minute, my faith in Sven’s claims dwindled.

  Maybe I would have to escape by myself after all. If so, I’d need
a plan. But how would I get to Finn without the boys? Could I believe what Sven said—that the boys and Finn and Imogen had escaped the island? Where would I start my search? Who would I go to? Who could I trust?

  There was no time to think any more about the possibilities because a knock came at the door.

  38

  BECKETT

  Jack was sleeping in the passenger seat of Dad’s Bentley convertible, the first in the row of five cars in Dad’s warehouse lineup. Jack had pulled off the sheet covering the car and rolled back the convertible hood. Now his feet were kicked up on the dash, arms crossed, head dropped back on the seat. It took me a lot of years to learn whether he was sleeping or feigning sleep. This time, though, his breathing was heavy, and he was truly asleep. It had been a long night and long day.

  I stood next to the Bentley and attempted to dress the mannequin so she wouldn’t be naked for Jack while she traveled on the back of his motorcycle to the mansion.

  I jerked a t-shirt over her head, but the shirt sleeve got caught on one of her stationary fingers and ripped a hole in the armpit. I dropped her on the floor in frustration; the jeans had taken me long enough to get on, and now she had a hole in her $100 t-shirt.

  I was still ticked at Jack for being Jack in Crash It, so I left the rest of the new clothes strewn out across the warehouse floor. He hated unfolded, messy piles of clothes—an OCD trait that started fifteen years ago, and one he took to a whole new level in our teenage years.

  The Bentley where Jack slept was the car we’d taken for the joyride over three years ago while Dad was at a function at the mansion. We’d just turned sixteen. I still remembered Jack’s face. So alive, so free. Somehow, the car’s speed helped detach us from the testing Vasterias was putting Jack through at the time. It also helped free us, if just for a few moments, from Dad’s condescending looks and perpetual judgment.

  Now, sitting there in the passenger seat, his face relaxed into a neutral expression, his eyelids heavily closed, Jack looked far from the brother I remembered.

  Not that he showed any signs of aging—I seriously doubted if that would ever happen. But he looked older because of the silent weight he carried on his shoulders. To be fair, Jack had carried a silent weight on his shoulders since we were three years old—the burden of believing he’d been the one to kill our mother, that her womb wasn’t strong enough to bear him, that he’d sucked the life out of her, and that he’d set in motion the three-year descent to her death.

  But this was more. Ever since yesterday, his burden felt heavier than ever to me. He retreated into himself, even more than normal.

  I knew from experience Jack would never tell me why.

  All of this made us more irritable with each other, and I despised that. We were on the same team, and there weren’t very many people left who I wanted to be on a team with at all.

  I kicked the mannequin away from me. She flopped to her belly on the floor, and I noticed someone had written the word Sari in small letters on her back in permanent marker. Or maybe it was stamped on by the mannequin maker? Either way, the mannequin had a name now: Sari.

  Great. I could cuss at her personally.

  Do you hear that, Sari? I curse you and your refusal to get dressed.

  I sighed. An inanimate object was getting on my nerves.

  I’d reached an all-time low.

  I needed to rest, too, but there was no way I could fall asleep. The warehouse made me anxious.

  What if Dad knew we were here? Part of our plan was to take him by surprise.

  It’s not that I thought he would show up, it was more the possibility that he could which unsettled me.

  And what about the rest of the night we had coming up? Would Dad believe the ruse long enough to let me come into the mansion? If Dad didn’t believe me, it was all over.

  My thoughts were so wrapped up in Dad, and Jack, and life, and our plans for the night, that when the Bentley horn blasted, I actually jumped back before I saw Jack’s heel on the steering wheel, pressing the horn. He was smiling.

  Only after a sufficiently obnoxious amount of time did Jack let up on the horn.

  My heart raced, and it was impossible to turn toward Jack without feeling like I might punch him.

  “You’re so gullible, Beck,” he said. “You got feelings for that mannequin? It sure has taken you a long time to get her dressed.”

  “Feelings for who? Sari?” I held her up and showed Jack the word on her low back.

  “You named her? Wow.”

  I leaned back, lowering my back onto the hood of the Bentley, willing my rapid heartbeat to slow, hoping the whole incident wouldn’t send me into some sort of panic attack like before.

  “Here, let me get you a mint. Dad always has mints in his glove compartment. It’ll calm you down. I can hear your racing heart from here.”

  “Soggy mints. That’s exactly what I want,” I replied.

  I heard the pop of the glove compartment and then Jack jingled a metal tin. “Told ya.”

  “No thanks,” I said.

  “Here,” he insisted. Jack always insisted. I looked just in time to see a white mint sailing through the air at me.

  I caught it.

  It actually didn’t look bad. Tasted slightly stale but better than I anticipated.

  Jack popped one in his own mouth and leaned back against the seat. “It’s about time to go.”

  “I know.”

  “You gonna clean up these clothes?”

  “Nope.” Good, it was bothering him.

  “Bastard.”

  Jack chewed up his mint and swallowed. “Listen. When you guys get out of the mansion, I’ll head in the opposite direction on my motorcycle with the mannequin—I mean, with Sari.” He smiled at me, mocking. “You ride to the hotel with Sage, check in, and wait for me to come. It’ll take a few hours for me to circle back around.”

  I inhaled deeply. It couldn’t go like that. I knew it, Jack knew it. I made my way to the driver’s door of the Bentley, opened it, pushed Jack’s feet out of the way, and slid into the seat next to him. My hand rubbed across the tan leather of the steering wheel, remembering again the freedom of that night with Jack.

  Oh, how many things had changed since then.

  “You need to take her,” I said.

  Jack looked about to argue, but I shook my head.

  “Trust me,” I said, “I want it to be me. I’d switch you if I could. But if some of them do follow you, and it comes to something, you’ll be able to protect her better. It has to be you.”

  Jack only nodded once at this, sparing me the pain of words that would agree.

  I spit out my mint, sending it out over the hood of the car. It clinked on the concrete and rolled.

  I felt annoyed—not at Jack, just at the constant reality of my inadequacy compared to him. The truth really sucks when you have to say it out loud.

  And, unfortunately, this truth has always been, and always will be, true.

  I hated it most where it applied to Sage.

  Jack seemed to recognize this.

  “Another mint?” He held up the tin.

  I shook my head.

  He shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

  As he slid the tin back into the glove compartment, I heard a jagged inhale from him.

  “What’s this?” Jack said.

  He pulled out a pale pink satchel, and I knew immediately it was something of Mom’s.

  “Why in the world would he keep this in here?” Jack said, loosening the tassels. Out slid a gold bracelet.

  I didn’t remember it, but I could tell Jack did.

  He sat frozen, the thin chain splayed out in the palm of his hand. “It was Mom’s.”

  We both held there for a few more seconds, as if we kept still enough, time might roll backwards, and we’d have our mom back again. As if, in some dimension, that could actually happen. We stared at the bracelet, the gold glistening, catching the small amount of light from the high windows on the far side o
f the warehouse.

  The magic of the moment flickered away, and reality set back in.

  Mom wasn’t coming back.

  “We should give it to her,” I said.

  Jack frowned. “Who? To Mom? At her grave?”

  “To Sage.”

  The air was heavy between us.

  Jack took a sharp inhale, something solidified on his face. “You can give her the bracelet, Beck. She’s all yours.”

  It took a moment for Jack’s words to sink in and then for me to realize why he would be saying them.

  And then, the pieces came together, and I knew what Jack had been thinking all along. I knew the extra weight he’d been carrying. Once we got Sage out to safety and the code destroyed, he was leaving—or dying. I thought he’d changed his mind, but that lasted less than two days.

  So here we go with this again.

  I’d done the “don’t kill yourself” conversation with Jack too many times in our life together, so I went for a different angle.

  “Don’t give up on the fight for her now, you idiot. You know I like a challenge. It’ll be more fun that way, when she chooses me.”

  Jack didn’t reply. He just stared at the bracelet, then glanced up at me with meaningful eyes.

  His look was more decided than I’d ever seen. “I won’t get involved with her, Beckett. But at least she has given me one gift. A reason to stay alive. An excuse not to kill myself off. She won’t be dying, so I don’t need to either. That’s my way out of it. I finally have a way out of it.”

  He sounded relieved.

  Something stopped up in my throat. I swallowed it away and said, “I’d fight you a million years for her, instead of having her fully, if it meant you wouldn’t believe all the wrong things about yourself.”

  Jack huffed. “You don’t really mean that.”

  I waited, really thinking about how I felt around Sage. How I felt more like myself when I was with her than any other time, with any other human being. Would I really give that up when I felt like she completed me? Made me more me? Made me a better person? Would I ever stop fighting for that? For the life I knew she deserved?