“Listen to her, Beckett. You see her rage. She’s in an unreachable place.”
“Look at her eyes, Jack. She’s listening to you talk.”
Yeah! I’m listening to you talk, you idiot! I responded to my frustration without thinking, and Beckett ducked while my fist hit the wall and broke through the sheetrock.
“She’s uncontrollable.”
“Maybe. But I’m not letting you kill her.”
Jack didn’t move, didn’t talk.
Beckett dropped his arms, surrendering to the complicated mess we were all in.
“I can’t let her go like this, Jack. Not if there’s any chance she’s still in there. Not when there’s still hope. I’m not letting her go.”
“I promised her,” Jack said weakly, lowering his gun, pressing his thumb and index finger to his temples.
Oh, so now you’re listening to my requests? Now? This request? After all the other times I tried to get you to open up? After all the times I asked things of you, and you did them your way? And now, NOW, you want to follow through on something I wanted?
I stopped my tirade, my chest heaving with the expended energy of attempting to relay my words. My entire body ached from the exertion. The vanity light over the sink buzzed and flickered out, now hanging by a single electrical cord pulled out from the wall.
Beckett looked at me, leery. “Sage, if you can hear me at all in there, you’re not helping. You’re going to have to calm down.”
It was then I saw Beckett’s eyes for the first time, the pain in them as he studied me. The misery ran so deep in his gaze that guilt immediately flooded my entire mutated body.
Beck had just stepped in front of a gun to save my life. I felt horrible for ever doubting he cared, for ever questioning his intentions, for second-guessing his loyalty toward me.
Seeing the tormented look on his face now, I couldn’t help but wonder if the three years of time I’d spent with Beckett on the farm included some of the most real encounters I’d ever had with someone. Based on the expression on Beckett’s face, I didn’t doubt that they were for him.
He looked exhausted. His right calf was bloody, wrapped with a strip of cloth from that ghastly golden dress.
“Stay with her,” Beckett ordered Jack. “Keep her contained in the bathroom. I’m going to the warehouse to get a car. We need to get on the road before Dad shows up again. I’ll call Dr. Cunningham, see if there’s anything he can do to help ….”
But that’s just it! I cried. My dad isn’t on our side! He’s working with Sven and your father! It’s not safe to go there! We have to find out who to trust first, before we head anywhere! And your dad might have my eggs! We have to go after Dr. Adamson! Why can’t you guys just hear what I am saying!
I choked a little when I finished my speech, my throat burning.
Both brothers stared at me after my outburst, leery of my unpredictability.
I dropped my shoulders in defeat.
Beckett strode toward the bathroom doorway and stopped to look Jack right in the eyes before he passed through.
“Don’t do anything stupid, or I’ll never forgive you.”
Jack shifted his shoulder to the side so Beckett could pass by.
“Keep your eye out for Dad,” Jack said. “You never know, he might show up at the warehouse.”
Beck didn’t glance back as he left the bathroom.
He wasn’t usually the one volunteering to leave me, and I wondered if seeing me like this was too much for him.
Beckett teetered on the edge of a cliff, his entire world shaken, and I don’t think he could take much more before he fell right off the ledge.
97
BECKETT
I couldn’t stay in that room for a second longer.
The way Sage looked, her nostrils flared in anger, her eyes unrecognizable, her face ….
I had to get out.
In the hallway, my chest heaved, sucking in air, choking back the sobs.
My fist slammed at the pain in my chest, just over my heart.
Sage was gone.
The girl I loved. The one person in the world who knew my heart and soul. The one person who truly understood the real me.
And she was gone.
What had he done?
What had my father done?
98
SAGE
I needed to lie down. My body throbbed with the exertion of my outbursts.
Jack didn’t move from the doorway, nor did he put his gun down, so that ruled out the bed or carpeted floor. I decided on the bathtub. I sunk my giant frame into the porcelain basin, comforted by the way the walls surrounded me. Ollie, seeing me settled, lay down on the carpet just outside the bathroom and rested his head on his paws, whimpering twice before falling quiet.
Jack waited a long time, watching me tap my hand rhythmically on the side of the tub. The beat soothed me, the repetition offered solace after the inability to communicate with words. Eventually, Jack lowered down into the doorway and leaned his head back against the frame. He rested his arm on his bent knees, keeping a relaxed hold on the gun in his hand.
He looked at me, looked away, looked at me again. It was like driving by a bad car accident on the road; he couldn’t bear to see me—the horrific disaster—but he couldn’t keep his eyes from wandering my direction anyway.
“I’ll kill my dad for doing this to you,” he said, no bit of hesitation in his voice.
My response was guttural and immediate.
I did it myself, you idiot! I did it myself so I could die! And now I’m caught in some sort of crazy in-between where I don’t feel like I’m dying but I’m not normal, either! And you don’t understand me, and your dad might have my eggs!
Ollie raised his head, watching me howl. I hadn’t lifted myself from the tub, but my arms swung wildly, attempting to make up for the lack of ability to express myself.
After I’d quieted, Jack just sat there, pondering my outburst.
This made me wonder about Finn. Had I looked at him the same way, while he struggled to communicate with me? Had he felt alone … frustrated … terrified?
But Finn’s eyes … they seemed so lost. He’d attacked me the first time. I’d never do that right now. At least not to people I knew and cared about ….
Still, in the end, Finn had recognized me on the island, at least enough to protect me. He’d known I was on his side. Would it be reverse for me? Understanding things at first, recognizing people, and then degrading to a less cognitive version of myself? Attacking the people I love?
The idea horrified me.
I emerged from my thoughts to find Jack still staring.
The tormented look on his face made me wonder what he was thinking. I urged my lips and tongue to work correctly, trying to form them into the sound of a question. Yes? Just say it.
Then, almost as if he’d read my mind or understood my primal sound, Jack started talking.
“Sage, if you’re in there. If some part of you can hear me, I need you to know something.”
Jack dropped his head into his hand and rubbed his forehead. “I just wish I’d told you this before now …. I wish I’d told you last night in the hotel room. Instead of today, now that it’s ….”
His voice trailed off, but he didn’t have to add his final thought to that sentence; I already knew what he meant to say. Now that it’s too late.
He bit hard on his bottom lip, working himself into whatever he was about to say. I sat frozen in the bathtub. My chest barely even moved; I held my breath in anticipation of his words. I couldn’t imagine what was about to come.
“When I found out … when my dad said he found the code in you … it … it freed me. For the first time in my life, I didn’t have a solid reason to kill myself … because of you.”
My heart stopped.
It all made sense to me now. The reason Jack had gotten so defensive in the diner—the reason he didn’t want to talk about dying or killing me—it was because he no long
er held that as his end goal.
And now … and now with me as a modwrog … it might be his goal again.
He pressed at his eyes with his index finger and thumb and sucked in a ragged breath of air.
“That was a gift to me, Sage. You were the biggest … gift ….” His voice broke, and he had to pause before lifting his chin. “You got to me. Just like Caesar said, just like you knew you had. I never wanted to admit it.”
He wiped his nose, half-smiled. “The bastard was right. I fell for you.”
His vulnerability hit me in my core. But still, I wondered. Would Jack have said all this if he knew I could understand every single word?
99
JACK
She stopped tapping her fingers while I talked, and it made me wonder if some small part of her could hear what I said.
I hoped so. She deserved to hear it.
If I hadn’t been so selfish before, she could have known the truth back when it actually mattered.
I hoped that some small part of her knew why I’d aimed my gun on her. I would have done it … only for her. She’d never forgive me if she knew I’d left her like this … the empty shell of a human.
I’d promised her.
See, that was the problem.
Too many broken promises … to keep her safe … to keep her alive … to kill her. And no matter what I did now, she was gone.
The reality of it twisted my insides like a meat churner; pieces of who I was—the person I could be when Sage was alive, the brother I was to Beckett, my responsibilities to destroy the code—had pulverized into a giant, spoiled heap right in the pit of me. I felt like spewing the scraps across the shiny marble bathroom floor.
But it didn’t matter what my insides felt like because it didn’t change a thing.
Sage was gone.
And my father would pay.
100
SAGE
“I think she understands what we’re trying to tell her,” Beckett said, arms raised. The boys corralled me toward the hotel door like a wild animal.
Of course I understand! I growled in his direction. I’m following you, aren’t I? We’re heading toward the door, aren’t we? Duh!
We were going to Kansas City.
No amount of attempted communication could get across what I tried to tell the boys about their father still working with my father and Dr. Adamson taking my eggs.
Jack attempted to throw a blanket over me to cover what I really was from the people we might encounter on our way to the parking garage. I flung the blanket off my back and then picked it up myself to wrap around me. I could do this on my own.
But my hands didn’t respond the way I ordered them to. I fumbled with the blanket, only getting it over my left shoulder before it fell off again. I kicked the blanket in exasperation. Ollie barked in agreement with me.
“Easy … easy,” Jack said to me.
Oh, please! I’m not some untamed beast!
The boys took a step back.
“Hmm,” Beckett said. “I’m going to make a guess and say she doesn’t sound happy.”
Beckett was responding to the stress of me as a modwrog in the same way he responded to stress back on the farm—by making jokes so he could cope. I wanted to feel bad for him right now; I knew how hard it was to see me this way.
Yet still, his comment infuriated me.
Why would I be happy? You guys are acting ridiculous!
No one moved after my mini-explosion of wails.
Beckett kept his hands raised; Jack kept his gun level at his side. Ollie stayed in place but quirked his head at me.
And I realized something.
If we were going to get anywhere—if we were really going to work together—I would have to get rudimentary with these boys. They were too thick-skulled to see that I was actually myself. They needed to know I could hear them and understand them.
I waved my arm to get Beckett’s attention and then tapped my chest with my hand, to signal the word I.
“What’s she doing?” Beckett said. “Why is she pounding on her chest?”
Jack shrugged. “Just keep moving.”
Jack’s voice sounded grim. Immediately after Beckett’s return, Jack had closed up again. He retreated to his dark and silent corner and turned cold—his predictable way for dealing with all of life.
I growled, then waved my hand at them again and tapped my chest. I. I’m saying “I.”
“Mods will sometimes hit themselves if they are not comfortable with their surroundings,” Jack said.
It took all my restraint not to scream.
“Maybe she’s choking?” Beckett raised his eyebrows at Jack. “She’s pounding on her chest pretty hard ….”
Okay, they weren’t getting the “I.” So forget that. Maybe if I cupped my hand behind my ear, signaling the word hear, they could put it all together.
With my clumsy, large hands, I did my best to stabilize my hand at my ear and lean in toward them like I was listening for something.
“Her ear!” Beckett cried. “She is talking to us, Jack! She’s telling us her ear hurts.”
I CAN HEAR YOU! I’m saying I can hear you! My hands flailed from my chest to my ears, back to my chest, back to my ears. Ollie barked again.
Jack shook his head. “She needs food. They always got more moody on the island when they needed food.”
I lunged for the breakfast table, scooped up the biscuits on the tea platter that room service had delivered, and threw them across the room with a howl of frustration.
I’M NOT HUNGRY!
The biscuits bounced off the wall and landed on the bed.
“Uh … Jack? I don’t think she’s hungry.”
“Let’s just get to the car,” Jack said warily.
“Hey, look at the bright side. She’s not attacking us.”
More jokes. Annoying.
I jerked the blanket off the floor and covered my head and body with it, sealing out the world, sealing out the boys, sealing off my anger, hiding my face from anyone else who might gawk at me or not understand.
I shoved a fist into my mouth to hold in my shrieking and waited for one of the boys to figure out I was ready for them to guide me out of here.
Dumbos.
*
“The Jag? Really, Beck? Where’s she gonna ride?”
“What? It’s not like we had a lot of options.”
I threw off the blanket to see what vehicle they referred to. The trip to the parking garage had been relatively uneventful, save for when my blanket got caught in the elevator door as it was closing, and I may or may not have been spotted by a little boy running down the hall. I think my eyes went as wide as his.
He’ll have nightmares forever. Poor thing.
“Well, at least the Jaguar doesn’t have the hump in the back seat like the Ferrari,” said Beckett.
“You’re planning to put her in the back seat?” Jack replied.
Standing at Beck’s heels, Ollie barked twice, as if asking the same question as Jack. My farm dog stared at me with equal parts trepidation and recognition shining in his eyes.
“Well, yes ….” Beckett said to Jack. “It’s meant for two people, it’ll be more space for her. What? You have a better option?”
“The Lexus has the biggest back seat.”
“Yeah, but it’s not a convertible,” Beckett said. “I got the convertible. What if she needs to stretch her legs or something?”
“I still think the passenger seat might be better.” Jack ducked his head to peer inside the window of the Jaguar. “Is there even going to be room for her in here?”
Stop arguing and get me in the car before someone sees me already!
I jerked open the door—or attempted to jerk it open—but my giant hand slipped from the slim handle, and then Beckett said, “Whoa, whoa, there girl,” like I was one of our horses from back on the farm, and I spun on him and was literally pulling out a chunk of my hair.
By the time I calmed down,
Beckett had opened the passenger door and pushed the seat forward and down. He eyed Jack. “Are you sure about this?”
Jack only shrugged like he wasn’t sure, didn’t care, or was too angry to say anything at all.
Oh, for Pete’s sake, you two, this is ridiculous!
Before anyone could say anything else that would tick me off again, I dove into the back of the Jaguar.
“I think she’s ready to go,” said Beckett.
I growled from the back.
101
IMOGEN
“It was you.”
The voice sent me flying up out of my half-sleep. And then I realized who had said it.
Finn.
He talked.
His eyes were open, staring directly at me.
“It was you,” he repeated. “You were the little girl.”
I nodded in disbelief.
“Umm …” I glanced around for something to say. How did he remember that story? “You thirsty?”
Finn nodded.
Oh, lordy, all the things I’d said to this boy when I thought he couldn’t hear me.
He took a sip when I held the cup to his lips.
He barely moved his body, like he was afraid of the way he looked and wasn’t sure what would happen if he started flailing around his giant limbs. He shifted his head about, taking in the room, taking in his skin, his arms, his entire shape. His hair—at least what was left of it—flopped around on his forehead, getting in his eyes.
He asked all sorts of questions, all at once.
“Who did this to me?”
“Where are we?”
“Where is my family?”
Bugger. Memory lapse.
I wasn’t prepared for this. I wished Jack were here. Or Finn’s sister. They could do this better. Jack may be stone cold, but at least he knew how to handle situations like this. At least Jack had a little more tact than me ….
But Finn was looking at me, waiting.
And so, I told him everything.
It took a while. And he didn’t say much. Chap didn’t even cry, which was good, because I don’t know much what to do with crying.
The Golden Order Page 24