by R. T. Lowe
The phone pinged as the reply arrived. Allison let out a little breath and opened it, reading it out loud. “This attachment will be sent to Felix next month.”
“Open—” Felix started.
“Doing it.” Allison tapped the document icon. It took a few seconds to load before appearing on the screen. It was a simple Word document, a single paragraph in standard unassuming font, no bold or italics. This time, Felix read it: “The Order killed Allison. I was there when the leader of the northwest Fortress authorized the engagement of the Protector who goes by the name ‘Sophia’. They hired her to mislead you into thinking the Protectors acted alone. The Order killed Allison because they didn’t trust her and viewed her as a threat. I disagreed, but my objections were dismissed. Although I believe you deserve to know the truth, I have no desire to die, and therefore I must remain anonymous. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Anonymous?” Felix muttered angrily. “The Order?” He twisted his head around, bulging his eyes. “The Order’s responsible for this. Those fucks! Kane and Lilly tried to kill me, you know, and what did Professor Malone tell you? He said they were acting on their own and mentally unhinged or whatever, but maybe Malone’s as full of shit as the rest of them!”
“Malone’s not full of shit,” Allison said with conviction, still staring down at the screen. “He was being honest with me. He said Kane and Lilly had gone rogue, and he was telling the truth. They’re the only ones who thought I couldn’t be trusted because I survived when the Protectors murdered my parents. I don’t know why I lived, but no one else thinks I’m in league with the fuckers who killed my mom and dad.” She leveled her gaze on him. “I know when people are lying, Felix. I sense it, remember?”
“Then how do you explain this?” Felix shouted, his voice echoing off the concrete walls and up the staircase leading to Inverness’s basement. “The Order tried to kill me, and now they tried to kill you! I’m gonna rip out—”
“Stop,” Allison interrupted, holding up a hand. “This isn’t… right.” She studied the bodies in turn. “This email came from AshCorp. Why would someone at AshCorp be sending you a letter claiming the Order’s responsible for killing me? I don’t think anyone in the Order has an AshCorp email address, and even if they did, I don’t think they’d be so obvious about it.” She chewed on her lip and pulled her ponytail over her shoulder, running her hands up and down like she was climbing a rope. “I think someone at AshCorp wants you to think the Order hired Protectors to kill me.”
Felix stared at her, puzzled. “Because… because if I’d woken up and you were dead, I would’ve thought the Protectors had done it until that letter from ‘anonymous’ showed up. Then I guess I would’ve probably flipped out and went after everyone in the Order.”
“Exactly. But this”—she nodded down at the phone—“proves the Order wasn’t behind it. The Order’s being set up and it looks like Lofton’s doing it, which makes sense, because if you thought the Order had killed me you’d not only flip out, you’d join Lofton.” The lines on her forehead vanished and she smiled, beaming at him. “That’s what this is about, Felix. You’re supposed to think Lofton choreographed all this”—she flapped a hand toward the dead man at their feet—“to make you so angry at him the only logical course of action would be to join the Order.”
“But you’re assuming I was supposed to find the phone,” Felix countered, thinking it through. “If I didn’t see the email, I wouldn’t know that someone from AshCorp was going to send the letter, and if I didn’t know that, I’d believe it was the Order that killed you.”
“When was the last time anyone used a phone that wasn’t locked?” Allison gave the one in her hand a little shake. “This is just way too easy. There’s this bag and the only thing in it is a phone, and it’s unlocked, and there’s a single email, and when you reply someone at AshCorp instantly sends a document incriminating the Order. Lofton would never do anything so stupid. It’s like a child manufactured it all.”
Felix nodded, and something else occurred to him. “Even if Lofton tried to make it look like the Order killed you, there’s no way the Protectors would do it for him. Lofton hates the Protectors just as much as the Order.”
“Good point. So if it’s not the Order or Lofton, then the only other explanation is the Protectors—they did it on their own. They planned to kill me to force your hand, to make you choose the Order.” Allison’s jaw clenched. “I can’t even tell you how much I hate those goddamn people!”
Felix understood Allison’s hatred of the Protectors but he didn’t want to sidetrack her analytical mind when they were so close to uncovering the Protectors’ plan. “So why,” he began, “would the Protectors want me to join the Order?” He paused. “They want me to go after Lofton and his Drestianites, don’t they?”
“Exactly,” Allison replied. “If you joined Lofton, that’d put the Protectors on their heels. The ERA runs the country now. He has an army of Drestianites. His monsters just killed a bunch of people in South Carolina, so now they’re rampaging on both coasts. He’s the CEO of AshCorp. He’s richer than God—and more popular. And don’t forget, he’s the most powerful Sourceror the world has ever known. If he had you on his side, the Protectors would be screwed.”
“Have I ever told you how much I love being manipulated?” Felix said with a sarcastic smile.
Allison laughed then suddenly fell silent and her face went pale.
“What’s wrong?” Felix reached for her, fearing she was hurt.
“Your arms,” she whispered, her eyes wandering over Felix. She hugged her own to her chest and seemed to shiver.
“What about them?” Felix ran a hand over the dried blood. “I’m fine.”
“That’s how I found you,” Allison explained, tugging on the sleeve of her North Face to show him the streaks of dried blood curling around her forearm. “I felt the knife cutting through the skin. This is my blood.” She cradled her arm, apparently remembering the pain. “It hurt, but that’s… that’s not…” She closed her eyes for a moment and her head seemed to sway.
“Allie? What’s wrong?”
“They didn’t try to kill you. They drugged you and cut you. They wanted you to feel pain because they wanted me to come here. They knew I’d come because they knew I’d feel your pain.”
Felix understood. “Who did you tell?” he said, feeling the panic swelling in his gut. “Malone? Did you tell Malone?”
Allison nodded. “I told him how I found you the other night, about the pain in your head when Lilly did that voice thing to you.”
“Okay.” Felix breathed a little easier. “It has to be Malone then.”
“It’s not,” Allison said stubbornly. “I trust him. Completely.”
“Then he must’ve told someone else. Maybe he told someone in the Order. They’re all, you know, well, someone else might be like Kane and Lilly.”
Allison ran her fingers nervously through her ponytail, giving her head a slight shake. “Maybe,” she said doubtfully. “But we also told—”
“Don’t even say it!” Felix cut her off, his voice rising in anger. Lucas and Harper had witnessed Allison’s empathic abilities in Woodrow’s Room, staring in astonishment as the bite marks magically formed on her neck, and Caitlin had found out about the strange circumstances of her rescue when she was at the hospital. “It can’t be them. That just isn’t… possible. Our friends couldn’t… you know…”
Allison nodded. “You’re right.” And though the intensity of her gaze mirrored Felix’s, he thought he detected doubt in her voice.
Chapter 2
SCHISMS
Felix and Allison stood outside in the cold in Bill’s back yard, looking in through the glass door at the warm inviting glow of the kitchen. Bill sat at the table with a large mug in his hand, blowing curls of steam across the surface, his eyes staring down at a tablet. Felix knocked and Bill’s head jerked toward the door.
Felix tugged at the handle and op
ened it a sliver. “It’s us,” he called through the opening, letting Allison inside before he entered the house behind her.
Bill rose from his chair, eyes widening as he took in the sight of them. Despite their efforts to clean up, there was no running water in the Old Campus and their clothes were spotted with blood. Allison’s boots were trashed. She would have lost her second pair in almost as many days, but none of the Protectors’ shoes fit her feet so she’d been forced to keep them on. Their primary reason for coming here was to find out what Bill’s text meant. “It’s time to tell you everything” seemed important on the surface, but besides learning the meaning of Bill’s enigmatic message from earlier that day, it was also their best chance of leaving four bodies in Inverness without anyone being the wiser. Bill’s house was nestled in a quiet subdivision a short walk from campus, a much better option than trying to make it to their dorm unnoticed by curious students, campus security, or off-duty cops patrolling the paths.
Bill had questions, of course, and Felix spent the next hour doing most of the talking. Bill fetched clean clothes and they scrubbed themselves at the sink, using a potato brush to scrape the dried blood from their arms. Felix started with Sophia and how she’d tricked him into exploring the chamber under Inverness but had to stop himself after Bill’s incessant questions interrupted his flow. It was then that he realized he hadn’t spoken to Bill since the day the ERA held their rally in The Yard, so he recounted the events of the past week: their thwarting of the shooters’ attempted massacre on campus; the battle with the Protectors and the Numbered Ones at the rock quarry; meeting the Order at St. Rose and finding out Allison was a Sourceror (which caused Bill’s mouth to hang slack for nearly a minute); his meeting with Lofton, and Lilly and Kane’s ambush that followed; and finally circling back to Sophia and the Protectors’ attempt to frame Lofton for Allison’s death. He hadn’t intended to tell Bill about his conversation with Lofton but he was so tired of lying he went ahead and described the encounter, accepting the possibility that Bill might think it odd that Lofton hadn’t killed him when he had the chance. If Bill reached the same conclusion as Allison—that Lofton didn’t believe in The Warning and that the prophecy was an elaborate fiction—it wouldn’t have any impact on his ability to convince the Order that he was the Belus (if that’s what he decided to do).
Bill had remained mostly quiet, nodding on occasion and transitioning from seltzer to beer. When Felix was done, he sat across from Bill at the table and watched him studying the label on his bottle. “The Order,” Bill said in a quiet voice. “I suspected they’d resurrected themselves after what happened to you guys at Martha’s house. I suppose they’re, well, executing their agenda.”
“I guess.” Felix shrugged.
Bill looked up, eyebrows arched in surprise. “You told them you’re the Belus, didn’t you?”
Felix glanced over at Allison, but she was gazing at her reflection in the window above the farmhouse sink, lost in her own thoughts. He shook his head at Bill and muttered, “No.”
“No?” Bill looked confused. “Why not?”
“Did you miss the part about Kane and Lilly trying to kill him?” Allison said, coming out of her fugue. She wore a Boston Celtics sweatshirt and a pair of mesh gym shorts. The jeans Felix had borrowed from Bill were the right length if not a bit loose in the waist, but the sweatshirt puddled on Allison’s arms and the shorts covered up her knees. “They’re a bunch of misfits. We didn’t like what they were selling.” She went to the fridge and drained a bottle of water without coming up for air, taking out another before shutting it.
“Thirsty?” Bill quipped, an apparent attempt to lighten the mood.
Allison faced him, twisting off the top. “I ran the equivalent of a half marathon and killed four assassins today.” Her eyes drifted over the table, settling on the tablet in front of Bill. “What have you been doing besides watching Internet porn?” She tossed the cap in the sink and sat in the chair beside Felix.
Bill sighed and stood, crossing the kitchen to the fridge. “Killed four assassins,” he said in a whisper, as if talking to himself, shaking his head in wonder. He went silent for a moment, eyes focused on the stainless steel. “Either of you want a beer?”
Felix said, “Sure.” Allison grunted and held up her water to indicate she wasn’t interested in his beer (or his hospitality).
Bill opened the bottles and handed one to Felix, reclaiming his seat at the table. “Why are you waiting to tell them? Misfits or not, I assume they must be of some use to you. They must want Lofton dead, right? I mean, your interests on that score are still aligned.” Bill drank from his beer, giving Felix a long, quizzical look.
“I haven’t decided anything yet,” Felix sighed. “I’m just gonna, you know, take a step back and see what happens.”
Bill set his bottle on the table, hard. “What more do you need to see? You know what Lofton’s doing!” He spun the tablet around so Felix and Allison could view the screen: a documentary of the Numbered Ones’ rampage at the stadium, the half-eaten and limbless victims, the dead and the slaughtered. “That’s only the opening chapter!” He jabbed a finger at the tablet. “Washington is his! The country’s in his goddamn palm and now everyone’s going to find out that maybe the Old Government wasn’t so bad after all. Lofton’s the Drestian, Felix. The Drestian! And you’re the Belus. You have an obligation. You have to…” Bill faltered, seeing their expressions.
“Kill him,” Allison finished for him. “I thought you said Felix wasn’t ready for that? Isn’t that what you told him?”
Bill frowned before finally giving his head a brusque nod. “The situation has”—his eyes went to the tablet—“changed somewhat of late.”
Felix drank his beer. It was cold and tasted good, an IPA from a local brewery. Allison stared at Bill, her eyes as frosty as the bottle in Felix’s hand.
“Well, let’s hear it,” she said to him. “We’re here. Aren’t you supposed to be telling us everything?”
“Back in the nineties,” Bill began, smiling at Allison, “baggy sweatshirts were actually in.”
“Thanks for the fashion lesson,” Allison said tiredly. “You texted us,” she reminded him. “If you want to tell us everything, you should start talking.”
“Give him a second,” Felix said to her. He knew she had every right not to trust him, but sometimes he felt as though her anger was misplaced, and that if she would just listen to him, she might realize he was actually on their side, whatever side that might be.
Bill ran his hands through a mane of dark shaggy hair and nodded at Felix, a show of appreciation. He placed his elbows on the table and folded his hands together, bringing them to his mouth, resting his chin on his knuckles. He gave Felix a penetrating look and then lowered his hands, cupping his elbows. “This is hard, you see, because it’s an admission of sorts, and the last time I admitted an error in judgment it cost me a great deal.”
“Judgment?” Allison said dubiously. “Is that what you call lying?”
“That’s a fair point,” Bill acknowledged with a nod to Allison. “I should have never lied about the Numbered Ones and told you they were wolves, but when you live in a world of lies and half-truths for as long as I have, I think it becomes habit. I’m going to speak plainly, and Allison, if I don’t, please feel free to call me out on it.”
“Deal,” she replied quickly.
“Okay then,” Bill said. “Plain talk it is.” He let out a short breath. “Felix, you read the Journal—what I have of it anyway. Everything except for, well, there is… there’s a part I never shared with you. When I found it in your mother’s apartment, there were papers tucked inside. The first was a note from her sister—Lofton’s mother—and the second contained The Warning.”
“Okay,” Felix said slowly. “The Journal references The Warning”—he thought for a moment, speeding through it in his mind, a feat he was able to perform because after reading it the words had imprinted themselves in his brain—“
about a hundred times. I guess I never thought about the actual Warning. So you… you have it?”
“I do,” Bill answered, pointing to the hall. “It’s here in a safe in my bedroom closet. I keep it with the Journal. You can read it if you like.”
“What’s it say?” Felix asked, realizing it had to be something bad for Bill to conceal it from him. He felt a moment of trepidation then reminded himself The Warning wasn’t real. Lofton’s mother had saturated the Journal’s pages with a power he had formerly thought of as the Source, forcing the reader to experience the emotions she’d felt as she penned the words. But now Felix knew those words were just lies, a sad testament to a desperate and delusional woman attempting to make sense of her life. “I don’t need to see it. I trust you. Just tell me what it says.”
“The Warning,” Bill said solemnly, lowering his gaze to the table, “says that… says that the Drestian is the… the Chosen One, the one who will cure the Source.” He raised his eyes, slowly.
The grandfather clock in the hallway filled the silence, and out on the street, a car passed by. Felix looked at Allison and she looked back, her forehead creasing with lines. A thought occurred to him and he said to her, “That’s what Tripoli must’ve meant when she told me I wasn’t ‘the One’. She knew I wasn’t the Chosen One.”
“Which,” Allison said, frowning at Bill, “means she probably knew Lofton is the Chosen One. If Tripoli—a goddamn Protector—was aware of that, I can only assume this is common knowledge, right? If the Protectors know, then the Order must know, and of course the Drestianites have to know.” She turned to Felix and made a disgusted sound. “This sucks! Just what Lofton needs—another weapon at his fricken’ disposal.”