Novak bounded up a steep rock staircase, taking four steps at a time with the same uncanny animal grace I’d seen in the den.
It was a back way to where I’d been kept. I recognized the corridor of my quarters. Novak halted in front of a closed door with a small window.
“You can look through here,” Novak said.
He wasn’t going to let me in?
I stood on tiptoes and peered through the small square, my exhale spreading a fog over the glass. From inside, my sister immediately looked up and made eye contact. She sat next to a cot beside John’s long body. He was lying on his side and had his eyes closed. Four fans were positioned right near the cot to cool him down. I physically ached, needing to get inside the room and be next to him. My eyes met Liv’s, asking her what was going on. From what Novak had said, I’d imagined John had been awake and aware, the Puri energy seeping into his veins, making this experience a dream. The white room was more hospital-like than the one I’d been in, and I saw an IV hooked into his arm and an oxygen tank next to the bed, showing the foresight and confidence Novak had had that John would one day be in this room.
He faced the wall but suddenly shifted, moving to his back and placing his forearm to his forehead, a gesture I’d seen dozens of times when I’d watched him sleep in my bed back home in Austin.
I pushed myself higher on my toes to get a better view, ignoring Liv’s burning stare.
What?
When she knew I wouldn’t look at her again, I felt her stare fall away. Then I saw her lean forward, hair cascading, grazing John as she whispered into his ear. My fingertips whitened as they bit into the sides of the windowpane.
Look at me, look up. I reached down for the door handle and tried it. It was locked, but I began to pull harder and harder, jiggling the door in its frame, about to use my mind to open the door.
“No, no,” Novak said, sensing it and pulling me away, his fingers like talons hooking around my upper arm.
Look up! I’m here.
“Julia, it’s time,” Novak said, knowing what he was doing to me. It was an ominous sign that he wasn’t going to forgive or forget.
Liv was watchful as I rested my forehead against the window. I hoped she was sorry. I looked at John for one long second, wondering when I would see him next, knowing nothing was in my control.
Novak pulled me away.
My thoughts were on John as I followed Novak down the short stone staircase. We were in one of the veins that led to the center. I didn’t care where we were going. I only cared about when I could go to that room again. We came to a stop in front of a frosted glass panel. When Novak waved his hand over a silver plate next to the doorway, the door slid open seamlessly. I took one step through and found myself back in the main room.
The small waterfall made a delicate trickling sound down one wall. Only about half of the people were present, mostly the kids, but the others were trickling in, indicating where they were in the cycle I’d observed. In this room, the group could finally let their guard down and do the one thing we’d had to be most careful of always—gather all together without fear. I couldn’t distinguish between the hum of energy coming from the people and the ambient noise of the underground installation.
Heads turned just slightly as I passed, following Novak toward the kids and the circle they walked. Whether it was deliberate or not, he cut right between Angus and Paul. I lowered my eyes to their bare feet, seeing the edge of a familiar tattoo, the fray at the cuffs on Paul’s jeans. I had a flashback of the boys at their Austin hangout, jumping the sheer cliffs into deep water below while howling with glee. They slowed their pace and deferentially let us cut through.
Angus was right there in front of me, but I knew it wouldn’t do me any good to rehash every moment I’d spent with him, looking for signs I’d missed. It had happened and it was over; I’d look up and I’d still be in this place. The sooner I stopped resisting, the easier life in the mine would be.
But I couldn’t help it. I caught his eye.
I expected a crowing look or his dead-eyed stare. Instead, Angus gave me a penetrating look. Then he tilted his head as if he were stretching; he looked at the ceiling and slightly toward the corner of the room. His gaze fixed on the floor again, before slightly shifting to the other corner behind his right shoulder. I returned my own eyes forward again, leaving Angus behind me, but now I looked at the room differently—not as a haven but as an engineered biosphere. The only thing in every corner was the ventilation grates that allowed us to breathe.
For a second, I entertained the idea that he was inciting a rebellion. But quickly I shrugged away that dream. Novak loomed so large, almost like a different creature, ruling over everyone below him. Over time, the group had relinquished more and more power to him and now he was in a position to do as he pleased to us.
I’d been following Novak unquestioningly, my limbs alternately wooden and fluid, two halves of myself battling over whether to keep obeying. I tried to stop thinking altogether and let the vibration of the room fill me, cure me of fighting. As if he felt me trying to join the group’s wavelength, Novak glanced at me over his shoulder, his disconcertingly different face jarring me again. Immediately, the bliss washing over me burned at the edges, crumpling, eating closer and closer to my center. I felt terrible. He was the one making me feel this way, not allowing me to share in the group’s energy. He was informing me he had yet another way of owning my life.
I quickly looked away to avoid his direct blue stare. But the dread didn’t go away.
“This way,” Novak said in a civil voice, as if he were giving me a home tour.
Someone was watching me, staring hard at my back, wanting me to turn around. I glanced over my shoulder.
Angus was trying to warn me. When I faced forward, opaque panes of glass parted before me, revealing two sets of elevators. The steel doors of both were closed.
Then I knew where Novak was leading me.
“It’s time for you to leave, Julia.”
I stopped, shaking my head. “No.”
“You know you can’t stay.” Novak hit a button, calling for the elevator and looking above, hinting at his impatience for it to arrive. He wanted me to leave while there were fewer witnesses, half the group still not present.
“No,” I said louder, horrified. I felt it—it broke those in the room out of their headspace. The room suddenly seemed much smaller. The kids stopped their walk. Those entering the room entered onto a scene. Others came out of their various states of meditation, alerted to what was taking place.
This isn’t how it’s supposed to end. It can’t.
“Go,” Novak said, like he was talking to a stray dog. There was a pause. Then, as if he were unable to resist, he said softly, “Tell your mother what you saw here.”
Surprised, I looked up at him. There was a well of anger and retribution in his eyes, so thinly veiling his real feelings for her. He wanted me to tell her what he’d built. What a king he was and what she’d lost out on.
I realized that because of his one weakness—my mother—he’d let emotion override better judgment. Instead of removing me as soon as he found out Liv had brought me down, he’d allowed me to see the space. And by doing so, he’d taken a giant risk by bringing me into the same room with the rest of the family. Now that Novak knew who I was, what I had inside of me, he needed me out. He’d known my potential since I was a little girl. He’d just thought he had destroyed it.
I needed to get as far from the elevators as possible. Novak was four steps above me in the vestibule in front of the elevators. I walked backward, stumbling on the end of a throw rug, but still edging into the center of the room. I didn’t expect anyone to help me, but it made me angry when the closest members of the group backed away, creating a large circle of space around me wherever I walked. The pariah.
Helpless anger kept neatly store
d for eighteen years flowed out of me, born from the unfairness I’d accepted and made a life around. I focused on one of the vents Angus had wanted me to see, making a big show of it, making sure everyone saw where I was directing my attention. I’d always been made to hide my intelligence and any resemblances to my father from these people. It felt satisfying now to crumple one of the metal vents, making it fuse into itself in front of this audience.
A swell of anxiety ran through the room, now filled to almost maximum capacity. I wasn’t supposed to be able to do that. It wasn’t part of the story Novak had told them about who was chosen and who was not. Like Angus had once said, I wasn’t the right daughter.
Here I am, Novak.
I looked at his still frighteningly impassive face. I’d been avoiding showing myself to him since he took me to his office and exiled me from the group. I’d once listened to him and trusted him. Then, I’d lost him as a hero and spent months hiding from him. What did I have to lose now? No matter what I did, he still found a way to kill my spirit.
Then, with no warning, someone pushed my back, propelling me forward. But no one was touching me. Novak was dragging me toward him, toward the elevator.
Fighting against it, I whipped my body around, dragging my feet, able to resist the backward motion. I couldn’t end up in that elevator. Once I was inside, that was it; I wouldn’t see John again.
Angrily, I squeezed my eyes shut. With my eyes closed, I could actually see the white energy in which Novak had enclosed me. I imagined myself exploding it, bursting it into fragments. With a jolt, I stopped moving. I opened my eyes. The group was looking at me from all corners of the room with the dawning realization that I’d just overpowered Novak.
Sensing movement behind the window above our heads, in concert, all eyes flitted upward.
Liv had appeared on the floor above, behind the wall of glass where I’d been quarantined. I didn’t quite believe my eyes at first when I saw John join my sister’s side. They looked like a royal couple regarding their subjects below. I watched John’s face as he saw all the Puris together for the first time, in a safe space but trapped nonetheless.
My mother and Kendra and others had come before John, but immediately, it was clear to our group that he was different from other outsiders. He was breathing in dangerous gases he shouldn’t be able to withstand. Not only that, he had the same visible traces of light around him as the other Puris, connecting him to them. And connecting him to me.
This was Novak’s perfect moment. He had proof, finally, that his visions were correct. After eighteen years of being doubted, Novak was showing the group that others like us existed.
John’s eyes searched the room, looking for me. At least he would see me one last time. I wondered if there were a way I could let him know that I hadn’t wanted Angus or the family I’d left behind. I wanted him.
“Novak’s right,” I said, raising my palms upward. “There are others like us. But they aren’t hiding in a cave.” I looked at my former friends, at Paul, George, Ellis. “Do you really want to spend the rest of your lives here?”
I saw a pillar supporting the artificial ceiling above the elevator vestibule and I mentally kicked it in frustration. Cracks spidered down the column. Novak’s fear was just perceptible when I did that. This place was fragile.
In that preternatural way he could move, Novak was at my side in the blink of an eye. His face contorted as he grabbed my hair and began dragging me to the elevator.
“Novak!” I heard Victoria’s voice bark.
My hair was being ripped from my scalp, but I watched Angus run from the perimeter of the room like it was happening in slow motion. He was suddenly upon us, lunging at Novak, knocking him as far back as the elevator dais. Novak crashed at the foot of the stairs, Angus on top of him.
Angus started choking Novak. “Go!” he screamed behind him. The Lost Kids began streaming toward us, dashing for the elevators. To my surprise, most of the kids in the family joined the wave, not just the Lost Kids.
Novak flung Angus off of him like he weighed nothing. And then he stood, unfazed, facing the living room full of his people. He placed himself in front of the elevators, blocking them.
I’d landed on the floor, and dazed, I looked up at Liv. Both of her hands were planted on the glass, and then she was screaming, beating the glass with her palms. Then she swiftly disappeared from sight. From my perspective, I couldn’t see John, and I quickly rose to my feet.
To my surprise, members of the group, young and old, began to plant themselves between me and Novak, keeping me to the side of the room.
I stood and looked up, but I was directly under the overhang now, which blocked me from seeing John.
“Novak,” Victor said. The former leader walked forward, two other elders from the group right behind him. “You’re acting like an animal. We came here to get away from people’s base insecurities and violent tendencies. If they want to go, let them go.”
“No,” my father said simply.
I felt the air changing. This had never been a forced situation. To be in the group had been the ultimate privilege. Why the insistence? Why couldn’t he just let those who didn’t want his protection go?
I understood it. Novak needed to believe that almost two decades ago, he’d chosen the correct fork in the road. Because if he hadn’t, he’d given up so much.
Victor looked at Novak. “I said, let them go.”
“Law enforcement is close,” Novak said calmly, as if this decided the matter. And for everyone in the room, I was sure it would.
Novak turned to a silver panel next to the elevator on the right. In his palm he held a silver key fob. He tapped it once to the panel and immediately there was a small explosion inside the elevator, curls of black smoke unfurling from under the elevator doors. Apparently, the elevators were too strong for him to destroy with a thought.
I felt it—the ripple of panic run through the group. Safety or not, in taking away our exit, Novak was sealing us into a tomb. No one would ever know where we were. The world would carry on above as if we’d never existed.
Novak calmly crossed to the panel to the last remaining elevator. Angus was closer and placed himself in front of it. I saw the terror in Angus’s eyes, imagining what it would be like to be buried for the duration of his life after all.
His look triggered something in me. I ran through the group to the elevator. I pried open the doors and turned to face the entire room, holding the doors at the threshold.
Novak slowly pivoted to face me.
“You’ve always known it’s me,” I said to him, my voice hoarse, but I was oddly calm. “You’ve been keeping me down to make sure this didn’t happen. But what are the odds that I would be standing here at this moment? I’m supposed to take us in a different direction. That’s what you were supposed to do eighteen years ago.”
Novak just watched me, studiously relaxed, like a cat watching his prey exhaust itself. But those closest saw the tightness of his jaw.
I didn’t move a muscle or take my eyes off of Novak, but I kept silently saying to John, I’m sorry, I’m sorry for everything.
No one moved, waiting for Novak to dispose of me either in front of them or once I was shoved in the elevator and behind closed doors where no one would see the act take place. It was clear he’d become capable of either option. Even the large group of kids stood still. No one tried overpowering Novak. The room was silent save for the sounds of the water and the whirring of fans.
Liv ran into the room, breathless, making her way to the center. “It’s always been her. She’s the one in Novak’s visions—the next leader,” Liv said quickly. “Not me.”
I realized I wanted them to know the truth whether or not they believed it. What had been the point of subservience to Novak, to all of them? So they would call me one of their own? I no longer needed them—or anyone—to tell me
who I was. I knew.
Then I realized I was holding everyone’s fate in my hands. By standing here, I was stopping Novak from sealing away the Puris, securing their way of life.
If law enforcement was close, it was over. After all these years, the Puris could be caught.
I suddenly felt overwhelmed by that decision. It was too much power. I almost turned to Angus for help but instead, I looked up.
John hadn’t moved from the window. I knew I shouldn’t take my eyes off of Novak, but I couldn’t look away. Why was John so calm? Then I understood he was trying to tell me something, but I couldn’t read his mind. Novak had purposely kept that from happening, keeping us separated by glass.
Abruptly, Angus belted out a frustrated scream. The glass wall suddenly came apart in one large curtain, falling below and shattering into a million pieces.
I glanced at Angus, amazed, before I whipped my head back to John. Then, in place of John’s beautiful, familiar face, I saw a flash of an avalanche of rocks and dirt exploding into the section of the room where the kids were currently standing.
John had shown me the future. I took it as a warning to stand down when John showed me a different image, communicating with me for maybe one last time.
The image of myself from John’s perspective flashed across my mind. I was lying on my side in my bedroom at the W, lights from the gold necklace playing over my face, surrounding me like diamonds. For a second, I was there again, in a moment that felt like a hundred years ago.
This is still who you are, he’d said, warning me.
All the noise in my head faded to the background. I understood I had to trust myself even though I didn’t know where it would lead. I also had to trust that John could handle himself.
I faced Novak, doing the thing I’d been avoiding since one year ago, what I’d always been most scared to do. When I looked into his crystal-blue eyes, it was a relief to finally face him as the real me.
“All Elizabeth wanted was to be with you,” I said. “None of this was supposed to happen.”
I didn’t release his gaze. Then, for the first time, I could see someone else’s mind beside John’s. As if he let his guard down in his surprise, Novak’s mind displayed itself to me.
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