“They’re questioning Mellie Beasley as we speak, as well as other personnel. Though Beasley is cooperating.”
“What about Dot and Pete?”
“Those two fled not long after Vasily escaped.”
My stomach gave a painful little lurch. You didn’t run unless you were guilty. The band was a front—even if it’d done its job in dulling Natalya’s consciousness, it still gave them a convenient excuse to plant something in me. Not to mention Mellie was the one who’d done the deed, so even if she was cooperating with the Sect, I wasn’t ready to believe she was innocent. Dot, Pete, and Mellie . . . They’d seemed nice too. . . .
“The good news is that it’s mostly degraded—so degraded it’s lost its functionality,” said the tech. “That’s why we couldn’t quite tell what it was at first.”
Jessie had called it an earlier, weaker model; she knew its sway over me wouldn’t hold for long. That’s why she was so desperate. She only had the one shot, all or nothing, but they couldn’t get me. The combined strength of Natalya and me had shorted out the machine’s effects before it was too late. I guess the two of us made a pretty powerful team. That is, when she wasn’t trying to hijack my body. I’d buried her deep now, very deep. She was too weak after her last stint to try anything again. But how long would that last?
“Jessie used a phone that sent out a signal,” I said. “It sounded like radio interference.”
“That could have been the trigger. We have to let R & D figure that out, except they’re under investigation now too.” The tech sighed. “This whole thing is a mess.”
“That seems to be the common theme these days,” I said, getting off the table.
At least my neck was free and a little less sore. But I couldn’t relax.
Mind control. The very thought made me shake my head, incredulous. Well, they’d tried and failed, but I knew that wasn’t the end of it. I could only imagine what they’d come up with next, especially after regrouping with Vasily. I was supposed to meet Naomi in a few days. But in the meantime, I had to be prepared.
I needed the other girls.
• • •
“Sounds like a rough night,” said Chae Rin back at the dorm. She was still sweaty from training, sitting cross-legged on the chair at the right side of the coffee table. Perhaps in a show of support, she slid the open pizza box on the table closer to me. “Now I feel kind of guilty for having such an easy time during that boring mission in Glasgow. Have you even eaten since you got back? Here, have some. It’s only like a day or two old; it’s still good.”
Everyone was treating me rather nicely after they’d heard what had happened to me. I didn’t hate it. It was like being with friends. I had a feeling that Chae Rin, at least, would throw something at me if I ever used the term out loud, but it was a comforting thought nonetheless. A team. Friends. Didn’t have much of those even before my family died. It was nice to finally gain some after I’d lost so much already.
Why was that? Why was it that no matter what I did, I just end up losing something else?
“Maia, you okay?” Lake said, and the weight of her body plopping onto the long couch next to me snapped me back to reality. “You don’t look too good.”
“I’m okay,” I lied. “As okay as I’ll ever be.”
Lake grimaced at the stale pepperoni and flipped the lid closed. “How’s Rhys?”
I tried to pass off my flinch as an awkward stretch. “He’s at the hospital.”
“You didn’t go see him?”
I did, once. Just like all those other times, I went while he was sleeping because after that night, I couldn’t handle facing him. Couldn’t bear it.
That night in Blackwell’s courtyard had turned my hopeless suspicions to reality. I thought once I knew for sure, everything would become clear. But everything was worse.
I thought of Belle, my insides churning. What do I do?
He’d begged me not to hate him, just as he’d begged Natalya for death. There had to be more to the story. Why did I want to believe that so badly?
Ignoring Lake’s question, I rubbed the back of my neck. “Is my neck still red?”
Lake rolled onto her knees and brushed my hair back to check. “Yeah, a bit. They really did a number on you, didn’t they?” She plopped back down. “I can’t believe Pete’s a bad guy,” she said, sinking deeper into the couch. “He’s a bit odd, but really quite good-looking. I was even thinking of asking him out after the TVCAs. Oh, well.” She started fiddling with her phone.
“We don’t know for sure,” I said. “The investigation’s still ongoing.”
I flinched, surprised when Belle suddenly placed a bowl of fresh fruit in front of me, pushing away the pizza box.
“Right now we have to treat everyone as a potential enemy,” she said, her long French braid sliding across her back as she took the chair opposite Chae Rin. “You said that this Jessie Stone is one of Saul’s soldiers. We haven’t located the others from Fisk-Hoffman, but we have to assume they’re like her. And there could be more.”
It took me a while to answer her. I wiped my clammy hands on my legs but didn’t know where to put them. Quickly, silently, I buried the thought of Rhys deep within me. Only then could I answer.
“There are two from that facility still unaccounted for.” Two left like Philip and Jessie. And Alex. The memory of his dead, rotting face hitting the pavement still made me shudder. “But they’re not Effigies. Right?”
“Dot said they found an entire ‘electromechanical network’ down the spine of that dead guy. The first dead guy,” Chae Rin clarified. “Philip. Not the undead one that tried to eat you.”
“Got that.” I plucked a cherry out of the mix of fruit and tossed it into my mouth.
“Dot and Pete definitely made it seem like we could be looking at the possibility of something man-made,” Chae Rin continued. “And, hey, it’s not like there wouldn’t be a basis for it. Some people out there already think Effigies are government experiments. There was a whole special about it on the Conspiracy Channel.”
Lake snorted as she tapped away at her phone. “Watching the Conspiracy Channel. Sounds like a rousing Saturday night.”
“It’s interesting, okay?” Chae Rin glared at her. “Anyway, people have been trying to figure us out and re-create what we can do for so long. You heard about all that illegal research in Europe decades ago, right?”
“Wait.” I sat up, my mouth sticky and sweet as I chewed another cherry. “When I was under control, Jessie mentioned someone. Grune . . .” I frowned, waiting for the name to come to me. “Grundewall. No, Grunewald? She said the mind-control tech was his. Ever heard the name?”
“Grunewald.” Belle folded her arms. “No. I don’t recognize it.”
Grunewald. Was he a scientist working for Saul? Was he part of the Sect?
“Ugh, this is confusing.” Lake flopped sideways, kicking her bare legs onto my lap and curling her toes as she rested her head against the arm of the couch. A bit intrusive, but I didn’t mind. It was the kind of familiarity that came more easily with her. “What about the Castor Volume? Did you find anything about the symbol that Natalya drew?”
“No, but I didn’t have the chance to search long.”
“Of course not.” Groaning, Chae Rin jumped to her feet and wandered behind the couch.
“We have this.” From her pocket, Belle slipped out the white flash drive she’d pried out of Philip’s hand. “I’ve been trying to fiddle with it with no luck.”
“We just have to find a way to crack it, then,” Lake said. “Belle said it herself: We have to get ahead of Saul, right?”
“Yeah? How?” challenged Chae Rin from behind the couch. “None of us can do it. We’re not about to take this to the Sect after they tried to fry Maia’s brain. And if I’m being perfectly honest, I don’t even think we’re safe here anymore. We need to run the next chance we get.”
“Run where?” Lake mumbled.
Belle turned the drive
around in her hand, considering it carefully. “We have to give this to someone. Someone we can trust.”
“No shit,” said Chae Rin. “But do you know anyone who can do it?”
“Wait, yes!” I stood up so fast, Lake’s legs slid off my lap, her left heel banging the coffee table. “Sorry,” I said when she started cursing in pain, “but I know. I know someone!”
I wasn’t sure why I didn’t think of it before. Just thinking of him now, of the possibility of seeing him again, made the weight on my chest lighten for the first time in what felt like forever.
“Uncle Nathan!” I said.
Chae Rin cocked her head to the side. “Who?”
“My uncle Nathan! He’s supersmart. He’s one of those tech geniuses that work New York’s Needle at the MDCC—the Municipal Defense Control Center.” I said all this with a kind of breathless urgency that sent the words flying out of my mouth in rapid-fire succession. “Hell, he chose to work at the MDCC. He had people in the government practically throwing jobs at him, but he said he wanted to stay in New York and ‘take it easy.’ If anyone can do it, he—ow!”
Chae Rin slapped me in the back of my head. And just when my neck was starting to heal. “Okay, you were waiting until now to mention this?”
“Well, I’ve had a lot on my mind,” I answered, my teeth clenched. “Besides, with Sibyl’s family ban, I didn’t think I could contact him even if I wanted to. I mean, despite everything, I’m technically still in the middle of my training period.”
“Well, Sibyl’s not the director anymore,” Lake said.
“No . . . ,” I said. “No, she’s not.”
It’d been two months since I’d seen him: my only tether to the life I used to live before monsters swallowed it whole. After everything that’d happened, if I could find any excuse to see him—it didn’t matter what it was.
But soon the corners of my mouth sagged, my hands slowly lowering. The thought of Uncle Nathan filled me with the kind of hope that these days wasn’t easy to come by. There was only one problem.
“If we walk right up to him and hand him this flash drive, we’re putting him in danger,” I said, sitting back down. “I mean, let’s say he cracks it and the Sect or Saul or whoever finds out. What if it traces back to him? Saul is after me. What if I lead him right to my uncle?”
“Well, obviously we can’t just walk up to your place and hand it to him.” Chae Rin thought. “We have to meet him somewhere secret.”
A rendezvous at a secret location. Well, Uncle Nathan was obsessed with spy movies, so I suspected he wouldn’t mind temporarily living in one.
With one sharp jolt, Lake sat up from her slouch and excitedly shook my shoulders. “The TVCAs! They’re this Sunday!”
“Oh god, not that again.” Chae Rin rolled her eyes. “Yes, Lake, we still remember, and sadly, we’re still going. But we’re kind of in the middle of talking about something here.”
“Yeah, and I’m talking about the same thing.” Lake flashed us her phone displaying the main website of the awards show. The sleek black-and-red logo popped out at me first, but underneath it in white letters: 299 QUEEN STREET WEST, TORONTO, ONTARIO. “I’ll ask my agent to get him a reservation at our hotel under a pseudonym. He’s too busy ironing out the details to my single promo to ask questions one way or another. He won’t think twice about it.”
“Thank you, Lake,” I said. “Really.”
I looked at my phone lying flat on the table, wedged between the pizza box and the bowl of fruit. All the times I thought about calling his number, knowing that he wouldn’t pick up under the Sect’s orders. Sibyl had said it was supposed to make me stronger, more focused. But right now, I needed him.
I just had to make sure I didn’t get him killed in the process.
20
WE ARRIVED IN TORONTO FOR the teen Viewers’ Choice Awards at noon, just seven hours before the street party–style event was supposed to start. They had already blocked off Queen Street and were setting up the barricades behind which all those shrieking fans would be having camera-friendly meltdowns.
Me and June had watched (well, streamed) the party every year as the mostly American pop stars, models, and anyone with a semipopular social media account marched down the red carpet–covered street and begged for attention. Always amusing.
But now that I would be joining the parade of self-absorbed celebrities basking in the adulation, I was too preoccupied and paranoid to let any of it sink in. Under the unforgiving sun, I kept peering around as we hopped out of the Sect van and entered the expensive hotel, scanning the crowds of Effigy fans that had gathered there for Jessie and her personal army of zombies. All I saw were signs, tears, and flashing camera phones.
Which introduced another set of problems. There wasn’t a single moment I wasn’t surrounded by people: hotel staff begging for autographs, coordinators for the event explaining where we needed to go and when, and Lake’s agent—a slightly flabby, mousy British man with a black goatee to match the color of his suit and pants—running around yelling at everyone, trying to make sure Lake had the best press to cover up the fact that her single had been delayed again and her fans were starting online petitions.
“It’s not my fault!” Lake whined at her phone as we entered our hotel suite, not that there was anyone on the other end. She was glaring at the disgruntled comments from Swans because they’d just started a thread on the Doll Soldiers forum for the sole purpose of utterly dragging her to the ends of the Earth. “You wankers try to promote a single when you’re fighting monsters and terrorists at the same bloody time!”
Admittedly, she was probably just on edge because the four members of GBD, her old girl group, had already arrived at their hotel a few blocks away surrounded by a crowd of rabid fans. The videos were all over the internet.
I cast a wary glance at our hair and makeup team setting up shop in our hotel suite before pulling Lake into the empty bedroom. “He’s here, right? Uncle Nathan?”
“What? Oh, yeah. Room four thirty-two. And he’s Mr. Caldwell now.” Laughing, she called Belle over.
“And you got the drive?” I asked Belle after she shut the door.
Belle nodded, patting her jeans pocket.
“While we’re being skull and bones, take a look at this.” Lake slid off her brown knapsack and pulled out the cigar box we’d found under Belle’s floorboard.
I peeked around her shoulder to take a closer look. “You brought that here?”
“Yeah . . . well, you know, with everything happening, I’ve been a bit antsy about keeping stuff like that in the dorm.”
“Good to see you’ve come prepared,” I said, impressed.
“Bloody right, I’m prepared.” Lake pulled a pair of shades out of her bag and gave it to me, then plucked the ones from the top of her head and passed them to Belle. “Now, you two be careful once you leave this room. There are probably fans and reporters sneaking about.”
Belle and I nodded and started off.
“Oi, where are you lot going?” Lake’s agent lowered his phone and stopped yelling into it for long enough to see us leaving. “You’re supposed to be getting your makeup done—”
“Never you mind, Henry. They’ll be back. Just going for a short walk,” said Lake.
“Yes. Walk. I like walking. I want to go too.” Chae Rin rose out of her chair like a ghost, but the hairdresser pushed her back down again.
I shut the door behind me, the commotion muffled behind wood. Belle and I donned our shades as we entered the elevator. I had my hood up covering my hair, pulling the strings so it covered a good portion of my face. Belle was less obvious, letting her uncombed hair loose as if she looked somehow less glamorous and recognizable in a pair of jeans and a gray sweatshirt.
“This will be your first time seeing your uncle in a while, yes?” she said as she pressed the fourth-floor button. We’d have to go down from the twentieth.
“Yeah.”
It was the first time he would s
ee me as Maia Finley, the fire Effigy. He’d learned about it on the news with everyone else because I couldn’t muster up enough courage to tell him before I was thrown into battle. I should have faced him. But I was a coward then.
And now.
I looked up at Belle, who leaned against the elevator wall, her arms folded as she waited.
“Maia.” Belle’s quizzical eyes narrowed as she noticed the slight trembling of my hands, even when I clasped them together and buried them behind my back. “What’s going on?”
A few days ago, when I was at the hospital, watching Rhys, I’d noticed certain sights that were now etched into my memory. Like the sliver of light escaping through the curtains kissing his face. The quiet innocence softening his features, as if sleep had mercifully taken from them all the guilt and grief. He’d rested as if he were finally at peace, the peace he’d begged Natalya to give him. Natalya, whom he’d betrayed.
Both mother and son.
“Naomi Prince, Rhys’s mother, is a member of the Council.”
At this, Belle’s eyebrows rose. “What?”
“Not only that, but she asked me to meet her alone in Madrid in four days, which was three days ago, so, like, tomorrow. At sundown. Natalya’s old apartment. I wasn’t sure if I should tell you guys because she asked me to come alone.”
Belle pulled off her shades, and I wished she hadn’t. She could never hide the vulnerability in her eyes when it came to her mentor. “Why there? What does she want to tell you?”
“The truth. About Natalya’s death.”
The elevator’s gears shifted in the walls behind us. A silent shadow passed over Belle’s face, though she made no change of expression. “Why would she know?”
My lips felt heavy as I parted them to speak, but before I could, the elevator door opened at the fourth floor. The bellboy looked impatient as he waited for us to scurry out. Dipping our heads low, we left.
“Room four thirty-two,” Belle said when we stopped at the door. The moment stretched out, long and painful, as she knocked. What was I going to say to my uncle? What could I—
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