Humphrey raised his eyebrows and tilted his head, the best warning he could give Elias without drawing the guard’s attention.
Elias shrugged slightly, as if loosing his shoulder muscle. In doing so, he brought the very top of a reader into view over the edge of the table.
So that’s what he’d concealed. Probably had it tucked in his pants.
Humphrey didn’t see what good it would do, though.
Static blared from the doorway a second before a tinny voice barked through a walkie-talkie hooked to the bald guard’s belt. “Still nothing,” the voice said. “I don’t think the butler is coming.”
The guard lifted his radio. “Did I ask for your opinion, Simpson?”
“No sir.”
Eyeing the Scions suspiciously, the guard stood and stretched. He strode into the room, boots falling heavily on the plank floor. Bethancy’s face went rigid as he paused behind her and touched her head. “And whose little puppet are you?”
She clamped her lips shut.
He snorted. “Probably some dimwitted actress.”
He continued to Dajeet, put a finger under her chin and forced her head around. She stared into nothingness, refusing to meet his gaze. The bald man chuckled. “I suppose you’re the puppet of a guru. Some magical hoaxster in Indiastan. Pretty, though.”
He stepped toward Wanda, who stared up at him defiantly. This produced more laughter. “I never was much for redheads, myself. And neither was your Progenitor. She goes around blond these days. I wonder why she didn’t have that changed in your DNA.”
“You know who my Progenitor is?”
The guard pursed his lips, but said nothing. He backed to the servants’ door and peered through. “No lock.” He breathed an obscenity. “Get up,” he ordered Wanda.
Tytus tensed, but Wanda placed a hand on his arm as she stood. The boy inched back in his seat, but his eyebrows betrayed his extreme dissatisfaction with how the bald man had treated the others.
Humphrey admired the serenity Wanda managed as she straightened. She reminded him of Vaughan a little, though they didn’t resemble each other in the slightest.
The guard approached Wanda, leaned toward her, smiling. Then reached around her to snag her chair and drag it with him through the servants’ door. Wanda slumped as soon as he was out of sight. Elias swore, drawing nods from Dajeet and Bethancy.
Horace chuckled and rubbed his hands together, the whole time looking Wanda up and down.
Something thumped against the servants’ door, followed by screeching as the guard pushed something very heavy across the kitchen floor. The door thumped again. A few seconds later, the bald guard appeared at the main doorway, brushing his palms together as if he’d just finished some dirty task.
“You won’t get through that way. Or this way, either.” He took the chair with him and swung the door shut. A second later the door boomed as something was thrust against it. The chair, Humphrey guessed. Probably wedged under the doorknob.
Humphrey turned to Elias, who was already speaking to someone through his reader.
Kirk’s voice came back. “What do you want me to do?”
“Come up here and help us escape.”
“No!” Humphrey commanded. “They’re too young to take on armed men.”
“So we’re just going to sit here?” Elias looked at Humphrey in utter disbelief.
Humphrey realized that was because Elias lacked experience in losing fights. He didn’t know what the cost was when, at the end of the match, you were the one lying on the mat, struggling for breath. “Patience. I just need to think.”
Dajeet huffed and folded her hands in front of her. “Hurry up. We don’t have all day for you to realize we have no other choice.”
37
A Swig of Spoiled Milk
As night fell, the faintest line of orange and violet slashed across the horizon to the west. But the direction Belle was heading, due east, was already all blackness.
Summer guided the skiff into a little inlet, slowing the motor to a crawl. It irritated Belle, who just wanted to get on with things.
Slowly they came upon the stony beach and scraped to a stop. Belle timed the inflowing surf and leapt out as it retreated, shoes squishing in the saturated sand. A few long paces took her to dry land and a fringe of low foliage. Sensei had moved to the bow of the skiff. He held up the remote. “Wait for the signal, then do whatever you’re going to do. Remind the boys not to fight anyone with a drawn weapon. Is that understood?”
“I understand.”
He’d only said it four thousand times on the boat ride around the island.
Summer did something to the motor, and it shuddered and began to drag the boat backward. It was so loud, Belle figured everyone on the campus had already heard them coming. Summer made another adjustment, and soon the boat was headed over the swells. Belle watched it diminish into darkness, and it soon became just a pinpoint of light from a flashlight Sensei had borrowed from Mother Tyeesha. And then that went out, and the sound of the motor faded beneath the ocean’s sighs.
Belle picked her way through the foliage and climbed a shallow slope. She used Summer’s reader for light, but even doing so stepped square into a thornskipple patch. Thankfully, the soles of her standard-issue shoes kept the thorns from piercing her foot, but several of the barbed thorns stuck into her leg. She hissed as she pulled them free and cursed as the barbs yanked small hunks of fabric from her pant legs and flesh from her calves. That was going to burn later.
When she finally got to the road, she checked the timer on the reader and started to run. As soon as she got to a rise that overlooked the Scion School, she stopped. She tried the reader to see if it could connect to the school’s communication network. If she could talk to the boys from here, maybe she could get them to distract the guards while she hunkered down well out of sight.
The network connection was dead.
She was about to turn the reader off when she noticed the photo Summer had chosen as a background image. It was of Jacey. She was sitting in firelight, holding what looked to be a hunk of rodent leg up to her mouth and smiling. It was the same smile that had irritated Belle her entire life.
Belle turned off the reader and started running toward campus. The image of Jacey’s face remained in her head.
“Sense data,” she said. For reasons she couldn’t understand, she had been conditioned to be repulsed by Jacey’s smile. She pondered why that was. The smile must have frequently accompanied some slight or insult, though Belle couldn’t think of a particular instance.
She stopped to turn the reader on again and study the smile. Jacey’s eyes were bright, though their aqua color wasn’t apparent due to the lighting in the picture. She stared right at the camera.
She had known her picture was being taken.
Turning off the reader, Belle continued her run, picking up the pace to make up for the time she’d wasted.
On second thought, Jacey might not have known that the picture was being taken. Maybe she’d been smiling at Summer. The expression hadn’t bothered Summer apparently, or she wouldn’t have used the picture as the background. Come to think of it, Jacey’s smile didn’t seem to bother anyone else. They loved it, in fact.
Belle realized why. It was because everyone else was on the receiving end of that smile.
That was it.
Belle hated Jacey’s smile because Belle never received it.
Communication was all an exchange of sense data. One person opened their mouth and created sound waves that went into another person’s ears. It was the up to the recipient’s brain to convert those sound waves into meaning.
A pretty terrible mechanism for communication, Belle thought. So open to interpretation. And then there were the nonverbal cues—the smiles, the frowns, facial expressions, body movements. How could one be expected to absorb all of that and make any sense of it? Even if someone wrote down exactly what they meant, the other person would have to read those words. Who
knew how they’d interpret them?
And yet, Belle knew that her hatred toward Jacey was a conditioned response to that same sense data. Had she interpreted Jacey’s communication all wrong?
Because what she felt in response to that smile was as unavoidable as shivering in cold air or a stomach growling at the smell of food.
So what was love in response to?
Attraction, she thought. Love was an evolutionary mechanism to encourage breeding. Nothing more.
But Mother Tyeesha had spoken about love in a way that hadn’t made sense at all to Belle. She had talked about her sisters who were so annoying, and yet she loved them. In Belle’s mind, love was supposed to be a positive thing.
She descended the switchbacks, now heading generally north. Soon the road would level and she would be within minutes of the Scion School.
Then she’d have to wait for Sensei and his damned gate opener. Belle hated not controlling the timing of this operation herself.
She had made a decision to come this far, but now that it came to it, she didn’t really want to go in. Why should she risk her safety to save someone she hated?
But her rational mind wouldn’t let her off the hook. Why? Why do I hate her?
Jacey had never hit Belle. Jacey had never played a prank on her. She had never said anything cutting to Belle.
The pain of the wounds in Belle’s leg reminded her of how she had thrashed Jacey with a thornskipple branch. That memory sure had lost its savor.
No matter how much Belle wracked her brain, she could not come up with anything Jacey had done to her besides being generally bossy and full of herself.
Was a superior attitude enough to deserve being overwritten?
Sense data, Belle thought. Why do the inputs coming into my brain from Jacey irritate me so much?
“Because she thinks she’s better than everyone,” Belle said.
She’s the best dancer, has that amazing memorization skill. She’s breathtakingly beautiful.
No wonder all the boys looked at her in that peculiar way.
That was reason enough to despise someone, Belle decided.
She caught herself. No. That’s reason enough to dislike someone.
Belle turned back to Mother Tyeesha’s assertion that Jacey didn’t hate her and Summer saying that Jacey would have risked everything to save Belle if their circumstances were reversed.
Belle could not reconcile those notions with her own belief that Jacey hated her.
Belief, she thought, is not the same as knowing. There was no way to know with certainty what any other person was thinking.
She made a face. Many times she didn’t even know what she was thinking.
She could remember no instance of Jacey actually saying that she was better than anyone else. She just was better.
A sour taste filled Belle’s mouth like a swig of spoiled milk. Jacey wasn’t strutting around pretending to be better. Belle wiped wetness from her eyes and cheeks. It wasn’t sweat from running.
Jacey is better.
She had to wipe away more tears.
It’s not fair. No matter how hard I try, I can’t measure up. I can’t compete.
Vaughan loved Jacey. Humphrey loved Jacey. Everyone in Belle’s own Nine and most of the boys loved her. Or, at least, desired her. Dr. Carlhagen was obsessed with her. That girl, Livy, adored Jacey. But no Dolphin had ever felt that way about Belle.
With stunning and cold insight, Belle discovered the root of the problem.
She hated Jacey because she hated herself.
Tears streaming freely, she pushed her pace faster.
She realized why she’d been blind about Dr. Carlhagen’s control over Vaughan’s body. She had always believed Vaughan and Jacey were destined for each other. So when Belle saw an opportunity to have him, she jumped at it. If she could make him love her, it would prove her superiority.
Because only someone who was perfect could deserve him.
She had needed someone else to love her before she could love herself.
If only she could rid herself of all emotion, then she could see clearly. She could be happy then. The thought prompted a bitter laugh. What a paradox.
She drew closer to the school, slowed her steps, and moved off the road to shelter behind a tree.
“Time to focus, Belle,” she whispered to herself.
She tried her reader again, and it connected to the network. She wanted to check in with her own Nine first, so she tried Leslie’s reader.
No answer.
She tried Dajeet’s.
No answer.
She tried Dansha, a foolish girl Summer’s age. The girl’s face appeared on Belle’s reader. “It’s you!” Dansha exclaimed. “What’s going on? Where are you?”
“Where are Leslie and Dajeet?”
“Dajeet left with Mr. Justin earlier today. She never came back. Neither did Wanda or Bethancy.” Those girls were from Jacey’s Nine. “Leslie can’t talk now. She’s trying to keep the rest of Jacey’s Nine calm. The oldest one left is Helen.”
Helen was a Centipede. And not a very bright one, either. The hair on Belle’s neck rose as a chill crossed her skin. All the missing girls had been headed to the hacienda when she’d driven down the path earlier in the day.
“Just stay calm,” she told Dansha. “The younger girls are looking to you and Leslie for leadership. Keep them busy if you can. There’s going to be some noise soon.”
“What are you doing? Is it about the men with guns?”
“Of course it is. Now get everyone settled down, and let them know there’s going to be some shouting. Keep them away from the door and windows. Understood?”
“Understood.”
Belle turned off the reader. Grimacing at her own Spider’s foolishness, she crept from tree to tree, thankful for the darkness and her black uniform.
“Come on, Sensei. Let’s get this over with.”
38
A Job in Government
Miss Dayspring had started to pace, but Jacey noticed the nurse took great pains to stay well clear of Dr. Carlhagen. And every time the woman got near to Jacey, she made a strange face. She clearly didn’t like what was about to happen.
Maybe Jacey could use that.
The next time the woman came near, Jacey whispered, “You’re letting them do this.”
“What was that?” Miss Dayspring asked. She leaned over Jacey, though her eyes were directed toward Dr. Carlhagen, who was observing a display that Greta projected over a holodesk.
“I said you’re complicit in this evil. How can you live with yourself?”
The nurse looked at the floor and rubbed her hands together. “Madam Senator has been very kind to me. She helped my brother get a job in government.”
“Should we sedate the Scion?” Greta asked.
Dr. Carlhagen rushed forward, shouldering Miss Dayspring aside. She backed away, still rubbing her hands together as if she were cold. Dr. Carlhagen leaned over Jacey, fingers moving as if he were deciding which delicacy to choose from a platter.
“No sedation for the Scion,” he said. “It’s best for the transfer if she’s alert.”
He bent over her, bringing his face next to hers. He drew in a deep breath through her hair and let out a chuckle. “This is not how I wanted it to be, Jacqueline. Say the word, and I’ll kill the old hag. We’ll be out of here on her chopper, and you and I can live together forever.”
“You’d kill the senator?” Jacey said loudly. “Miss Dayspring, Dr. Carlhagen just threatened to kill Senator Bentilius. Go get Alice.”
The woman squawked and ran to the door. A second later, Alice barged in. She stared at Dr. Carlhagen, fists clenched. “You threatened the senator?”
“No, no, my dear,” Dr. Carlhagen said. “This Scion is a very clever girl, and she’s trying to manipulate Miss Dayspring.” He turned back to Jacey. “I admire your tenacity, but your continuing struggle is pointless.”
He turned and strode away from Ja
cey, and she sensed that he was standing next to Senator Bentilius.
“You see,” he said, “Maxine is the true love of my life. I had just said that I would happily kill for her.”
39
A Momentary Dissonance
What light remained of the day did little but cast darker shadows into the blackness. Belle slipped to within a stone’s throw of the gate. After studying it for a while, she realized that no one was patrolling along its length. She moved onto the road and stood in front of the chain-link gate and peered through.
The mango grove obscured most of the quad, but the light above the dojo illuminated a small sliver of grass. A silhouetted form passed across it and was gone. Too big to be a Scion.
Closer by, the rear windows of Boys’ Hall and the Boys’ Classroom were dark. That made sense because shutters were closed and latched during lockdown. And there had to be a lockdown with visitors on campus.
She retreated a few paces to take cover in some bushes. She would have liked to turn on the reader light to check for shaddle spiders, but she couldn’t risk it.
She considered contacting Humphrey. As the senior boy on campus, he could coordinate the boys with more authority than Belle. But since he had been pretending to be Dr. Carlhagen, he might be among the senator’s guards. Even more likely, if the real Dr. Carlhagen had convinced the senator that Humphrey was a fraud, he was probably locked up somewhere.
That left Sang and Elias as the two oldest boys. She hated Elias. He was the one who had kicked Vaughan in the head, albeit at Dr. Carlhagen’s insistence. But still. She would rather poke herself in the eye than talk to him.
She tried to raise Sang on the reader, but he didn’t respond. Time was ticking away. So she gritted her teeth and called for Elias.
He answered right away. She saw the room behind him and recognized it immediately. “What are you doing in the hacienda dining room?”
Child of Lies Page 23