The Revelation of Eden Pruitt, page 11
“I told you. It’s where her dad lives and—”
“I mean the lockdown. The deaths.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The National Guard is marching through the central business district in hazmat suits. A lot of people are dead. Even more are sick. They’re saying it’s some sort of … toxin.” The more Eden talked, the wider Barrett’s eyes became.
“I have no idea. This place doesn’t have a TV. Only a radio. We turned it off because what they were saying was really upsetting. I could tell Violet didn’t want to hear it.”
“Where are you right now?”
He shot a quick glance over his shoulder. “Her dad’s house.”
“Near downtown?”
“Not even close. More like the outskirts of the city. He’s MIA. The place was a mess. A total dump. We’re waiting for him to come back, but I’m not sure if he will. I think he’s the reason Violet doesn’t have a Queen Bee. I’m pretty sure he did a lot of really awful things to her. I also think—” He glanced over his shoulder, then leaned closer and lowered his voice. “I also think he might have killed Violet’s mom. She thinks her mom left, but I don’t buy it. Oh, and get this!” He held up his hand, where he’d scrawled three names in blue ink.
Hers.
Cleo’s.
And his brother, Graham’s.
“I keep forgetting names. It started happening after you left. Yours was first. It was like it just fell out of my brain. And Violet’s hearing keeps going haywire. It’s happening more and more frequently. We think there’s some sort of glitch in our system, like maybe we need updates.”
Eden touched her temple.
Updates.
Did that explain the unsettling bursts of pain that struck without warning?
“And the device! The one with the blinking dots. You know how there were five? When Violet and I left, there were twenty-eight. Twenty-eight! We have no idea what it means.”
Barrett kept going as a shudder raced up Eden’s body. She knew exactly what it meant. The Electus was coming online. They were ready for activation. Once activated, they would be poised to do whatever it was Oswin Brahm wanted them to do.
“You’re in danger,” she blurted.
Barrett closed his mouth.
She dove in, talking faster than she’d ever talked before, knowing he could keep up. She told him the truth about Karik Volkova and the real mastermind behind The Attack, Oswin Brahm. AKA, The Monarch. She told him about his army of ninety-four soldiers. About the Resistance and Prudence Dvorak and Dayne Johnson and America Underground. She told him about their plans to carry out a prison break. Then she told him one simple truth—Oswin Brahm had to know about them. And if he knew about them, he had to be looking for them. He probably orchestrated the deep fake to get the rest of the country looking for them, too. Now the National Guard was in Minneapolis. A man with Brahm’s wealth and resources wouldn’t have to work hard to dig up her father’s address. Which meant Barrett and Violet needed to get out of that house as quickly as possible.
“Where are we supposed to go?” he asked.
Eden grappled for a suggestion. If the National Guard was in the city, they were probably surrounding the city, too. Leaving Minneapolis felt entirely too risky. “There’s an off-the-grid community living in an old hospital building in Stevens Square. I can have a message sent ahead of you. I’ll assure them you aren’t terrorists. Maybe they’ll let you take refuge there until the National Guard clears out and we’re able to get you somewhere more secure.”
She gave Barrett the address. She told him to avoid the central business district at all costs.
“What about the answers?” he asked.
Her stomach tied into knots. She wanted those answers as much as he did, but right now, their safety was more important. “I really don’t think it’s safe for you to stay there any longer. We’ll find the answers some other way. Right now, you need to get out of there. Contact me as soon as you arrive.”
Something crashed.
Barrett looked left.
“What was that?” Eden asked.
Before he could answer, the feed cut out and the hologram that was Barrett disappeared.
19
Gravel popped beneath tires.
Violet peeked down from the rafters of the detached garage and saw Father’s truck ambling up the long drive. The vase in her hand dropped. It crashed on the concrete below—an explosion of glass that went everywhere as the truck pulled to a stop with brakes that squealed.
Like a nimble acrobat, she scampered across the rafters until she was pressed against the far wall beside a gabled window covered in cobwebs where she could spy. She sucked in her stomach and held her breath, going statue-still as the truck door opened. She could smell the booze immediately. He’d gained weight. The tail of his shirt was untucked. His thinning hair unkempt. He didn’t notice the broken vase. He didn’t see her in the rafters as he stumbled toward the house where Barrett was.
Violet’s underarms broke into a clammy sweat. She needed to move, go. Right now. She needed to protect her friend like she should have protected Kitty. But her body was paralyzed, her grip on the wood beneath her so strong it splintered.
“You!” Father’s booming accusation rattled the cobwebbed window pane. “What’re you doin’n my house?”
His words slurred angrily.
She squeezed her eyes shut as Barrett replied with a measured voice that only seemed to make Father more belligerent.
“Don’t tell me t’calm down! Where’s m’daughter? What’ve you done with’er?”
Get down, Violet.
Go inside right now!
But her hands wouldn’t let go. Her body refused to listen as her heart thundered and her ears rang. Father yelled. He shouted obscenities. Louder and louder until it sounded like he was in the rafters right beside her and every scrap of noise within a ten-mile radius screamed bloody murder in her ear.
She dropped like the vase. She fell between the rafters and landed hard on the concrete below. The camera around her neck landed hard, too—with a horrible crack. And somehow, Barrett was there, kneeling above her, his eyes panicked. “Violet, can you hear me?”
She sucked in a long, loud breath and thrashed—like a feral animal trapped in a cage. Barrett grabbed her wrists. He pulled her up into a tight bear hug. “It’s okay,” he said. “He can’t hurt you.”
He repeated the words until the wild creature inside stopped flailing.
She went still. Very, very still as Barrett told her what had happened. He knocked Father out. He hit him over the head with a frying pan. The man collapsed onto the kitchen floor when Barrett heard Violet fall. “He’s unconscious,” Barrett said. “But you don’t have to come in. I can tie him up, and when he comes to, I can get the answers we need.”
She breathed out, then in.
Out, then in.
Father couldn’t hurt her.
Father was unconscious.
She needed to see it for herself.
One brave moment later, she was standing inside the front door. Father was sprawled on the floor, face up with his shirt askew, exposing a belly that was hairy and pale and bulging over his belt. His face was puffy. In need of a shave. His neck, too. The frying pan Barrett used to do the deed lay beside him.
A twig snapped outside.
She pulled Barrett down behind the counter, out of sight from the windows. He opened his mouth like he might talk, but she quickly shushed him. Another twig broke. Without breathing, she peeked over the counter and out the window. Someone was there. A young woman dressed in camouflaged fatigues, wielding a giant gun.
Barrett peeked, too.
Then they ducked out of sight.
Silently, Violet picked up the frying pan and motioned outside.
Barrett shook his head and gestured. He pointed to the windows, then pointed at him and her and mouthed the words, “She might be like us.”
Violet didn’t understand.
Like us?
Barrett motioned for her to stay where she was. Remaining low to the ground, he crept to the other window. He peeked out, then ducked. He held up two fingers and hitched his thumb over his shoulder.
There were three of them.
Violet could hear them creeping closer, closing in.
They had the house surrounded.
Three against two.
Like us.
Her mind zipped to the device they’d left in Milwaukee. The one with all the blinking dots.
Like us.
She swallowed.
If it was true, then she and Barrett were trapped.
They couldn’t get out.
They couldn’t overpower them.
They might not even be able to hide. Violet and Barrett could hear heartbeats, and right now, hers was careening out of control. Even so, hiding was the safest option. Unfortunately, Violet could only think of one place to go, and that made her palms slick with sweat.
Her attention darted to the closet door. With her jaw set, she motioned for Barrett to follow. Quickly. Silently. They left Father behind and crawled into the front closet.
“They’ll find us in here,” Barrett whispered, so soft it was barely audible.
The sound that followed was much louder.
The device Barrett left on the kitchen table pinged.
Violet quickly parted the coats. She removed a panel from the wall, exposing the secret door behind. They hurried inside. She pushed back the coats. She slid the panel into place as the pinging stopped. She shut the door and she pulled Barrett down the pitch-black staircase. Deeper and deeper into the very bad room.
Floorboards creaked above.
Violet covered her mouth. She could smell Barrett’s nervous sweat beside her as three pairs of footsteps moved into the kitchen.
“Did he pass out?” a woman asked.
“I think he was knocked out,” another answered. “Look at the bump on his head.”
“We need to search this place from top to bottom,” a male voice said. “Pater said they’d be here.”
Pater?
The sound returned—a tinny, recurring ping.
All three pairs of boots clomped to the table. Violet’s entire body squeezed as tight as a clam. Barrett wrapped his arm around her shoulder.
The device continued to chime.
“What is it?” one of them asked.
“Some sort of gadget,” another said.
“Should we open it?”
“No,” the male replied. “We don’t know what will happen if we do.”
The pinging stopped.
Silence fell.
Violet waited for them to use their superhuman hearing, to identify the two heartbeats pounding wildly beneath them. But the moment didn’t come. Which meant the three up above couldn’t be superhuman. Barrett seemed to realize the same thing, for he relaxed ever so slightly beside her.
“Let’s search the rest of the house.”
The footsteps dispersed.
One approached the closet.
The door opened.
Metal hangers scraped against the metal pole.
“There are two backpacks up here,” a female shouted. “And a stack of books.”
The closet door closed.
Violet exhaled.
So did Barrett.
But then the gadget began chiming for a third time and her stomach squeezed. The footsteps congregated once again. They seemed to be huddled around the kitchen table, like the gadget might do something other than ping. When it stopped, the male said, “Wherever they are, it isn’t here.”
“What are we supposed to do?”
A moment of silent consideration followed the question.
And then, “You two bring him to the blockhouse.”
“Do you want us to bring that, too?”
“That stays here. For all we know, it’s some sort of tracker. We can’t risk giving our location away. Contact Pater, find out what he wants us to do with him. I’ll stay here and keep watch. They left their stuff. If I had to guess, they’re coming back.”
“And if they do? How are you possibly going to fight two of them?”
“I don’t plan to fight at all.” A gun cocked. “My aim is sharp. I’ll snipe them both before they even know I’m here.”
Violet pulled the string.
A halo of light shone from a bare bulb hanging from the ceiling.
Above them, the house was empty.
Father had been dragged away.
The women had taken him to the Blockhouse, wherever that was. The man was waiting in the woods outside, watching for their return.
Down below, Barrett pivoted in a slow circle. What had once been a sterile and neatly organized torture chamber had morphed into a disaster zone. It was as though Father had torn the room apart in a rage and left it all to rot. Papers and graphs and crumpled notes mottled the floor, and yet, this wasn’t what grabbed Barrett’s attention. That belonged to the terrible, awful machine running around the perimeter of the room. By the time he completed one full revolution, his eyes were as round as saucers.
“Violet,” he finally said, “this is a freaking particle accelerator.”
She didn’t know the machine had a name. She only knew Father had built it and used it often, hoping to bring her powers out of hiding.
He spotted the chair in the center with its mishmash of electrodes and steel cuffs. His face lost all color. With his mouth pinched, he bent over to pick up a framed award that had been smashed on the ground. “He’s a biophysicist?”
She nodded.
He looked through the ruined notes and graphs, then pulled open a filing cabinet where Father kept his journals. Meticulous recordings of all the work he had done. Barrett removed one and flipped through its pages, his eyes turning into saucers all over again. He looked around, spotted a rucksack hanging on the far wall, and shoved the journals inside, all while whisper-explaining everything Eden had told him when they communicated on the gadget he’d left upstairs. The city of Minneapolis was on lockdown. The three people who showed up in army fatigues might not be superhuman, like them. But they had guns. Big guns. And they seemed very eager to use them.
“We need to get to Stevens Square. Do you have any idea where that is?”
She shook her head, then pulled the rolled-up map from her back pocket.
“That won’t help us. We need a map of the city.”
She opened another filing cabinet. She rummaged inside and found an atlas at the bottom.
Barrett nodded excitedly. He brought the map beneath the hanging lightbulb and flipped to the twin cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. He jabbed a spot on the edge. “Right now, we’re here.” He moved his finger diagonally across the paper. “We need to get here. But we have to stay far away from here.” He circled an area that was downtown Minneapolis, then looked up the length of the rickety staircase. “I don’t know how I feel about going up there.”
They didn’t need to.
Violet gave his shirt sleeve a tug, then brought him beneath the stairs, where Father had dug an escape tunnel that led far into the woods.
20
Eden strode back to the newsroom with spark plugs in her veins. Her parents were okay. Barrett and Violet were okay. At least they had been fifteen minutes ago. Most fascinating of all, Violet didn’t have a Queen Bee. Which meant she couldn’t be controlled.
After their call dropped, Eden tried three times to reach him. All three pings had gone ominously unanswered. Eden didn’t like it. What had made that crashing noise? And why wasn’t Barrett pinging her back?
She stepped into the newsroom, noting the change in mood. Not more than an hour ago, the atmosphere had felt energized, caffeinated. Now, a palpable heaviness had crept in, like gravity doubling down. Perhaps the severity of the situation was finally setting in. The picture Chuck Perez was painting had certainly grown more dire. The sick were dying in droves.
Eden searched for Dayne. He was no longer at the round tables. He wasn’t at the newswire or standing at any of the desks. The glass doors in the back swooshed open. As a woman exited, Eden caught sight of him.
She marched through the somber chaos and barged inside—a corner office with large windows and a stately desk cluttered with papers, behind which sat Dayne rubbing his temples. When he looked up, his expression had changed as drastically as the atmosphere.
“I thought you were going to the boardroom,” he said.
“I was. But then I got a call.” She held up the gadget he’d given her and stepped further inside. “Barrett got in touch with me. He and Violet were at her father’s house. I told them they weren’t safe and needed to leave. Then our call dropped.”
Dayne sat up straighter, like this last bit was interesting news.
“I sent them to Stevens Square. I told Barrett I’d send a message ahead of them so the people there would know they’re coming. Do you think they’ll let them in?”
Dayne’s face fell. “I don’t know.”
“Can we check?”
“I’m afraid we can’t.”
“Why not?”
“The community in Stevens Square has gone radio silent. They haven’t answered any communication for the past twenty minutes.”
“What’s their normal response time?”
“Thirty seconds.”
The answer punched her in the gut. She’d sent Barrett and Violet to Stevens Square, and now Stevens Square had gone incommunicado. “What does this mean?”
“I’m not sure. It could be the government has shut down all forms of communication coming in and out of the city. Maybe that’s why your call with Barrett dropped.”
“You think the government can shut down illegal forms of communication?”
“It’s possible.”
But not probable. She could see it on his face. She could hear it in his voice. Eden tried to ignore both. She tried to hold on to hope. Communication had been shut down because of the toxin. The community in Stevens Square was fine. So were Barrett and Violet. The crash she’d heard before the call dropped was nothing but a patch of static.
