The Revelation of Eden Pruitt, page 13
Eden shut the door, eager to talk.
But Cleo held up her hand. “We should check for bugs,” she whispered. “This suite could be wired. My room at Kaiser could have been wired. The thought didn’t occur to me until we were leaving—a total lapse in judgment. I blame the concussion.”
Eden didn’t think Cleo’s room had been wired. She didn’t think this suite was wired. But she had to admit, Cleo’s suspicions had a track record of validity, even when Eden thought they were absurd. She entertained her injured friend with a quick but thorough sweep.
No bugs were found.
Cleo took the thick tome that was Oswin Brahm’s biography from the coffee table and settled herself on the couch with her bad leg propped on an ottoman.
“I definitely need to read this,” she said, running her finger down the spine. She opened the book and flipped through the pages, shaking her head all the while. “America’s superhero is actually the villain.”
Eden grabbed a pillow and sat beside her. “Do you think he planned for his wife to die in The Attack?”
“It makes him more sympathetic, having lost someone, too. More relatable to the public he’s trying to woo.”
A nauseating lump rolled up Eden’s throat.
Cleo snapped the biography shut and set it aside. “Tell me everything.”
Eden dove in. She told Cleo about her conversation with Barrett. She told Cleo about the playbook, Sanctus Liber, and how the Resistance had been working to locate it. Several times, Cleo had to ask Eden to slow down. Cleo was clever—probably even brilliant—but her mind couldn’t process information at the same speed as Eden’s or Barrett’s.
When she finished, Cleo said, “It’s a shame we don’t have the device.”
At first, Eden thought Cleo was referring to the device in Eden’s pocket—the one she used to communicate with Barrett. But then her thoughts turned to another device—the one they’d left with Jack Forrester. The one with at least twenty-eight blinking dots. By now, probably more.
“IP addresses,” Eden muttered.
“They don’t give exact locations, but they do provide a general vicinity.” Cleo leaned back, looking from the pristine white kitchen to the sliding glass doors that led to a balcony. Outside, the sky was dark. Another day had come and gone. Another day with Cassian locked in a prison cell.
With every passing hour, she felt more and more like a carved pumpkin. Gutted. Hollowed out. Increasingly desperate. In the quiet moments, when she had nothing to distract her, she caught herself praying, bargaining, making promises. But to who—God? Her family had never been particularly religious. Did she believe in such a being? Some all-powerful, benevolent creator? And if she did, what did such a being think of her—a mortal who had been tampered with, corrupted by a man who had murdered millions. A super freak, as Cleo called her, designed to bring forth some twisted Utopia. The ends didn’t justify the means, and yet with every passing hour, Eden felt more inclined to justify anything if it meant helping Cassian.
“It’s hard to stomach,” Cleo said, as though reading Eden’s mind. But when she continued, her words weren’t about Cass. “The people here are living like royalty. Meanwhile, in Chicago …” She shook her head. “Inequity is inescapable. Even off the grid.”
Eden agreed, but she was too preoccupied to linger on the injustice. Her parents and the Foresters and Dr. Norton had their hands on a device that might very well point to the elusive location the Resistance had been looking for. And Eden had found a target. She told Cleo about Manuel Van Cooper, a construction mechanic for the navy. She told her about the gambling dens and Asher’s plan.
“He wants to take all Manuel Van Cooper’s money,” Eden said. “Then offer to cancel his debt in return for a favor.”
“What’s the favor?” Cleo asked.
“Do something to the vehicles transporting the prisoners.” Eden set her elbows on her knees and clasped her hands. Her left leg bounced. “I need to be a part of this.”
“Then make it dumb not to bring you.”
“How?”
“You’re an exceptional poker player.”
“I’ve never played a hand in my life.”
“Then learn. You have every advantage in the world, Six. You can compute all the odds with your freaky photographic memory. Measure your opponent’s heart rate and breathing pattern. Calculate the exact dilation of their pupils, for crying out loud. Give yourself an hour to study the game and I have no doubt you could stroll in to the next world series poker tournament and win the whole thing.”
“You don’t think that would rouse suspicion?”
“You don’t need to be one of Brahm’s super freaks to be a poker prodigy. There have been and will continue to be plenty of prodigies that have nothing to do with a psychotic genius inserting nanobots into embryos. Look at Asher.” Cleo made a face, like someone had broached the topic of vomit at the dinner table. “He doesn’t have any nanobots helping him, and yet he created The Amber Highway at sixteen.”
Eden considered this, her nerves frayed and frazzled. Keeping her secret was taking a toll. Paranoia was beginning to cloud her judgement. She thought about her mug shot and Cassian’s picture in the war room. The Resistance had set their sights on Cassian, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t shift their focus to her. One wrong step could land her right beside the asset, where she’d be no help to Cass at all.
“Tell me more about this newsroom,” Cleo said, rubbing her hands excitedly.
America Underground would be leaking the location tomorrow, all while the country was spinning into panic. Nobody could say whether Minneapolis was an isolated attack. Concordia was currently zeroing in on Barrett Barr and Violet Winter, who’d entered the city right before the toxin was released. Further proof that the teenagers were members of Interitus. The death toll had reached sixty-seven, eight of whom were first responders. Hospitals were overflowing. Which had Cleo thinking about her mother and Eden thinking about her own.
According to Barrett, she’d been crying; her father had looked ready to faint. The thought of them grieving the loss of their daughter when they’d already grieved the loss of their son shredded Eden’s insides. Her brain was being split in too many directions. She removed the gadget from her pocket. “I wish we could use this to contact them.”
Cleo nodded in frustrated agreement. Dr. Beverly Randall-Ransom wasn’t on The Amber Highway. Neither were Eden’s parents. There was no code to plug in that would send Dr. Norton a notification. Which meant it was impossible. But Cleo sat up, her eyes brightening. “We could contact Mona.”
Mona.
Something fluttered in her belly.
Dayne would know how to reach Mona.
Once they reached her, Mona could contact Dr. Beverly Randall-Ransom, who would know how to send word to Eden’s parents.
Her desire to put them out of misery swirled into an acute longing impossible to resist. They sat with the possibility for a moment, then made their way to the newsroom. By the time they reached the elevator, Cleo had gone waxy. She’d been released from Kaiser with strict orders to rest with her leg up, not traipse by foot all the way to the IDA in the dark. Despite the pallor of her skin, her eyes danced. She was about to step inside the command center of the country’s largest, most illicit newspaper. This was her Disneyland.
The elevator doors slid open.
It wasn’t nearly as busy as it had been earlier in the day. More than half the desks were empty. Phones were no longer ringing. Computer keys, no longer clacking. Even so, Cleo’s face stretched long with wonder, like a kid on Christmas morning.
Dayne sat at one of the round tables in the back, conferring with two others, one of whom gave him a nudge and pointed in their direction. He looked over his shoulder—his hair a mess, his eyes bloodshot—and smiled in surprise.
“They let you out,” he said, walking toward them. He had a five o’clock shadow. His breath smelled like stale coffee. He looked like a man who hadn’t taken a single break all day. Eden wondered if he was staying so feverishly busy because he cared this deeply about the cause, or because he wanted to avoid thinking about the Millers. Probably a combination of both.
“I think they were getting annoyed with my complaints,” Cleo replied.
Dayne chuckled.
Eden pounced with a question. “Have you heard from your correspondent?”
He frowned. “We haven’t been able to get in touch with him.”
“All day?”
He shook his head.
The ominous feeling in Eden’s gut expanded as Cleo leaned heavily on her crutches and surveyed the room—physically weak, but mentally stimulated. “This place is amazing.”
Dayne’s frown turned upside down. He stood taller, his chest puffing at the compliment. The two of them had hit it off at the Miller’s, slipping into the role of doting mentor and admiring mentee. It seemed their rapport would continue here. “Once you’re fully recovered, I’ll have to find you a desk.”
“Really?”
“With writing chops like yours? Only a world-class idiot would keep you away.” He gave her a paternal smile. “We’re slowing down here. Mostly set for tomorrow’s edition. I was just about to find Jericho.” A bitter edge crept into his voice as he said the name. Apparently, forgiveness wasn’t one of Dayne’s strengths. “See what I missed in the boardroom.”
Eden filled him in. Then she removed the gadget from her pocket. “Can we use this to get in touch with someone in Chicago?”
He scratched his stubbled cheek.
Eden braced herself for his reticence. Contacting Violet’s father was one thing. He had willingly submitted his contact information to America Underground. Trying to contact Mona so she could get in touch with Cleo’s mother was something else altogether. Dr. Beverly Randall-Ransom wasn’t on the highway, and she was undoubtedly—as Asher so snidely pointed out—being monitored. The move was too risky.
But his disapproval didn’t come. Maybe suppressed grief was making him reckless. Maybe it was Jericho’s betrayal. Or maybe Dayne Johnson was a natural-born risk-taker, and twenty-one years of living as a wanted insurrectionist made him even more so.
Whatever the case, he waved at them to follow—past the round tables, through the glass doors and into his office. He sat down at the desk and pulled up the contact information for every off-the-grid community across the nation. Then he took Eden’s gadget and plugged in the proper code for Chicago.
22
Cassian stood beneath the lukewarm spray of the shower. A half wall of cement afforded the only privacy he would have from the pair of gun-wielding guards standing watch, one of whom sported a crooked nose and a purple bruise beneath each eye.
Time had turned into an enigma. Since there weren’t any clocks or windows in this hellhole—at least none Cass had access to—he had to measure it in meals and facial hair. His existence had diminished into something very small. There had been no more interrogations. No more sightings of Prudence Dvorak. No more Lady Justice. No more doctor. No more excursions down dark hallways so the guard with the limp could demand answers to questions Cass only partially understood. It was just him and a six by nine cell. This shower area, which he’d been to twice. The camera-lined corridor that stretched between. And a rotation of the same four guards.
Cass stuck his head beneath the stream and dragged his hands down his face. To keep the despair at bay, he’d spent his waking hours doing sit-ups and one-armed push-ups. He kept his thoughts active and intentional. If his mind was a vehicle, he couldn’t be a passenger. He put himself in the driver’s seat, taking every opportunity to observe and calculate and memorize.
He cased his own cell, scrutinizing every square inch, searching for something—anything—that might lend itself to an escape. In the corridors, he counted cameras and doors and steps. He peered down perpendicular hallways, hoping to glimpse where they might lead. He knew the approximate heights, weights, and ages of all four of his guards.
The one with the broken nose was left-handed and had a bum knee. The blonde was a compulsive knuckle cracker. He popped them regularly and often, unless his shift overlapped with the guard who shaved his head. There was no knuckle-cracking when Baldie was around, just the rattle and crunch of the Tums he chewed like candy. Then there was the guard with the freckles, who wore a wedding band and smelled like ladies’ perfume—so far, two different kinds.
Cass ran scenarios through his mind, plotting getaways and escapes, none of them feasible. When that grew tiresome, he turned his attention to the puzzle pieces he and Eden had been gathering before they followed that tunnel and he landed here. Francesca Burnoli led them to Willow Bryson. Willow Bryson led them to the Bryson’s safe. There, they’d found a pamphlet and a photograph of Isabella Bryson’s sister, Lillian Kashif. Lillian led them to her surviving son, Amir. And Amir led them to Washington, DC, where Prudence Dvorak had pressed the blade of her knife against Cleo’s neck.
“Did you come for the asset?”
Cass glanced at the guard with the black eyes.
“Where are they keeping him?” he’d asked.
Was him the asset? If so, then didn’t that mean the guard worked for the Monarch? Cass thought about the raid. The bombs and the gunfire and what happened to Cleo? Now that he knew the government didn’t have Eden, this was the question that would pounce unexpectedly. Whenever it did, he heaved it from his mind, along with a myriad of others. Then he would drift into a fitful sleep, where his subconscious shoved him out of the driver’s seat. It took the wheel, taunting him with a disturbing mixture of euphoric dreams and sickening nightmares.
Kissing Eden in the Miller’s kitchen.
His mother, pushing him into the closet.
Kissing Eden in the Miller’s basement.
His father with the baseball bat.
Kissing Eden in Lou’s ring.
The crack of bone and the spray of blood.
Kissing Eden in Beverly’s driveway.
The roar of the crowd as his chest heaved and his opponent lay at his feet, open-eyed and unseeing.
“You gave your money to the widow.”
Cass shut off the water with an aggressive twist of the knob. He dried himself with a thin towel and dressed in his jumpsuit. The broken-nosed guard cuffed him gruffly. Then he pulled his walkie-talkie from his belt, the bruise beneath his left eye twitching as he pushed the button. “Prisoner two is ready. Over.”
There was a squawk.
“Bring him to the interrogation room,” Lady Justice replied. “Over.”
Cass perked up. He hadn’t seen her since she visited his cell with the doctor and he warned her to tread carefully.
“Copy that,” the guard replied. He returned the walkie-talkie to his belt and grabbed Cass by the wrists. “Time for a little field trip.”
As they went, Cass counted his steps.
From the shower area to the first camera.
From the first camera to the second.
From the second to the third.
He observed the configuration of the lights. The shape of the cell doors and the position of their handles until they reached the door at the end of the corridor where he’d first been interrogated.
The door slid open.
And none of it mattered. Despite the push-ups, the sit-ups, the methodical thinking, the active cataloguing of information—all of it an attempt to stave off madness—Cassian Gray experienced his first hallucination.
For there, sitting in a chair with his elbows on the table, was a demon.
A real live monster.
The very one that had killed his mother.
The hallucination came like a grenade, blowing every box containing his darkest memories to shrapnel. They burst in a violent blast and in its wake, those memories had nowhere to hide.
His father’s angry voice. His mother’s muffled cries. The bruises on her arms. The bruises on his own. A storm-tossed lake. His mother’s unrelenting grip as she held his hand, as she cut the engine, as she led them to the stern of the boat, as she told him they had to jump. The shock and terror of the cold, swirling water enveloping him.
Eight years of peace.
Then the crash of a door. That angry voice shaking the walls once again. The tremble in his mother’s hands as she pushed him into a closet. The tremble in her voice as she told him to stay. The turning of a bolt. The thwack of the bat. The expanding pool of blood on the floor. His fists pounding on the door. His shoulder barreling into the wood. Her blank, unseeing eyes. Then the crack of his own bones as the demon turned the bat on him.
Cass stared at the monster. No longer wild-eyed. No longer wielding a bat. But sitting at the table dressed in a tailored suit, his dark, neatly trimmed hair peppered with silver and his bloodshot eyes brimming with tears.
Cass lost all reason. He forgot about his cuffed wrists. He forgot about his injured shoulder. He forgot about the guards with the guns. Like a bull seeing the flap of a matador’s cape, he charged.
The monster’s eyes grew wide—the black of his pupils expanding until his irises were nothing more than the thinnest of golden-brown rings as he hastened to his feet and stumbled backward.
The guards reacted, too. They tried tackling Cass, but they couldn’t bring him down. They could only shove him into the wall. The knuckle-cracker dug his forearm into Cassian’s throat, his lips moving with words Cass couldn’t hear. Not with blood pounding in his ears and fire blazing in his lungs. Cass shoved the knuckle-cracker away.
A loud pop filled the room.
Excruciating pain shot through Cassian’s body like angry wasps in his veins. His muscles seized. His legs convulsed. He collapsed to the floor. The guard with the broken nose knelt hard on his neck and pressed the barrel of his gun into Cassian’s forehead.
