The Aberration of Eden Pruitt, page 20
The question was—for what?
How did this Invictus fit with Interitus and Prudence Dvorak?
They clicked on each of the names in the database, reading the bios the couple had culled together amidst the occasional haunting call from a train or barge. They searched for connections, patterns, breadcrumbs until Eden’s eyes crossed. The more bios they read, the more convinced she became that this was leading nowhere. Certainly not to the Monarch.
They’d lost the plot.
She pressed the small button and the projection vanished. She placed the glass butterfly into the cigar box as two bright beams sliced through the dark.
Headlights.
Cleo’s Tesla stopped behind Cassian’s bike.
Cleo stepped outside. “What are you guys doing out here?”
“Waiting for you,” Cassian said. “How’s your mom?”
“Exercising her right to remain silent, I’m sure.” Cleo pocketed her keys. “I haven’t been able to talk to her since I left Milwaukee. I ditched my phone and my computer. They’re way too easy to trace.”
At the worried look on Eden’s face, Cleo continued. “Hakuna matata, Six. Both devices have been wiped clean. I can’t have authorities stumbling upon The People’s Press now, can I? Everything has been transferred, and it’s all right here, safe and sound.” Cleo patted the front pocket of her corduroy jacket as she took a seat on Cassian’s other side. “So, what the hell happened?”
They’d kept in touch with her throughout the week. She knew about Willow Bryson. She knew they’d been planning to break into the home to find answers in the safe. She didn’t know about any of the things they’d found. Eden filled her in, and when she finished, Cleo opened the cigar box. She reached past the butterfly and the pamphlet to the photograph beneath of the six women.
“RIP Lillian Kashif,” she muttered.
“What?” Eden said.
Cleo pointed to the woman standing to Dvorak’s left. “Lillian Kashif. Bella Bryson’s dead sister.”
Eden leaned over Cass to get a better look. She’d been so distracted by Prudence Dvorak she hadn’t closely examined the others. When they researched the ninety-three Magnes Matres, they didn’t bother pulling up Lillian’s obituary. They already knew how and when she died. Eden had only seen her face once in passing, when they researched her son, Amir. Now that Eden looked closer, she could see that Cleo was right. Lillian Kashif was in this photograph. And now, thanks to Eden’s photographic memory and the research they’d done in Lou’s basement, she recognized the other four, too.
Eden made quick cross-references in her mind.
“Sasha Farooq,” she said, pointing at the woman on the far right. “Cordelia Gill. Felicia Humboldt. And Janice McMillan.”
“Say what?” Cleo said.
“These women. They’re all on the back of the pamphlet.” She snagged it from the box and handed it to Cleo. As she and Cassian scanned the list of Magnes Matres, pinpointing each one, Eden stared hard at the girl in the middle of the photograph. “Except for Dvorak.”
“Dvorak?” Cleo said with the same hint of familiarity Cass had when they were in the Bryson’s basement.
“Prudence Dvorak,” Eden said.
Cleo’s expression stretched with recognition.
Unlike these women, Dvorak was alive. At least according to authorities. She was at-large. A member of the terrorist regime that tried its best to bring America down. In a photograph with Lillian Kashif.
“Amir,” Cass said.
Eden looked at him.
“He has to know something.” He ran a search for Amir Kashif on his phone. Unlike Cleo’s, his wasn’t issued by the government and thus, wasn’t easy to trace. Cass found the same information they’d found before. He was alive and well. Working in Baltimore but living in—
“Bethesda?” Cleo said, like the name was gum stuck to the bottom of her shoe. “Why in the world would he be living in Bethesda?”
It was a very unusual place to live, given its proximity to Washington, DC. After The Attack, survivors in the surrounding metropolis left in droves, turning the once thriving suburbs into quasi ghost towns, Bethesda chief among them. Once home to over sixty thousand, a favorite hotspot for foodies and clubbers, Bethesda’s population had dwindled to eight hundred. And apparently, one of them was Amir, who hadn’t just stayed in town but moved to town. A Chicago transplant who arrived twelve years ago.
Before they could work out the oddity, a flashlight bobbed through the night.
Cassian snapped his laptop shut and came to his feet, shielding his eyes as a skinny kid shone the light in their faces. He stopped on the other side of the fence—the same boy they met the first time they visited.
“Mona’s waiting,” he said.
Inside, it became quickly apparent that this wasn’t Cleo’s first time in the silos. She knew people. And when they reached Mona’s room, she received a greeting much warmer than the one Cassian had. Not affectionate per se, but not so matter of fact either.
According to Cleo, Mona was a pacifist. Once Cassian decided to fight, he was no longer welcome to stay. Not that he’d wanted to stay if she’d let him. Maybe Mona took his career choice personally. Hence, the coldness between them. None of that coldness existed between Cleo and the older woman. Only a familiarity that turned Mona’s face into something less hard.
Eden tried to imagine Mona conducting hypnotherapy with a younger Cleo—a little girl plagued with pain after a car accident left her fatherless and injured. Maybe their sessions together had cracked Mona’s reticence. Or maybe the welcome had nothing to do with Cleo and everything to do with her mother, a woman who risked her livelihood to help the people living beneath these very silos.
Like Francesca and her glass eye.
Like Cassian and his broken body.
Now Cleo’s mother was being detained and interrogated at a police station because of her association with them.
“We need to get to Bethesda,” Cleo said after the pleasantries were exchanged.
“We?” Cass crooked his eyebrow.
Cleo ignored him. “Or anywhere close by. Like Baltimore. Is there a community there? Or a safe house?”
“Sure Cleo,” Cass cut in sardonically. “You can come with us.”
“Hey, I’m not a criminal on the run. My mother is simply a person of interest. If we’re getting anywhere safely, you need a front man. I don’t see anyone else volunteering.”
Cass glanced at Eden.
Eden shrugged.
Cleo’s attention slid to the virtual reality headset on Mona’s desk—her brown eyes aglow with anticipation. “Can I check the map?”
“I thought your mother wanted you to lie low,” Mona said.
“Think of how low we could lay hundreds of miles away from Chicago.”
Mona stared at Cleo for a beat, then stepped aside as if to say be my guest.
Cleo didn’t hesitate. She scooped up the headset like a hungry diner grabbing a fork.
Eden watched as Cleo slipped the headset over her eyes and powered it on. “What map?”
“Off-the-grid communities and safe houses.” Cleo extended her arm to press some invisible button in front of her. A virtual button.
“Safe houses?” Eden said.
“Safe homes for people who live off the grid. There’s a network of them, all across the country. There has been ever since the government started requiring retinal registration and mandatory fingerprinting. It’s part of the Amber Highway.”
“The what?” Eden said.
“An off-the-grid metaverse. Created by some guy who calls himself Gollum. It’s run by a select group of people called the Teutonic Knights. All of it is highly encrypted and elusive.” Cleo continued to interact with the space in front of her—pushing, swiping, zooming in like Jack did with the device in Dr. Norton’s cabin. Only Eden couldn’t see anything she was interacting with. “It’s how America Underground is circulated. It’s how off-the-grid communities communicate with one another.”
“It’s also how you get one of these,” Cassian cut in, holding up his phone.
So this was where the black-market existed.
The Amber Highway.
Cleo set her hands on her hips and leaned back on her heels, her head subtly moving as though examining a large image in front of her. “There’s a community in Alexandria. That’s really close. And … holy crud.” She tapped the air, then peeled off the headset, her expression alight with excitement. “There’s a safe house in Bethesda.”
31
Eden awoke to a warm hand on her shoulder.
Her eyes fluttered open.
Cassian stood above her—his gorgeous face riddled with unease.
Last night, after discussing how they would get to Bethesda, after a dinner of soggy mac and cheese—they’d each found a spare bed in an attempt to get some sleep. Eden couldn’t believe she’d fallen so deeply in this underground maze of noise. But fall deeply she must have, for Cassian was already up and dressed and ready for the day.
“What is it?” she asked, running her fingers through her tousled hair.
“The Brysons are dead.”
Eden sat upright. “What?”
“Someone broke into their home last night and killed them. A single bullet through each of their heads.”
Alarm shot through her veins as she processed Cassian’s words. A single bullet through each of their heads. Like Yukio. Like the security guards at SafePad Elite. “H-how do you know this?”
“It’s all over Concordia.”
“Chicago?”
“National.”
She tried to swallow, but her throat had gone bone dry. “Are they saying who did it?” she asked, knowing the answer, hoping she might be wrong.
But the look in Cassian’s eyes all-too-quickly vanquished that hope. “Authorities have set up checkpoints at all major highways and interstates going in and out of the city. They’re urging travelers to cooperate. They set up a tip line. Any tips that lead in the right direction will be generously rewarded.”
Eden’s heart sank, her entire body swimming with dread.
“They’re linking us to the attack in Chicago and the break-in at SafePad.”
Her fingers closed around the blanket over her legs. She shook her head, wanting him to stop. Surely, it couldn’t get any worse. But Cassian had one more thing to say.
“They’re showing pictures of your parents.”
On Concordia National News.
How long until the government connected the dots?
How long until they realized what she was?
Jane stood on the threshold of the bad room, her pulse beating faster than the wings of a hummingbird. She could hear Barrett’s heartbeat beside her, Alexander and Ruth and Dr. Norton’s upstairs. All of them much slower than her own. She could also hear the television. The squeak of a couch spring. The tapping of Alexander’s cane. The scuffling of two chipmunks on the deck. The groan of wood as the house settled. The chirping of birds. The lapping of the lake.
There were no sounds from Jack.
Last night, he left for the airport to meet his wife and daughter. Now they were reunited and settling in at home, somewhere in the city of Milwaukee. Jack refused to bring his daughter here. He acted like Jane and Barrett might accidentally kill her. Her name was Ellery, and her superpowers remained locked away. Unlike Father, Jack didn’t want them to come out. Maybe because once they did, she might start glitching like Barrett’s memory and Jane’s hearing.
Exactly one week had passed since they realized why it was happening. One week since Jane decided to be brave. She was taking it in increments—first standing at the top of the steps, then working her way further down each day. Fear screamed at her to run, to take flight. But she pressed it down, forced herself to remain, motivated to help Barrett, who’d forgotten another name, and Ruth, who had barely eaten since Eden left them a note and rode away on Cassian’s motorcycle.
Jack slept as much as Ruth ate, obsessed with his discovery. The Queen Bee. The master node. And how to disable it. As if doing so would keep his daughter’s superpowers locked away forever. He took more images of Barrett, all the while looking eagerly at Jane. But he didn’t force her. She didn’t think Dr. Norton would let him. She didn’t think Ruth would let him, either. Now Jack was gone, and Jane was so close—standing in the basement, outside the bad room with Barrett beside her.
He didn’t fill up the space with words like he normally did. Instead, he was unusually quiet, like he knew she needed to concentrate.
She was safe, she told herself.
She was safe.
She was safe.
She was safe!
With a squeak, she snatched Barrett’s hand.
He gave her palm a squeeze and didn’t let go. “Are you sure?”
Her pulse thrummed faster. And faster. And faster. So fast she thought she was going to die. But she wasn’t. She wouldn’t. She was safe!
With a terrified breath, she took a precarious step inside.
Barrett led her to the scanner.
Jane lay on the table and squeezed her eyes shut, trying to block out thoughts of another room. A very bad room. All too similar to this one. Her earliest memories weren’t horrible. When she was little and Mother hadn’t yet left, the tests weren’t so bad. Just cuts on her arms. Then Father would start the timer to see how fast the cuts would heal. But the longer her powers stayed locked away, the worse the tests became. Until Mother left and he wasn’t just cutting her skin but breaking her bones and injecting lethal poisons. Once, he mutilated her eardrum. Father used technology more advanced than the scanner Barrett was preparing now. He studied her for hours on end, year after year, always exploring. Always tinkering. Then he built the machine.
Her toes curled at the memory.
Sixteen years of learning her system, understanding her system, manipulating her system. As if he were one step away from unlocking the potential that so stubbornly refused to break free.
It never worked.
As hard as Jane tried, the powers didn’t come. Self-healing was the best she could do. Father thought it was a matter of motivation. Pain was no longer doing the trick. So one day, he brought Kitty home. A soft little kitten, so tiny Jane could cup the animal in her palms. For an entire glorious year, as Kitty grew into a gray, fluffy cat who licked Jane’s nose and nuzzled in her lap, Father didn’t do any tests at all. And just when Jane was beginning to think the tests were over, they resumed in full force.
Kitty was the new motivation.
But Jane still failed. No matter how desperately she wanted the powers to come, they refused. Then one day, Father got so angry, Kitty died.
Violet’s words left.
And Violet did, too.
Her nostrils quivered.
She wasn’t Violet anymore.
She was Jane.
And this room was not Father’s.
It was Dr. Norton’s.
And these tests weren’t really tests at all. Not the kind she could fail, anyway. They were just pictures. A series of images that might help them unlock a new key. A key that would keep them safe from the bad people.
“All done,” Barrett said.
Jane’s eyes flew open.
He sat at the computer.
A printer hummed to life.
Jane jumped at the sound, then fled from the room.
She raced up the stairs like a monster was nipping at her heel and collapsed in the foyer, scooting back on all fours until her shoulders pressed against the closet door.
It was over.
She was safe.
Dr. Norton and Ruth and Alexander stared at her as the printer stopped and papers crinkled. Barrett came up the stairs with a stack of images in his hand. He shot Jane a thumbs up and handed the stack to Dr. Norton, who shuffled through them over his cup of coffee. “Are these—?”
“She did it,” Barrett said, beaming proudly.
A loud beep filled the house.
Jane clapped her hands over her ears as everyone else turned to the television, which had made the noise.
Ruth gasped as her daughter’s face filled the screen.
“Eden Pruitt and Cassian Ransom, both armed and highly dangerous, are believed to still be in Chicago,” the news anchor reported.
The lady inside the television called her a terrorist.
Cassian, too.
The lady said they were at large. In Chicago. Members of Interitus. Responsible for the most recent attack on the city. A series of short videos played. Cassian and Eden entering a coffee shop. Cassian and Eden walking through a public library. Police officers inside a salon called Cute-Icles, questioning the nail technicians. All the while, a hotline number scrolled across the bottom of the screen.
Dr. Norton turned up the volume.
Ruth grabbed his phone and tried calling Cleo, something she’d given up on a few days ago because Cleo never answered. This time, the phone didn’t ring. It made a funny noise similar to the late-breaking news, followed by an automated voice that said the number was no longer in service.
As if on cue, Cleo Ransom’s face filled the screen, too.
Not a terrorist, but a person of interest.
The footage cut to a giant house, where reporters swarmed a tall, smartly dressed Black woman as she made her way inside.
“Dr. Ransom,” one of them shouted. “Did you really not know your nephew was a terrorist?”
She made no comment.
And then, more photographs appeared on the television. This time, of Alexander and Ruth Pruitt.
Alexander sank into a nearby chair.
Ruth pressed her fingers against her mouth. “Oh my goodness, what are we going to do?”
Nobody had an answer.
A reporter was interviewing a guest who survived the Prosperity Ball. He claimed to have conversed with Cassian and Eden that night in The Sapphire’s ballroom. “I’m not really that surprised,” he said. “Something about him felt dangerous. I simply dismissed it because of his connection to Beverly.”
