The Revelation of Eden Pruitt, page 25
“How is that useful?” Asher asked. “Are we going to find some busses, tell everyone to pile inside, and start driving east?”
Nairobi rubbed her chin. “That won’t work. Not with patrol officers manning state borders.”
“I wasn’t serious,” Asher said.
“We can start small,” Cleo interjected. “Like … with our safe houses. What if we used them to create some sort of Underground Railroad that could bring people east?”
“Small, huh?” Asher replied, a bite in each syllable.
Cleo wheeled on him. “Do you have a better suggestion, or are you just resigned to being a jerk wad?”
“A jerk wad?”
“Mona knows the location of our safe houses,” Jericho said, ignoring the antagonistic exchange while he slowly scratched his goatee. “But Brahm hasn’t gone after any of them.”
“Yes, he has.” Dayne frowned. “Elmer and Eloise Miller.”
“That’s only because he thought we were there,” Cleo said.
Thanks to Mona.
That sweet couple was dead because of that woman. The mere thought of her brought a bitter taste to Eden’s mouth. She could only imagine how much more so for Cassian. She tried again to make eye contact. But he was resolutely avoiding her.
Jericho took a seat on the edge of Dayne’s desk. “He seems to be targeting larger communities.”
“He’s targeting specific cities,” Eden said.
Boots on the ground in Milwaukee proved her theory. A third city on Cleo’s map was under attack. It couldn’t be a coincidence. When she finished sharing, Cleo’s eyes shone with excited agreement. “He’s punishing dissent. Any city that’s had a protest or a riot is coming under attack.”
“Have we checked on safe houses in Minneapolis or Madison?” Jericho asked. “Have we tried contacting them?”
Everyone looked at Dayne.
“I’ve sent correspondents to the community in Minneapolis, but I didn’t think to have them check on our safe houses.”
“Can we?”
“Of course.” He opened his office door, letting in a whoosh of noise, and asked one of his journalists to send out messages to every safe house in Minneapolis, Madison, and Milwaukee.
“What were the other cities on the map?” Nairobi asked.
“Fresno, St. Louis, Detroit, and Seattle,” Cleo replied.
“Then those are the ones we have to evacuate,” Dvorak said. “I’ll get in touch with Harlan. He’ll be able to help. If safe houses are still safe, we can use them to move people in this direction.”
“It’s going to get crowded,” Asher said.
“We have plenty of room,” Cleo shot back.
Her aggravation was understandable. Amenities in Washington, DC, and Alexandria were luxurious compared to Chicago. Asher had never seen Chicago. He was accustomed to luxury. But he’d just have to get over it. They were in the middle of a war. Sacrifices had to be made. Starting with the one Eden needed to make now. No more hiding who she was. What she was. It was time for the cat to come out of the bag, no matter how badly Cassian wanted to keep it a secret. She needed to reveal who she was. It was the only way she could be the weapon Brahm had created her to be. It was the only way she could use her superhuman abilities against him.
She took a breath. “I have a group of people who are willing to be the first travelers.”
Dvorak narrowed her eyes. “Who?”
“My parents,” Eden said. “Along with a family of three and a gentleman named Dr. Benjamin Norton.”
“All three men have military experience,” Cass added.
“Right,” Dvorak said dryly. “One of them was in the CIA.”
Her tone was so redolent with mistrust, Eden’s face flushed. Dvorak’s suspicion only confirmed Eden’s decision. They were going to find out sooner rather than later. If not from her, then on their own. Better from her. She took another breath. “They will have two more with them. A young woman named Violet Winter. And a young man named Barrett Barr.”
“The kid who shot the patrol officers?” Asher quipped.
“Kid?” Cleo rolled her eyes. “They’re like, three seconds younger than you.”
Asher rolled his eyes back. “My bad. The young adult who shot the patrol officers?”
“What are you two going on about?” Dvorak asked.
Jericho stepped in to explain. “Barrett Barr is the missing eighteen-year-old who was all over the news this summer. He and his female companion shot and killed two patrol officers outside Minneapolis.”
Dayne shook his head. “It was a deep fake. He didn’t shoot anyone.”
Asher didn’t seem very comforted by the news. He turned on Eden. “How are you connected with these two?”
Beside him, Dvorak stood with her arms crossed, waiting for an answer. She looked fierce and frail all at the same time.
Beside Eden, Cassian stood with his arms crossed, exhibiting no frailty at all. Tension rolled off him in waves. She could physically feel his anger. And yet, she knew that anger was a front. Beneath his fury, he was scared. Possibly terrified. She would be, too, if their roles were reversed. But their roles weren’t reversed, and she couldn’t let her concern for his feelings keep her from doing the right thing. Emotions could not cloud her judgment any longer. Not hers. Not Cassian’s, either. Brahm was on the attack. He was making bold moves. If they had any hope of defeating him, they needed to use every advantage at their disposal. She was a distinct advantage. So were Barrett and Violet.
It was time to come out with the truth. “Barrett and Violet are Subjects 003 and 004.”
Cleo made a strangled sound.
Dayne shifted.
Cassian’s heart rate accelerated.
Eden pulled back her shoulders. “And I’m Subject 006.”
It took a moment for Dvorak to register the implication of Eden’s words. When she finally did, her face paled. “The test group?”
Eden nodded.
Asher’s eyes went wide. “Holy—”
“The test group was destroyed,” Dvorak interjected.
“Two of them were destroyed,” Eden said. “The rest of us survived.”
Nairobi gaped. “You’re one of Brahm’s soldiers?”
“No. Never,” Eden said. “I’m just … designed in the same way.”
Jericho wound his hand around the back of his neck. “Does Brahm know?”
“Of course he knows,” Dvorak spat. “If he didn’t know, her mug wouldn’t be on the news. There wouldn’t be a deep fake of this Barrett Barr and Violet Winter.” She pressed her lips together, her jaw clenched like she was chewing on a mouthful of rocks. “I can’t believe we didn’t put the pieces together. We were so busy looking at him, we didn’t think to look into her.” She flung her hand accusingly at Cass, like it was his fault they’d wandered off course.
“Digging into me wouldn’t have gotten you anywhere,” Eden said. “I’m not a threat. We’re on the same side.”
“You’re part of the Electus.”
A growl rumbled in Cassian’s chest.
Eden was confident only she could hear it. But hear it, she did. She held up her hand in a gesture of peace and kept her voice calm. “I wasn’t raised like them.”
Nobody seemed to take any solace in the words. She looked at Asher, hoping he might offer some support. But he looked more mutinous than Dvorak, as though her revelation personally offended him.
Eden’s frustration mounted. “If you want me to defend myself further, I will. But I promise you, it’s a waste of time. I’m not one of his soldiers. I’m not part of the Electus. Until three months ago, I thought I was a regular girl with two regular parents. But then a gambler named Mordecai found me and forced me to attack them.”
As soon as the words were out, she realized her mistake. She had shared too much.
Cassian realized it, too.
“He needs her location in order to control her,” he said, his voice low and filled with authority. “He doesn’t have her location.”
“Locations are easy enough to find,” Asher said.
“Apparently not for you guys,” Cleo muttered.
He glowered.
She lifted her chin. “How many failed recon missions have you gone on now?”
Eden pursed her lips, then lifted her hand higher. “We’re getting off track. Everyone in this room wants the same thing.”
“It doesn’t matter what you want,” Asher said. “Not if he controls you.”
The growl in Cassian’s chest deepened. “He can’t control her.”
Asher jabbed his upturned palm at Eden. “You just admitted he can if he has her location.”
“And we just established he won’t find it,” Cass replied, the two of them squaring off.
Eden imagined them going toe-to-toe. Asher was half a head taller, with considerably more weight on his large frame. Even so, she knew Cassian would come out the victor.
“At ease,” Cleo said, stepping between them. “We’re on the cusp of a discovery that could make this whole conversation moot.”
Dvorak raised her eyebrows. “What discovery?”
“A man named Jack Forrester has been studying her network.”
“What?” Asher barked.
Cleo gave her head a smug toss. “He got in. In a matter of days, in fact.”
“Who is this guy?”
Eden’s internal temperature was skyrocketing. Now wasn’t the time for their snarky back and forth. “You’ll meet him soon enough. The point is, he’s been scrutinizing our networks—all three of them—and he discovered that Violet’s network is different from mine and Barrett’s. We have a master node. That master node is the mechanism used to control us. Violet doesn’t have one.”
“Why not?” Nairobi asked.
“That’s the question,” Eden said. “Let’s get them here and together, we can figure it out.”
41
Eden dressed quickly and towel dried her hair, feeling jumpy and nervous, like she’d had one too many cups of coffee. Cassian was in her apartment. They were alone together, away from the uneasy looks that had dogged her since making her announcement in Dayne’s office. She had become a source of tension—a thing to be watched. The more they watched, the more tightly-wound Cassian had become, until finally, she decided to remove herself from the equation.
Tomorrow, the outlook would be different. This was what she was trying to tell herself, anyway. A night of sleep would help everyone see the situation with more clarity. She wasn’t a threat. On the contrary, she gave them an advantage. Once the shock wore off, once Dvorak and Asher and the others settled down, she felt confident Cassian would, too.
With a shaky exhale, she slipped out of the steamy bathroom and stopped at the end of the hallway, where it opened into the living room. He wasn’t sitting on the couch, or the armchair Cleo liked to claim. He was in the kitchen, leaning against the counter. Standing in the dark.
Nerves fluttered in her abdomen.
She tried her best to ignore them.
“You can sit down if you want,” she said, her voice a tiptoe as she set her hands on the back of the sofa. Then she looked over her shoulder, toward her bedroom. He was clearly exhausted. He probably wanted to sleep, but she’d left him out here. “Or if you’d rather lay down, my room is—”
“I’ll sleep on the couch.”
Heat rushed up her neck. She wasn’t sure what embarrassed her more—her own suggestion or his outright rejection. She’d spent the last three weeks longing for him. With such potency, it had been a physical ache in her bones. She wanted Cassian to be here with her. Now, here he was. Alive! And furious. She understood why. He was upset—fear disguised as anger, which, for Cassian, almost always presented itself as animosity.
It didn’t intimidate her.
At least, it never had before.
She took a steadying breath and made her way around the couch. “So, you spoke with your father.”
His jaw went tight, a familiar muscle tick-tick-ticking into the silence.
She joined him in the kitchen and turned on the light.
His hair had grown longer. The sides curled over his ears.
She wanted to go to him. Trace the bruise on his jaw. Take his hand and whisper his mother’s words. Voila. Tout au mieux. She wanted to pour them into his ear over and over until the animosity was gone. The dark circles beneath his eyes, too. They were disturbingly dark—a testament to the toll his time in prison had taken. Instead, she remained where she was. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“There’s nothing to say.”
His words were a slap. A shove. So cold and detached, her eyes burned. Of course, there was plenty to say. His father paid him a visit. But he was locking it up behind tightly drawn shutters.
A large part of her considered letting it go. Leaving it be. Give him space to process. To breathe. To deescalate. But another part of her was worried about her parents and defensive about her decision to tell the truth, especially considering the second-guessing she’d done in the shower, and frankly, annoyed that he was punishing her for doing what she felt was the right thing to do.
This was the part that won.
“Cass,” she said without a smidge of quaver in her voice. “Your father came to visit you while you were imprisoned. You haven’t seen him since you were twelve when he—”
He looked at her then, his eyebrow lifted in a dare. “When he what?”
She swallowed and stretched her fingers by her sides, refusing to let them fidget. “That had to dredge up some feelings. Especially when he told you Mona—”
“I don’t want to talk about Mona.”
Her heart sank. Her shoulders, too. Gone was the warmth, the intimacy, the ease they had established at the Millers. This boy she cared so deeply for was here and alive and a million miles away. She wanted to go to him. Tear down the wall he had built. Bridge the gulf he was creating. Wipe the animosity from his face. But she could see it was a losing battle. He wasn’t budging. Not tonight.
The door opened.
Cleo limped inside with a box of Mike and Ikes, muttering under her breath about Asher and how much she wanted to punch him in his smug face. She paused when she saw them, smiled a little devilishly—like perhaps she had interrupted a make-out session, which she so clearly hadn’t—then cut between them to grab a Diet Coke from the refrigerator.
“He’s so arrogant,” she said, cracking open the can. “It’s a wonder nobody’s done it yet.”
“How do you know they haven’t?” Eden asked, thankful for the distraction.
“His nose is too straight.” Cleo took a slurp, then eyed the communication gadget on the countertop. “Any word?”
Eden released a heavy sigh. “Not yet.”
Cleo twisted her lips to the side and tapped her soda can. “None of the safe houses in Minneapolis or Madison have responded either.” She set her soda next to the device and opened the box of Mike and Ikes. “The toxin attack in Milwaukee was just hitting the airwaves when I left the newsroom.”
Eden looked at the black flatscreen in their living room. She didn’t have the stomach to turn it on. Chuck Perez’s voice had become grating.
Cleo rattled a few candies into her palm when something beeped.
For a millisecond, Eden’s hope leapt. So did her heart—right into her throat. Her attention darted to the gadget. But the gadget was silent. The beeping was coming from the intercom in their apartment.
Her hope crashed in a heap of fiery disappointment. To keep herself from growling, or screaming, or pulling out her hair, she marched to the intercom and jabbed the button.
Asher’s voice crackled through the speaker. “We’re having a meeting in the boardroom.”
“I thought we were done for the day,” Eden said.
“There’s been a new development.”
She glanced over her shoulder—toward Cass and Cleo—then turned back to the intercom. “I’ll be there in a minute.”
She prepared to go alone, or with Cleo. Cass could stay here. Get some sleep. On the couch. Whatever the development, she could catch him up later. But he was already grabbing his jacket and shoving one arm into a sleeve.
Cleo scooped up the gadget and handed it to Eden at the door.
She slid it into her back pocket, willing her parents to call.
Please call.
As they made their way to the IDA, Eden tried to convince herself that her parents were fine. It would take time to move carefully. Maybe they’d intentionally delayed making contact. They were traveling to the next closest safe house and there they would call. Wouldn’t Eden rather they take precautions and keep her in suspense than take risks just to ease her mind? She breathed in the evening air and took solace in the fact that Cassian was with her. Hostile and closed off, but with her all the same. And if that was possible, then anything was possible.
When they reached the boardroom, the door was already open.
Eden could see Dvorak and Jericho sitting at the table. Jericho looked uncomfortable, like whatever he’d eaten for dinner wasn’t sitting well. Lark was still missing in action, most likely in Kaiser getting her leg treated. Asher was out of view.
As Cass stepped through the door ahead of her, a strange feeling somersaulted through her gut. Something like a premonition rose up her throat, but before she could capture it on her tongue, Asher stepped out from behind the opened door and stuck Cassian with a needle.
Eden saw red.
She charged at Asher like an angry bull, so consumed with outrage she didn’t hear the dart. It hit her square in the neck. The pain that followed was so excruciating, she turned feral.
Eden dropped to her knees and clawed at her skin. She rolled and writhed on the floor, desperate to put the fire out. But the flames were inside. Coursing through her veins. Stabbing her bones. Scorching her lungs. Searing her from the inside out. With her tendons bulging, she screamed and she screamed and she screamed until her world turned to ash and everything went black.
THE ADVENTURE CONTINUES IN THE FINAL INSTALLMENT:
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