Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
Wind whipped down La Salle Drive and buffeted Eliana so that she had to lean into it.
The cold air stung her eyes, and her hair was plastered back against her head.
Maybe walking the long roundabout route to the train station wasn’t the best idea.
Even if she’d needed time to think and get her head clear, she felt… exposed out here.
Eliana wasn’t going to cry. She’d never been the kind of woman who processed her feelings with tears. Another nature versus nurture argument, just like the kind of person she’d turned out to be.
It didn’t help that the whole city of Chicago was under some kind of cloud.
The air felt depressing in a way she’d experienced at the Reverence Sisters compound, and not in many other places, except that apartment last night.
All of it muddled together in her mind—murder and religion.
But it was unlikely it was all connected.
Her phone rang, so she pulled it out of her bag and flipped it open. “Hey, Maze—”
Her sister cut her off without even giving her a chance. “Get out of Chicago. Now.”
“What?” Eliana’s steps faltered, and she frowned. “What are you talking about?”
Beside her, a glass-fronted shop displayed designer purses she could never afford and didn’t want to buy anyway. A white purse would already be dirty by the time she brought it home from the store.
“Get out of Chicago,” Maizie repeated. “You can’t stay there. Get as far from the city as possible.”
“You need to explain what you mean before I start panicking.”
“You should panic. You have every reason to panic. Lydia Rosenburg is not someone you need to mess with on a good day. Get as far away from her as possible.”
Relief washed over Eliana, and she signaled the crosswalk at the next street. “That’s all?” It started to flash on the far side, so she waited for traffic to stop and crossed. “I thought you were talking about some kind of major crisis.”
“Lydia Rosenberg is a major crisis. Ellie. I called Mom, and she didn’t pick up, so I left a message. But when she hears about this, she’s gonna flip.”
“She didn’t answer when I called either. Tell me who this Rosenberg woman is.”
“It’s a long story. But the bottom line is, if she’s there, you need to get out of Chicago.”
Eliana spotted the station another block down the street.
“That’s not an answer. That’s keeping me out of the loop but expecting me to follow orders.
I’m not one of your cops, Maze. I’m your sister.
If you don’t respect me enough to actually explain the problem with this woman I’ve never met and have nothing to do with, then there’s nothing more to say. ”
Eliana flipped her phone shut. The click was so satisfying. She should feel empowered, talking to her sister that way.
Eliana half expected Maizie to call her back right away. Her sister wouldn’t be apologetic, she would just be annoyed that Eliana hung up on her. Truth hurts, Sis. But it didn’t solve anything, and she wasn’t sure it had even made her feel better.
She could call Carlos, but he was dealing with work stuff and could catch up with her later without her disturbing him from more important things than her being in a bad mood.
Up ahead on the street, Eliana spotted a woman with dark hair wearing a white dress under her trenchcoat. Just a flash of white as she turned and disappeared from view.
Luci.
Eliana walked faster, rushing to where she’d seen the woman disappear.
It was the entrance to the train station, just a shelter on the sidewalk with stairs going down.
She ran down the stairs to the station under the sidewalk where the ceiling dipped and people passed through the barriers.
In the distance, she saw the woman again.
A man jostled Eliana as he passed by and strode toward the barriers.
She grabbed out her MetroCard and swiped through.
She rushed through the crowd, racing after Luci down the escalator, past people standing still on their way down.
If she went too fast, she was going to trip, but this was Luci!
It couldn’t wait. She had to find Carlos’s sister and tell her to come home.
Eliana hurried down the last couple of steps and off the bottom, looking both ways along the tile lined hall.
Tunnels branched off in both directions. The distant sound of train brakes squealed down the hall. Air rushed at her, ruffling her hair around. She brushed it back, wishing she had time to pull it behind her. She hadn’t even bothered to put her wig on since the vault incident.
There wasn’t time to fix her hair right now. She might miss something important!
Just for a second, Luci appeared down the hall before ducking into a side hall. Eliana rushed after her, running around people or between them.
Someone said, “Hey, watch it.”
She called back, “Sorry!” and kept going.
Eliana ducked her head and ran down the hall. Whatever train this was, there would be time on board to talk to Luci and convince her to come home. But only if she couldn’t get there before her friend got on the train.
At the end of the hall, she spilled out onto the platform with everyone else. A train was already there with its doors open. Eliana heard the telltale beeps and rushed over, hopping on just before the doors slid shut.
Eliana made her way down the aisle, scanning the seats for Luci. She didn’t want to think she’d missed her friend, but had to face the fact that Luci might not have gotten on. She took a moment to scan the platform as the train pulled out, and didn’t see her.
Thank You. Luci had to be on this train.
Eliana moved to the next car, searching still. Looking at every person with brown hair and a trenchcoat for the nightgown underneath. A shock of pure white in this gray, dirty world.
The elect, clothed in white.
But it was the allure of something that sounded so close to being right that made a group like the Reverence Sisters seductive.
No one was immune to being sucked in or persuaded.
That was obvious when people, en masse, started to believe the fake stuff that was AI-generated and put online.
It was only when those insidious things were revealed as false that people began to question the narrative they’d been fed.
No one who used the internet knew whether what they were seeing was real or a fabrication.
Would there be a moment like that for Luci?
Show her the truth, Lord.
Because without it, Luci wouldn’t know how badly she’d been deceived.
There.
“Luci!” Eliana’s cry startled a couple of people, drawing some suspicious looks. A couple of guys stepped away from her as she passed, like she was dangerous or something. She stopped in front of the woman, more relieved than she’d imagined. “Luci.”
The woman looked up, and that dark hair shifted on her shoulders. But the face didn’t belong to Carlos’s sister.
“Oh…” Eliana cleared her throat. “I’m sorry. I thought you were someone else.”
“You said a name,” the woman said quietly. No makeup. Pale features and flat eyes, as if the energy of being alive had been drained out of her. But there wasn’t the telltale sheen of Elysium in her gaze. “What did you say?”
“Luci.”
The young woman gasped. “I know that name.”
Eliana crouched in front of her. “What’s your name?”
“Sarah.” She swallowed. “My name is Sarah.”
“Do you know Luci? I’m trying to find her.”
This woman had to be part of the Sisters group, because she wore the same gown they’d found in that meeting room. Eliana had a million questions, but bombarding Sarah with all of them at once wasn’t going to get the young woman to trust her.
She had to be twenty, maybe twenty-one. Not more than that. What had she given up falling for a lie? What had she sacrificed to get free?
Sarah looked to the side, fear in her gaze. “I can’t talk to you here. People can hear us.”
Eliana nodded. “I understand. Can we go somewhere and talk, maybe somewhere private? Or a coffee shop.”
“That’s too public.” She gasped. “I don’t have any money.”
“It’s okay.”
The train slowed at the next station.
Eliana didn’t know the area, but they could figure it out. “Let’s get off the train. We can find somewhere warm and safe to talk. What do you say?”
Sarah nodded. “Okay.”
She stood, and Eliana glanced back as she stepped off the train. This young woman really did seem scared. More scared than Eliana had ever been in her life—even in the nightmare she kept having.
Eliana patted her pockets, looking for her phone. “Let’s go down to the street. We can see what’s around here, and where to talk.”
Carlos would want to know that she’d met this woman so he could find out at the same time she did whether Sarah had seen his sister.
“Huh.” She kept patting, going over all her pockets again. Then she checked her purse, unzipping it on the strap across her body and searching inside. But the purse itself was small enough that if it was here, she’d have seen it as soon as she unzipped the thing. “I don’t have my phone.”
Eliana turned back to the train, but the doors had closed, and it was already pulling away.
When had she lost…
The guy who’d brushed her in the train station. He had to have picked her pocket and taken her phone. “Someone stole my phone. Or I dropped it somewhere.” She looked around but didn’t see it on the ground.
“Well…” Sarah said, sounding nervous. “Do you need it?”
“Not right now, I suppose. We should find somewhere I can call my friend, though.” She stuck her hands in her pockets. “You look like you could use a hot chocolate. What do you say?”
Sarah bit her lip. “If you think it’s a good idea…”