Chapter 34
34
“So, to clarify,” I ask Rafe as we make our way uptown, “if a person without your genetics drinks blood, it won’t affect them?” Tension aches through my jaw all the way to my clenched fingers, but Rafe walks with the same confident coolness as always.
“Not unless they first endured an invasive digestive surgery that they probably wouldn’t survive.”
It’s the time of night right before the city lights itself up to push away the dark. We find a private spot along the East River, and Rafe erects the boat in the shadows.
I feel queasy knowing I’m about to do exactly what my detractors among the Families were worried about. Handing the very information they didn’t trust me with right over to someone who could endanger them. There will be no going back after this. But it’s not like I have a choice; they have Hypatia.
“Remember the deal,” I whisper, hardly audible. This part of the river is restricted, and dealing with police is the last thing we need right now, but I can’t move on without the reassurance. “No matter what, you don’t hurt my family.”
Rafe nods. “As long as Hypatia won’t be harmed by my inaction, your mother and the celebrity will be left alone.”
“And after, you’ll do everything you can for my grandfather.”
He nods again.
We don’t say anything else. There’s nothing to say. We board the boat, and Rafe unfolds an oar to use instead of the motor so we don’t make noise. The only light comes from the reflection of the city in the river. The only sounds are my breathing and the ghostly slip of the oar through the water. I don’t want to touch Rafe, but there’s no room not to. He’s warm against my back, his thighs hugging me, anchoring me, as we fade into the blackness of the night.
When we reach the island, we dock behind an overgrown bush. I ignore the hand Rafe offers to help me out of the boat, then trip and sink into water up to my knees. When I’m finally on the shore, my shoes squelch with mud, and my legs are weighed down by the sodden denim. I scurry to catch up to Rafe, who is cutting quickly and silently through the overgrown path.
“How can you see where you’re going?” I whisper. My breath is ragged from trying to keep up as I continuously trip on stones and shrubs while shrinking away from twitching shadows.
“I forgot you can’t see. I’ll slow down. All my senses are heightened.”
As if I needed another reminder about the blood.
A giant white bird with a fluffy head jumps into my path and squawks at me. I yelp, and Rafe gives me a death glare for making noise.
We approach a large building, a great deal of which has been reclaimed by nature, green vines devouring brick and stone. Using Georgie’s map on my phone, we find a crumbling entrance, the door long gone, and we navigate through hallways that feel as if we’re more outdoors than in. The map indicates that we’re close to new construction, and sure enough, when we peer around the next corner, there’s a steel door barring access to whatever lies ahead. A guard is pacing the hallway, and when he turns in the opposite direction, Rafe silently darts over and makes shiin against the guard’s neck until he falls slack in his arms.
“You can’t just keep hurting people!” I whisper angrily as Rafe lowers the guard to the ground.
“Don’t worry. I only overloaded his vagus nerve.”
So that’s what it looks like when done correctly.
“It’s only a mild faint, so he’ll wake up soon. Very soon. Let’s get moving.”
I rifle through the guard’s pockets and find an orange keycard exactly like the one refused to me. Because I might have used it for this very purpose. I ignore the stab of guilt and use the card to open the door.
Inside, a staircase leads down to a dimly lit basement level. It’s been completely renovated. We pass a room that looks like a medical lab except that it’s barred like a prison cell. A middle-aged man in a white lab coat is looking through a microscope, seemingly indifferent to his imprisonment. I worry he’ll alert someone to our presence, but as we walk by his cell, he doesn’t even look up from his work.
There’s an empty lab without any bars, and I go in to look around. There are three large refrigerators, and when I open one, I find that it’s filled with… blood bags. Why would the Families need a blood bank?
Rafe looks over from where he’s keeping watch at the door, and when he sees the blood, he shakes his head. “This is very, very bad,” he whispers.
We keep moving and pass more cells. There’s one that has a sleeping man with long hair and a long beard. He looks like he’s been here a while, and the broken furniture that seems to have been flung around in a rage makes it clear he’s not happy about it. But all of the other cells are unoccupied. If the Families are responsible for all the other missing Sires, this is clearly not where they’re kept. I start to fear that Hypatia may not be here either.
When we reach the end of the hall, there’s another cell that’s skeletally furnished with a chest of drawers, a table, and a bed. A tray of food sits hardly eaten on the table. Huddled in the corner is a girl with her head resting on her knees. My limbs feel weak with relief.
Hypatia.
Rafe rushes toward the cell, grabbing the bars. He instantly recoils, yelping in pain. I didn’t know Rafe Vanguard could yelp.
“Where in perdition did they get enough antimatter to build something like this?” He looks at the bars with an astounded and helpless kind of rage.
I have the same question. No one in the Families seemed to know anything about antimatter when I told them about the gloves that tortured me when I was abducted. But these bars suggest otherwise.
“Hypatia?” Rafe asks. There’s a tremor of fear in his voice that causes me to look toward her with alarm. She’s glanced upward at the goings-on but has otherwise not moved or made any attempt to acknowledge either of us. She doesn’t look at all like her feisty self. Her pale blond hair hangs loose down her back, and the whites of her eyes are tinged red.
We need to get to her. But there is no discernible opening or lock on the cell, and the bars will neutralize any use of Ha’i.
Rafe unzips his bag and pulls out the most ridiculous gun I’ve ever seen. It’s plastic with a lot of weird tubing and kind of looks like a Super Soaker.
Rafe aims at the cell and pulls the trigger. The gun emits a laser that he uses to cut precisely through the grid of bars to make an opening. The laser only affects the bars, bouncing harmlessly off anything else it touches. With the last cut, the bars fall inward, clattering to the ground with a shrieking clang that makes me jump. Rafe rushes through the gaping hole and embraces Hypatia, who flops weakly against him.
“What’s wrong?” His voice is a pained growl.
Hypatia touches her neck.
I see the collar at the same time as Rafe. The same metal as the bars, as the gloves. Antimatter.
“Gravdammit,” he curses. “Ada, help me.” His eyes are wet.
I run to his side and help support Hypatia as he positions the gun carefully. But he doesn’t pull the trigger. He looks at me, his eyes full of fear. I didn’t think it was possible for Rafe Vanguard to be afraid.
“A magneto gun shouldn’t harm anything besides antimatter,” he explains to me, though it sounds more like he’s reassuring himself.
“You’ve got this,” I whisper.
There’s an unmistakable sound of footsteps approaching from the direction we came. We need to hurry. I consult Georgie’s map on my phone for an alternate exit. A door slams. Heavy steps are coming our way. Fast.
“Rafe,” I prompt, as calmly and reassuringly as I can.
He pulls the trigger.
The collar falls away, and the flesh beneath is red and swollen. With the antimatter off her body, Hypatia sighs deeply, and I watch as the skin heals itself, leaving only a thin pink ring of scar tissue behind.
“Thank the Conductor,” Rafe breathes. “It must not have been on for too long.” I remember what Michael had said when he’d rescued me from the gloves, that prolonged exposure to antimatter can make a Sire lose their ability to conduct. “Are you okay?” Rafe asks Hypatia.
“I’m thirsty,” she rasps weakly.
“You’re safe now. I promise.” Rafe chokes on his words as he returns the magneto gun to his bag.
According to Georgie’s map, the only other way out without going back down the hall is up. There’s a window in the cell, but it’s too far to climb, and even if it weren’t, we couldn’t make it in time.
“I can make that climb,” Rafe says. “I’ll bring up Hypatia, then come back down for you.”
“Are you crazy? There’s no way you can do that, never mind holding us and your bag!”
“I can.” He flexes his arms, and I see the rippling muscle and the throbbing veins in his neck. I remember the stolen blood running through him. I look away.
“Take Hypatia and go. There’s no time for you to come back for me, but I’ll be fine. They won’t hurt me. I’ll meet you at the boat.”
“Are you sure you’ll be safe? I can outrun them, even holding both of you.”
“Go. I need to find out what’s really going on here before I leave.”
With that, he slings his bag over his shoulder and bends low. Hypatia climbs onto his back, clinging to his neck. As if she weighs no more than a pillow, he springs upward, jumping way higher than an average human can, and catches the ledge of the window with his fingertips. He pulls himself up, and then, supporting his entire body—and Hypatia’s—with just one arm, he uses his leather-jacket-clad elbow to smash through the window. Sheesh, I guess he wasn’t exaggerating about the effects of blood doping. Within seconds, he’s scrambled through the window, and they’re gone.
Moments later, four security guards approach, blocking my exit from the cell. They’re followed by Alfie. His tie of the day is a mustard and purple striped monstrosity.
Alfie assesses the broken window and missing prisoner. “Find them, and get the girl back,” he says to the guards. “I can take care of this one.” The guards hurry off the way they came.
I try to push past Alfie. “Take me to Kor or whoever else from the Inner Chamber is here,” I demand.
“Not a chance.”
“What’s your problem?” I shove him, but I don’t have much leverage while trying to avoid touching the antimatter bars.
“Why would I help you ?” Alfie sneers. “You’ve turned out to be the traitor I expected all along. The only place you’re going is into one of these cells and staying there until my father gets here.”
Oh, hell no. I guess I’ll have to find someone reasonable on my own. I turn to check if there’s anything in the cell that I can use to my advantage. Nope. When I swivel back around, Alfie’s eyes blink upward too quickly, and I’m pretty sure he was checking out my butt. It does look good in these jeans.
“My eyes are up here, perv,” I say as I step forward so that we’re nose to nose. There’s probably some way to effectively use my Ha’i to get past Alfie, but I stick to what I know best and knee him straight in the balls. As he grabs himself with a satisfying shriek, I push past him and run.
He doesn’t catch up with me until I’m already up the stairs and out of the building. As I stumble through the dark overgrown landscape, he comes barreling into me, tackling me to the ground. And then he unceremoniously sits on my back to keep me down.
“Get off me! What are you doing?”
“I’m apprehending you, traitor.”
He has a rope and seems to be contemplating whether he should use it on my hands or feet.
“I’m not a traitor, idiot. Just call Kor or my mother. I can explain everything.”
“If you want a positive result, perhaps you should speak more respectfully.”
“Respectfully? You are literally sitting on me.” And he’s heavy. My attempts to push him off are proving utterly futile.
He mutters some more about how everyone only trusts me because of my family while he trained so rigorously blah, blah, blah. As if he doesn’t take every chance he gets to remind people that he’s the direct descendant of a Borgia.
He decides on using the rope for my feet, which he adeptly ties together at the ankles. Maybe knot tying was one of the many things I missed during those “rigorous trainings.”
I make shiin and try to conduct, but nothing happens. I’m used to repressing my Ha’i around the Families. Not to mention that with the pressure of Alfie sitting on me scratching loose the memories of being trapped in a box, I’m a far cry from the calm mindset I generally try to cultivate when summoning Ha’i.
When Alfie finally moves his weight off my body, I try to reach for my spoon, but he’s quicker than me and twists my arms behind my back, binding them together using, of all things, his ridiculous tie. Then he takes both my spoon and my phone from my pocket.
Once I’m all trussed up, he steps back, and I shimmy into a sitting position. Rafe would be furious at me for managing to get into this situation without defending myself.
Alfie is pacing back and forth while rapidly messaging on his phone. “Do you understand what you’ve done?” he asks me.
“Saved a child who was kidnapped and suffering?”
“You’ve exposed one of our most covert locations. You may have undone years of work. We could be forced to destroy this entire site if word gets out.” He shakes his phone at me. “And don’t think I didn’t find the trojan horse in your immature meme.”
“That’s right. Your lack of caution is the real reason this covert location is at risk.”
“You little…” he blusters in a contained internal tantrum, and though it’s too dark to really see, I’d like to imagine his stupid face is an angry shade of purple. “You can gloat all you want once I have one of those collars on you.”
Horror sears up my spine at the memory of antimatter stinging my palms.
“That’s not necessary.” I try to remain calm. “Just call the rest of the Inner Chamber. Call Dr. Ambrose if you don’t think my mom or Kor will be impartial.” There’s no way any of them would put me in a collar, except for—
“My father’s already on his way.”
Panic tightens my throat. Councilor Avellino wouldn’t hesitate to lock me up just like Hypatia. But I’ve already had exposure to antimatter, and if they put a collar on me for too long, I could lose my ability to conduct Ha’i permanently, when I’ve only just learned to use it properly.
My next words come out as a sob. “Please, let me go.”
Alfie turns away from me. “Don’t act like this is my fault. You brought the enemy here. I will not be the one to take the blame for any of this when I was the one who tried to warn everyone about you!”
“Please call my mother too,” I beg. “I swear no one will blame you.”
But Alfie ignores my pleas, and I know that, this time, no one is coming to rescue me.
Inhale.
Exhale.
I’m going to have to save myself.
I take stock of my surroundings the way Rafe taught me. If I could make a flame, I could burn through my restraints, but Alfie has my sparker, and there’s no way for me to generate static. Where’s a rug when you need one? I fumble my hands behind my back, hoping to feel something, anything that I can use. Weeds and mud and sticks.
Useless.
An idea surfaces. Not anything Rafe taught me, but an old memory from summer camp. We’d studied wilderness survival skills and learned about how to start a fire from the friction of rubbing twigs together. It takes a lot of effort, and I’d never managed it at the time, but I have to try.
I grapple for two sticks, and though I don’t have a lot of range of motion, I rub them together as vigorously as I can while pushing my Ha’i out, seeking any spark to ignite.
Please, help me.
Nothing happens, other than my skin getting rubbed raw. I know that the goal is for the friction to make the wood hot enough that it will burn, so I pause my rubbing and make shiin, focusing all my Ha’i on heating the wood. Once I feel it practically scorching my hands, I again rub the pieces together and pump my Ha’i outward. My Ha’i that is a part of me. Not separate from me.
Ada, help yourself.
A flame whooshes into being. I can’t see it, but I can feel it, burning the skin off my hands as it makes quick work of Alfie’s tie. And the hem of my turtleneck.
At my triumphant cry, Alfie comes rushing toward me, but I throw a fireball in his direction, and he jumps away. “Stay back!” I yell.
My hands are already healing, but not fast enough. I do my best to ignore the pain as I untie the ropes around my ankles. Each movement is agony to my fingers as I disturb the blistered flesh.
When I stand and there’s no more fireball in sight, Alfie approaches. But I will not be knocked over or tied up again. When he grabs me, I don’t struggle; instead, I lean into his pull, which causes him to stumble from the unexpected lack of resistance. I use the moment to reach for his neck, praying I picked the right spot. I conduct Ha’i toward his vagus nerve, and I must have done it right, because he slumps to the floor in a faint.
I feel like my heart could explode from relief.
I fumble through Alfie’s pockets and take my stuff back and immediately use my phone to call Mom.
Ugh! Why does she never answer? I hang up and try Kor, but it goes straight to voicemail.
Rafe and Hypatia can’t wait for me forever. I’ll have to head back without learning what I came to learn. I use the torch on my spoon to try to find the path back to the water, but without Rafe to lead me, it’s too dark and overgrown for me to navigate.
I suddenly notice light coming toward me from a much clearer path than the one I’m on.
“Ada? Is that you?”
In the poor light, it takes me a minute to recognize that it’s Kor. He’s thinner, which brings out the exquisite bone structure of his face even more than before, and his hair has grown out longer than I’ve ever seen it. But he looks as calmly commanding as ever, and I feel a sense of relief come over me. He’ll know what to do, and he’ll be able to explain to me what’s going on.
“Hey,” he says as if we’re not on the grounds of a rotting hospital.
“Hi,” I say as if I’m not out of breath from escaping capture.
Then he rushes to me and wraps me in a hug. “It’s good to see you.”
I hug him back, hard, delaying the moment when I’ll have to face the difficult questions that might change everything.
“Ada,” he says into my hair, “what are you doing here? With a heretic?”
I break our hug and step back. Heretic. That’s how the exiles are referred to in the Families’ earliest texts—in the Inquisitor texts—but no one calls them that anymore.
“I came to—”
There’s a squawk from the tree above Kor, and he moves a few feet away, motioning me to follow.
“Herons,” he explains. “We need to be careful not to disrupt the birds too much. Our activity on the island has already decreased their breeding, and we don’t want the Audubon Society poking around. You were saying?”
“I came to warn you about how much the Makers know about you and to rescue Hypatia.”
“Why would she need rescuing?”
I remember the state in which we found her, and renewed anger and confusion surface. “Well, it certainly seemed like she needed it.” I’d planned to spin the rescue as a benefit to the Families, explain that keeping her is not worth the risk since she’s part of the royal family, but I’m too enraged after witnessing her abused condition.
Kor continues. “We sent you to the heretics’ school to get necessary intelligence, not for you to make friends and help them steal from us.”
“What are you even saying? You’re literally kidnapping people!”
“Almost all the Sires have agreed to cooperate willingly. As soon as we explained the importance of our work and helped them to understand their abilities, they were thrilled to help us.”
“You abducted a child from her home and kept her in abusive conditions—”
“She was not mistreated. We tried to make her comfortable and happy, but she barely ate, and we had to keep her in the cell since she tried to escape, which is dangerous for her in this area at night. Last night she attacked a guard—bit his wrist so hard he bled. That’s the reason we put on the collar. Even so, she shouldn’t have reacted so negatively, and I’m sorry for that.” His brows are knit together, genuine concern in his eyes.
“Yes, she’s chronically ill and needs to be returned home so you don’t unleash the ire of the entire royal family and their guard.”
“Unfortunately, we need her, and I can’t let her go.”
“I don’t… Who even are you right now?” I sniffle and realize I’ve started crying again. Crying because I don’t understand what I’m seeing on this island or how Kor could be a part of it. “Kor, you have to understand, the Makers, they’re not bad—those in charge have made selfish decisions, yes, but they’re good people.”
“Stop, Ada. I defended you when others said they didn’t think you were ready for this job. I believed in you. But they were right; you were easily brainwashed. I’m sure the heretics have many fine qualities, but these are the same people responsible for letting the rest of the world suffer when they had the power to help.”
“Their ultimate goal is to reunite with the rest of the world. They have a prophecy about it and everything!”
“Yes, the Oculus has found evidence of years and years of recorded prophecies that could help the entire world, yet those too they’ve kept only for themselves. The Grand Master won’t be happy to hear about your sympathetic mentality. I’m pulling you from the mission.”
“What? No, you can’t—”
He straightens his back and looks down at me. “I can. I’m the right hand to the Grand Master himself.”
“But I’m learning so much, like how to control my abilities and advancements we could use—”
“And it’s a shame you’ll lose that, but it’s preferable to me losing you.”
“You’re not going to lose me.”
“I haven’t already?” His expression is dark with sadness and disappointment. “You didn’t even tell me you were coming to the city. You snuck here and broke out a prisoner! And I shouldn’t doubt where your allegiances lie?”
“What was I supposed to do? You told me nothing. Nothing! I came here to warn you. To tell you they have photographs of you. And to find out what I’ve been helping you do. I thought I was helping you improve the world, not kidnap children!”
“All you had to do was keep your cover, and instead you tell a dangerous royal who you are and bring him directly to us? We’re going to have to move everything to another facility now that he’s been here.”
“Think what you like, but I made the right decision. The fact that I got myself off that island and am here talking to you now is the sign of my success. It was your choice to keep me in the dark, so I was forced to act on my own. And I chose the perfect person to tell. The person most likely to underestimate me so he may actually think I’m innocent in all of this despite my familial connections. A person who has his own agenda and his own secrets, so he’ll stay quiet when this is all over. Now stop underestimating me like everyone else and trust me with the information I need to do the job you sent me to do.” I’m not sure I’ll want to keep doing any kind of job for them once I find out what the Oculus has been up to, but right now ensuring I’m the one in control of making that decision feels paramount.
“You’ve completed your job already. The information you sent us is enough. With it, combined with what we have from Prometheus and our new lead, there’s no reason for you to return.”
“But I finally have information about a stone that allows non-Sires to use Ha’i. I’m the only Sire in the family. You need me to—”
He cuts me off. “That’s no longer quite true.” Kor plucks a leaf from the tree next to him and presses it into his hand, which makes shiin. I feel the hum of Ha’i and—much more easily than I managed with the sticks—the leaf bursts into a momentary flame. Then it’s gone, a puff of ash snowing to the ground.
“You’re not the only Sire in the family anymore, Ada.”