Chapter Fifteen
The sight of hope peering through a little girl’s eyes can tug at your heart hard. Like really hard. I didn’t want to fail her . . . but I had no idea where to even start.
All I had going for me was sheer determination and a kid who needed her family to be complete. And looking into the living room, I was reminded that I also had just the right people to help me succeed.
“We think she has the sight,” Gabby whispered in my ear.
“The sight? What’s that?”
“You know, like psychic abilities or premonitions.”
I looked over at the twins. “Like Antonio?”
“No, he travels to the future to see it. For her, it’s something else. Like gut feelings, maybe? Before the wrist inhibitor, she’d say random things. But I’m not sure she was aware of what was happening.”
“I don’t get it. Wouldn’t she know?” I asked, forgetting she was much younger and probably had no understanding of how it worked.
“Her powers were just starting when we had to block them. She actually insisted that she had to spend that night with us. When, um, when they were all taken.”
“Okay. That’s good, though.”
“No. It was odd.” Gabby shook her head. “We’d never had her stay for a sleepover before. She begged and begged. She even threw a tantrum before Beth called to ask if it was okay. It was so unlike her.”
I stared at Elisa. “So when she said I will fix it . . . ?”
“It has to be something she felt or saw years ago.”
“Oh, God. That’s too much pressure.”
“Yeah. It’s the only reason I held on to hope that you guys would be back. She insisted you’d fix it.”
Gabby leaned in, finding some comfort on my shoulder while I held her tightly.
Even with my memories back, things between us were still good.
I knew now how much I’d suffered because of her, but the relationship we found while I couldn’t remember was still the only one that mattered to me.
There was simply no room for lingering resentment.
“You two are really chummy still? Should I run?” Kevin asked.
“Probably,” I said, chuckling.
Gabby and I stared at the young girl. And without having to say it out loud, we knew Elisa had become our shared driving force.
Her words, her vision, would either fuel the hope we all needed, or lead us to our destruction.
There was something to be said against being overconfident—psychic vision or not.
Annie held on to Nick. “We’re going to get them back, right?”
“No, we are not,” Chris said in his newfound state of negativity. “Everything has changed. We’re not safe anywhere. The Org is now running things everywhere. World leaders all answer to Ava Park.”
“Come on, dude,” Kevin said. “Can’t be all of them, right?”
“Yes, all of them. They have to.” Chris slapped the sofa arm.
“You don’t get it. She’s taken all the Luminaries.
All of them. This, here, us?” he said, pointing at everyone in the room.
“We are the only free Luminaries in existence. Thanks to the bracelets, we can come and go without being tracked. There might be others hiding in their houses day and night, but that’s not living, is it? ”
Gabby held up three fingers, curling them in as she counted. “There’s us, the ones locked away, and the rest who work for her.”
“Why would they work for her?” Nick asked. “Taking control of a group that size doesn’t happen overnight. They had the time and the numbers to fight back, especially if they were all held in the same place.”
“Well, some just love power. They’ve always been part of it.
For the rest, fighting means their families die.
God knows we tried to rise up, but she was prepared.
You don’t want to know what the cleanup looked like.
” Chris shook his head. “That being said, she controls a select few of their powers, leaves others for her scientists to study, and the rest just work for the survival of their lineage.”
“Yeah, I’m gonna need more details on that,” Nick said.
“They and their families will continue to serve her for generations to come. It’s part of her sales pitch.”
“And our people want this?” Kevin asked.
Gabby shook her head. “No, but most already have small children. What were they supposed to do? I have to believe they’re just biding their time.”
“Never mind that,” Nick said. “Do we know her purpose for this?”
“She’s using their powers to help her keep the world under her control. In Park’s utopia, which she calls Optimized Order, people know about Luminaries. But they fear us,” Gabby said.
“What is it she’s doing around the world?” I asked. “Is she that power-hungry? She’s ruling everything, so she must have more money than anyone would need in a lifetime.”
“Ironically, she thinks she’s the hero. As far as we can tell, she actually wants peace—real, world peace.
In her Optimized Order, everyone is in line.
There are sensors for everything. Robbery, domestic violence, murder, anything a criminal might do.
Name it, she can stop it. She’s been collecting Luminaries for years to use as minions.
I doubt Derek knew just how many there were. ”
“So there’s no free will?”
“Oh, there’s free will, Ryan. But very limited. She’s campaigning to bring back curfews— Oh Lord, that was a nightmare! But everyone had to be in their homes by 9:00 p.m. on weekdays and 11:00 p.m. on weekends.”
“What?”
“Yeah, you think that’s bad? She even had everyone on mandatory fitness blocks until a woman with a weak heart dropped dead. The husband went on live TV and told Ava he was glad she’d paid for his gym time, because now he was fit enough to kill her.”
“She stopped the programs immediately, and of course, that guy disappeared,” Chris said. “You just have to pay attention to the media, and you’ll see what’s going on.”
“Alexa, turn on the news,” Gabby said.
“Yeah, okay,” I said as the TV turned on. “Wait, how is it on? I haven’t even touched the remote. Is my bracelet broken?”
Gabby laughed. “Oh my God! Alexa . . . Right. No. That’s— I wasn’t talking to you.”
After she explained that there was a gadget that I could ask to play music or control many electronics in the house by calling my own name, I didn’t know if we’d really gone into the future or if I’d found myself trapped in some kind of self-absorbed nightmare.
“So everyone knows my name. That’s great. It would be funny if it was inspired by when my name was flashing all over the news a few months—uh, years ago.” I frowned. “Wait, whatever happened with that, anyway?”
“After a few years, with her putting her best agents on the ground, they gave up. You’re not their concern anymore, as far as we know.”
“Well, now I feel unimportant,” I said.
“Trust me. That’s how you want it,” Gabby said. “Being their target for even the smallest thing is no fun.”
“And Robert, you said you still talk to him. How is he?”
“He’s a normie. He’s careful,” Chris said.
“But is he okay?” I pressed.
“He’s fine. Being careful is Chris’s definition of being okay. And being a normie . . . umm, no powers, is the best you can hope for,” Gabby said. “You have to forgive my husband. He carries the weight of the world on his shoulders.”
Annie buried her face in her hands. “I’ve been a terrible friend to Beth, Jenny, Andrew . . . and a terrible mentor for you both.”
“We take care and protect our own. At the time, our priority was Ryan. Her life was literally in danger.” Gabby went to sit next to her.
“You were part of her protection team, and you did fabulously. You have nothing to be sorry about. The time jump was iffy as it was. We’re just happy you’re all okay. ”
“Happy? No, we’re not. We thought you were all dead,” Chris said. “We mourned your loss and had a small memorial.”
Gabby’s eyes widened in horror. “Oh God, we have headstones! We have to remove them.”
“That was sweet. Thank you for doing that for us.” I felt a lump in my throat.
“I’m taking Jack to bed,” Nick said after a moment. He wasn’t one to sit and be sentimental.
“So glad you guys brought us real food,” Jay said. “How long will we be here?”
“We’ll look into renting a house or a couple of apartments for you,” Gabby said. “And as soon as that’s settled, you guys can come back closer to home.”
“We’ll need new disposable phones along with some new clothes.” Kevin studied the phone we’d found in the tent. “These are so different now.”
“That’s actually a really old version.” Gabby laughed. “Don’t worry, we’ll get you everything you need.”
“Thanks,” he said. “I can’t believe how much everything changed.”
“Yeah, it’s all so different. Especially those checkpoints!” I frowned. “Do they have them everywhere?”
Gabby nodded. “They use them for everything now—hunting down regular criminals, tracking power surges, all of it. Like the one you passed on the way here. But the checkpoints with the scanners were originally in place to find you, so it’s been happening for a long time.”
“I caused that? The scanners?” The pang in my chest drowned out everything. “If they hadn’t been hunting me, all our friends and other Luminaries would be free?”
“No, no, don’t think like that, Ry.” Kevin was at my side in an instant.
“He’s right,” Gabby said quickly. “They were already developing the scanner tech years before you ever became a problem. They use them to flag rogue Luminary signatures and catch kids the moment their latent powers kick in. They want total control over the bloodlines, Ryan. It’s not your fault.”
“But they started them to look for me,” I said, staring at nothing as Kevin cupped my face. “All those years. All these people. I hurt them all.”
“Listen to me, Ryan.” He pressed his forehead against mine. “Bad people are going to do bad things. They don’t need any excuses. And they certainly couldn’t use the most compassionate girl I know to cause so much hurt.”
“But—”