Chapter 53
Relief. I'm Free.
Everything stopped.
All the air and noise in the room were sucked out into the vacuum of the Void that didn’t exist.
Not yet, at least. But it was about to. The whole universe was going to implode. It had to.
“Your mother is alive…”
The words didn’t just land. They detonated, sending shrapnel through the air, cutting the oxygen from my lungs. Ripping a hole in the space-time continuum.
My sobbing halted mid-breath.
The world narrowed to the echo of those four words.
Your. Mother. Is. Alive.
Alive.
I tilted my head in nothing but confusion.
The words kept floating through my consciousness, as if they might somehow make sense when chanted mindlessly.
My mother is alive.
Lillemore Chapman-Chen is alive.
As in not dead.
What the fuck?
Why would he say something like that?
I stood rooted, unable to speak, unable to blink.
It wasn’t that I didn’t believe him. It was that belief refused to fit inside my head.
I was furious. And glad that he felt the hate now searing through my skin. But my body was frozen, and I couldn’t seem to react to the stupid remark he had made because it still made no sense.
Lillemore Chapman-Chen was dead.
My mother’s suicide had been broadcast on every network in The Tower.
The reporters rejoiced that the woman they’d branded a dangerous terrorist had been found dead in her own home with slits up her arms and all her blood on the floor.
A warning of what happens when you try to rebel against the Administration.
There would be no escape. She was branded a terrorist who had muddied the bloodlines and then attempted to seduce Azazel Ofer in order to gain access to important government secrets that could be used in bringing down The Tower.
She was a dangerous psychopath influenced by cult conspiracy theories.
The image of Lillemore Chapman-Chen’s dead body on the hardwood floor of her bedroom had been etched into my brain for a decade.
I had always known the accusations of her connection with The Way were a lie.
Just like I’d always known she was well and truly dead.
I’d been the one to find her with that falsified suicide note.
Lillemore hated The Way. She had no desire to steal state secrets. She simply wanted a life of luxury.
Even her muddying the bloodlines was unintentional. She’d always hated me and everything I represented: her downfall.
And yet.
“Let her go, Soren,” I heard Salah’s voice before her soft hand took one of my arms.
His hold loosened.
I felt the tears dripping from my chin faster and faster. Salah ushered me toward the same door I was heading for. As soon as she swung it open, the Moderator who had brought us here a couple of days ago blocked our path.
“We’re not going anywhere, Mystery Mod. Just need some space.” Salah stamped her foot and injected a little steel into her birdsong voice.
The Mod’s eyes flicked past us into the room before he finally stepped aside.
Why is Salah taking me away? Why isn’t anyone correcting Soren? Why is this feeling more and more real?
Two seconds into the elevator ride, Salah pressed the stall button. I slid down into the corner, knees pulled tight to my chest.
Her silence was its own answer.
Soren had told the truth.
And I had been the only one in that room who didn’t know.
Everyone knew but me.
They all knew Lillemore was alive.
How!?
I saw her. Dead.
Actually, the how wasn’t even the biggest mystery. Nor the most important. What mattered was the why.
Why would her death be faked? Why hadn’t they killed her? Why had she abandoned me?
She had never been a good mother, but I was making her proud. I was going to be her ticket up.
But maybe Azazel had been her ticket up. Was she with him all this time? Had he indeed taken her from me after all?
No one at Chapel had mentioned her being a part of The Way like my grandmother, but was she secretly a member in hiding?
The confusion and helplessness gave way to the anger that had already bubbled beneath it all.
They’d all known the truth, whatever it was. No one refuted it. No one even acted shocked. Everyone in that room had known she was alive, hadn’t they?
Even Salah.
Zade.
How could he? How long?
Astrid?
She must not have known long. Right?
But worst of all was Soren.
Every word he’d said started pouring through me, echoing the fact that he’d known all along. Everything he’d ever said sounded different. He hadn’t been trying to protect me or keep me good as he liked to claim. He was protecting the lie.
No wonder he never supported my revenge plan. There was no death to avenge after all.
My stomach knotted, sharp and hot.
Fuck him.
Salah didn’t try to talk over my silence. She let me cry.
And cry I did. For what felt like an hour, I sobbed. Quiet and loud. Burying my face against my knees and staring up at the ceiling. Sniffling and full-on snotting.
And when all that was left was me absently staring at the closed elevator doors, my eyes dried and my jaw clenched, Salah sat down beside me.
“Whatever you want me to do,” she said softly, “I’ll follow you.
Eliana, I don’t blame you for Matthias getting taken.
I don’t know if I’ve said that yet. And I haven’t been a very good friend lately.
But I’m still on your team. Regardless of what anyone else in there wants, I follow you.
I don’t have any other plans or ulterior motives. ”
“How long did you know?” I asked as tears dropped fresh down my face.
“I found out yesterday,” she whispered. “I should have told you then. Soren made me swear not to tell you yet. I’m so sorry. I didn’t think you would find out that way.”
I wiped at the tears clinging to my cheeks with the back of my hand and leveled my gaze at her.
Her words should have meant something. Instead, all I heard was the echo of lies and well-kept secrets.
She’d known as well. Even if only for a day, she’d kept that from me.
Any sympathy I felt toward her over losing Matthias and any guilt I’d felt over it being indirectly my fault—they vanished.
“I’m so tired of reacting to everything in my life,” I said as steady as stone.
“I feel as if my entire life has just been me responding to whatever happens to me. I want to choose.” I took a deep breath and tried to keep my voice soft.
“I want to be the one moving the pieces, not the piece being moved.”
I’d always been a slave to my circumstances. Not anymore. I was taking control of my life once and for all. They wouldn’t see it coming.
No one would see it coming.
I was going to choose without them.
“Do you really think he’s telling the truth?” I asked.
Salah hesitated. “Probably.” Her voice cracked on the last syllable.
“He only told me yesterday morning. I overheard him and your dad arguing over whether she was still with Abadon or on her own now.
Apparently, a nephilim transformed her a long time ago, and she's ridiculously powerful now.
Soren made me swear not to tell you because he's afraid of what you'll do.
He's afraid you'll leave us.” Salah took a deep breath. “It was pretty stupid, how he just blurted it out. You really didn’t deserve to find out like that. He should have told you in private. He should have told you a long time ago.”
I scoffed—short and sharp.
“Soren’s never cared how I feel. It’s always his way. I’m not even allowed a choice. I’m destined to save the world, and that’s final.”
Every word dripped with derision, acidic in my mouth. All the warmth and softness that had leaked into my bones over the past two months dissipated—bleached out by the truth.
He’d used me.
They’d used me.
They’d lied to me and manipulated me to get what they wanted, to shape me into exactly what they needed.
“But, Ellie,” Salah’s voice firmed. “Maybe the whole point is that you don’t have to choose.
I don't know the whole story behind Soren being your Guardian, but I do know that he gave up his soul to protect you from something he saw in a vision. You are everything to him. Whatever reason he had for keeping this a secret from you might be worth asking him about.”
I scoffed and shook my head before she could continue.
And when she did, her words were soft and quiet now. “You don’t have to figure everything out right this minute. What if being the Final Daughter is the only responsibility you have? What if the Creator wants to do the rest? Would it be so bad to just…let us help you?”
Help me?
The same people who’d kept my mother’s life from me thought they could still help me.
Something shifted inside me. A slow turn, like a lock catching on the right combination. At the end, there was a click.
I was done reacting. I was done being the pawn in everyone else’s game. I was done being a slave to my feelings and to everyone else’s vendetta.
“You know exactly how to change that,” the voice hissed through the quiet. “You want to rule? I’ll let you rule. Be my queen.”
Oh, I wasn’t going to be the queen.
I wasn’t going to be a piece on the board anymore.
I wasn’t even going to play.
I didn’t belong on the board or in the game.
I’d take the whole board and toss it, burn it. Pieces, rules, players—gone.
Game. Over.
I had never belonged anywhere before, and I never would. And maybe that was my freedom.
I didn’t bother making eye contact when I told Salah I needed rest.
She gave a small nod, as if she understood. She didn’t. None of them did.
I didn’t bother apologizing to anyone for my outburst or ask any more questions.
I silently walked back into the penthouse and up to my room without sparing a glance at the bodies all focused on me and what I would do now that I finally knew the truth. I locked the door to my room behind me and headed straight for the shower.
Then I spent the rest of the afternoon in my head.
It was time for a new plan.
What comes after Plan H?
Plan I.
Plan me, myself, and I.