CHAPTER 26 #2
“She just had surgery.”
“So did you.”
“I’m not going.”
“You would if you could stand.”
“That is not the point.”
“It feels like the point.”
A medical helicopter landed near Carter House.
Dymond was inside.
The surgeon had refused to release her, so she arranged her own transportation.
Of course she did.
The rear door opened.
Meech stepped out first.
Then two paramedics lowered Dymond in a wheelchair.
She wore black beneath an open medical robe.
A tube ran from her side to a portable drain.
She looked terrible.
She also looked determined.
“You couldn’t wait twelve hours?” I asked.
“You couldn’t wait twenty minutes.”
“I had children to save.”
“So do I.”
“You don’t have children.”
She looked toward the ambulances carrying the Carter House survivors.
“I do now.”
I understood.
She wasn’t claiming them.
She was accepting responsibility for them.
The same thing that had pulled me toward Washington.
Dymond looked at Serena.
“Three women.”
“Keyshia, you, and me,” Serena said.
“What about Karen?” Dymond asked.
“The master system rejected her years ago.”
My mother lowered her eyes.
Another piece of power she had lost.
Another daughter carrying the cost.
Dymond looked toward me.
“Only two leave.”
“That’s what they say.”
“And you already plan to be the one who stays.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
Everybody knew me too well.
“I’m not letting you stay,” Dymond said.
“You have an empire of your own to rebuild.”
“I don’t want an empire.”
“You had one before any of this.”
“I had a crew. Money. Fear.”
“What do you want now?”
She looked around at the women standing beside us.
“Something that doesn’t require burying everybody I love.”
Serena opened the original key.
A map of Washington appeared.
One location flashed beneath a building marked:
THE AMERICAN YOUTH PROTECTION FOUNDATION
A charity that received millions in federal grants every year.
A place created to help missing and abused children.
Circle House One sat beneath it.
Hidden inside the institution meant to protect the exact people it imprisoned.
“How do we get inside?” I asked.
“Invitation only,” Serena said.
“Who can invite us?”
The screen answered.
A list of active Circle founders appeared.
Most names were marked exposed, detained, or dead.
One remained active.
MONICA REED
Nesha’s mother.
“She’s in custody,” Tasha said.
Serena shook her head.
“She won’t be for long.”
My phone rang.
The Kentucky State Police commissioner appeared on the screen.
I answered.
“Ms. Carter, the ambulance transporting Monica Reed was attacked.”
Nesha closed her eyes.
“Is she alive?” I asked.
“We don’t know.”
“What happened?”
“Two officers are dead. The driver is missing. Reed is gone.”
A message arrived through the original key.
INVITATION ACCEPTED
Beneath it:
THREE DAUGHTERS WILL ENTER.
Then:
ONE MOTHER WILL DECIDE WHO LEAVES.
Nesha stared at the screen.
“She invited us.”
“No,” Serena said.
“She invited Keyshia and Dymond.”
I looked at the third invitation.
A name appeared.
Not Serena.
Not Karen.
JANESHA CARTER
Nesha’s mother hadn’t escaped to disappear.
She had escaped to place her own daughter inside the sacrifice room.
Nesha looked toward me.
“I’m coming to Washington.”
“You can’t even walk.”
She pushed herself out of the wheelchair.
Her knees buckled.
Tasha caught her.
Nesha forced herself upright.
“I don’t have to walk.”
She looked toward the medical helicopter.
“I just have to get there.”
???
We left for Washington before sunrise.
Keyshia.
Dymond.
Nesha.
Three daughters invited into Circle House One.
Serena and Karen followed on a second aircraft.
Tasha stayed with Rome and the children.
Meech traveled with us because the system required somebody who understood what computers could do.
Even if the heart of this one wasn’t a computer anymore.
Halfway to Washington, the original key activated.
A woman appeared on the screen.
Young.
Beautiful.
Familiar.
The scratched-out sister from Serena’s photograph.
Simone Carter.
She looked exactly as she had before Serena killed her.
“Hello, nieces,” she said.
Nesha gripped the armrest.
Dymond leaned closer.
I stared at the face of the dead aunt whose mind controlled the Circle.
“You aren’t Simone,” Serena said through the video connection.
The woman smiled.
“I am everything she left behind.”
“What do you want?” I asked.
“The same thing every empire wants.”
“What?”
“To survive.”
“You trained children.”
“I prepared them.”
“You imprisoned them.”
“I protected them.”
Again.
That word.
Always hiding behind cruelty.
“I’m shutting down every Carter House.”
“You can shut down the buildings.”
Simone’s digital image leaned toward us.
“But you cannot erase what those children have learned.”
“I can give them a choice.”
“Choice creates chaos.”
“Good.”
Her smile disappeared.
“One of you will remain with me.”
“No,” Nesha said.
“It has already been decided.”
The screen changed.
Three names appeared.
DYMOND CARTER — REJECTED
JANESHA CARTER — ACCEPTABLE
KEYSHIA CARTER — SELECTED
Dymond looked at me.
“It chose you.”
I touched the original key.
“Then it made its first mistake.”
Simone returned to the screen.
“Why?”
“Because I’m not coming to inherit the Circle.”
I closed the device.
“I’m coming to kill you.”