Chapter 44
44
Sonny
F inley has visited me almost every night since I’ve woken up. He claims it’s to check on me, but I think he really just enjoys staying close so he doesn’t miss a single update about the Midnight Syndicate. Not that we receive many updates from the rebellion to begin with.
If they were being secretive before, it’s only gotten worse since they’ve deemed me too fragile to handle knowing anything. I can’t stand how infantile it makes me feel, stuck in this house while everyone else gets to move freely.
“You need rest,” Finley reminds me, reading my thoughts. He’s lounging on the end of my bed, thumbing through the packet Ava smuggled into my room a couple of hours ago. It’s an outline of the plans for the Midnight Syndicate from their most recent meeting.
I haven’t had a moment of peace since Raze woke me up. No one wants to leave me alone for fear that I’ll fall back into the purgatory of my own mind and pull them down with me.
Ava, Beatrix, and Jonah explained what it was like with a faraway look in their eyes—soldiers recounting a war.
My breakdown created a tsunami of emotions to flow through the house, taking them down with me. They think it has something to do with the Landry bloodline. Like, I was somehow able to project my own gifts onto them, giving them the ability to feel my agony, and therefore forcing them into an emotional stranglehold.
It was a terrifying, torturous experience for everyone. And the only person who could pull me out of it was Raze. The same man who has been conveniently absent since I opened my eyes, sat up in the bed, and sobbed.
I remember seeing Poppy there, in the recess of my mind. I wanted so badly at that moment to stay there with her forever. Being in her presence healed a wound inside of me that’s been bleeding since the day I found out she was gone. Probably sooner, if I really think about it.
Now, I realize how impractical that was, but no one believes me when I promise it won’t happen again.
Lola noses her way through the crack in my door, helping herself onto my bed and falling into my lap. I rub her head and peek over Finley’s shoulder, trying to get a good look at the packet. As soon as Ava brought it in, he stole it from my hands and hasn’t let me have it since.
“How am I going to know what’s going on if you won’t let me read that?”
He shushes me. “They’ve been working on their approach for years, it seems. Just waited for the perfect moment to strike. They activated their first attack on the night you were captured, then have continued every day since.”
“How is that possible? Nothing has even been happening,” I dismiss.
“It’s small things,” he explains, lifting his eyes to stare at me like I’m dense. “Tiny erosions of trust in their system that will add up and crumble the foundation. Brilliant approach, if you ask me. It appears your friend has contributed quite a bit these past couple of weeks.”
I hum my agreement, mindlessly running my fingers through Lola’s hair. It makes sense that they would aim for the Syndicate’s influence over people. The rebellion certainly doesn’t have the power or sway to match them in war.
We sit in silence for a few beats, me listening to the ambient sounds of everyone moving around the house and Finley reading through the packet. Until he randomly lifts his head, stares off at the wall, and mutters, “Someone is coming.”
I look at the cracked door, expecting our visitor to step through it at any moment.
“Sonny,” a second voice greets from the opposite end of the room, and my heart instantly swells in recognition. Lola lets out a screech, quickly hopping off the bed and running for the door.
Weird. She’s always fine when Finley comes around.
“Poppy.” Her name is a sigh of relief on my lips.
She’s here. She came, just as she promised she would.
“Oh, it’s you,” Finley greets unceremoniously, lifting his legs to roll off the bed. He leaves the packet behind, muttering something about seeing me later before he disappears into thin air.
Unbothered by his rude exit, she beams at me. “I told you I would come.”
“It’s just been so long. I wasn’t sure if you were still able.”
“Has it?” she muses. “Time moves differently here.”
We go back and forth for a bit, falling into our comfortable banter as I explain where we are and what’s happened since she...you know, left . I tell her how Beatrix, Ava, and Jonah have become like family to me. I admit the things that happened between me and Raze. Poppy adds her commentary in all the right places as I word vomit all over. For a moment, I forget that she’s gone and that this isn’t one of our usual debrief sessions.
I forget that I’m sitting in a bedroom in my parent’s secret home on bed rest after a major mental breakdown. I forget all of it because everything with Poppy comes so naturally that it’s easy to pretend I’m not in such a miserable position in life. That we’re not on a brink of war and I’m supposedly their best bet to win it.
But I can’t forget for long. Not when I have to tell her all those ugly things, too.
“So, wait. Your parents have been alive this whole time?” she questions, her mind just as blown as mine was.
My head bobs in a fast nod. “They’ve been forming this whole rebellion. They sort of blame Raze for separating us.”
“Oh, right. Raze . The man who has been secretly working alongside them and the secret society my mother has been a part of. But you want to pretend you two aren’t meant to be together.” She looks at me from the side of her eyes and pretends to examine her nails.
“What ever happened to him being professor weirdo?”
“That all changed when I got a glimpse of how hot he is with his shirt off. I should have made you send a picture before,” she teases. “And those shadows? Damn, I can think of some creative uses for those things. How do you feel about bondage?”
I bark out a laugh, covering my mouth before I stop myself short.
That was weird. I actually laughed . And not just a small giggle or in a forced or sarcastic way, but because I was genuinely having a good time.
“I’ve missed you so much,” I admit for the millionth time. “Are you able to tell me anything? What about Costa Rica?”
Her expression sobers. “Oh yeah, the travel group. It turned out to be a lot worse than I anticipated. We never even made it to Costa Rica.”
I balk at that. “But you were in the house. And you had all the stories...”
“There were three men who met us at the airport in Florida. Before we realized what was happening, they had rerouted our flights to California. We were herded off the plane and brought to a hotel, where they controlled our every move. The things I was forced to do, Sonny...” She looks away. “They were horrible, horrible people.”
“How were you able to talk to me? Why didn’t you tell me when we were on the phone?” Even a vague text would have probably had me sniffing around.
“Any time you called or texted, they were listening. I wasn’t allowed to say anything without the threat of them killing one of the other girls, and vice versa. If we got too loud, they would slip us something, so we became languid and easy to control. We were in a constant state of terror.”
I scowl down at my comforter, trying to piece together everything she’s telling me. There I was, complaining to her about my meaningless schoolwork and talking about Raze, and she was literally looking death in the face. “How did you come home for Thanksgiving?”
“They came with me after I told them what would happen if they didn't. They were waiting at the end of the block the whole time. I didn’t know how to tell you without one of them finding out. Trust me, I wanted to. Even if I were to write it down, I thought they would have somehow found the note. I was paralyzed with fear. When I left, it was because they ripped me out of my room in the middle of the night. That was what put my mom on their scent.”
She left so abruptly, I thought she was mad at me. But now that I think back, everything about that visit was a cry for help. If I didn’t have my head stuff so far up my own ass, I could have saved her.
“Divina knew?” I shouldn’t be surprised. Once again, her mother is found to be caught up in secrets and lies.
“She eventually hunted me down, yeah. That’s when the Syndicate stepped in and got me out. But that was just moving me from one prison to the other, because when they realized it was me they were rescuing, they quickly caught onto the fact that you were at Ravenshurst, pretending to be me.”
“So, they killed you . . . ”
She nods, her expression neutral. Her death doesn’t bother her. “Yes. They used me as leverage over my mother for a bit, but the asshole who was guarding me in the hotel room couldn’t stand me, and I didn’t want to be trapped any longer.”
I don’t know what to say. Here I’ve been claiming she’s my other half, and I couldn’t even recognize when she was in real danger. She showed all the signs, even if she hadn’t meant to, but I was too self-absorbed to see them.
“I’m so sorry.” It’s all I can manage, and it’s still not enough.
“Sonny, I know that it’s hard to wrap your mind around right now, but this is how everything was meant to happen. Even if you had known, I still would have died. You can’t stop fate.”
“No. I refuse to believe it was your fate to be murdered in cold blood.”
She tilts her head, then looks at me through sad, wise eyes. “You aren’t supposed to understand it right now. Just know that I’m here with you now, in this form.”
I bite my lip to avoid arguing any further. Poppy didn’t deserve to die. I’ll never accept that. But I suppose seeing her like this is better than not at all.
And if everyone else is right and we’re coming up on war, I’ll be sure to get my revenge.