Chapter 38
Ethan
Freya came into the room, holding a steaming cup of tea, and looked over my shoulder at the computer screen in front of me. Mick was sprawled in a chair with his hand over his eyes. Jed lay on the couch. The air in the room was heavy with despair.
The video Nicole had sent kept looping on the screen.
I had turned off the sound, since I had already processed every word the woman had said, as well as how she said it.
But something compelled me to keep studying it.
I kept feeling as if I was missing something.
Like a phantom flicker in the corner of my eye. Driving me nuts.
“Some tea?” she asked.
I shook my head.
“Maybe take a break?” Freya suggested gently. “You’ve been looking at that awful thing for hours. Give your mind a rest. It’ll work better for you later. You used to lecture me about that yourself, when I was cramming in high school. Remember?”
“Soon,” I said stonily. “Not yet.”
Holly appeared on the screen next to cartoon-pig-Nicole, staring.
Said hello. Nicole yanked her hair. Holly did not flinch.
She never took her eyes off the camera, except to blink.
Her eyes seemed so strangely blank and faraway, opening and closing as if she were drugged.
She had a deep frown line between her eyebrows.
She looked ferociously concentrated. Strange, considering the stress she was under. I would have expected to see terror, confusion.
I had seen that look on Holly’s face while she was trying to solve a puzzle, or doing some math calculation in her head, or playing mental chess with me in the car.
We did that a lot, visualizing the chessboard as we sped down the highway.
I’d done it with Shane and Freya, too, back in the day. Good exercise for the brain.
Holly was thinking too hard to be as frightened as she should be of that woman.
What was she thinking? Was the frown just an effort to be tough?
That blinding light in her face was making her eyes blink and water.
She kept squeezing them shut, then staring at the camera, then blink-blink-blink.
Short blinks, a long squeeze…wait. Wait.
Oh…holy…fucking…fuck.
A pattern. There was a pattern to her blinking! I jerked up in my chair, knocking the keyboard askew on the table and making everyone in the room jump to attention. God, what an idiot, not to have seen it sooner. Not to have expected it from Holly.
“Morse code,” I said. “Holly is talking to us. With the blinking.”
“Holy God,” Freya spilled her hot tea over herself in her excitement, hissing with pain and flapping her hand as she hastened to get nearer the screen. “Run it back, run it back, to when we first see her. Do you remember Morse code?”
“Yes.” I dragged the message bar back to where Holly first appeared on the screen as Jed appeared behind me, and Mick on the other side.
“That kid,” Jed said, in a low, wondering tone. “She’s going to rule the world someday, and the world will be lucky to have her do it.”
“Hold on to that thought,” I said tersely, grabbing paper and a pen.
“But don’t distract me. Dah-dah-dah, space, dit-dah, space, dah-dit-dah-dah, space, dit-dit, space, dit-dit-dit, space, dah-dit-dit, space, dit, space, dit-dah, space, dah-dit-dit, space, dit-dah-dah-dah space, dit-dah—and that’s it. That’s all. Then it ends.”
The video ended. I stared down at what I had written. It was incomprehensible.
I cursed under my breath, ran the video back, and went through it again to make sure there were no mistakes from my end.
Jed leaned over my shoulder, staring at the paper. “OAYISDEADJA,” he said softly. “Means nothing to me. Maybe the video cut her off before she could finish.”
“Wait,” Freya said sharply. “The first letter, that O. O is three dahs, right? But what if we missed the first dit because she started blinking before the camera landed on her, and that letter was actually a J? Maybe she started repeating the message with those last two letters. Change the O to a J, lose the last two repeating letters, and it’s JAYISDEAD. Jay is dead.”
“Yeah,” I said. “And those are words, in English. But it still means nothing to us.”
“Could she be getting a letter wrong, or more than one? God, the kid just learned Morse code yesterday, when you gave her that book! Could she be telling us a place name? A town, a building, a business? Suppose the D were actually an H? The dah-dit-dit becoming four dits? Oayisthead, Jayishead? Shit, we are so close! I can feel it!”
“Me too,” I said. “I’ll write a program that can run through every possible permutation she might be getting wrong, and we can—”
“No,” Mick’s low voice said, behind us. “Holly didn’t get any letters wrong.”
I spun around in the chair, startled. “Why do you say that? Do you recognize it?”
“Yes.” Mick’s face was stiff, as if he was braced for a blow. “The reason you don’t understand this message is because it’s not for you. It’s for me.”
The room was deathly quiet. We all stared at Mick. I felt like the ground was about to open beneath my feet. I took a deep breath, flexed my hands. “Explain that statement,” I said. “And don’t make us wait.”
“It’s about my great-uncle,’” Mick said, his voice bleak.
“Jay Drummond. He took me in when my dad threw me out, when I was fifteen years old. He was tough, but fair. He pulled me into shape. Helped me get through school, pushed me toward the military. He was a good man. My real father, in every way that counted.”
“Okay. Now tell me how Holly knows he’s dead,” I said, although the obvious answer to that was unfolding in my mind. Along with a world-splitting anger.
“They took him.” Mick’s voice thickened and broke.
“A couple of months ago. They’ve been sending me videos.
Hurting him, to keep me in line. To make me inform.
Jay has cancer. Had cancer, I mean,” he corrected himself.
“It had gone into his spine. Extremely painful. She liked to film him, in agony, no pain meds, and show it to me. Then she started beating him. Cutting him. She always had to escalate it. Every time.”
“You’re the mole.” Jed’s voice hard. “You, Mick. You’ve known us for ten years. You threw Kat under the bus, and handed Holly over to that hell-bitch.”
“I am so sorry,” Mick said. “I love her. Holly is like my own—”
His voice choked off as I seized his throat and slammed him against the wall.
“You put our little girl on the block,” I said. “I don’t care what reason you had. You hurt my baby girl, and I will kill you for it.”
From far away, I was vaguely conscious of Mick clawing at my hands, mouth open, eyes bulging. Through the roaring in my ears, I heard Freya and Jed, on either side of me, yelling in my ear.
Amos and Darius and Remy pried my hands loose from his throat and dragged me back, as Mick slid heavily to the ground. “You fucking traitor!”
Mick clutched his throat, gasping for breath, his eyes wet. “I know,” he ground out, wheezing desperately. “It’s true. I’m sorry. But I had to. They were hurting my—”
“She’s nine years old!” I yelled, lunging against the Drake brothers’ iron grip. “She trusted you! And Kat? You despicable, lying asshole, pinning your shit on her!”
“Yes, he’s a spy,” Freya blocked me, her hands flat against my chest. “Yes, he was their mole, and yes, he’s an asshole who deserves everything coming to him, but right now, he’s our only hope, Ethan! So don’t you dare kill him! We need him!”
I struggled to pull it back, to breathe. My whole body shook with rage.
Freya stepped back, and looked down at Mick. “Get up, Mick,” she said crisply. “You’re no use to us cowering on the floor. It bugs me.”
Mick did as she directed, stumbling to his feet. He couldn’t look us in the eyes.
“You are a traitor and a shithead, but I’m sorry for your loss,” she said, her voice oddly formal. “Holly set you free, at great cost to herself. I hope you’re grateful.”
Mick nodded, his eyes downcast. “I am,” he muttered. “I wish I could make you understand how sorry I am.”
“We really don’t care, Mick,” Freya said. “We have more important things to think about than your feelings. And so far, you’ve definitely put yourself first.”
His face contracted. “I know. And I’m so fucking sorry. It’s been torture.”
“Hmm. Really.” Freya put her hands on her hips, and swept her gaze over all of us, like the teacher about to give a tough assignment.
His sister, taking charge, as she was born to do.
“Thanks to Holly, we know they have lost their leverage over Mick. But they do not know that he knows. That’s the only small advantage we have.
Our job now is to exploit it. So, everybody?
You all need to get really fucking smart, right now.
” She glanced at Mick. “If you’re still with us, of course. ”
“Fuck, yes,” Mick said fervently. “Please, let me help make this right. If I can help save Holly—mmmfff!”
I slammed him against the wall by the throat again. “Get her name out of your lying traitor’s mouth,” I hissed.
Mick grunted and mewled, mouthing the word please.
“If at any time you need to refer to her, you can call her ‘Miss Masters,’ or ‘your niece.’” I growled. “Is that perfectly clear?”
Yes, Mick mouthed.
“Let go, Ethan,” Freya said sternly. “We don’t have time to emote. Let’s work.”
I let go and stepped back, convulsively flexing and fisting my hands. I was going to have to try not to look at him, or I would lose my shit, and tear him to shreds.
“Why the fuck didn’t you tell us?” Jed asked him. “We would have done anything to help you.”