Rhonda lays a hand on my arm. “Everything’s going to be okay.”
I wish I believed her, but too much is piling up. Too many problems, too many fears and too many people I love in danger. A red pickup truck is parked in front of Wesley's house, as well as a large white Range Rover. Sam pulls up behind it and cuts the engine.
“Mayor Fairchild got a new car?” I point at the white Range Rover.
“Maybe.” Sam's voice wobbles. I've never heard his voice sound like that, almost nervous. What could make Sam nervous?
“Who else could it be?” I narrow my eyes, because I suspect he knows.
Sam shrugs. “Anyone, I guess.”
We all sit still for a moment, as though none of us really want to go knocking on Mr. Fairchild's door. He's nice enough I guess, but kind of scary too. Light streams out of the glass in the front door, and the windows in the front room, but it's not bright, and I don't see any shadows so there’s no indication of movement. Maybe they left a candle burning. It's a violation of rule 23, but who's going to turn in the Mayor?
I grab the jeep's door handle and force it open. I've known Mr. Fairchild for a long time. I don't mind waking him up, not when my aunt's life hangs in the balance. Rhonda and Job stride up, one on either side of me. I feel Sam more than hear him behind me. The three of us up front all lean forward and pound on the wood together, electing not to use the huge metal knocker.
There's no pause before boot steps clomp toward the door, which means at least someone was awake. The solid oak door swings open with a creak. I expect to see Mr. Fairchild, a tall, thin man with a black, grey-streaked beard. I wouldn't have been surprised to see Wesley's mom, an equally thin, and nearly as tall woman with a kind face. Her shiny, dark brown hair is always swept up into a high ponytail, like she never quite gave up on the style after high school cheerleading ended.
The man standing behind the door looks nothing like Mr. or Mrs. Fairchild, except perhaps for his prodigious height. He stands several inches taller than Rhonda, and maybe only an inch or two shorter than Sam. His golden eyes stare into mine, then shift slowly to Job, then Rhonda, and finally lift over our heads to Sam. He’s as old as Mayor Fairchild, but better looking, much better.
“Hello son. I've been wondering when you'd turn up.”
“Can't say I'm glad to see you,” Sam says. “You'd know that was a lie.”
My eyes widen and my eyebrows rise. I don’t remember Sam disliking his dad this much. At least, they never fought back in the cabin I don’t think.
Job says, “Well I'm glad to see you, sir. We're sorry to knock at such a late hour Mr. Roth, but have you seen our father?”
John Roth leans against the doorframe. “Hey Job. I’m glad you came. Your dad said you were being held by a group of insane Marked kids. He’s inside.”
Rhonda smiles in relief. We don’t know Mr. Fairchild well, and Sam may not like his dad, but at least we know him. “May we come in, sir?”
John smiles warmly. “Rhonda.” His eyes crinkle when and he exhales deeply. “Dan thought. . . well, he’s going to be ecstatic to see you.”
“We all thought she was dead,” I say. “The Marked leader told us he executed her.”
John steps back and gestures for us to walk past. Job and Rhonda run ahead, but John's hand shoots out and his fingers circle my wrist. “Little Ruby isn’t quite as little anymore. I've heard a lot about you lately, and even more about your late father. I'm glad to see that you're healthy and whole. Last I heard you were being held by the Marked kids too, as a lab rat.”
“We bring some news about that actually,” I say.
Sam walks past his father and keeps walking into the family room. He ducks behind Job and Rhonda and out of my view.
“What news?” John Roth asks.
“Someone hit Baton Rouge with accelerant in tin can bombs. The Marked have been gathering there since the suppressant started failing. There were ten thousand or so who hadn't arrived yet, but the majority of them had reached the city. Everyone present now has less than a week to live unless we can find the cure.”
“I thought you were the cure,” John Roth says.
Wesley's voice comes from the stairs. “I told you she wasn't. Her blood is more of a preventative.” He runs down the stairs, a smile on his face when he looks at me.
“Worked well enough for you,” John Roth says. “But you did mention it wasn't effective for those in advanced stages.”
Wesley starts down the stairs. “It worked for me because I ingested Ruby's blood around the same time my Mark showed up.”
“Yes, I heard the story on that. You two kissed at the Last Supper if my sources got it right.” John Roth lifts his eyebrows. “And now I hear you're dating my son.”
Sam glances back at me sharply. He shakes his head.
“Uh, no sir,” I say. “We aren't together. Not anymore.”
John Roth frowns. “Not anymore? My, my, I can't keep up with you young people.”
“You're not the only one.” Wesley smirks from the bottom step.
Shouts from the family room draw my eye. Uncle Dan's arms wrap around Rhonda and my heart lifts as he spins her in a circle like I wanted to do. Now we just need Aunt Anne back. John Roth walks into the family room, but before I can follow him, Wesley steps off the stairs and jogs over to where I'm standing in the foyer. He reaches out and pulls me into a hug.
He's standing so close to me that his words ruffle my hair. “I heard about the accelerant from upstairs. I'm so sorry, but I'm glad that maniac let you go.”
“I actually almost felt sorry for him after the attack, and I still thought he'd killed Rhonda at the time.” I shake my head, but there's too much to deal with to waste much time on relief. “Wes, they're all dying. Every single one of them.” I pull away and look up into his dark blue eyes. “Speaking of. Have you guys talked about Aunt Anne yet?”
His brows draw together. “I better let my dad explain.”
I follow him into the family room, but everyone's already moving toward the kitchen by the time I get there. Mr. Fairchild stands next to Job by the wooden table, gesturing at a document.
“What's going on?” I ask.
Job meets my eye. “Dad said Mom was charged with assault on an Unmarked person, and initially she was. Fairchild convicted her, just like Dad said, but after she was convicted and before Mayor Fairchild could reconsider, she confessed.”
I shake my head. “That's not legal. She could've been under duress. And anyway, why would she do that?”
“Not to the assault,” Rhonda says. “She confessed to something else, something entirely different.”
I stalk toward the table, noting the slump of Uncle Dan's shoulders, and the downward cast of Rhonda's eyes. I glance down at the paper.
I, Anne Carillon Orien, hereby swear that the following statement is a true and faithful representation of the facts as I know them. In early June I discovered some of the Marked children had voluntarily ceased taking the hormone suppressant. Failure to take it allowed their bodies to develop. Several of them became pregnant. I grew concerned with this change and notified the proper authorities. I believed then, as I do now, that such action would result in a perpetuation of the Marked threat, with no indication of a cure in sight.
When the leadership chose not to take action, I took the problem into my own hands. I substituted the hormone suppressant for sugar pills with the intention that the Marked children would die out naturally as they should have years go. This would finally terminate the ongoing risk that they pose to all the Unmarked, including my own children.
I attest this is a true statement, and it was written in my own hand.
Anne Carillon
It's in her handwriting, but I don't believe a word of it. My aunt would never have done that, any of it. Besides, the suppressant wasn’t replaced with sugar pills. It was replaced with prenatal vitamins. My aunt would know that, since she investigated it firsthand. Even so, it's hard to petition
for an appeal when you're staring at a signed confession for a more egregious crime.
“If she weren't already slated for execution on the grounds of criminal assault,” John Roth says, “I'd be forced to sentence Anne Orien to death on the grounds of treason.”
12
“This paper is a lie. The suppressant wasn’t changed for sugar pills, for one thing. I demand to see her.” I slam my hand down on the paper. “Aunt Anne would never write that. If she caused the suppressant failure like this says, why would she freak out when she found out about it? And why come rushing back to try and save them? It’s clearly fabricated and it makes no sense.”
“Guilt does strange things to people,” Mr. Fairchild says. “She told me she exchanged the suppressant because the Marked kids were slowly starving. That's exactly the reason my Wesley got Marked, you know. His big heart saw a starving girl and tried to help. But when your aunt saw those starving children, and realized some were having babies, babies that would perpetuate this horrifying cycle, she felt guilty. Or she fled because she was overcome with shame and used that fictitious purpose as a pretense.”
I shake my head. “She wouldn't have changed the suppressant without telling anyone. She's not devious. She would have explained her reasons to the Council.”
“Not devious? She held on to her brother’s journals all these years without sharing that she even had them,” John Roth says. “She never told you the truth about your father or your mother.”
I frown. He's right. Uncle Dan pulls out a chair and sits down, his face downcast. Something doesn’t add up, but I can’t think what.
John Roth pats my shoulder. “Sometimes we least understand the people we love the most.” He glances at his son.
I shy away from his hand because he's wrong. I know my aunt, and she didn’t do this.
“I'm not trying to hurt you,” John Roth says. “I love your aunt too. She's a good person. These are terrible times we live in. I heard from your uncle that you survived quite an ordeal down in Galveston, and then to be captured by the Marked and locked up again? You must be exhausted.”
I pull out a chair and plonk down in it, my eyes still transfixed by the alleged confession. He's right though, I am exhausted. Maybe I'm not as rational as I should be.
“You should be back there now,” John Roth says. “In Galveston, where you can actually do some good. My son can go with you and keep you safe as I hear he's done several times in the past few weeks.”
“You want me to take Sam and go back to WPN? Actually go back down to rule as their queen?”
John Roth shrugs. “They have resources, tools, and advanced tech that we've lost the capability to reproduce and maintain. It could be quite the positive partnership, to work with them instead of against them. Cooperation between us could change an awful lot of lives among the Unmarked for the better.”
A month ago I had no idea what Path to choose. I was literally collecting garbage and cleaning toilets in Sanitation. Now it's like I'm a prize mare, or even worse, a character from an insipid Jane Austen novel. I hate everything about it.
“I have no intention of ever ruling in Galveston, just so you know. I met my half brother while I was there. He's older than me, he's lived there all his life, he actually believes in God and he doesn't mind giving the people the preachy sermons they want. I left him to run things temporarily, but I’m planning to make it permanent as soon as I possibly can.”
John Roth frowns. “As you know, I try to maintain open communication with as many of the WPN leaders as possible. Multiple lines of contact help keep them honest, and they help us assess the possible benefits to trade and other cooperation, versus the threat of violence or attack. I recently received a letter from a Port Head indicating you survived a Trial by Fire and were crowned queen.”
I exhale. “That's technically true.” I scrunch my nose. “Which Port Head wrote you? Sawyer?”
John Roth shakes his head.
“Rosa? No, wait, I know. Dolores.”
John Roth smiles. “You're a persistent little thing, I'll give you that. And it was a stroke of brilliance to demand a Trial by Fire and request the method of death be infection by Tercera. It only worked because you rather prudently failed to share that you're immune, but whatever works with lunatics like them. I admire that you didn't run when threatened with death, but changed the rubric instead.”
John Roth never spoke to me when I was a kid and we lived for years in the same cabin. It was like he didn't even see me back then. I wish I could revert to that. “Um, thanks. The thing is, I think we have more pressing issues right now than who's wearing a crown down in Galveston.”
“Like what?” he asks.
“My dad's old journals mention that in addition to the antibodies, there's a virus Dad was working on. He called it the hacker virus because it gobbled up other viruses and made them into more of itself. He worried his partner would sell Tercera, which obviously he did, and he said there were two more doses of this hacker virus.”
“But there's no way the virus could have survived this long, right?” Mayor Fairchild asks.
I shake my head. “No, but if the partner stole the cure too, and we can find financial documents that show who my father's business partner was, then we can find him. If he has the cure, we can use it to save the Marked kids.”
Mayor Fairchild whistles. “You're hoping to save all those poor kids? Ninety or a hundred thousand kids are dying this week, and you think you really might find the key to saving them all? After eleven years of this horrible virus stumping every scientist in America?”
I scowl. “We know it's a long shot, but if we can find the paperwork, at least we can try. No one ever solved a problem by giving up.”
“Don't you think if this partner had the cure he'd have done something with it?” John Roth asks. “He could’ve sold it at any point for an astronomical price, I imagine.”
“We don't know any details, and only he can answer that,” I say. “What if he did have it and sold it to another country?”
“Then finding him would hardly help,” John Roth says. “In that case, it would be beyond our reach.”
I shake my head. “WPN has boats. We might not get it in time to save the ninety-thousand who were accelerated, but what about the other ten?”
“Without locating the partner, we'll never know,” Wesley says. “It's knowledge we undeniably need. For instance, if the partner planned to wait until things were desperate to drive up the price and he waited too long, perhaps he missed his window. By the time the government was wiped out, traditional money had no meaning. The whole world shifted.”
Mayor Fairchild beams. “We're so happy to have you home. You're developing quite a fine head for this sort of reasoning.”
Uncle Dan rolls his eyes. “Or maybe he didn't know what he had. The point is, until we know who the partner is, we can't track down the answer. That's the point.”
“We thought the records would be at the house,” I say. “An email from Aunt Anne indicates they were in some kind of briefcase. Do you remember anything like that?”
Uncle Dan shakes his head. “No, but we focused on bringing all the supplies we could carry. Other than obviously practical things, all we made room for were your dad's journals. We still hadn't read them at that point. If I'm being honest, Anne and I have worried several times that we might have left a journal or two behind.”
“We have to go back,” I say. “If there's any chance we might find out something we can use, we have to go to Republican City.”
John Roth laughs. “That's twenty hours away by car, if the roads are even passable anymore. I can't imagine that cabin survived eight years without upkeep. No, the better bet is to search the documents and materials down in Galveston. You've got total control there. You can turn your dad's office, home and lab upside down, not to mention combing through any police and government evidence. David Solomon was a canny man. I imagine he saved everything related to Donovan Behl and
his work.”
“We need to focus on saving my mom first,” Rhonda says. “When can we talk to her?”
Mr. Fairchild sighs. “She's already been sent to Nashville. All executions take place there.”
Uncle Dan puts his head in his hands.
“If you need someone other than her husband, I'll formally petition for an appeal,” I say. “I don't believe this confession one little bit, and I demand you rehear her case and question her about why she’s falsely confessed. Try her on both charges if you insist, because I'll bet she can clear herself of both. Besides, what's the downside for her? She still dies?”
John Roth's voice is low, and reminds me of both his sons. “I'm sorry little Ruby, but I already explained this to your Uncle. I walked in at the end of Anne’s interrogation and I watched her write the confession myself. It's real, as much as I wish it wasn't. I have to deny the appeal. We must keep order and I can't pardon people because they're my friends.”
“Why not?” Sam asks. “It's not like it would set a bad precedent. You don’t have many.”
“We'll talk later,” John Roth says. “We have a lot of things to discuss, but I'm not changing my mind about the appeal. I can't afford a vote of no confidence right now, with the Marked threat and a regime change in Galveston. It would be catastrophic, especially with Counselor Quinn questioning everything I say and do.”
I don’t even bother asking who Quinn is. John’s reasons for having a weak spine don’t interest me. We never had a chance to appeal my aunt’s sentence. We were doomed from the start, just like we were in Baton Rouge. Like every attempt I make to fix things, I've failed again.
Sins of Our Ancestors Boxed Set Page 63
