by Kristen Pham
I shiver at the coldness in his tone.
“What do you suggest? A guillotine?” a female voice asks with acidic sarcasm. That has to be Mary.
“Too archaic,” another voice chimes in. It’s male, but I can’t tell if it’s Sal or Joseph speaking.
“Every last Strand executive needs to pay for his crimes,” Rob says. “Throwbacks deserve to see them suffer and die.”
Whether they’re serious or just indulging their bloodthirsty imaginations, we can’t leave anyone’s fate in their hands—even evil Strand executives. What if, in the heat of the moment, they really do slaughter someone instead of bringing them to justice?
Crew needs to stop them. Now.
I run to Nic’s room and am relieved when he answers his door, because a tiny part of me worried that he might have been sitting in on that psychotic conversation, too.
I shove past him, slamming his door behind me. “The evil clone team is out of control. You have to tell Crew to get them contained before they really hurt someone.”
“The evil clone team?”
“Robespierre, Mary I, Joseph Stalin, and whoever the hell Sal is cloned from. I heard them casually discussing how to execute one of the Strand executives on the list. Keep up. Are you hungover again?”
“No!” he shouts, and I believe him only because there are no leftover traces of gold in his eyes. He rubs his temples and then picks up his phone. “But you’re right; Crew does need to know about this.”
A little of the weight I’m carrying is lifted off my shoulders.
“Crew never allows anyone to go off plan,” Nic continues, and I tense up again. “If these idiots are even thinking of stepping out of line and putting the whole rebellion at risk to get vengeance against one person, Crew will cut them out completely.”
I’d been about to share my other news, about the headmaster’s accelerated deadline, but the words dry up in my mouth. Of course, Crew, Nic, Harriet, Sun, Marie . . . they’ll never agree to let me go into the dragon’s den tomorrow. In their minds, it’ll be too risky. We haven’t scoped out the location in advance, planted weapons, trained for different scenarios. They’ll put me in a hideout somewhere, and I’ll have to sit out of the rebellion entirely until after Circe Night.
No.
Jo and Harriet are right about the power of that word. The headmaster’s offenses may not be on the same scale as Strand’s, but I won’t let Sparkle or Beth or anyone else fall prey to him because I didn’t have the guts to take action on my own.
I’m taking him down, even if it has to be tomorrow night.
Chapter 38
Harriet and Justus both send texts that I ignore. If either of them guesses what I’m planning, they’ll try to stop me. But the sight of Sparkle’s empty bed reminds me that turning back isn’t possible.
A shadow on my bed moves. I move deliberately and swiftly, like I learned in Movement class. My hand closes around a tiny wrist, and I yank Maverick into the light. One of his eyes is swollen shut, and a long, purple bruise extends from his cheekbone to his jaw.
“I’m okay,” he says, his voice small but steady.
I turn on a light to look at him more carefully, noticing the cuts on his knuckles. “I hope you got a few good hits in.”
Mav smiles, his eyes sparking. “I did.”
“I’m proud of you. Now tell me everything.”
I pull out my first-aid kit and start treating his knuckles with a numbing cream.
“I got what you needed. The addresses of the people at Strand.”
I shut my eyes, hating myself. These bruises are because of my bad judgment. Justus was right. I should never have allowed Mav to think that I’d let him help me.
“I’m so sorry,” I choke out, blinking quickly so he won’t see my tears.
“No!” Mav says, and his eyes flash. “I did something good, something to make up for all the bad my dad has done.”
“Your dad?”
Mav gulps. “My dad is the headmaster of your school. I hate him. He’s so mean to everyone. That’s why Mom left. She took me with her, but he found me and made me come back here. He only lets me see her if I’m good.”
“That’s horrible,” I whisper, pulling him closer to me as I absorb the bomb that Mav has dropped.
The idea that Mav and the headmaster share DNA is further proof that nurture trumps nature every time. I never would have guessed the connection between them if he hadn’t told me.
“He hurt Mom. He hurt you. He hurt me. I have to do something to make up for all the hurting he’s done,” Mav says.
Pity and fear dissolve into wonder. Not many eight-year-olds try to right the wrongs of their parents.
His hand trembles, cradled between both of mine. I rest my forehead against his. “You aren’t the one who needs to make up for anything. You are good, and this information will help right a lot of wrongs. You’re a hero.”
Mav is crying, and his voice shakes. “Are you mad at me? For not telling you who my dad is?”
“No, I understand. You are even braver than I imagined.”
I almost wipe away Mav’s tears before remembering that if he’s the headmaster’s son, then he’s Evolved. Too much contact with his tears would end my life.
“Does your dad know that you took the addresses?”
“He knows I was on his tablet, but he doesn’t know what I took from him. I told him I was watching vids on it, since mine has a ton of blocks to keep me from watching anything interesting.”
“You’re sure he believed you?”
Mav nods, his eyes old and sad in his baby face. “He would have hurt me a lot worse if he knew. And he’d never let me out of the house again.”
I swallow a scream of frustration because that isn’t what Mav needs now. He needs my strength.
“You’re staying with me,” I tell him, crawling under my covers and then holding them open so he can climb in with me.
Mav wriggles until he’s comfortable and falls asleep. I hold him, gently pushing his hair back off his forehead so that I can memorize the lines of his bruises.
In the early hours of the morning, Sparkle stumbles through the door. She laughs when she sees me with Maverick curled into my side like a puppy.
“Not who I expected to find in bed with you, but, whatever,” she giggles.
I push her into the bathroom so she won’t wake Mav and flip on the light. She flinches at the brightness, and when I see the flash of gold in her eyes, my throat closes up.
“Damn it, Sparkle! Couldn’t you wait one more day?”
“A day, a week, a year, a decade . . . what difference does it make?” she asks. “Nothing ever changes. Not really.”
That’s when I notice that her clothes are torn, and her mascara is in streaks down her cheeks. I failed her.
Sparkle’s off-kilter giggles turn to sobs, and she curls into a tight ball on the cold tile floor. She rocks, and when I wrap my arms around her, she doesn’t acknowledge me. The tears fall and fall, and she sobs so hard that she retches, missing the toilet when she throws up.
“I’ll make this right. I swear,” I whisper to her, brushing her hair back from her face. “We’ll get you clean and safe, and you’ll never see the headmaster again.”
“Sure, Joan.”
She’s not crying anymore, but her voice is detached.
“Let me help you shower.”
She lets me undress her like a doll, and I bite the inside of my cheek to keep myself from crying when I see the blood on the inside of her legs. I turn on the water and step into the shower with her, leaving her bra and underwear on. Gently, I wash her hair, massaging her scalp with my fingers like my mom used to do when I was a little girl.
The water washes away the blood and the mascara, but the bruises lining her arms and throat remain.
“I’ll never wash him off,” she says, scrubbing her mouth.
I hold back all my questions about what happened because she can’t handle it now. I want to
take her to the police, but it’s unlikely that they can do anything. The Amp in her system would be considered evidence that anything she did was of her own free will.
I help Sparkle shuffle into bed and brush out the knots in her hair before she lies down and shuts her eyes. I sit beside her for a long time, making promises in my head that Sparkle would never believe if I said them out loud. But I know they’re true. After tonight, the headmaster will never be able to hurt anyone again.
Sleep is impossible after what I heard from Mav and Sparkle. I wrestle with guilt, wanting to shield everyone I care about from the wrath of the headmaster and knowing that I might need their help to succeed.
With a sigh, I send a short vid to my team, asking them to meet me in the Lab. I don’t risk telling Nic or Crew what I’m planning, but Sun, Marie, and Harriet might be convinced that this is the right course of action.
Mav and Sparkle are still sleeping, so I set an alarm on Sparkle’s phone that will alert me if she checks it so I can hurry back. Neither of them should be alone right now.
By the time I reach the cluttered dining table in the Lab, Harriet, Marie, and Sun are waiting for me. There’s a fourth figure sitting with them, and I stop short. It’s Justus.
“I called him,” Harriet says, standing when she sees me. “He wants to be a part of this, and I knew you wouldn’t bring him in.”
“I have a right to be here,” Justus says, and the intensity in his eyes startles me.
I let out a breath and nod. “The headmaster found me yesterday and told me that I’ll be up for sale tonight. There was no convincing him to wait until Circe Night.”
“No,” Justus says, and there is a finality in his tone that I know no argument will change.
“I agree. No,” Harriet says. “This is not an acceptable level of risk.”
“It’s tonight or never. If I don’t do this, I’ll be kicked out of school, and we’ll lose our chance to prove that the headmaster is doing something sick and illegal. Every day we delay, another girl could be sucked into his prostitution ring.”
“We’ll find another way to stop him,” Marie says.
“He who knows when he can fight and when he cannot, will be victorious,” Sun says, quoting The Art of War. Of course he has it memorized. “We aren’t ready to fight yet.”
Faced with the wall of their united refusal, a tide of emotion washes over me. I struggle to name it, but the power of it makes it hard to breathe, much less identify it.
I hope my face is blank so that my friends won’t guess how their reactions have affected me. “Good talk.”
I turn and leave, ignoring them as they shout after me. Justus follows, and he grabs my arm.
“If you try to do this alone, I’ll stop you,” he says.
“I’m no good at taking orders.”
“You’ll follow this one,” Justus says. “Even if you hate me for this, I can’t let you go after him. You don’t understand how to navigate in the Evolved world as a Throwback. You need a plan, a weapon, and a team backing you up in case anything goes wrong. On your own, you’ll be powerless. You’ll wind up hurt.”
“Even without a weapon, I’m not powerless,” I say, and it’s after my body goes still that I realize I was trembling. But I’m still awash in that nameless emotion, and it swallows up my fear. “People I care about—people I love—are suffering. I will not let that stand.”
“Not this way, Joan. Don’t push me because you’ll find out what I’m made of if you do. I’ll go to the headmaster, tell him what you’re planning, and there will never be another chance to catch him. I’ll ruin it for you,” Justus says. “Swear that you’ll stay far, far away from that monster.”
I pause just the right amount of time. “I swear,” I reply, meeting his eyes because that always convinces people that you’re telling the truth.
Justus is no exception, and his face relaxes with relief.
“Thank you,” he says, stepping closer.
“Now stay away from me.”
Justus freezes, and the emotion that was flickering behind his eyes vanishes. For the second time, I turn around and leave him behind, barely noticing where I’m going until I’m climbing the ladder to get out of this underground tomb.
The name of the emotion that I’ve been drowning in since I heard all my friends ignore what must be done still eludes me as I push my way out of the Lab, into the cool morning air.
Is it disappointment? Or does my friends’ concern spark something warmer, something that I need to squash if I’m going to succeed tonight?
Chapter 39
My phone pings to alert me that Sparkle’s phone was used just as I step off the elevator. A garment bag is hanging from the handle of the door to my room, and I pick it up with two fingers, like it’s a slug. Inside is the costume the headmaster expects me to wear tonight, but I refuse to peek at it. There will be time later.
Inside my room, Mav is standing over Sparkle with his mouth hanging open.
“She’s like a sleeping princess in a fairy tale,” he whispers.
“If she was awake you wouldn’t feel that way,” I reply with a grin, remembering Sparkle’s biting humor before her world began to crumble. “It’s what I like best about her.”
Mav meets my grin with one of his own, wincing in pain immediately after.
“I’m better today. And I still want to help,” Mav says.
I can’t dismiss his request, but I have to give him a task that won’t get him hurt this time. My eyes dart to Sparkle, who is breathing shallowly on her bed, her fingers clutching the covers tightly around her, even in sleep.
“Watch over her. Something awful happened, and she needs someone who can take her mind somewhere good. When I was healing from my whipping, talking to you was always the best part of my day. I have to go somewhere tonight, to right a big wrong, and I don’t want her to be alone.”
Mav smiles at his mission, and I hide my relief. “I’ll make her laugh her head off until you get back.”
“I know you will.”
I grab my garment bag and go to Lady Cleo’s classroom to get myself ready for my big night. I take my time curling my hair and applying my makeup. Marie embedded a camera into a sparkly hair clip, which I wind through my locks. The eerie gold contacts go in last, and I examine my reflection with a critical eye.
I’d fuck me. My stupid joke makes me grin, and for an instant, it’s like seeing one of Jo’s old vids. I can be a goddess, too.
Finally, I unzip the garment bag the headmaster sent. Inside is a flimsy white dress with cutouts above my breasts and on my sides. There’s no way to conceal a weapon in this dress, which might have been part of his intent.
No one has seen this much of me since I was born, and I’m not about to flaunt it now, in front of a crowd of strange men. I pace as I consider my options, and then go through Lady Cleo’s costumes, hanger by hanger.
I stop on a simple, girlish dress that is cut right above the knee. This is the one. I put it on, along with tall white boots that come up high enough to hide my legs. My reflection reveals an innocent snow princess. It’ll drive those perverts crazy. I should be proud of my disguise, but all I can summon up is the queasy sense that I might puke.
I’ve been still for too long. My feet carry me swiftly through the tunnels of the Lab to the entrance of the Chrysalis.
Time to test my acting skills in the real world. I recall every instance I can of times in my life when I’ve triumphed. Confidence is key. I make my way back to the science floor. It’s bustling with activity.
The Einstein clone, Dennis, is at his desk. His eyes glaze when he sees me stop at his desk, flashing my best grin.
“Hi.”
“Hi, me?” he asks, setting aside his holographic microscope.
He’s a few years older than I am, and his clothes are covered with stains. His hair hasn’t been cut in at least a year, and he keeps having to shove it back when it falls in his eyes.
“Yes, hi, you,
” I reply with a smile, channeling Sparkle when I first met her. “I’m curious about what you’re working on. Are you allowed to tell me?”
“Leave poor Dennis alone,” Marie cuts in.
“Come on,” she says, rolling her eyes and dragging me to a table in the corner, which is filled with sensors that have been deconstructed. My eyes widen at the sight of her name on the tablet embedded in the desk.
“You’re working here? When were you going to tell us?”
Marie splutters. “Really? You’re asking me why I’m sneaking around and keeping secrets when you’re wearing the gold contacts?”
She’s got me there.
“You would have known a long time ago if you were paying attention,” Marie says, but her voice is warm.
“I was hoping for another more in-depth tour of the science department, and I thought I could convince Dennis to give one to me,” I lie.
“Right. You’re not here to steal the Manipulator then,” she says, crossing her arms.
“I’m a curious person! But forget it. I’m leaving.”
“Here, Joan,” Marie says, opening a drawer. She hands me a slim, chrome disk that fits in the palm of my hand. “The Manipulator is still in beta testing. It’s not safe to use. Take this. It’s an enhanced Taser that will knock out anyone within a three-foot radius of you with the touch of a button.”
“It’s perfect.”
I’ll be able to knock out the creep who buys me, and when he wakes up, I’ll be gone. There will be no proof that I didn’t perform as expected.
“Don’t forget to take off the safety,” Marie instructs, showing me a small switch on the bottom.
“You’re giving this to me, easy as that? No lectures?”
“I owe you for keeping me off the headmaster’s radar. If you’re going to go through with your crazy plan in spite of what we all said to you this morning, I’d like you to have a weapon.”
“A weapon besides my wits, you mean. That’s a blade to be reckoned with, too,” I quip, and am rewarded with a grudging smile from Marie.
