Once Two Sisters

by Sarah Warburton

  I close my eyes against the dark. My dream still eddies around me, and I wish this were only a story, the kind I used to tell Zoe.

  When a nightmare woke her in the wee hours of the morning and our parents were bundled up with sleep masks and sound machines, I’d hear a whisper from the doorway of my bedroom. “Ava? Are you awake?” She’d slip under the covers, we’d press our foreheads together, and I’d whisper stories to her. Some were “real” fairy tales like Hansel and Gretel or Rumpelstiltskin, and others I made up—two sisters exploring a magic forest, dragons tamed and princes rescued and witches plunging off cliffs. Now I’m the one in the cage and no one’s coming to defeat the witch. If I disappeared forever, that would probably be Zoe’s happily-ever-after.

  But I try to find comfort in the warmth of that long-ago memory, when I wasn’t alone and stories could hold back the shadows.

  Minutes or hours pass, before the sound of the blast door unsealing shakes me awake.

  My head still aches from slamming into Phil, but it’s one ache among many. Every muscle and joint hurts. Beckett is already up, seated against one wall, his legs crisscrossed, as if he’s meditating.

  Cristina comes into the room, leaving the door open, and I’m fully alert, my body tensed, cataloging her every move. Nothing she does will escape my notice, because no matter how clever she thinks she is, she won’t outwit me.

  Her army-green coat is gone, replaced by a trim white lab coat that she wears without a trace of self-conscious pretension. The container of coffee in her hand trails a familiar scent redolent of morning comfort, and there’s something in her other hand, but I can’t quite see it. Glancing at us as if she’s confirming we’re still here but not as though she’s particularly interested, she stops at the computer and hits a few keys. Shaking her head at the screen, she takes a sip.

  Slowly I approach the gate.

  She turns around and slips two energy bars through a gap in the fence, then quickly steps back. The diamond-shaped gaps are not wide enough for a hand, but the food slides through easily and falls onto the floor. We still have bottles of water, and a bucket in the corner. A slight smell lets me know that Beckett has used it during the night.

  I pick up the energy bar, but I’m not ravenous, I’m furious that this witch thinks she can kidnap me, cage me, and then ignore me. All the leftover edginess from my argument with Beckett is redirected right at Cristina. I’ve been trying to be strong, holding back, not letting her know how scared I am.

  Now I want to get a reaction—that’s the only way I’ll learn anything new. If Cristina were someone like Beckett or Zoe, it would be easy to needle her, just enough to make her crazy.

  I start small. “You’ve been working with my mother.”

  She doesn’t even look at me.

  “How does she feel about your little plan?”

  Of course, Cristina’s nothing like my sister or ex-husband. She’s paying attention to the laptop, absorbed in her thoughts like my mother always is, impervious to my usual methods—a cutting remark, a refusal to rise to the bait, attack and withdraw, withhold. I need to become someone else, someone loud and impossible to ignore. Zoe.

  I know how my sister operates—Zoe slammed doors, hurled objects, and single-throatedly generated epic bouts of screaming. My parents dislike emotion, but even they couldn’t withstand the ferocity of her onslaughts. If they didn’t leave the room—or sometimes the house—quickly enough, they were forced to deal with her, as if Zoe had suddenly snapped into focus in front of them and they really saw her, while their eyes skated over me. I don’t know if I can work that kind of magic with my words, not in real life.

  I need to be as bold, as fierce as Zoe.

  “Hey, Cristina!” I shout, and I shake the fence with all my strength.

  Phil comes through the blast door with an armload of folded sheets. “Where do you want these?”

  I speak at the same time she does, trying to drown out her answer. “Let us out, out, out!”

  His eyes widen, but Cristina just jerks her head, indicating where he should set down his burden.

  Grabbing the battered chair, I beat the fence with it, trying to fill the world with noise, but nothing happens. Cristina leans over and whispers something in Phil’s ear, and he leaves. I’m slowing down, getting tired, when he returns with a cardboard box, Zeus at his heels.

  Phil sets the box down on the desk, then touches Cristina’s arm and nods toward a door on the other side of the room, a normal door like a broom closet or a bathroom, not a blast-shielded bomb shelter entrance like the way we got down here. She hands him what looks like some kind of wireless router and he heads out. Zeus flops down at her feet.

  I let the chair fall. Whatever alchemy Zoe uses to turn noise and anger into attention doesn’t work for me.

  Without even looking over, Cristina says, “Are you finished?” She bends down to unlock a cabinet.

  I glance at Beckett, and his eyes are wide. Come sit down, he mouths at me, but I’m not giving up until I get a reaction. I have to say something.

  “Look,” I say. “It’s not that I’m not impressed with your cut-rate Dr. Evil routine, but it’s a little B-movie, don’t you think? Half-baked, ill-conceived, derivative …”

  “What the fuck,” Beckett whispers. “Are you trying …?”

  I see from his face that he understands I am trying to make her mad. I may be inept at physical feats of strength, but I can play psychological games with the best of them. Just ask Zoe.

  Cristina carefully sets a blood pressure cuff on the desktop. Her movements are precise, maybe too precise, as she adds a thermometer and a few other items I can’t make out.

  “Heard you talk about Nancy and Walter. So you’re one of Mom’s groupies?”

  There’s no reaction at all from Cristina, although the very act of mentioning my parents out loud makes me feel shaky, like I’m making it real. I cling to the barrier, forcing myself to watch, to think, not to let the swirl of grief and fear swamp me.

  Think. She must be preparing to take our vitals, and she’d only do that to subjects of an experiment. My hands tremble and the gate shakes, but I let go before Cristina notices. We really are lab rats and the games are about to begin.

  But first she’ll have to take one of us out of the cage, and that’s an opportunity. My pulse leaps in anticipation.

  “Hey Dr. Evil, what’s Mom think of your pathetic post-apocalyptic lab?”

  She shuts the cabinet with a little more force than necessary. So my mother is her trigger point. Then I know exactly where to push, because Cristina’s fears are mine—stupidity, weakness, failure.

  “When my mother was your age, she’d already published her first book,” I go on. “She had a faculty position and a place on an international research committee. What’s on your CV, Cristina?”

  Cristina focuses on her desk, smoothing out a coil of the blood pressure cuff with much more concentration that the task warrants.

  “Maybe I remember you. You were her assistant, but she fired your ass, right? Too bad you couldn’t bully her with your little dog and electric stick. Too bad you couldn’t measure up. Mom doesn’t suffer fools.”

  Her head lifts, her face a frozen mask. “Do you think this routine is going to get a reaction? You think you’re pretty sharp, don’t you, Ava? Sharp enough to cut yourself. Your mother’s a genius about everything, except you. She deserves better.”

  She takes a step closer, the gate bisecting the inches between our faces. “You look just like her, do you know that? Especially the eyes. Go ahead, say whatever you want. It won’t make any difference.”

  We stand eye to eye for a long moment, Cristina and I, until the ordinary door opens again and she turns away.

  Phil comes in without the router and gives a decisive nod. Whatever he was setting up, it’s ready to go now. Cristina picks up the cattle prod.

  They are preparing to take at least one of us out of the cage. Cristina is giving instructions to
Phil in a low voice, and I can’t make them out.

  I turn to Beckett and urgently whisper, “If they take you, get to the door.”

  But I want to be the natural choice, the first one they’ll pick, because I want to take Cristina out. It’s time to slay the dragon.

  Almost as if she can hear my thoughts, she raises her head and looks at me. Then she smiles, a smile that’s unnerving precisely because it is filled with anticipation.

  “Pass auf, Zeus.” With her dog at her heels, she and Phil approach the fence.

  Phil tells me, “Go stand against the wall.”

  “Go fuck yourself.” But my voice sounds watered-down and insubstantial.

  Cristina activates the cattle prod. At the staticky buzz, my body flinches, remembering what happened in the yard, but now there is a fence between us. I will make her rue that petty threat.

  Phil tries again. “I’m going to open the gate, and Beckett will come out. You move back.”

  Beckett’s right behind me, but my eyes never leave Cristina’s face. This is my moment.

  Slowly, deliberately, she turns the key in the top lock, then the bottom one, leaving the middle one, the one that will really open the fence, for last. I’m coiled, ready for that moment.

  She says matter-of-factly, “Ava, if you don’t move away, you will regret it.”

  I know this game. I’ve played it with Zoe for years.

  And I don’t back down.

  CHAPTER

  19

  AVA

  NOW I AM burning from the inside—my mouth making noises, my muscles convulsing, my thoughts a wordless scream. Time stops. Language fails. My mind shatters. Electricity has stolen everything human and left me nothing but pain. When I come back to myself, I am lying on my side, hugging my knees. Once there was a woman, a stupid, stupid woman …

  Cristina’s face is placid as she slides the gate closed again, the cattle prod now inert in her hand. I struggle to get up, but my body refuses. Shaking, I collapse while she snaps the locks shut again—one, two, three. She doesn’t bother to say anything to me. She’s not bothered at all.

  Through the film of tears, I see Phil and Beckett at the table with the medical supplies. Beckett is sitting in a chair, and Phil leans over him. A surge of fear turns my stomach and I roll onto my knees.

  Over my body’s revolt, I can hear voices, Cristina and Phil speaking softly. I have to be stronger than this. I need to know what’s going on. I wipe my face harshly with the edge of my shirt and crawl closer to the fence.

  “Just take his vitals and move on,” Cristina snaps.

  “Shouldn’t I do a CBC too? Just in case?” Phil moves something on the desk, but I can’t see around him.

  “Fine. But hurry.”

  “Hold still,” Phil says to Beckett.

  Beckett cries out and I flinch, my hands reaching out to clutch the fence. Then I see the syringe in Phil’s hand. Of course, a CBC—a blood draw—the first step. I don’t know what they are planning, but this is minor pain, nothing compared to what will probably happen next.

  “Don’t forget the hood.” Cristina nods at the table impatiently.

  Phil looks at it blankly for a moment. Then hastily he gathers up what looks like a handful of black cloth. “Is this part necessary?” he says.

  Beckett looks from one to the other, then to the door. I know what he’s thinking—can practically see his inner dialogue writ large on his desperate face—but I’m helpless. I can’t tell what Cristina and Phil are fighting about, and I can’t stop Beckett from making a huge mistake. I was wrong to suggest it—our captors are literally standing right next to him, and Zeus is lying against the wall. This is not the right time.

  “We didn’t go to all this trouble not to use it.” Cristina’s voice is calm now, but there’s steel in it.

  “You aren’t going to be using it!” Now Phil is clenching the black cloth.

  “Oh, is that the problem?” Cristina leans forward, her hands on her hips. “Are you afraid of—”

  Before I can warn him or beg him not to, Beckett lurches out of his chair, knocking Phil to the floor. Cristina’s hand moves to the cattle prod, but before she can activate it, Zeus uncoils and springs. Beckett turns to the side, taking the brunt of Zeus’s charge on his shoulder.

  I have risen to my feet without realizing it, using the fence to pull myself upright. “Beckett!” I scream.

  Incredibly, he still tries to stagger toward the closed blast door, even with Zeus’s jaws locked around his arm.

  Phil stands up, looking more aggrieved than hurt. He takes a step forward, but Cristina stops him. “Wait.”

  Zeus keeps tugging and shaking Beckett’s arm, but I see he isn’t breaking the skin. He’s simply holding Beckett, not wounding him, and Beckett is getting tired—not enough food, water, or rest. His body doesn’t have the fuel to keep fighting.

  Cristina is right. Phil doesn’t need to expend any energy subduing us. Beckett and I, we are already defeated.

  The second Beckett surrenders, Zeus releases his arm. Without a command, he returns to Cristina’s side, sits, and resumes his guard.

  Cristina looks at Phil. “See, they’re ready. Go ahead.”

  He picks something up from the table and walks over to Beckett. “That was stupid. Give me your hands right now.”

  When Beckett sticks his arms out in front of him, they are as stiff and awkward as the arms of a puppet. Phil wraps a zip tie around Beckett’s wrists and pulls it tight. Beckett drops his arms, and his head droops too. He doesn’t look at Phil or Cristina or me. That could have been me, I want to tell him. I would have tried too.

  But I don’t have a chance to tell him anything. Phil pushes Beckett in front of him. “Come on. No more drama.”

  Then he picks up a sagging tote bag from beside the table and follows, shoving Beckett whenever he slows. Petty little bully. I will gouge Phil’s eyes from his head and swallow them whole.

  “Wait.” Cristina bends down and scoops up the black cloth hood from the floor. She slips it into the top of the bag.

  “Thanks,” Phil says, reaching out and opening the completely ordinary door.

  “I’ve got the screen pulled up,” she tells him. “If you’ve got the list of questions, everything’s in place.”

  All I can see in the open doorway is darkness, a creeping penumbra bleeding into the thin light of the lab.

  Then Phil pushes Beckett into that void and it swallows them both.

  CHAPTER

  20

  ZOE

  GLENN HAS DROPPED me back off at my parents’ house and driven away, but as I stand on the front steps, I can’t stop arguing with him in my head. He thinks Ava might really be in trouble and I should run. Why? Because I was so much safer in Texas? That’s where I was in the first place when my email was hacked. Good thinking, Glenn.

  I unlock the front door. If Ava was taken, kidnapped, they could come after me. There’s no way I can go back to the home I share with Andrew and Emma. Not while Ava is missing. I have brought enough darkness into their lives.

  Stepping into the front hall, I pull the door shut and flip the dead bolt. Alone again.

  If I were in Texas, it would be time to pick Emma up from preschool. We might head to the playground, where Felicia and Bethany could tell me all the latest gossip, or we might swing by the library. When we got home, I would fix Emma a little snack and we might read together, snuggled up on the sofa. I’d have a load of laundry to do, or some prep work for dinner. There’d be a purpose for me in every room, something I could do to make life easier and more pleasant for my family.

  In this house, I’m in the way and nothing is restful to the eye. Even the decorative touches, like the spiky sculpture in the corner, are hostile.

  It is so frustrating to be home by myself, trapped. No car, nowhere to go if I had one.

  This is not the house where I grew up, but it has the same suffocating feel, as if it is saying, Be quiet. Don’t touch. Sit
down. As a teenager, I reacted by shouting, slamming doors, breaking things. I painted my bedroom walls black, ruining the beige carpet. I borrowed the car without asking, failed science classes, and never cleaned up after myself. Anything to get a reaction. Anything to prove I existed.

  Spending this morning investigating Ava’s house has made me feel invisible again. She’s not an impostor like I am. Everything inside her house is hers, not someone else’s. She doesn’t have to prove her usefulness or defend her position. She defines her position, and everything in her house has to prove its usefulness to her.

  I am tired of sneaking around, tired of pretending to be good. I suck at it anyway.

  It’s afternoon and I don’t have a car, so I go to the kitchen, pull a bottle of white wine out of the fridge, and uncork it. A quick rummage through the cabinets and I have a wineglass and an unopened can of fancy Virginia peanuts. The kind given as a gift by people who don’t know you. Makes sense. Not even Ava and I really know our parents.

  I have no interest in sitting in their leather chairs, but I try to get comfortable on a modern chaise lounge. It could use more stuffing, arms, and throw pillows, but I put my feet up, pull out my phone, and start Googling the words I found in Ava’s study—“Mindszenty,” “Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape,” and “MK-ULTRA.” A slug of wine, a handful of nuts, and another page of information I’m struggling to understand. There’s a lot of medical jargon and abbreviations. Ava is so freaking smart; she probably figured this out in seconds. She never failed her science class or needed a tutor for French.

  The bottle of wine is empty and the peanuts are half gone when my data plan finally runs out and I take a break. I have read through so much information, but all I have are more and more pieces of a puzzle I don’t understand.

  MK-Ultra is a declassified CIA mind-control program; Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape is military training to evade capture and resist torture; and Cardinal Mindszenty was Polish, an opponent of Communism, tortured during Stalin’s regime. This must be research for Ava’s next dark thriller. It’s not a clue, just a dead end.