by Sophie Davis
“You could’ve given up Talia’s location to Danbury. But you didn’t.” Ian crooked a finger. With a wave of my hand, I sent the liquor back to him. “Why?” he asked, tone deceptively light.
“Why?” I asked incredulously. “Because I would never betray her. I would endure anything to protect her.”
Ian leaned forward in his chair. “Exactly.” The rage and fear he’d been trying to push down flashed across his expression for just an instant. “You would do anything to protect one person. Imagine what Talia would go through to protect billions.”
He was one of the few people who knew the extent of what I’d been through at Tramblewood. He knew all the ways Danbury McDonough had tortured me, humiliated me, and tried to kill every ounce of humanity I possessed. So did Brand. Because TOXIC had done the same to Penny. Really, none of us needed to imagine anything; we all knew what Gretchen would do to Talia.
Or, so I thought.
“Gretchen isn’t like Danbury,” Ian began. He took another sip of his refilled nightcap. “She’s more cunning. She’s more manipulative. She’s more patient.”
“What’s your point?” I retorted.
“Gretchen has been studying Talia a very long time. If the last few days have proven anything, it’s that she knows Talia extremely well,” he continued, brushing over my question and rude tone.
“I told you, she’s got a Visionary helping her,” I insisted. “She has to be using one, that’s the only way she would be able to remain one step ahead of us. Hell, nine steps.”
“Yes, and I agree,” Ian placated. “But it’s more than that. Talia’s too impetuous to track, even for a highly skilled Visionary. Oftentimes, her rationale only makes sense to her. I believe Gretchen used her observations of Talia through the years to guide her Visionary. Together, I think they devised a plan that would lead to the desired outcome.”
I’d said something similar to Talia about her impulsive tendencies making it hard to trust any vision involving her future. Still, it was hard to stomach the idea that Gretchen McDonough knew my girlfriend well enough to predict her actions.
Finishing my second drink, I set the glass aside and clasped my hands in my lap. “What do you think they’ll do to her?” I asked.
Brand and Ian exchanged glances. Neither met my eyes right away.
“What? Just tell me. I can handle it,” I pressed.
“Gretchen will likely try to reprogram her, so to speak,” Ian said finally.
The warmth from the alcohol vanished, and I just felt numb. The bottle was in my hand before I knew it. I didn’t bother with the glass.
“It’s just a guess,” Brand cautioned.
“Exactly,” Ian chimed in. “Based on what Gretchen was able to do with Ernest Tate, it seems she has developed an effective way to implant memories, personality traits, and opinions. It’s normally very dangerous to even attempt, with a very low success rate.”
I took another drink and licked my lips. “First, they’d need to wipe her mind, though. Right? That’s what Talia did to Ernest,” I said dully.
It was also what I’d done to the guy in the cave, but Brand and I hadn’t shared that with Ian yet.
Again, my two companions looked to one another. Ian nodded.
“Yes,” he said. “Though, as I said, Gretchen is patient. Reprogramming Talia won’t be easy, and she can’t run the risk that Talia’s talents are rendered useless in the process.”
Right, because having power and wielding power are very different, I thought.
“Also….” Brand trailed off, indecision making him hesitate.
I drank more from the bottle.
“It’s just a theory,” Ian warned.
For the first time since learning Talia was gone, I didn’t want to break down and cry. Both men exuded something dangerously close to hope. I looked between them. “Don’t keep me in suspense.”
“Gretchen has done a lot to get to Talia specifically,” Ian began.
“You don’t say.” I finished the bottle and sent it flying toward a waste chute in the corner.
Ian frowned but didn’t admonish me. “I don’t just mean recently. Katerina and Frances went to great lengths to keep their daughter hidden. Particularly from Danbury and Gretchen. But it wasn’t always that way. At one time, Talia’s parents did trust the McDonoughs.”
“I certainly hope her parents trusted them at some point. Tals’ father did invent the creation drug.” I searched Ian’s bar and summoned a bottle of expensive gin. Removing the crystal stopper with a flick of my finger, I swallowed the piney liquid and tried not to make a face. “Even good gin sucks,” I muttered.
Brand marched over and snatched the bottle, which I was making dance beside my chair.
“We think Talia might have information Gretchen wants. Information the Lyons’ kept from her and Danbury,” he informed me.
I glared up at him. “First of all, you were the one who told me take the edge off. So, yeah, you don’t get to take away my alcohol.”
“I think you mean my alcohol,” Ian interjected.
“And B, what information? The McDonoughs discovered the missing ingredient.” I cocked both thumbs toward my chest. “My blood. Penny’s blood. Mimic blood. So what information could she possibly still need?”
“I don’t know,” Ian conceded, dark eyes meeting mine squarely. “But I do believe it has something to do with those family trees. I’m also positive that Gretchen won’t do anything to damage Talia’s memories until she has what she wants.” He smiled with genuine glee. “Maybe Gretchen will finally regret having Dr. Wythe obscure Talia’s memories of the first ten years of her life. Irony can be so cruel.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Talia
My family traveled a lot, supposedly for my father’s job. Recently, I’d begun to wonder if the real reason we moved around so much was to hide my abilities. The first time I’d used them in public, there was a nasty fight. It was one of the few arguments I could recall between my parents.
I was three years old, and we were checking into a London hotel. My mother and I stood off to the side with our luggage, while my father went to the counter alone.
“I apologize, Mr. Lyons, but it seems the reservation is for next week,” the clerk informed my father.
“No, I am positive we booked for this week. I have a meeting with—I have a meeting that I cannot miss.” My father ran a hand through his dark curly hair and glanced at my mother and me. “My wife and daughter must stay here.”
“I am sorry, sir,” replied the man behind the front desk.
“Do you have another room available? It doesn’t need to be a suite. Anything will be fine,” asked my father.
The desperation in his voice was not lost on me. Nor was the fact that, despite looking through his database, the front desk man knew the hotel was booked.
“Daddy’s upset,” I told my mother.
She squeezed my hand and bent to look me in the eye. “Your father’s meeting is very important, Natalia. That’s all. Everything will be okay.”
“That’s not why daddy’s upset,” I replied.
My mother forced a smile. “No, you’re right. I shouldn’t have lied to you. But we’ve talked about this. You’re only supposed to listen to what people say with their mouths, not their minds.”
“I know. But daddy’s mind is yelling. How do I not hear it?” I asked, eyes wide and innocent.
She laughed and shook her head. “Guess we’ll have to tell daddy to use his quiet mind voice, huh?”
A man in a tuxedo passed by, a woman in a pretty pink dress on his arm. My mother stiffened and straightened to her full height. She pulled me close and wrapped her arms me, gaze focused on the couple as they boarded an elevator.
“I am sorry, Mr. Lyons. We are fully booked. We do have a sister hotel in Kensington, only a short distance from here. They appear to have a room. I would be happy to—”
“It has to be this hotel,” insisted my father.
Safety concerns. That was why my mother and I needed to stay at a specific hotel. People were going to watch us while my father went to his big important meeting. If we went somewhere else, how would our watchers find us?
“I want to speak with Cornelia Whitman,” my father demanded.
“Ms. Whitman is not available, sir. She is on a call at the moment.”
“I’ll wait. Just let her know Frances Lyons is here.” My father didn’t sound like himself at all. Normally, he was kind and patient. Now, he was angry.
“Of course, Mr. Lyons.” The clerk nodded curtly and turned away. He didn’t go far. One hand on the door sensor behind the front desk, he smiled broadly at my father over his shoulder. Then, he snapped his fingers and pointed to two men in funny-looking uniforms with even funnier-looking little hats. “Please show Mr. Lyons and his family to the Winston Suite.”
My mother’s grip on me tightened. She groaned and muttered, “Natalia”, under her breath.
The men in the uniforms loaded our luggage onto a cart with real wheels, and we followed them to the elevator silently. No one spoke until we reached our room. My father handed the two men several globes each and declined their offer to put away our belongings.
As soon as the door shut, my father turned on me, fire in his eyes.
“You. Know. Better,” he said slowly, making sure I didn’t miss a single word.
“Frances,” warned my mother. She pulled me close to her, as though to shield me from my father’s anger.
“You needed help,” I said defiantly.
“We have told you time and again; it is too dangerous to make people do things, Natalia,” my father snapped. One hand on his hip and the other on the back of his neck, he turned away from me.
“I didn’t want mommy to die!” I shouted.
The tension in the air was thick. I knew what I’d done was wrong. Forcing the man downstairs to do what I wanted was not okay. It was never okay to make someone else do what I wanted. But I didn’t want my mother to get hurt. I didn’t want to get hurt. That was my father’s true worry. If the watchers couldn’t find us, my mother and I would get hurt. My father feared it would be the last time he saw us.
“She can’t help it,” my mother whispered.
“She needs to, Kat. That,” my father gestured wildly at the suite door, “can’t happen again. The wrong people will notice.”
Kneeling beside me, my mother hugged me tightly. “Go to the bedroom, sweetheart. You need to rest now. Using your powers must have made you very tired.”
Suddenly, I was tired. I nodded, refusing to cry until I was alone in the bedroom. Whenever my mother used her serious voice, I always followed her orders. Even when I didn’t want to. But that day was the first time I’d learned I could defy my mother. So, I did. I laid awake on the bed and listened to my parents argue about me.
“You can’t yell at her,” my mother snapped. “She’s too young to control her abilities. Which, need I remind you, we don’t know the extent of. She could be volatile.”
“She needs to understand, Kat. You need to understand,” my father hissed.
“I do!” she shouted. Then, in a much lower voice she continued. “I do. I understand how hard it is for both of you, but she’s only a child.”
“A child who just compelled a grown man,” my father retorted. “Kat, that’s…that’s not normal. She’s more powerful than anyone I’ve encountered. Ever. And she’s still so young….”
“What did you expect, Frances?” my mother demanded. “Honestly, I want to know. What did you think was going to happen? We knew Natalia might be like this. Using her powers is natural to her. It’s as natural as breathing. Asking her—no, ordering her—to not use them is only going to backfire on us.” My mother sighed, exhausted. “It already has.”
“What do suggest then? We tell her it’s okay? We send her away to be trained?”
“No, of course we’re not sending her away. Those types of abilities are too rare, and I don’t trust anyone enough to share all she can do. But maybe…maybe we should let her use them in private. So that she can learn. Plus, I think it calms her. Last week, I caught her putting on a dance recital with her dolls without touching them. It’s the happiest I’ve ever seen her.”
It was my father’s turn to sigh. “I don’t know. At least, not yet. Once she understands how powerful she is, how much danger she is really in—well, then maybe we can let her use them. Teach her to use them ourselves.” His next words were quieter, as though he’d moved closer to my mother. “We did this, Kat. We are her parents, and we must protect her.”
“Why did we do it?” she asked softly. “To prove the stories were true? If we’re just going to hide her away and teach her that having abilities is wrong, what was the point? She’s our daughter, Frances, not a science experiment.”
“Don’t,” my father warned. “Don’t look at me like that. Don’t act like I don’t love her. Natalia means everything to me. That is why I want to keep her safe.”
“You thought she would get healing abilities,” accused my mother, sounding awed and disgusted at the same time.
“That’s not fair,” he protested.
“Yeah, well, neither is yelling at our daughter for wanting to protect her mother.” Her footsteps were impossibly loud as she stomped away. “What just happened is your fault, not hers. If you kept your thoughts to yourself, she wouldn’t have intervened.”
A door slammed.
Under his breath, as though afraid my mother would hear him even though she’d left the room, my father muttered under his breath.
“What have I done?”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Erik
“I was wondering when you would come by,” Epsilon said without looking away from his holoscreen.
It was early, and he was alone inside the crypto bank.
“So, you knew?” I asked simply. “This conversation we’re about to have, you’ve already seen it?”
He smiled shyly and shook his head. “Not exactly. Penny said you wanted to speak with me.”
“Oh.” I almost laughed, but I’d barely slept, and nothing felt funny with Talia gone. I held up one of the two cups of coffee in my hands. “Caffeine?”
“Thank you.” Epsilon accepted the mug. Wrapping both his hands around the ceramic, he blew on the steaming contents.
I sat across from him and sipped my own black coffee, praying it would clear the alcohol haze still clouding my mind. It was sort of a stretch to call it hangover; I was pretty sure I was still drunk.
“You want to ask if I knew that the mission in New Mexico was a trap?” Epsilon guessed.
I hesitated. Of the many questions I had for our resident Visionary, that was one of them. Yet, staring into his strange, all-knowing eyes, I wasn’t sure anymore. Relying on visions was dangerous, I truly believed that. Would knowing, or thinking I knew, the future help anything?
You aren’t asking about the future, I told myself. You’re asking about the past.
Epsilon could’ve read my thoughts. Maybe he did, but he still waited for me to nod before answering.
“I saw the Dame and her Privileged army here as well as the McDonough School,” he said carefully.
“You’d already had the vision of that when we first met you, didn’t you?” I took another sip of coffee. The hot liquid burned my tongue and made my stomach roil, but it did wonders for my fuzzy head. “‘In three days, more will come.’ That’s what you told us.”
“When I made the prediction, there were still a number of factors in play,” Epsilon replied, once again choosing his words with care. “I saw several potential scenarios.”
“Such as?” I prompted.
Though it didn’t really matter, I was curious.
“I did not see the Sons of After coming. Whoever made the decision and ordered the assault did it in haste. Prior to the attack, prior to meeting you and Talia, I saw two distinct paths forward. One was the scenario whe
re we all remained at the McDonough School until the Privileged arrived, including Penny. Of course, the other was where we all relocated here, to President Crane’s home.”
“In both scenarios, you saw Gretchen and the Privileged coming to the McDonough School?” I pressed, trying to make sense of it all in my muddled brain.
“Yes. To both the McDonough School and here. Whether we were here or at the school, I did know Talia would send Alex to the other location.” Epsilon looked down into his mug as though fascinated by the swirls of steam. Guilt wafted off him in waves. “I also knew Talia would follow Alex. I knew they would both be captured because of it.”
He tensed, anticipating my temper would rear its ugly head. Since his admission came as no surprise, I was able to keep it in check. Talia’s spontaneity might have made her future hard to track but sacrificing herself to keep Alex safe was a no-brainer. In fact, I would’ve been more shocked if Epsilon hadn’t seen it coming.
“Why didn’t you say anything?” I asked him. It wasn’t an accusation, merely a question. Though I still wasn’t sure how much I trusted the Clearwood kids, I didn’t believe they’d intentionally screw us over.
“It is the only way forward in order to end the Privileged. There are things we do not yet understand. Things Talia must learn before it can be over.”
Ian’s right, I thought. There was some bit of information Gretchen wanted from Talia’s mind. If Epsilon was right, Talia needed to unearth that intel as well. Why, though? What did Talia need to know?
“Also,” Epsilon continued uneasily, “this path that Talia is on now…it has the least number of casualties. I know that you think the Privileged are evil. To many, the Created are unstable, too, and a threat to society. But they all—we all—do not deserve to die, Erik. There are many Privileged who, in their hearts, do not agree with the Dame’s philosophies. They only wanted the opportunity to have what you were born with. Is that so wrong?”
“If they are willing to murder innocent people to get what they want? Yeah, it’s wrong,” I snapped. “Besides, not everyone can handle talents. It’s just biology. Do you know how many will die or go crazy trying to become Talented or Privileged or whatever?”
