The Phoenix Project (The Liberty Box Book 3)

by C. A. Gray

  It won’t be long now, I thought.

  When we arrived at the station nearest the palace, in the city of Law, Agent Jeffries clutched my arm and pulled me to my feet.

  “This way, Miss Brandeis,” he barked. I widened my eyes and ducked my head to indicate submission, but he didn’t seem to notice. The other four agents who presumably wanted to share in the credit of delivering me back to the Potentate walked behind us to a black sedan, and we all crammed in, me in the middle of the back seat. No one spoke.

  The Republic is prosperous. The rebels have been lying to you.

  That’s a lie, I countered in my mind. I expected the thoughts to come now—now that I was still and had nothing better to do than think. It was getting a little easier, at least. Each time I resisted, it was like doing a repetition with a muscle. I got just infinitesimally stronger with practice.

  We pulled up to the gate. The agent waiting at the guardhouse was unsurprised when Agent Jeffries informed him that they were bringing me to the Potentate. The gate opened and we drove past the large stone fountain with floating lily pads, right up to the heavy double doors. I started to breathe heavily, trying to work up some tears for the moment Voltolini came out to greet me. Agent Jeffries cast a sidelong look at me, raising his eyebrows.

  “I’m just so relieved to be back here!” I said, hoping it sounded convincing. It probably didn’t, though, because he didn’t comment and looked away again.

  Cry, I commanded myself, still trying to squeeze tears out. Cry, dammit. But the tears wouldn’t come. So I forced my mind to remember standing on the driveway, calling out to Jackson and watching him get into the van and drive away from me. Even that was hard to focus on through my current state of adrenaline, but I stuck with it, willing the tears to come. Agent Jeffries got out and opened the door to the sedan for me. As I climbed out, in my mind’s eye, Jackson drove away from me for the last time… a tear trickled down my cheek not a moment too soon. Voltolini had just crossed the threshold.

  “Kate, my dear!” he crowed, opening his arms for me. I ran into them, managing to coax the single tear on my cheek into a flood. Perhaps it was relief that the moment had finally come.

  “Ben!” I sobbed, burying my face in his shoulder. “Oh, thank you God, thank you God!” I meant to tell him my whole rehearsed story right away, but I was so busy crying that I couldn’t choke it out, which was probably even better. He stroked my hair and murmured soothing nothings, pressing me against him so tightly that I could feel the sheathed blade bite into my flesh.

  “Jackson—kidnapped me,” I choked out at last, and looked up at him with my best doe-eyed expression, my cheeks and lashes still wet with tears. I shook my head, my face crumpling. “It was so horrible, Ben! I’ve been trying to escape to you ever since—”

  “I know, darling, I know.” The way he stroked my hair now was beyond the suggestive flirtation from before—now it felt possessive. As revolting as it was, that’s exactly what I needed.

  Through my ragged breathing, I whispered, “I… stole his gun and shot him.”

  “He’s dead?” I knew Voltolini had already heard this claim second hand, but still he pulled me back by the shoulders, inspecting my face. “You’re sure?”

  “Well I didn’t stick around to feel his pulse, but I’m pretty sure!” I infused this last outburst with indignation.

  Voltolini looked down at my ripped t-shirt and cargo pants, fingering some of the holes I’d torn myself.

  “I see. And how did you get these?”

  “We struggled a few times—I tried to fight him off, but he was too strong for me.”

  Voltolini raised his eyebrows, inspecting my arms and legs. “These look like knife scrapes. Good thing he was careful not to cut too deep. No bruises, I see?”

  My heart sped up. “I have a few of those too,” I lied. He was too much of a gentleman to ask to see them, at least right there in front of everybody. I was banking on that.

  He nodded, and stroked my face with the tips of his fingers. “I know you’ve been through an awful trauma, my dear. But I need you to do something for me. I need you to go on the air right away. Will you do that—for me? Tell the people the truth about what’s happened to you. Tell them that Jackson is dead now, and that he was the one who made you say all those awful things on your first broadcast to them.”

  Right away? I hadn’t expected that. “Of course,” I stammered. “Only—can we do it in the morning? I’ve been through so much, and… I just wanted to get a good night’s sleep first, and a good dinner, and… to be alone with you for a bit.”

  I saw a flicker of surprise cross Voltolini’s face when I said this. Too bold? Did I go too far? Did he suspect? But it was too late to take it back, so I pressed myself against him, implying my meaning.

  “No,” Voltolini said, abrupt. “I’ll give you time for a shower, hair and makeup, and nothing more. This is not news that will wait, I’m afraid. Later tonight, I’ll be happy to grant… any other desire you wish.”

  My stomach turned over as Ingrid appeared behind us.

  “Follow me, Miss Brandeis,” she barked, leaving me no choice.

  Ingrid took me up to the same room I’d stayed in before—at least there was that. It wasn’t the dungeon. Not yet. She raised her eyebrows as she removed the ice pick from my hair, testing its tip.

  “It was all I had,” I explained weakly. How was I to explain where I’d gotten an ice pick out in the woods? I hadn’t thought of that either.

  She discarded it without a word and set about brushing the tangles from my hair. I doubted they’d put me in an evening gown for the broadcast, so I should at least get to keep my bra—but as she brushed in terse silence, I started to wonder what I’d do if she did insist that I remove it. The second she saw the knife, let alone the list of confessions, it was all over. Would I have to kill her too?

  I couldn’t do that.

  Could I do that?

  “I will wait here while you shower,” Ingrid snapped, handing me a towel, clean undergarments, and a simple green dress.

  Waves of relief crashed over me as I closed the door to the bathroom connected to my room. I hoped she wouldn’t come in and take my dirty things away while I showered… but she probably would. Just in case, I wrapped the knife and my sheet of confessions in a washcloth, stuffing them in the second drawer beneath the mirror. She’d have no reason to look in there. Then I turned on the water, trembling with adrenaline as I stepped into its warm spray.

  The Republic has been nothing but good to you. You’ve been brainwashed by the rebels to believe the Potentate is evil…

  But the lies were so obvious now. How had they fooled me before?

  I returned to Ingrid wearing the green dress, with the knife and truth sheet securely tucked into my new bra, and a towel wrapped around my hair. Her lips permanently etched into a frown, Ingrid set about prepping my face for the camera.

  “Look up,” she barked at me, waving a wand of mascara.

  After about fifteen minutes of this, the Potentate barged in without bothering to knock.

  “Please excuse us, Ingrid, I’d like to speak to Miss Brandeis alone.”

  Ingrid bowed to him, and left the room, the door clicking shut softly.

  My heart threatened to beat right out of my chest. I still sat in front of the vanity as Voltolini rested against the edge of my bed. He was too far away. Should I stand up and cross to him? Was this the moment?

  “My dear, I apologize for how this might sound, given all you’ve been through,” he began, “but you must understand my position. When you left, it looked as if you had escaped of your own volition. Your story today was the first I’d heard about a potential kidnapping, nor was there any evidence that was what happened. So before I put you on camera, I must be absolutely certain that you are on our side.”

  Now I crossed to him quite naturally. “Ben, I am all yours!” I made to wrap my arms around him, but he held
up a hand before I reached him. My heart thundered in my ears. I willed my knees to hold me upright.

  “I’m afraid that words aren’t going to convince me. Actions speak much louder.” I couldn’t read his expression—perhaps because he was too busy trying to read mine to betray any emotion of his own.

  “What do you want me to do?”

  He paused, pursing his lips. I suppressed a shudder, afraid of what he was about to say.

  “If you are really my girl,” Voltolini said, “You will have no mercy for any of the rebels.”

  “I already told you that I killed Jackson MacNamera!”

  “So you said, so you said,” he nodded. “Killing a man you once loved would indeed convince me of your allegiance. But we haven’t seen the body. So I’ll give you another opportunity.”

  “Another…?” My blood ran cold, but I couldn’t imagine what he meant. After all, he couldn’t possibly have Jackson in custody again already, could he? And Will was long gone, so…

  “Your father, Kate. He is a rebel. I want you to kill him.”

  Chapter 30: Jackson

  “Disguises ahoy,” declared Charlie in the ghost city of Templeton, pointing at a condemned-looking warehouse building full of windows. It looked like it had been a box store of some kind, many years ago.

  “Probably all covered in a layer of dust and mold and rats and what have you,” murmured Jacob as Charlie pulled over and parked.

  “True, but we’ll never find so many choices anywhere else,” said Nick. “The trick will be disguising ourselves in such a way that doesn’t draw attention.”

  “Unlike my sister’s gypsy getup,” Charlie commented to me as he got out of the car and stood beside me, waiting for everyone else. I smiled wistfully as I remembered Kate’s absurd makeup when I followed her from Friedrichsburg to Dawvish. She’d looked like a parrot had exploded on her face.

  “I can shave my head,” Jacob volunteered, raising one hand. “Maybe shuffle my feet a little…”

  “We don’t want to impair our speed with our disguises,” Nick pointed out, shutting his door. “Hopefully no one will see us anyway, but if they do, I don’t want you limping as you run away.”

  “We still have the agent uniform, too,” Charlie pointed out, looking around. “Who wants to be an agent? Roger?”

  Roger raised his eyebrows. “I never wanted to wear one of those again,” he muttered. “But, desperate times…” Molly leaned back into the van, fishing out the uniform beneath the layers of blankets and handing it to him.

  “You’ve already got a beard,” I pointed out to Nick. He’d grown one somewhere between Friedrichsburg and Beckenshire, when he’d thought Molly had been killed. “You didn’t have one when they showed your picture on the news. That’ll help.”

  “We should find Joe a wig or something,” said Alec, scrutinizing Joe. “And some even baggier clothes, make it look like there’s some more meat on your bones.”

  Joe snorted. “Good luck.” Then he added, “I’m going to IT though. The other IT workers usually see me in dress clothes. Wouldn’t it be best if I look the way they’re used to me looking?”

  Alec frowned. “Hmm. Fair point.”

  “And for you, Jackson…” Charlie appraised me as we walked toward the abandoned building. “I’m thinking we need to change the shape of your face somehow.”

  That took me off guard a bit. “And we can do that by…?”

  “All we need is some cotton or foam or something like that to stuff in your mouth. Like your cheeks, above your upper lip… they used to do that in the movies, to give young guys jowls or what have you.”

  “That’s what I need.” I smirked at him. “Jowls.”

  The sliding glass front doors had been boarded up, so Charlie and Nick had to pry them off until we could crawl inside. The interior smelled musty, and Jacob and Charlie both went into a brief coughing fit.

  “Guess we need to find a flashlight first,” Molly whispered. At nighttime it would have been pitch dark in there, but some sunlight still streamed through the entrance windows enough that we could see the first few aisles.

  “Why are you whispering?” Charlie whispered back.

  She said in a normal voice that still sounded uncomfortable, “I don’t know, it just feels like we’re doing something… naughty, doesn’t it? In what kind of a world can you just break into a store and take whatever you want?”

  “Molly doesn’t go on a lot of our raids,” Nick pointed out to the rest of us, kissing his wife’s forehead affectionately.

  I pointed at a sign just barely illuminated about halfway into the store, labeled sporting goods. “Over there, maybe?”

  Roger, who was closest, jogged over to investigate, the agent uniform still draped over one arm. He returned in a few minutes with enough flashlights for all of us—surprisingly they still worked.

  “Joe and I will see if we can find the professional-looking clothes section,” Alec declared. There was something pointed in Alec’s tone that caught my attention. I turned just in time to see Joe open his mouth like he was about to protest, and close it again as Alec’s hand fixed vice-like upon Joe’s forearm, ushering him away from the rest of us. I frowned, following them with my eyes.

  Jacob found a pair of scissors and a straight edge blade, chopping off his hair in great tufts before shaving his head clean. Roger and I helped him with the spots he missed, for lack of a mirror. By the time he was done, his head looked far too small.

  Nick and Molly found gauze in the first aid section, and Molly handed two wadded sections to me for my upper lip. I put them where she indicated, and then said through a forced lisp, “Thish is gonna get awkward fasht.”

  “Yeah, but you look totally different!” said Charlie. “Plus you still have that shiner, that helps too. Not like you’re gonna have to talk much anyway…”

  “True,” I said, still garbled. I still took the gauze out and trimmed it anyway, at least until I could close my mouth without too much effort.

  Nick applied white paint to his hair and beard. He looked about fifteen years older when he was done, and then turned to me with what was left. “You could use some of this too,” he said, streaking my hair with gray.

  Roger donned the agent uniform, which was just a bit too short for him in the arms and legs. But it would do.

  “Here, Charlie,” Molly approached him with a black unkempt wig, and secured it over his hair, releasing a cloud of dust. Charlie started coughing, and so did Molly. “Sorry,” she apologized between coughs, “thought I’d gotten all the dust out first!”

  “All right, looks like we’re done here,” said Nick. “Anybody see where the men’s clothing section is? Need to find Alec and Joe.”

  “I saw where they went, I’ll go after them,” I volunteered. “Meet you guys at the front of the store.”

  On purpose, I slowed down and silenced my steps as if stalking large game. I didn’t know what I suspected exactly; only that I’d never discover what they were up to unless they didn’t hear me coming.

  I heard Alec’s whisper on the other side of the aisle before I could make out what he was saying. Joe’s reply sounded distraught.

  “—can’t do that—never approve—”

  “Shh!” Alec hissed.

  I froze for a split second, unsure what to do next. Then I said as casually as I could, walking around to where they could see me, “We’re all done. Came to find you guys.” Joe wore slacks and a moth-eaten polo shirt. Alec looked like a thug.

  Alec coughed. “We’re ready too,” he said, after a slight hesitation. I gestured for them to walk in front of me. Joe didn’t meet my eyes.

  I had a bad feeling about this.

  Chapter 31: Kate

  For a few moments, I wasn’t quite sure I’d understood what Ben had said, but some part of me did. Waves of an emotion too strong to name washed over me, and I began to feel unspeakably cold.

  At last I found my t
ongue and stammered, “My father… isn’t a rebel!”

  Voltolini tilted his head to the side with a pleasant smile. “Oh no? That’s funny, because he says he was with the rebels who were destroying our repeaters, leading to rebellions and to many dead citizens. He also said he was with you, and MacNamera, during your last broadcast.”

  “He was along for the ride!” I cried desperately, “he wasn’t influencing any of it—he left before I even went on the air!”

  “Kate, Kate,” Voltolini murmured, taking a few steps closer to me, but still not close enough for me to reach him. He raised his eyebrows and whispered, “You are lying to yourself again.” Almost like he was testing me, he crossed the rest of the way, now standing right next to me in front of the vanity. He reached up and stroked my cheek, murmuring, “You know that, right?”

  I trembled all over with some hybrid of hatred and fear.

  Now, I told myself. Now is the moment. It would be hard to reach into my bra smoothly for the knife, but the ice pick I’d used in my hair when I first arrived was right behind me on the vanity. I needed to distract him. I summoned my tears again, which actually wasn’t very hard, since my body was so racked with emotion anyway, and buried my face in his chest, wrapping one hand around him while I grasped the ice pick with the other just before wrapping that arm around him too.

  “I know, Ben,” I sobbed. “I just don’t know how to stop the lies! I don’t know how to stop them!” As I said this, the hand holding the ice pick fumbled with it, trying to flip it around and get it into position. Where are the vital organs from this angle? I wondered. Probably I could puncture a lung on either side, but that wouldn’t kill him. I knew his heart was on my right, and his left, but how deep would I have to shove the ice pick to get to it from the back? Did I even have the leverage for that at this angle?