A Vault of Sins

by Sarah Harian

“The last time I saw Casey was months ago in a Missouri hotel, right before my lawyer told me to stop speaking with him.”

  “I’m sure you’re aware that he’s missing too,” Gemma says calmly.

  “This transaction has nothing to do with Casey Hargrove or his whereabouts. I’ll enter this upcoming room and will be judged, just like I was supposed to be all along. Your machine proves me innocent once and for all, and I walk. For life. No more trials, no more prison.”

  With a set jaw, she murmurs, “Shall I contact your lawyer?”

  I match her stoic expression. “Not necessary. Liz will contact you when she has the contract ready.”

  Next, I explain to Gemma what she’ll need to do once she’s talked to her people. Because I know she’ll need to talk to her people. Create a new username on the Compass Room forum and inform the public via a new topic that Evalyn Ibarra is reentering the Compass Room for a second chance at freedom.

  Maliyah holds up both of her hands. Ten seconds. I freeze up, wondering if the last bit of time spent on the air will be nothing more than an awkward stare-down. Finally, I speak up.

  “You’ll only turn me down if you’re afraid I’ll make it out alive.”

  Gemma doesn’t have time to react. The feed shuts off.

  ***

  I stay up all night with the hackers. We all do. Some of them take over the kitchen, making everyone a buffet-style meal. I don’t eat. I stay with Casey as Piper performs tests on him. His pale skin glistens with sweat, eyes set with deep, black bags. When she suggests she start and IV of morphine, Casey shakes his head.

  “I’m not hurting too bad.”

  “You look miserable,” she says.

  “I feel miserable, but it isn’t pain.”

  Piper glances at me and frowns. I’m trying to control my terror, but it isn’t working.

  At twelve-oh-six a.m., an analyst shouts, “The message is posted!”

  I lean into Casey. He holds me so tightly that he’s almost hurting me. I let him.

  “Don’t do this.” It’s not a plea. It’s a demand if I ever heard one. “Don’t leave me.”

  The message is posted under the username that I gave Gemma, stating exactly what I told her to write. Evalyn Ibarra is reentering the Compass Room.

  Of course, within a minute of her posting, other forum members are crying bullshit. Why should they believe such an insane statement when the story hasn’t appeared on any news feeds yet? But it doesn’t matter—they’ll know soon enough that her claim is the truth.

  It’s time for me to call Liz.

  I don’t use the video call. She knows my voice well enough.

  Maliyah gives me a safe line. Liz—Liz has always been on my side. I know she will be now, even after I disappeared on her. The first thing she says to me is, “Holy shit, Evalyn—you can’t be calling me like this!”

  “I’m on a protected line, Liz,” I assure her. “Listen close.”

  I tell her everything as quickly as possible, starting with the moment that Wes contacted me on the forum. What I don’t tell her is that I’m actually working with the hackers to sabotage the Compass Room. All she needs to know is that my trip through the CR will finally grant me my freedom. Knowing anything more would compromise her safety.

  “Can you form the contract?” I ask.

  “You bet your ass I can,” she says. “The real question is, are you sure that you want to go back in? After knowing that the machine can malfunction?”

  “What other option do I have, Liz?”

  “Point taken,” she says.

  ***

  We give Liz a safe mode of contacting us for when the contract is complete. Until then, I alternate my time between painting and wrapping myself in Casey’s arms up in our room, away from the news, away from all of the analysts.

  When I paint, Casey sits on the window seat, staring at the melting snow. The silence we share is the deep breath before the plunge. We both know it, afraid to admit it to the other. Which is okay. The quiet is okay. It gives us a glimpse at what normal life with each other could be like.

  Painting and coffee and quiet in the midst of a daily agenda.

  Normal seems so inconceivable at the moment.

  The thought is so startling that I feel like collapsing where I stand. Casey notices, and finally speaks. “Swallow a bug?”

  “I lost my courage for a hot minute,” I stammer. “Don’t worry. It’ll come back.”

  “Praying it won’t,” he says.

  Thirty minutes later, and fourteen hours before the official launch of the next Compass Room, Maliyah enters and tells us that Liz pushed the contract through.

  There isn’t a second to waste. I pop in the contacts that replicate Gemma’s eyes, and roll her thumbprint on top of mine.

  “How do you want to do this?” Maliyah asks. “Piper has measured out the anesthetic already. You should wake up around the time they find you.”

  I look to Casey, noticing the bags under his eyes. He breaks away from me, resting his head against the window.

  “Bring me the drug,” I tell her. “But I want to be alone for this.” I nod toward the boy at the window. “Alone with him.”

  She nods and disappears into the hall, returning a few moments later with a shot glass a third full of clear liquid. “Have him retrieve me when you’re finished,” she says before shutting the door behind her.

  Holding the shot glass level with the cleft of my ribs, I turn to Casey. “Are you mad at me?”

  He keeps his eyes glued to the window. I’m beginning to notice a trend here. He does this when he is afraid.

  “I’m mad at myself for hating your reason to go.”

  “Don’t be,” I say. “I understand.”

  I understand selfishness more than I should. I wish I had time to explain this to him.

  Finally, he turns to me, and I have a chance to say what has been building within my chest since the moment I found out he was still alive and hadn’t been swallowed up by Compass Room C.

  “I love you. It isn’t a pretty feeling. It doesn’t make me feel good. I didn’t know that love could be like this. I thought it was supposed to be gradual and relaxing and safe. And every time I leave you—every time I hurt you—the guilt . . . it burrows deeper inside of me.”

  I’m a bitch, because I don’t give him a second to respond, instead, I down the sweet fluid. The shot glass slips from my fingers.

  He’s up in half a moment, hobbling to the bed at the same time I stagger to it. When I collapse on top of the duvet, he lies next to me.

  My vision softens like I’m staring through an unfocused lens of a camera. He brushes the hair from my eyes. “You bring her back.”

  My mouth is made of lead, and I can’t respond.

  He watches me like he did the night in the Missouri motel, like nothing is more meaningful than my presence. We could do this for hours. We envy those who can.

  Time—we seem to be chasing it.

  The last thing I feel are his lips to my forehead.

  Posted by DreamsnIllusions: Can the rumors be true!? EI turning herself in???

  Posted by TimtheTheorist: Don’t believe everything you hear. There hasn’t been any official news release stating that she’s in custody

  Posted by Nine Lives: The CR is launching tomorrow. If it isn’t a hoax, then we have to know by tonight. Won’t we? That’s a tight timeline for rumor to contain any truth.

  Posted by Nine Lives: I retract my previous statement. News blogs are all saying the same thing.

  EI’s turned herself in, and she’s entering the CR tomorrow.

  Posted by DreamsnIllusions: OH MY GOD.

  Posted by Nine Lives: She’s in my thoughts, and I wish her the best.

  I think we all do.

  16

  I wake up to the hard, cold earth.

  My mind is fuzzy, but immediately upon gaining consciousness, I know where I am. We’ve rehearsed this verbally a million and one times, but the reality of
my return is still volatile. My head rolls to the right, and I lift my hand to see my wristlet snapped securely into place.

  I cough and sit up, attempting to keep my world at a standstill.

  Sirens sound in the distance. It’s early morning. I begin to shiver.

  What am I doing?

  I’m making everything okay. I’m saving a friend’s life. I’m uncovering the truth of the Compass Room to reveal to the world. It won’t bring inmates back to life, but it’s the only kind of justice I’m capable of giving them.

  That’s what I’m doing, and I’m the only person who can complete this task.

  Remember that, Evalyn.

  The trampling of footsteps sounds behind me.

  Don’t turn around.

  “Freeze!” A man hollers. Like I could move in the first place.

  I’m shoved onto my face, my hands dragged behind my back.

  I turn my head enough to catch a glimpse of a vest with yellow lettering: FBI.

  A voice behind me sends a chill down my spine. “Talk about last damn minute,” Gemma Branam spits. “Your contract was about to be null.”

  I’m not fighting, but the guy holding me pulls me back and slams me against the ground.

  “Should we bring her back to the prison?” one of the agents asks.

  “We’re out of time,” says Gemma. “And the media will be hell to deal with. Drug her here.”

  Gemma’s cold boot presses against my back. I grit my teeth to hold back my groan.

  “Think you’re being clever, don’t you?”

  “Damn fucking clever,” I hiss.

  “You’ll be finished in the first couple of hours.”

  A hard boot connects with my side.

  I squeeze my eyes shut and cry out.

  Gemma snaps on a pair of gloves. “I feel sorry for you, Evalyn. I really do. I wish you’d finally own up to what you did two years ago. Take responsibility. Be remorseful.”

  The chuckle bubbling from my mouth surprises even me. But why not play into the demon persona that everyone wants me to?

  “You will see soon,” my voice is thick and gravelly, “just how much I really can own.”

  I can own the sins of anyone. Lock them up and hold them within me to make all hell break loose in your Compass Room.

  Just you watch, Gemma.

  It’s enough for her to grip my neck forcefully. But my eyes are already shut.

  She won’t have the satisfaction of watching me drift off to sleep.

  17

  The next time I wake, it takes me a good, long while to figure out where I am. My mouth is dry. My brain feels ready to implode in my head. The room is dark. When I’m conscious enough, I throw the itchy blanket from me and sit up, rubbing my eyes.

  I’m awake. I blink, staring out the dingy window before me. Nothing but forest. At the foot of my bed is a bag, but its flat and folded up. Empty.

  The walls of my room are made with panels of rotten pine. The air smells musty and wet. Finally, I register what is happening—where I am. This isn’t like the room I woke up in with Jace.

  My feet touch the ground. Above me is nothing more than a low, leaking ceiling.

  I’m alone.

  “I’m alone,” I say out loud, and then in the same breath, “Hello?”

  Suddenly my duties—my responsibilities—all come swarming back to me in a hectic burst. Enter the Compass Room. Find Valerie. Infiltrate the Vault. Get the fuck out.

  “Valerie.” My eyes dart around the room, like she’s suddenly going to appear out of nowhere.

  I jump to my feet and shake out my hands, as though that will help me expel the drugs from my body. Running to the door, I throw it open.

  Cold, misty air rushes over my body. I step outside.

  The sky is gray—not flat like a sheet, but scattered with brooding thunderheads and white, frothy clouds. I’ve never seen anything quite like it, especially not with a heavy mist hanging low to the ground as well. It’s as though the whole forest is desperate to be covered in water. The trees past the clearing are massive, old. So gnarled that they don’t even look like they belong in this world.

  I turn around and take a step back, and then another, getting a good look at the place I woke up in. A single-story shack that looks as though it’s been sitting here for a century, moss piling on top of the rickety roof. I glance to my left and my right, and then I turn in a full circle.

  There’s no one else here.

  “Shit,” I hiss, running back into the shack. Did my team and I really think the Compass Room would start out the same as last time? This room could be revised beyond measure after we majorly fucked up the last one. And one way we fucked it up was making alliances from the get-go.

  I can’t keep track of how many times the word shit spews from my mouth in a hectic whisper. I shake open the bag and glance inside of it. Nothing. I open the cabinets lining the walls one by one. They’re chock-full of possibly everything I would need to survive in the woods. Canned goods and fire starters, blankets and a tarp. There’s even a boxed-up tent. I open up the cabinet with the tools—or weapons, if I were to think that way.

  I pick up a knife and press the tip into my finger as hard as I can. The blade disintegrates.

  This time, they’re making me choose what to take and what to leave. How the Compass Room is supposed to work is that it doesn’t matter what supplies you have or don’t have. If you are supposed to stay alive, then you will. Of course, I’m knowledgeable enough to disregard the lie that the engineers feed us. I know this is a test, and that the data collected far outweighs any inmate’s safety. I need to be prepared for anything.

  I leave the water filter. Last time, we all drank from the streams and the lake with no issue. I do take two full one-liter water bottles though, and the lightest, most calorie-dense food that I can find. Hopefully I’ll be out of here in a handful of hours and won’t need it. I steal a blanket and a tarp, but I leave the tent. The axe is too heavy, but I stuff my pockets with several folding knives. I also take a lighter and a first aid kit.

  I pray that Valerie stays where she is, hopefully tucked away in a little shack like me. She has to know that I’m in the room with her. We were exposed to the news the last time we entered the Room.

  The moment I think this, the ground begins to shake, and the roof above me cracks. I duck just as a plank from the ceiling crashes down next to me.

  The floor splits. I heave the backpack over my head and sprint toward the open door, escaping just as half the roof collapses.

  I stumble and fall, scrambling around as the hungry ground swallows the entire disintegrating shack.

  With one hand I rub at my eyes as I press the other to my pounding heart. Was that the nanotech, or an illusion? I thought I’d be able to tell the difference, but everything just looks real.

  Everything is real. This isn’t a dream or a test. I’m back.

  I have to follow my own senses. There is no Tanner to feed my theories to. No Casey to argue with. My eyes sting and I think of the feed, recording every uneven breath, every tear. I need to find Valerie before shit gets too out of hand. All directions look equally ominous. In fact, they all look identical.

  She could be anywhere in this room. This room could be as big as last time, or not. It could be bigger.

  I decide to go right, into the thick forest, through the huge fairy-tale trees.

  Into the dark.

  I am in control. I pick myself off of the ground, pull the straps of my backpack tight, and begin to walk.

  ***

  For hours, I walk to the sound of nothing but my own footsteps. Once in a while, a chill runs down my body that I can’t counter, filling me with terror. This is nothing like Compass Room C. This place is silent and uneventful. From the moment I woke up in Compass Room C, I was around inmates. I always had companions. I always had someone to talk to.

  “You’re okay, Evalyn,” I say out loud to myself. I wonder if any engineers are listening. I
do something I haven’t done in a long while. I begin to sing.

  It’s a really stupid song—something Meghan and I used to sing out loud when we were in our PJs on a Saturday night with nothing to do other than get drunk and listen to really terrible top twenty hits.

  Baby it’s a feelin’

  That’s nothin’ more than dreamin’

  God, it was a horrendous song. Todd could write something better.

  The snap of a twig sounds to my right. I jerk my head in that direction, staring at nothing but the dark overgrowth between the gnarled, twisted trees.

  You and me,

  And eternity. . . .

  I look forward again, my entire body turning to ice.

  He appears only seconds after I spot the desk. Before me, in his bomber jacket and jeans, stands Nick. His arms are dropped into a V in front of him, and in his clasped hands, he holds a gun. This gun became my burden.

  He is unmoving—statuesque like a picture, a hologram.

  I blink and he is ten feet closer. The gun is in my hand and Nick is suddenly behind me, breathing down my neck. His movements remind me of my nightmares, nonsensical and ghostly. I’m trapped as he holds me against him like a lover. My stomach convulses.

  His words are ice and fire all at once. “You did this.”

  The noise of terror fills the air—nails on a chalkboard, violin strings gone wrong. The off-key screech shatters every one of my nerves like glass.

  Meghan and Gordon lie on the ground, corpses disfigured with the wounds they died by. Their eyes are like marbles, glassy and clouded.

  “No,” I croak.

  “You did this. You did this to both of them.”

  Control it.

  Meghan still bleeds. Crimson crawls across the ground toward me and Nick. Nick, who touches me in a way so unlike him. Demanding, yet soft and intimate.

  “So it would be possible that Evalyn was having an affair with Nick?”

  “Objection, your honor! Total speculation!”

  The thought had already been planted into the minds of the jury. Evalyn was spending more time with Meghan in order to fuck her boyfriend.