Whoever the gray-haired man was in the crimson sweatshirt, he must have seen Jude only recently and known his true location. Of course, there had been no document. He’d just needed me to stay inside the room.
I staggered back. Turning on my heel, I darted down the nearest aisle.
“Stop where you are!” one of the guards called as they bolted after me. Would they really shoot me? I was sure they wouldn’t hesitate once they found out that I was a Novak.
I can’t get caught. I can’t get caught.
I weaved in and out of aisles, trying to keep my head down low even as I pushed my legs as hard as they could work. But the guards were more adept at this game of cat and mouse than I was. They quickly closed in on me, and I found myself backed up against one corner with their guns aimed directly at my chest.
Jude and the other man approached behind them. “Who are you?” the latter asked.
I pursed my lips.
The guards grabbed me, their hands frightfully strong. Their grips felt like steel as they forced me into handcuffs.
A spark of fire would really come in handy about now.
The guards dragged me toward the exit of the Archives. One of them glanced from Jude to the gray-haired man. “How can we be absolutely sure which one is the imposter?” he asked.
Jude smirked. “That’s seriously a question?” He turned to the gray-haired man. “Mr. Munston,” he addressed him, “if you honestly think that I could be an imposter instead of this person roaming around the library and asking strange questions, you can settle the matter in seconds. Ask me something that only I would know.”
Great. I already knew that I was doomed.
“Right,” Mr. Munston said. He faced me. “What was Jude’s exact score in the last test I gave him?”
I gave in. There was no point even attempting to answer that. Even if by some miracle I got it right, the next question or the question after that would bowl me over. This game was over.
“Well?” Mr. Munston pressed, his eyes digging into me.
The guards shook me. “No answer?”
“Ninety-seven point nine eight percent,” the real Jude answered smugly. “Does that satisfy you?” he asked the guards sourly.
They nodded. “Certainly.”
“Then the question remains,” Mr. Munston went on, “who is this imposter exactly? I suppose you won’t answer that, will you?”
I bit down hard on my lower lip. The least I could do was delay whatever fate they had planned for me.
“Well, in that case,” Mr. Munston said, “we will have to do some probing.”
Probing.
My mouth dried out.
They hauled me out of the Archives and began marching me along the corridor. We arrived outside the elevators and descended to the ground floor before heading to the neighboring building. Here, we took the elevators up to the highest floor. Stepping out, they pulled me to the door directly opposite the elevators and led me inside. I found myself stepping into what was unmistakably an interrogation chamber. Tinted glass lined an entire wall, while the other three were stark white. A metal table with two uncomfortable-looking chairs on either side of it was installed in the center.
They dragged me to the chair and pushed me into one of the seats. Mr. Munston sat opposite me. The guards positioned themselves in three corners of the room, while Jude remained outside. Perhaps he would head to the room on the other side of the tinted glass wall. I imagined he took great pleasure in watching me get my comeuppance. Though I guessed I could not really blame him after what we had done to him.
Another hunter entered the room, carrying an odd, rectangular-shaped machine, to which were strapped several wires. As he planted it down on the table in front of me and began attaching the wires to my chest and fingers, I realized what this was. A lie detector.
Mr. Munston reached into the pocket of his pants and pulled out a pair of spectacles, which he placed on the bridge of his nose. He pulled the machine closer to him and began tweaking dials and pushing buttons. Then he coughed his throat clear and looked up.
I am so screwed. If there was one thing I was more hopeless at than cooking, it was lying. I was a horrible, horrible liar.
“So,” Mr. Munston began, his heavy brows almost meeting as he frowned. “We wish to know who you are, exactly. Since you are not willing to come out with it yourself, I will ask you some questions of my own.”
There was an excruciatingly long pause as his eyes raked over me.
“Are you one of the girls who kidnapped and manipulated Jude Webb?”
I didn’t answer, but if the machine was doing its job, I guessed that it would detect my body’s tense reaction to the question. Mr. Munston nodded, understanding dawning on his face.
“Interesting,” he said. “Since one of those girls was a witch, and we would have detected her entry into our facility, I can only assume that you are the other girl—the human girl?”
I was biting my lower lip so hard, it was on the verge of bleeding.
“The human girl,” he muttered. “Interesting.”
At least he assumed that I wasn’t supernatural. That was hopefully something that could work to my advantage in this dire situation.
“I would like to know your surname. I wonder… if you are one of the Novaks themselves, perhaps?”
Oh, man. This guy was really good at blind guessing.
His eyes widened as he stared down at the machine. “Hmm.” He watched the apparatus for a moment longer before his eyes lingered on me.
“Now, I would like to know, why are you so interested in FOEBA? It’s something that appears to be of concern to you.”
Whether or not Jude had made a copy of all of Georgina’s files was still a mystery to me. He might have been able to figure out how. I didn’t know if these people had read her cryptic journal entry, much less whether they understood whom it was written by, or what exactly it referred to. But one thing I did know was: this man knew what FOEBA was. And it was something he deemed important enough to hide.
As I considered responding to this question of Mr. Munston’s, I didn’t feel comfortable mentioning Georgina’s name, or Lawrence’s. I didn’t know what the repercussions could be. Instead I said, “I will tell you exactly why I’m interested if you first tell me what the initials stand for.”
Mr. Munston chuckled. “I don’t think you’re in any position to barter with us, young lady. And I suggest that you reply to my questions when I ask them.”
I sealed my lips again defiantly.
He let out a slow breath. “All right,” he said, standing up. He addressed the guards. “I shall go speak to the, uh, authorities about where we ought to take things from here.”
With that, he left the room without a backward glance at me.
I clenched my jaw, running my tongue discreetly over the tracker clamped to one of my molars. I thought of Arwen, still waiting on the beach for me. Of course, I was still well within twenty-four hours of my turning into Jude. She wouldn’t have a reason to suspect something might have gone wrong yet. If she had, I was sure that she would’ve risked setting off all the alarms and stormed in anyway. She would still think that I was figuring things out.
I rested my palms on the table, drumming my fingers nervously over the surface. I glanced at each of the guards who were watching me like hawks.
“You guys know what it is, don’t you?” I commented. “FOEBA.”
They stared back at me, unamused. It was hard to tell from their deadpan expressions whether they did or didn’t. If FOEBA really was classified information, as Mr. Munston had said, likely these guards’ positions were too low for them to be let in on the secret.
I glanced up at the clock above the doorway and watched with increasing intensity as the minutes went by.
After a quarter of an hour, Mr. Munston returned. He had resolution in his eyes as he approached the table. “Orders are that she is to be transferred.” He addressed the guards while gazing down a
t me.
Transferred.
“Where to?” I croaked.
“Chicago.”
Grace
Chicago.
Oh, my God. That was where Lawrence was supposed to be. Why would they want to take me there? My wishful thinking had me already imagining myself reuniting with Lawrence. But the thought seemed absurd. Why would they want to take me to see Lawrence?
As the guards detached the lie detector’s wires from me and pulled me to my feet, I demanded to know, “Why? Why Chicago? What do you want with me?”
And what about Arwen? Will she be able to trace me that far? I had to pray that she would be keeping a close eye on the receiver and would notice me leaving the IBSI’s compound.
As I continued to demand answers, one of my escorts pulled out a handkerchief from his pocket and stuffed it into my mouth. I almost vomited, not from the force in which he thrust it into my jaws, but from the thought of where that handkerchief had been exactly.
I refused to move forward, stiffening my legs. That simply prompted the largest of the men to lift me up and haul me over his shoulder. He seemed to be almost a foot taller than Jude, and the extra weight barely slowed him down at all. Then another hunter approached from behind, and I felt something being pulled over my head and tightened. A sack. It was breathable, thank God, being made of fabric, but it was endlessly unnerving being unable to even see where I was going anymore. I felt like an animal. An animal being led to the slaughter.
Given what my family had done to their people in The Woodlands, I couldn’t help but feel that was exactly what I was.
What felt like half an hour passed as they shunted me around the compound. Then I felt us move outside. A mild breeze touched my skin, and the air became humid.
By now I had stopped trying to talk. I had managed to spit out the gag a couple of times, but it had only caused one of the guards to stuff it back in.
I remained still for the moment, trying to use whatever senses I still had available to me—my ears—to gain some idea of where we were heading. We were walking along some kind of flat terrain. Cement, it sounded like.
Then I heard the roaring of an engine, and the slicing of rotor blades in the air.
Okay. So they’re transporting me via helicopter.
I felt myself being lifted up a ramp and into the aircraft. I was carried forward, further inside, and then planted into a seat, where I was firmly strapped down. Still they kept me gagged, the bag tied over my head.
My lips felt sore and cracked, my throat begging for water. Locks of Jude’s hair had come loose from his ponytail and had stuck against my sweaty forehead. I was beginning to feel beyond claustrophobic.
I grunted, lifting my feet upward and sensing the back of another seat in front of me. I kicked as hard as I could, once, twice, thrice.
“Cut it out!” a harsh voice commanded.
I kicked again, even as I screamed through my gag. I couldn’t care much what the consequences would be of my actions in that moment. I just needed them to get this thing off my head.
Thankfully, my tantrum worked. Someone approached and removed it. As I gazed upward, that somebody was the tallest guard who had carried me. I cast my eyes around the interior of a large helicopter, filled with rows of seats. But it was empty except for me and the three hunters who’d been guarding me. There was no sign of Jude or Mr. Munston. I guessed they were staying in Hawaii.
“Stop it,” the guard told me sternly.
I managed to spit out my gag again. Before he could stoop down and replace it, I pleaded, “Let me breathe, mister! I’ll be quiet and I’ll stop kicking. Just… don’t put that thing back in my mouth.”
He eyed me suspiciously, but thankfully, he acquiesced. He nudged the handkerchief aside with his foot before taking a seat.
“Now don’t even think about trying anything,” he muttered.
I was about to retort, “There’s not exactly anything I could try,” when I realized that something felt a bit different at the back of my mouth. I ran my tongue over my molars.
The tracker was gone.
Oh, no. No. No. No!
Where did it go? I was sure that I hadn’t swallowed it—it would have been painful and I would’ve noticed. It must’ve come out during one of the instances I’d spat out the gag. Had it been the first time, the second time or just now? Even as I tried to remain discreet, I desperately scanned the floor beside my seat. I couldn’t see much from the angle at which I was sitting. I leaned forward, the guard’s eyes following me. I pressed my head gently against the back of the seat in front of me, so that it would look like I was resting. Meanwhile, my eyes strained to spot the small, square-shaped device.
Still, I couldn’t see it. Perhaps it had slipped into the aisle. It was so small, it could easily have tucked itself away in some nook or cranny.
I wished that I could pretend to the guards that I thought I had lost a filling, but these hunters weren’t stupid. I bet that the moment they saw the tracker, they would suspect what was up. I had to search for it without them noticing. But most of all, I had to hope that it was in this helicopter that I had lost it… and not back in Hawaii.
The chopper lifted into the air.
That tracker is my only hope. It has to be in this helicopter. It just has to.
I cleared my throat and addressed the nearest guard timidly. “I need to use the bathroom.”
He heaved a sigh. “Not during takeoff.”
“Okay,” I said, attempting a calm tone. “How long will I need to wait?”
He exchanged glances with his colleagues before replying, “A few minutes.”
I glanced out of the window and watched the IBSI’s sprawling base grow smaller and smaller beneath us. My eyes moved to the shoreline, where Arwen would still be waiting dutifully for me. Poor girl. It killed me to think how worried she would be when I didn’t return. How worried my parents will be.
Gazing out at the fast-disappearing ground was only increasing my anxiety. I averted my eyes to the inside of the aircraft, specifically toward its front, where I spotted a glowing green sign indicating the toilets.
Those “few minutes” felt like an eternity but finally, the guard stood up and unstrapped me from the chair. He gripped my arm and pulled me to my feet before leading me into the aisle. My head tilted immediately to the floor as we walked. I tried to slow us down by pretending that I had a limp, but it only got me so far. By the time we passed the seats surrounding mine, I hadn’t spotted the tracker.
It could be any number of places though. It could have rolled underneath a seat.
As we reached the toilets, I realized that I did actually need to go. The guard pushed open the door to a toilet, but was showing no signs of removing my handcuffs.
“Seriously?” I said, widening my eyes at him. “How can I go like this?”
He looked dispassionately toward his colleagues. “What do you think?” he asked.
“She’s just a human. Remove them while she goes.”
Thank you.
He removed my handcuffs and allowed me to lock myself in the toilet. I tried not to think about what it felt like to pee in a guy’s body, and finished as quickly as I could. Though I did not leave just yet. I stayed in the toilet, staring at Jude’s face in the mirror and trying to calm my nerves.
The guard didn’t leave me alone for long. He rapped on the door, and I was forced to exit. When he moved to handcuff me again, I said, “My wrists are sore. Give me a break from them for a while.”
He looked reluctant, but acquiesced. As we began moving back to our seats, my eyes trained on the floor once more, scanning every corner… and then I spotted something glinting beneath the fluorescent lighting. Something square and golden. It was the tracker, rolled beneath one of the seats. I hadn’t seen it on my way to the toilets because it was obscured from that direction. As we arrived within a couple of feet of it, I feigned a fall. I buckled my knees and dropped to the floor, while ensuring that my right
hand fell directly on top of the tracker. I balled up my fist, scooping up the device, even as I feigned pain by groaning and cursing.
The hunter gripped the back of my neck and pulled me upright. I quickly balled my second, empty fist too, so that my right one would not stick out. Returning to our row, I was about to turn into it and sit down when one of the other hunters spoke up from the opposite row.
“Looks like she just picked something up.”
I whirled to see the man staring at me, though he addressed his colleague.
The tallest hunter frowned, his focus immediately fixing on my closed knuckles. I had been planning to reinsert the tracker discreetly once I sat down. But the damn hunter had already seen through me. These men were too sharp.
Now the tall man grabbed my fists and forced them open, revealing the tiny tracker.
I struggled uselessly to close my fingers, as though I thought I could still hide the device. He swiped it from my hand and then, to my horror, dropped it to the floor and stomped on it with his heavy boot. When he raised his foot, the device was crushed to pieces.
Grace
I could hardly bring myself to speak for the rest of the journey. It felt like the hunter had crushed me along with the tracker as he had brought down his heavy boot. Despair ripped at my chest. It was a struggle to even breathe normally.
That’s it. It’s gone. I am completely on my own now.
As the hours passed, I thought about my parents and all the crappy situations they had found themselves in. Especially my father. I tried to comfort myself that they had always managed to find a way to pull through them.
But this… this was really crappy.
My only solace was the fact that they had not made any move to harm me physically yet. I had to just numb my mind for a bit, shut it down, until I arrived in Chicago. There was no point imagining all the possible worst-case scenarios. What would happen would happen. And I would just have to do the best I could to get out of this mess.