It’s because of Benson.
I don’t have that universe of love to return to Logan. I’m not convinced I’m even capable of it without the eternity of memories that Logan has. That I’m supposed to have. The love I have for him has the same finite limits of any human.
And with so little to give to begin with, it’s not fair to offer him only a fraction of that sparse portion. Even if I had all of my heart to give, it would feel paltry in comparison.
But to offer him only the half of my heart that’s truly his would be downright insulting.
And only one half belongs to him.
The other still belongs to Benson. I know that now.
I lean my head against the mirror and feel the soothing cold spread from my forehead to my cheeks, slowly cooling away the fear from my nightmare.
Although it’s almost as terrifying to admit to myself that I still love Benson. Love the boy who betrayed me and got my guardians killed. But I can’t deny this feeling. Or the way my heart wants to beat out of my chest when I see him, the sympathy I can’t keep myself from feeling.
The want I felt deep in my belly when I saw him without his shirt on last night. This morning?
It’s like the whole confrontation in Camden never happened.
I’m so quick to forgive him. Is that a good thing or not? Does it make me more goddess-like?
Or more human?
And which do I want to be?
I glance at my clock. 6:54. Somewhat early morning, but not extreme. I don’t want to go to the lab yet, but suddenly this room feels too small. Claustrophobic. Not enough space for the explosion of my emotions.
I decide I need a kitchen.
I transform the back wall into air to make sure I don’t run into anything important, then I carefully transform a few more beams, hoping I’m not about to really disturb the architecture.
One final beam lets in a streak of light, and I realize I’ve hit another room. I guess I should have expected that. People don’t just build enormous walls full of empty space. I’m about to fill in the hole before anyone notices what I’ve done, but curiosity gets the better of me.
I stoop down and peer through.
It takes a second for my eyes to focus. Then I’m on my feet, my hands tearing at the wall for a few seconds before I remember my powers. The hole becomes Tavia-sized, and I step through into the battered remains of a familiar prison, the faint scent of smoke lingering in the air.
“Benson,” I breathe, rushing forward. But his cell is empty. No, no, it’s the wrong cell. In way the wrong part of this building. I look around and realize that although it looks a lot like Benson’s prison—has nearly the same layout—it’s not the same.
A second security wing, maybe? Hidden in the walls of the Curatoria? But . . . it’s been destroyed. Like something exploded.
All over the shiny white tile.
Oh gods.
I can’t breathe as I stare around me, turning in a circle to take in the scene. The space where the walls of a prison used to be, three white squares of floor, each smaller than the next, three matching two-way mirrors.
I know what I’m going to find even as I look over my shoulder at the wall behind me, but still my heart pounds at the sight of the huge black Reduciata symbol.
This isn’t Benson’s prison, it was mine.
As soon as the realization washes over me it feels so obvious. To my right I can see the path of destruction I made during my escape. And though that wall has been made whole again, I’m pretty sure if I were to walk over and make it disappear I would find the open space the helicopter took off from.
I remember something from the previous night, and everything snaps into place. Daniel got nervous when he saw me hanging around here. He was worried I’d find this place. That’s why he sent me on my way!
He must know about it. Know that’s where we were held. Of course he knows—he’s spent the last three days convincing me that he knows everything that happens here. But . . . but it doesn’t make any sense. Why would they pretend I was in a Reduciata prison?
But in an instant I understand. Benson said they were going to test me. This was the test. Creating the sledgehammer didn’t work. Creating the bomb didn’t work. What finally got me out of there was when I transformed the prison bars and walls.
That perfectly timed rescue wasn’t timed.
It wasn’t a rescue.
It was a sign that I had passed.
The painting. Now I know what was bothering me about it. The painting was waiting for me in our room when we arrived at the headquarters. But Benson said he arrived in a helicopter after us. That’s what was bugging me when I talked about the painting with Daniel. The painting shouldn’t have been able to make it to the headquarters ahead of us.
Unless someone could simply walk it down the hallway while we hovered pointlessly in the air.
I hate that I didn’t see it before. But even if I had, how could I jump from that to all this? But it’s proof that Daniel knew.
My whole body sags in despair as I stare around the destroyed cell. This changes everything.
Everything.
And yet . . .
I breathe in and out, trying to catch the tail of a stream of thought that’s making me nervous. Finally, as the adrenaline begins to settle, it solidifies in my head.
If it was all just a Curatoriate test, then why was Benson there? And Sunglasses Guy?
There were actual Reduciates there. There’s no way to fake that.
Is there?
I mean, I can change my face into my mom’s. Were they all in disguise? Was that all part of the test?
Except that the Benson who was there really was Benson. Inside and out.
Then is this all just a Reduciate facade? The whole Curatoria headquarters? Everything?
No, that’s not possible either. Because Alanna and Thomas are here. And I know they’re who they say they are because Benson knew Thomas instantly. And Thomas and Alanna knew about Sammi and Mark.
No, there are definitely Reduciates and Curatoriates involved here.
Somehow—in some form—the Reduciata and Curatoria are working together.
THIRTY-ONE
I catch sight of something red under a piece of a splintered wall, and my heart speeds up as I run to it. I want to cry with joy when my hands grasp the ragged canvas of my backpack. It’s been opened, its contents strewn across the floor. But it’s mine. I start to riffle through it; the files are gone, though they didn’t bother to take the bag of gold. And the journal is gone too.
Inwardly I thank the gods for Rebecca’s foresight to not write her secret down, no matter how much frustration it’s brought me. I frantically unzip pockets trying to remember which one I kept it—there!
I collapse on the floor in relief as I hold up the plastic ziplocked bag containing the braid from Sonya’s life. I can’t believe I got it back! I try to swallow the lump in my throat, but I can’t. Everything, even this terrible, awful discovery, is worth this moment.
I want to take the whole backpack with me, but I realize that, even though this place looks abandoned, if anyone were to come back and see it was gone, they’d know.
Besides, nothing else in there is nearly as important as this artifact from Sonya’s life.
A pounding on my door makes me nearly shriek in surprise. It’s not the cell door—it’s the door in my secret bedroom. But how? I apparently forgot to get rid of the door when I stumbled in half-asleep this morning, but even so, I didn’t think anyone knew I was here. Or that anyone would question a random door among thousands in the headquarters.
I stuff the braid into my pocket and creep back through the hole, closing it behind me, reminding myself that I can come back any time.
I open the door to Logan, his face a tableau of despair, his clothes rumpled,
hair tousled. “Logan.” I don’t know what else to say. “How . . . how . . .?”
“I followed you. I know, I know, intruding on privacy and all of that, but I couldn’t sleep without knowing you were safe. I had—I had to know where you were.” He pauses, his jaw tight. “I didn’t even care if you were with . . . if you weren’t alone. As long as I knew where you were.”
“Logan—”
“It happened again.”
I don’t understand.
“Like the thing in the South Pacific. It happened again.”
“No.” Everything I just discovered falls from my mind, and I follow Logan as he sprints down the hallway—grateful that after having my leg healed, I can easily keep up.
The main atrium is full of people when we burst out of the hallway. Most of them are clustered around the giant flat-screen television, which has been moved to the center of the room. For easy viewing, probably. The hulking Viking ship I saw earlier is still mounted on one wall, but it’s only half-finished and makes the whole place look abandoned despite the hundreds of milling people.
The news story is eerily similar to the one three days ago except that last time the news started reporting hours after the disaster. It seems to only be minutes now. The reporter is stumbling over his words, in a near panic, the camera shaky.
“The Andes Mountains, for as far as anyone can see, are simply gone. There’s no logical explanation. They just disappeared. There’s no way science can even begin to . . .” His face crumples, and he loses his professionalism for just a moment. “Sarah, people fell out of the sky. Mountain villages, bodies just crashed into the ground. The devastation, the sheer carnage. It’s . . . it’s unspeakable.”
The camera pans, and I’m not the only one in the atrium who claps their hand over their mouth at the red splashes of blood amid splintered remains of houses and shacks, scattered in mounds for—as the reporter said—as far as the camera will allow anyone to see.
The scene goes back to some reporter in the United States, safe inside a network studio. Sarah, I assume. “Again, we have only the barest reports of this disaster, and we are still trying to sort through fact and fiction. Scientists are already at work to determine if this incident could have anything to do with the devastation we saw in the South Pacific only days ago, but that connection has not yet been confirmed. We urge our viewers not to panic—to stay tuned as we get more updates.”
The Andes Mountains. Another Earthbound. It must be.
This is my fault.
Maybe I should have told Daniel the truth—the whole truth. Maybe we should have guzzled Red Bull and worked all night to close that final gap between the isolated protein and an actual working vaccine.
But would that have helped an unknown Earthbound who was already sick? I don’t think it could have.
And if Daniel is working with the Reduciates, would it have mattered at all? Am I simply helping him make a vaccine he’s going to keep for himself?
Is anything I’m doing making any difference? Or am I as helpless as everybody else?
I try to tell myself that it doesn’t matter. That the what-ifs and maybes can’t affect me. It’s the past. I can’t change it. I have to let go and look forward and keep doing the only thing I can: making that vaccine.
But that thought doesn’t ease the sickness in my belly. Doesn’t stop the tears that flow as I press my face into Logan’s shoulder, sobbing as he bears almost my entire weight. Crushing me to him like I’m going to disappear next.
I don’t care if he takes it wrong. All I know is I need someone to hold me. To have the strength I don’t have. To love the flawed person I am. To be my lifeline when I’m not sure I can bear to ask my broken heart to beat one more time.
THIRTY-TWO
“Curatoriates.”
The shock of real human speech is almost enough to make me lift my head from Logan’s shoulder. But I recognize Daniel’s voice and push even harder against Logan. I can’t bear to look at him. To be reminded of the work I’ve been too slow with. Of the fact that I’m working with a man I can’t trust. Of the possibility that maybe he wants all this to happen.
“Listen to me, please. We cannot lose ourselves to fear.”
A motivational speech, I should have known. I don’t care to hear anymore. I want to leave the headquarters entirely, and if I thought it would help anything, I would. But when Daniel is finished I’ll have to find the will to live again and drag myself upstairs and resume my work with the hope that not only will I succeed, but that somehow I can get the vaccine into the right hands.
Because even though we have again lost literally millions of lives—not to mention the mountains I’ve always considered some of the most beautiful land in the entire world—there’s still more to save. So much more. And as long as there’s someone, something, to save, I have to try.
In a moment.
Another.
The sound of my name makes my head jerk up.
“In our time of such great need Tavia Michaels has not only come to us, but after last night, I promise you, we are on the cusp of finding the answer. The vaccine that will keep us all safe. That will keep the entire world safe. The gods, the same gods who cursed us to roam this earth forever, have not forgotten us. They’ve sent Tavia, even as we teeter on the brink of literal extinction. And we are so close to succeeding.”
His expression is open, honest, pleading with his people to keep faith in him. But my tear-ravaged face heats beneath my skin, and I wish I could curl into a ball and disappear into a puff of humiliation.
What the hell is he doing? Is he trying to paralyze me under the weight of expectation? I know him too well to believe he’s just trying to make his people feel better.
He’s trying to accomplish something with these trite words. He must be. He never does anything accidentally.
I hear his continued speech as though through a long tunnel, the words barely making sense as they reach my ears. What is his true purpose? I’ve got to figure it out. If I don’t . . .
“And once she does, we will go out into the world. We’ll find everyone possible and distribute this vaccine. We are literally poised to be the saviors of the entire earth. And if there is any way for us to fully make up for the mistakes of our past, this is it. Tavia, come to me.”
I shoot a look of death at him, but it’s too late. He’s staring at me, holding his hand out. The crowd parts like the Red Sea, and fingers reach for me, touching my shoulders, pulling me forward.
But I don’t feel adored. I don’t feel appreciated. I feel used and cheap. They’re tearing me from Logan, pushing me toward Daniel, and I don’t like the metaphorical significance. Or what it says about my own decisions.
But they are too many and I am just me. In about a minute I’ve been thrust forward, up the stairs, where Daniel takes my hand and raises it, joined with his, over his head. He turns, and though no one can see how tightly he grips my fingers, I know—even as I look back at Logan—that I have no choice but to go with him. Even if he has to drag me up those stairs, he will.
A mournful cheer follows us, and I know that every hope—every desperate spark of possibility that exists in the hearts of the Curatoriates—is fully invested in me.
• • •
“What the hell was that?” I demand as soon as the door to the science wing closes behind us.
“It was necessary,” Daniel says. His entire demeanor has changed now that everyone isn’t looking at him. Looking at us.
“You didn’t have to drag me into it,” I hiss. “What if we can’t do it? What if I can’t? Do you think they’re going to blame you? It’s not even safe for me here anymore. You’ve ruined everything.”
“It was necessary,” Daniel repeats, his voice hard with an edge I’ve only heard a time or two before. He looks at me, his gaze drilling into mine for several seconds before he say
s slowly, deliberately, “You’re not the only one with secret plans, Tavia Michaels.”
I clamp my jaw shut.
He knows.
I’m not sure what precisely he knows. But something. I shouldn’t be surprised. I was kidding myself to think I could keep secrets from him in his own territory. His own domain.
But how much does he think I know?
“Are you ready?” Daniel asks, gesturing toward the detoxification room.
I breathe deeply. Am I ready? Am I ready to work for him? Now that I know he’s somehow connected to the Reduciata? That he killed Thomas in another life to keep him quiet? He admitted he has his own secret plan that revolves around me. Can I justify being complicit in that?
But what choice do I have? The vaccine is more important than anything else. Can keeping it out of Reduciata hands really mean more than getting it into human hospitals?
Earthbound I can handle later; humans have to be saved now.
Once the vaccine is complete I can retrieve my artifacts from the vault and leave. Or, at least, that’s what he once told me. Now, with my heart half-breaking, I realize that I may have to leave without my belongings. If I want to escape with my life.
I finger the braid in my pocket. I wish I could use it now. But what excuse would I be able to offer now that he’s dragged me right into the lab itself?
First things first. We have a world to save. No matter what, it always comes back to that.
I let my head fall. I surrender. This is my job, like it or not. I’ve just pulled my fingers out of my pocket when a crash sounds behind me and someone I don’t recognize rushes in.
“Daniel! Daniel! You were right. We have him. And undeniable evidence. We’ve got him.”
A smile curls across Daniel’s face, and my stomach feels like a storm of bees at the sight.
“Excellent. Have him brought to the stairs.”
The man blanches. “In front of everyone?”
“In front of everyone,” Daniel says softly, and suddenly I’m afraid. “Come on,” he says, beckoning to me almost as an afterthought. “Our work will have to wait for a few minutes.”