• • •
When I open my eyes, my mother is gone and Jude is here in the basement with me.
“I told Joi that I talk to you,” I say.
“And she didn’t run away screaming?”
I gesture to the room around us. “Where would she go?”
“Excellent point,” Peter Pan says.
“She said you’re real.”
“Of course I’m real,” Peter Pan replies. “Who do you think just sent you that dream?”
“It was nice to see Mom again,” I mutter.
“I know you’re still mad. But she tried, Jon. How many times did she try to take us to Never Land?”
“You were the one she was trying to save.”
“That’s not true. You were her boy, remember?”
“Then why did she leave me behind? I was going to rescue her. Why didn’t she wait for me?”
“I don’t know,” Peter Pan says.
“Well, if you see Mom in Never Land, be sure to ask her.”
“Jon . . .” I hear Jude start to argue, but Mandel’s cheerful voice drowns him out.
“Rise and shine!” he sings. “You have a visitor!”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
* * *
THE HEIR
We rise from the depths of the academy into a blaze of light. The ground floor has been transformed into a spotlit stage ringed by nine dark tiers. Mandel seems to be expecting an audience, but he must know by now that the dorms are all empty. The Androids and Ghosts have fled. And yet he’s perfectly composed, as if it were all part of his plan.
“We have a very special guest with us this morning,” Mandel confides just before the elevator gates open. “He drove all the way from Connecticut to be here. So let’s make sure we show him a good time. Oh, and Flick? Be on your best behavior, please. One wrong move, and I will be forced to turn my Taser on Joi.”
I see our guest now. He’s standing in the center of one of the three golden circles—like a token on a board game. He’s been awaiting the next roll of the dice.
“You woke me up in the middle of the night for this?” my father demands.
“Where are your manners, Henry?” Mandel responds blithely. “I believe an introduction is in order. Henry, I’d like you to meet Joi. Joi, this is Flick’s father, Henry Brennan.”
“I know who she is, Lucian,” my dad snarls. “You told me that the future of the academy would be decided tonight. And this is your experiment’s grand finale? If you think my son is going to dispose of his girlfriend, you’re a fool. He’ll die rather than kill her. As eager as I am to win our wager, this could have waited until a more reasonable hour.”
For once my father is right about me. I’ll never be like him. I won’t follow in his footsteps. If I’m forced to choose between my life and my one good thing, I will choose death. And I’ll die without a single regret. I take Joi’s hand, and our fingers lock together. Her amber eyes glow when she smiles. She’s not afraid either.
“I assure you this will not be a waste of your time, Henry,” I hear Mandel say. “The switch will take place. In a few short minutes, your son will become a predator.”
I watch the two men face off across the courtyard. Mandel is grinning. My father is glowering. Everything about this situation seems to disgust him. “Then where are Ackerman and Leavitt? They need to be here too.”
I remember meeting Ackerman at one of Mandel’s little parties. I don’t recognize the other name. He must be a member of the opposition.
“Ackerman won’t be coming,” Mandel replies. “And Leavitt is dealing with a little situation of his own at the moment.”
It’s almost amusing to see my father regard Lucian Mandel with the same contempt he always showed me. “Then this is a violation of our agreement. Nothing can be decided unless there are alumni representatives present.”
My father marches toward the exit and shoves a card key into the slot. But the doors won’t open. He tries once more before he charges back across the atrium with his nostrils flared, his chest puffed, and his fists clenched. It’s an intimidating performance. Mandel never budges.
“Have you disabled my key?” my dad rages. He’s got at least five inches and fifty pounds on the academy’s headmaster, but that doesn’t seem to matter much to Mandel.
“You’re critical to the experiment, Henry,” Mandel replies in the patient, patronizing tone of a kindergarten teacher. “Now that the final stage is in progress, we must see it through to the finish. I’m confident that the experiment will be a success. So confident that I’m even prepared to raise the stakes.” He holds up a folder he’s had tucked under one arm. “If I lose, this is yours to destroy.”
“Is that my file? And you’re carrying it around like it’s a copy of the Wall Street Journal?!” My father takes another step toward Mandel. Joi’s fingers tighten their grip on mine. I’m waiting for my dad to throw his first punch. But he doesn’t. “When the alumni hear about all of this, you won’t have a single supporter left.”
“When the alumni are told what happened here tonight, they’ll know I’ve accomplished something miraculous.” Mandel beams.
“No, Lucian. After tonight, they’ll finally be able to say what they’ve always believed. That you’re a raving little lunatic.”
Mandel’s smile is gone the instant that last word reaches his ears. There’s a sadistic smirk on my father’s lips. He knew his insult would wound. “If that’s what the alumni believe,” Mandel snips, “it’s only because you’ve worked so hard to convince them.”
“You’ve been telling yourself the same lie for the last twenty years.” The battle has turned. Mandel is on the defensive now, and my father is aiming for the chink in his armor. “You think I’ve dedicated my life to turning the whole world against you, but the alumni didn’t need to be convinced that you’re deranged. Neither did your mother. The facts have always spoken for themselves.”
“Facts you twisted to suit your agenda!” Mandel shouts. “You wanted my mother to make you her heir! You’ve been after my rightful inheritance since the day you arrived at the academy!”
“You forfeited that inheritance when you were fifteen years old, Lucian. Do you remember how you spent your holidays that year? You’d fly in from your fancy Swiss boarding school and head straight for the academy. You forced so many kids to take that psychopath test that you almost provoked a mutiny. You treated this school like your own little empire and the students like your personal playthings. Even your mother knew you needed professional help. But she had a school to run, and your father wanted nothing to do with any of you. So she asked me to step in.”
“My mother asked her masterpiece to be my mentor. How touching. I know how highly she thought of you, Henry. She always said you were one of a kind. I just wish she could be here to watch me make a thousand little ‘masterpieces’ just like you.”
My father’s upper lip curls into a snarl, and I know he’s about to go in for the kill. “If Beatrice were here, Lucian, you wouldn’t be allowed within fifty feet of this place.”
“Because of all the lies you told!” Mandel cries, his face a fiery crimson.
My dad shakes his head. “Lies? I never said a word to Beatrice the day I caught you in the act. I just took her down to the basement and let her see for herself what her fifteen-year-old son had been doing. Hoarding bodies that should have been cremated. Cutting them open and taking things out. Dissecting their organs and putting their brains in glass jars.”
“What difference did it make? The bodies were going to be destroyed!”
Mandel’s tone has grown shrill, while my father’s voice has deepened and darkened. “You had no right! Even the weakest student ever admitted to this school was a hundred times stronger than you’ll ever be. They may have died, but they survived long enough to die with dignity. Your mother understood that. What you did to those bodies disgusted her. I never said you should be banished. The truth is, your mother didn’t ask for my advice.
If she had, I would have told her to kill you. Even then I could see what might happen if this school ever fell into your hands.
“Do you really think your mother would approve of the things you’ve been doing here? Experimenting on the students? Slicing up the dead children’s brains? Feeding the living ones pills? What would she say about Exceletrex, Lucian?”
“She would say it’s an elegant solution to the discipline issues we’ve always faced here at the academy. We haven’t had a single revolt since the predator students began taking the pills. I think she would see it as proof that I deserve the headmaster position.”
“Oh really? And how do you think she’d feel if she knew that you disposed of your own sister to get the job?”
“Marjorie died in a car accident,” Mandel sniffs.
“You’re even crazier than I imagined if you honestly think I believe that.”
Mandel glares at my father for a moment. Then he takes a deep breath. By the time he exhales, his smile has returned. “I can find a hundred psychiatrists who will testify to my sanity, Henry. But that’s not the subject we’re here to discuss. I’m on the verge of a scientific breakthrough.”
“There’s no goddamned gene, Lucian!” My father’s shout fills the whole atrium. “We’ve been paying dozens of geneticists top dollar to search for it. It’s been five years now. I’ve read all of the reports. They haven’t found anything! The gene doesn’t exist!”
“It does. Which brings us back to the reason I invited you to the academy this morning, Henry. I want to present the proof you’ve demanded.”
My father points at me. “He is not going to be your proof, Lucian.”
“If that’s what you think, then you should have no problem seeing our agreement to its conclusion,” Mandel notes. “You said I’d never be able to turn him into a predator. You said he didn’t have what it took. Well, I believe he does. Flick has the gene, Henry, just like you. And in a few short minutes, I’ll activate it.”
“His name isn’t Flick,” my father sneers. “It’s Jonathan. And if you weren’t so demented, you’d be able to see that he and I have nothing in common.”
I feel Mandel’s free arm slide around my shoulders. “Your insults are wasted on me. I know you’re afraid of us.”
“I’ll show you how frightened I am.” My father straightens his spine and seems to grow two inches. “You think that little toy Taser can stop me from snapping your neck?”
Mandel doesn’t flinch. “Go ahead, Henry. Kill me. But you’ll never get control of the academy. It will pass to my heir instead.”
My dad snorts. “You’re not capable of producing children. Your mother didn’t have the heart to get rid of you, but at least she listened to the board of directors and made sure you wouldn’t reproduce.”
When I hear Joi gasp, I know I didn’t misinterpret that last part.
“True,” Mandel concedes placidly. He won’t lose his cool again. “But I’m quite capable of choosing an heir. Flick and I may not share DNA, but we were forged in the same fire. Luctor et emergo, Henry. We’ve both suffered at your hands. Now it’s time for us to rise.”
I watch my father ponder the news. He’s trying to figure out if it’s true.
“I hope you heard that!” he finally shouts. It takes me a second to realize he’s not speaking to anyone in the room. He’s addressing all the academy’s bugs. “I’m looking forward to playing tonight’s tapes for the board.”
“The listening devices are automatically shut off at curfew, Henry,” Mandel informs him. “Don’t you remember? It was one of the cost-cutting measures you forced me to implement. And you’ve already had your last meeting with the board of directors. The time has come for you to watch your son become a predator. I’m afraid it will be the last thing you see. Because Flick is going to kill you.”
The shock hits me so hard that I laugh. The sound appears to confuse my dad. He studies my face for a moment but doesn’t seem to find what he’s looking for. “Are you?” he demands.
Joi is squeezing my hand hard enough to crack a few bones. The answer is no. But I’m not going to say so. “Wait—is this the kind of choice you told me I’d face here? I thought you said it was supposed to be hard.”
“This is no time for jokes, Jonathan,” my father says. He never appreciated my sense of humor. “Before you make your decision, there are a few things you should know. Did Lucian tell you why your brother died?”
“Yeah. Jude found out you’re a crook and confronted you.”
“Did Lucian tell you that he was the one who gave Jude the information? It was his first attempt to get me out of the way. He didn’t want anyone associated with the academy to know, so he went behind the alumni’s backs and tried to use my own son to destroy me.”
This is the father who once seemed like a god to me. A pathetic, broken man who beat his children and still blames other people for the things that he’s done. “The information didn’t kill Jude, Dad. You did.”
“I never expected your brother to die,” Mandel assures me. “I’m afraid I miscalculated.”
“Jude was not your toy!” my father bellows. “He was my son!”
“I didn’t treat Jude like a toy,” Mandel argues. “I simply gave him a few documents from your file.”
“A blatant abuse of academy data!” This is the rage that would have once sent me running. Now I see a man who’s lost control. “You should have been forced to resign. It was a perfect example of how dangerous you are—not just to me but to every graduate of this academy. But only half of the alumni had the guts to fight you. The rest were all terrified you’d turn on them next.”
“You had just murdered one of your sons, and you were demanding control of my family’s academy. Which of us seemed unhinged, Henry? Under the circumstances, I think it was quite sporting of me to offer to settle the dispute with a wager.”
“A wager that would force me to sacrifice my one remaining son!”
“Yes, it was very noble of you to accept my offer. But I don’t think you’re giving yourself enough credit. You had to make two sacrifices, didn’t you, Henry?”
My father goes silent. He’s panting softly as he takes out a handkerchief and wipes his brow. He folds the fabric into a smaller square and tucks it back in his pocket before he speaks again. “Our agreement forbids either of us from discussing that subject.”
Two sacrifices?
“And it forbid you from referring to me as insane. So I think we can both agree that our agreement is now null and void.”
Two sacrifices?
“What was the second sacrifice?” I demand.
Mandel sighs. “You never opened the present I left on your computer, did you?” he asks.
When you’re ready. The folder he said contained a reason to live. “No.”
“Ah, then you’re missing a crucial piece of data.” Mandel thumbs through my father’s file and plucks out a photo. “There was something standing in the way of our wager. Or rather someone. Someone who might have gone looking for her son.”
I remember what Lucas said. Most of the kids at this school are orphans. The rest might as well be. And my father confirmed it the day I was arrested. The academy only recruits students who are alone in the world. “You can’t mean . . .”
“A picture’s worth a thousand words,” Mandel says as he holds the photograph out to me.
“I thought you knew!” Joi whispers when I drop her hand to take the photo. “It was in the file!”
“I never opened the file.”
The photo shows my mother lying on her bed at our house in Connecticut. No, not lying. Being held down. There are three men in the room with her. Two have her pinned to the bed. My father is injecting a syringe full of liquid into one of my mother’s arms.
“Who took this photo?”
“An associate,” Mandel responds.
“What does it mean?” I know, but I want to hear it from him.
“It means your mother didn’t c
ommit suicide. She was put to sleep.”
I hold the photo out so my dad can see it. “You killed her? So that I’d be able to enter the academy? So you could win your f—ing wager?!”
Never once in my entire life have I seen my father struck dumb. I’ve watched him charm confederates, outsmart rivals, and devastate enemies with a few well-chosen words. He was always prepared. Now my father’s silence is his confession.
My father always told me that I was my mother’s son. He made it sound like an insult, but I didn’t give a damn because it meant she was mine. Then he took her away, and I had no one left.
He’s keeping his eyes fixed on me. My rage is steadily building. The demon has returned. I will rip the bastard limb from limb. I want him to suffer. I want him to feel the pain he put me through. I want him to know the terror I felt the morning I found out I was all alone.
“Speak!” I shout.
“I did what I had to do,” he tells me. And I can see he believes it. He’s proud of himself. He’s proud of how far he was willing to go. “I don’t regret it.”
“Jude told her he had proof of your father’s crimes. She thought she was finally free to file for divorce,” Mandel says. “But you couldn’t let her escape, could you, Henry?”
I’m already across the atrium. My body slams into my father’s. He sails backward and falls hard on the tile floor. I’m on top of him. Left hand on his throat. Right hand pounding his face. It feels good. I won’t stop until he’s as hideous as Jude was that night at the funeral home. Until his eyes bulge in terror the way my mother’s did in that picture. I won’t stop until he’s dead.
But as good as it feels, I know something’s not right. My father is not fighting back.
“Flick.” The static in my brain is so deafening that I’m not even certain I heard her. But I glance up at Joi. Mandel has her by the arm. He’s ordering her to stay quiet. But she doesn’t need to speak. I can see my reflection in her face. I know I’m the one who’s hideous.
I take my weight off my father’s chest and shake out my fist. Mandel doesn’t seem worried that the fight may have ended. “There’s something else in the file, Flick.” His arsenal isn’t quite empty yet. “Your father remarried a few months after your mother’s death. His wife gave birth two weeks ago. Congratulations on your new son, Henry.”