The trip across town to Matthew's favorite skating place takes us about thirty minutes. Once we pass the police blockade, it gets easier for us to move faster. It's past sunset now, and the darkening neighborhoods we pass through are eerily lonely. Not a single person loiters the streets. It's just us and whatever Blanks might be lying in wait.
We eventually reach the neighborhood with the giant slope that Rachelle deciphered from Matthew's belongings. We split up into two teams of four and three: the reconnaissance team, and the protection team that watches over them. The group composition is based on how best to get results while maximizing our survival chances, which is why Saige is put in charge of protecting Rachelle while she gathers more information and Adam is assigned to watch over both of them with his shielding ability.
Naturally, Marcus puts himself in the reconnaissance group. Whether it's because of his girlfriend or because he wants to monitor Rachelle's progress is unclear, but no one questions his choices. He's always been the leader, and even now, so far from that place we knew as our temporary home, he still calls the shots.
"Well, ladies," Pablo says as he saunters over to Janie and me, "It looks like it's just the three of us. While Marcus works to solve the case of the disappearing flipper, what do you say we do a bit of exploring ourselves?"
He waggles his eyebrows and grins like he just said the most clever thing ever. His smile vanishes abruptly, and his expression fades to one of dazed fascination with Janie. It's like he's staring into the brilliant sun as it eclipses his entire world.
"Janie?" I ask, looking over at Marcus and the others as they make their way toward an abandoned house with a lawn of brown, uneven grass. "Doesn't using your ability on your teammates go against some unstated code?"
"So does sexual harassment, but when has that ever stopped Pablo?" She lifts a finger and runs it along the underside of his chin, giving him a flirty smile. "Besides, he's a lot more bearable this way. Come along, you overgrown puppy."
Janie leads us over to a thick oak tree and sits with her back against it. Our position gives us a clear view down the slope and the surrounding homes, while also keeping us hidden out of view of the street lamps. If anyone tries to approach the house, we have just enough time to warn the others and step in if things get violent.
Hopefully it'll continue to stay this dull.
I lean sideways against the tree, resisting the urge to bolt across the street and join in on the adventure. Rachelle's ability is fascinating. It's the one thing that calls to me on a deeper level, the power to know things. To gather seemingly meaningless details or confusing data and convert them into useful information.
If I had this ability, I sure as heck wouldn't be fumbling to know the past. I would literally have it at my fingertips.
The phone that Willow gave me buzzes in my back pocket. I pull it out discreetly, dim the screen light, and read a text message from an unknown number.
You must be the wealthiest person in existence.
Uh--what?
I can't help responding. Excuse me?
You clearly seem to think you can afford the luxury of time.
This strange, ambiguous person can only be him. Are you Hermes? I type out. The security guard from the facility?
Hermes will do for now.
I glance up at the house, realizing I lost track of my task, and spot the group as they head into the house across the street. Despite the glazed look on Pablo's face, Janie still has everything under control. Her eyes sweep the streets, seeking out and analyzing all potential threat. I'm standing above and slightly behind her, which means she hasn't spotted me texting yet.
Is there something I should be doing? I ask Hermes.
There are countless things you should be doing.
Seems like my sort-of-new friend has an issue with open-ended questions. Will you tell me what they are?
I did tell you. But you're not very good at following directions, April Parker.
I stamp out the prickle of annoyance I feel. You'll have to tell me again because I don't remember anything before last night. Willow blocked my memories.
Did she also take away your ability to use email?
The emails. He's the reason I still have them? I flash back on what Sam told me, rolling the words around in my head to make sense of them. He instructed me to get in touch with Hermes, which is what I'm doing now, so clearly I've fulfilled that directive.
The only other email was contact information for the microbiologist. If you're talking about George Hansel, his phone number is disconnected and I have no way of getting to him.
The only thing limiting you is your imagination.
This guy is ridiculously obnoxious. I'm starting to wish Marcus had shot him in the foot. Can you help me or not?
The next text he sends me is a phone number. Contact the boy with the Blank, he adds. He will help you get to your destination. And make sure to bring along the right questions, April Parker. Only then will you find the answers you need.
What do you mean? I ask.
I'm not surprised when he doesn't answer. He seems like the type to wrap up a conversation on an ominous note. At least now I have Davey's number. I memorize it this time before sending him a text. He tells me he's a couple of miles from me, and we agree to come up with a plan about George Hansel once I'm alone.
A little while later, the others emerge from another house. Almost immediately, Pablo starts blinking like he's coming awake from a deep slumber. Janie gets up from her spot, dusting the seat of her pants as she waves them over to us. It's soon apparent from their anxious faces that they haven't found him yet.
"We're definitely at the right place," Rachelle says in a low and serious voice. She buries her hands in the pockets of her jeans and shuffles on her feet. "He was hiding out in that last house when the Blanks found him. He ran into the woods at the back of the house. The doorknob on the back door told me."
"The dark woods. Lovely," Janie says sarcastically.
Pablo stares at her. "Did you mesmerize me?"
"Would you believe me if I said you sleepwalked over here?" she asks with an innocent smile.
"I don't believe this! You dumb bi--"
"Not now, Pablo," Marcus barks at him.
His face is bright red even in the darkness. We all ignore the murder in his eyes as Marcus continues, "We've come a long way for this kid to give up now. We'll stay together this time. Have your weapons ready and follow me."
This is a bad idea, I think to myself as we circumvent the rusty swing set of the closest home and head off into the shadowy thicket. The others switch on flashlights, and I silently kick myself for not bringing along my own. Apparently sneaking off into dark woods is something we do often enough that we come prepared.
Rachelle touches the trees and even the forest floor as we move along, muttering things to herself. "It's this way," she says from ahead of us and slightly to our left.
"You talking to the ground now?" Pablo scoffs.
"No, genius. There are signs someone's been through here." She huffs. "My dad's a hunter. He didn't spend eight years teaching me to shoot and track prey for nothing."
That sort of explains her ability in part. Except she's a tracker of knowledge now.
We follow her deeper into the woods, spread out so we can cover more ground. Janie shares her flashlight with me, but neither of us say a word as we move forward. It's too quiet here, and every crackle of twigs and every whisper of leaves in the wind makes my body tense with foreboding.
We come upon Matthew by accident. Saige wanders too close to a tree and brushes up against it, then lets out an ear-splitting scream. She stumbles away from it and trips to the ground before scrambling away on her hands and knees, whimpering loudly.
The others rush from every direction and crowd around the tree. My tension-filled stomach sinks with horror when I take in the sight.
"Oh my God," Rachelle breathes.
Matthew's limp body is dangling from the tree, a rope around his neck and secured to a thick branch. He's still swaying from the collision with Saige. His clothes and ripped and streaked with blood and dirt, and his skin has a ghastly pallor in the beam from Marcus's flashlight.
Saige and at least one other person are sobbing. I don't realize I'm not breathing until my lungs burn. I knew what we were doing wasn't fun and games, but nothing drives the point home better than a dead body swaying from a tree branch. Especially a dead body that belongs to a boy whose inner thoughts I've been hearing over the past few hours.
This is the fate of Matthew Hill. A depressed teenage boy who loved to skate, enjoyed his homework, and wanted to build a stable life for himself and his mother.
"Well, damn," Pablo says, sounding shocked for once.
"I don't want to be here," Saige says from the spot where she fell. She jumps to her feet and starts backing away from the dead boy, her eyes big and wide. "Marcus, can we go back?"
For once, I'm in complete agreement with her. Every moment we spend in this place makes me think we'll never walk out of this nightmare. Marcus nods to her, brandishing his handgun. "We don't know how long he's been dead. They might still be around. Let's get the hell out of here while we still can."
We don't make it far.
I manage to step back just as a shadow falls on top of me. My attacker manages to get ahold on me anyway, and we tumble to the ground together. He's on top of me, a dark-clothed man with a mask. Not a Blank: his pupils are black in the night.
A needle drives deep into my thigh. I scream in pain and reflexively slam my hand into the syringe, sending it flying from his hand. He retaliates by gripping my throat and pinning me to the ground. The darkness around me is oozing into my bloodstream. I try to hold on, but the world is rapidly slipping from my fingers.
Gunshots are going off around us, the noise distant and meaningless in my ears. One of the bullets must have hit him because he collapses on top of me. His hands slacken, but I don't have even half the strength I need to shove him off.
His weight is suddenly thrown off me. Adam is beside me at once, helping me to a sitting position as I wheeze through my aching throat. The whirlwind of violence has died down to a near standstill. Marcus is at the center of the storm. He's surrounded by at least six uniformed men and his gun is pointed square in the face of one of them.
It's Alec. I stare at him like the ghost he is. His smile is a punch to my gut. There's no joy behind it, none of his familiar charm. It's a smug, ruthless expression that reminds me of Jonathan Blaine.
"Isn't this fate?" Marcus says in a deadly tone. "You, in the same position as Sam Parker when you shot him in the head."
"Some might even call it serendipity," Alec quips, unfazed. "I just think of it as bad luck. But you're not going to shoot me, are you, Marcus? Even you wouldn't be that recklessly bloodthirsty. You'd be sentencing the rest of your buddies to die with you."
I look around, searching for the rest of our team, bewildered when I don't find Lisa or Rachelle.
"How could you kill this innocent boy?" Janie asks, stepping up beside Marcus.
He shrugs his shoulders, deliberately avoiding looking at her—so he won't be ensnared by her ability, no doubt. "That's not on me, Janie. You can call me many things, but morbid isn't one of them. The Blanks you guys released into the world are responsible for this. We just got here in time to clean up the mess."
"The mess?" I ask, and he looks at me for the first time. I see his eyes drift past me, like he's searching for something. Someone. "Does that include us?"
"Not if you come with me."
Janie takes another two steps toward him, moving into his line of vision. He looks away again. "We're not going anywhere with you, Alec, you traitorous piece of shit. How could you betray us?"
"Janie," he warns. "Stop."
Another step. "Or else what? You'll kill me."
"I won't, but they might," he says, tilting his head to indicate the armed men surrounding us.
How the hell are we going to get out of this? I'm looking for an escape route when I notice a silent exchange between Marcus and Saige. He's mouthing something to her. Do it now. She's trembling when she nods hesitantly. She closes her eyes.
That's when I figure out what Janie's doing. Even without being able to use her ability, she's doing her best to draw Alec's and the guards' attention to her.
"Willow would be heartbroken if she saw you now," I say, hoping the words will hit him hard, make him lose track of everything else.
I hear the faint intake of breath he doesn't quite mask. Then his eyes go cold. I can't accept that this is Alec Blaine, one of the only friends I've ever had. He's supposed to be one of the good guys. His ability to erase people's pain comes from his deeply caring and empathetic nature. So how could he ever become this person?
He looks around at those of us still left. "Whether or not I die, this ends one way. So let's cut to the chase, why don't we? You have five seconds to put your weapons down and surrender. I promise you won't be harmed."
"Yeah, right," Janie snaps, her hands twitching at her sides. She looks like she can't make up her mind what to do: bolt in the opposite direction or throw a punch at his exceptionally handsome face.
"Four."
Adam tosses his gun down and sticks his hands in the air. My body thrums with nervous energy. Alec wouldn't let them kill us, would he? But everyone else has changed so much in the past eight months. I'd be foolish for thinking he's still innocent.
He'll never be innocent. Sam's blood is on his hands.
"Three."
Pablo glares at Alec and then grunts when one of the guards shoves his rifle in his side.
"Alec, we can talk about this. . ." I begin, my eyes darting to Saige and Marcus.
She's still standing there, her body quaking visibly, her lips pressed together. To any observer, she looks scared out of her mind, but I know better. I just don't know what's taking her so long.
"Two."
Marcus must be thinking the same thing because he suddenly yells, "Saige, do it!"
The world suddenly goes dark. Without waiting for a signal, I spin around and take off in the opposite direction, only to slam into a solid body. Strong hands grip my arms, and my injured hand throbs in answer. Solid muscles and a familiar scent of musky soap envelop me. No words need to be said. I don't fight Marcus when he clasps my wrist and tugs me after him.
Our movements are hesitant and fumbling as we flee into the thicket in the wake of more intelligible noise. It takes only five seconds for our vision to return, but we've managed to disappear deeper into the thick foliage before the guards catch sight of us. We don't make the mistake of thinking we're safe. Instead, we keep running full speed.
Foliage scratches at our clothes and faces. My rough panting is all I hear except for the pounding footfalls of another runner. Janie, I identify with a great deal of relief.
Marcus lets my wrist go and despite the pain flaring up everywhere, my body is primed for action. My muscles still remember how to work to maximum efficiency. It takes us until we get to the neighborhood we were searching through earlier before we're certain no one pursued us. And with that knowledge comes the realization that, out of the seven of us, we're down to four people: Marcus, Janie, Pablo, and me.
"Where's Saige?" Marcus asks, frantically looking back at the woods as we hurry down the street.
I race after him, ignoring the pain my leg and side, frantic thoughts overcrowding my head. What the hell just happened?
Janie looks shocked beyond words. Pablo is too busy gasping for breath to answer immediately. "I don't know, man. It's not like I could see anything, thanks to her."
"I had her," he mutters as he shoves a hand through his hair. "She was holding on to me. I thought I could save her and . . ."
And me. I know that's what he almost said; it's clear in the way he's avoiding my eyes. He rubs his face with both hands and lets out a sharp breath. "Dammit! This wasn't supposed to happen. I can't lose her now."
"Who cares about her?" Janie says, angrily marching after him along the dark sidewalk. "They took Adam! Your best friend."
"You should be a lot nicer to her, considering she saved your ass."
"And how many times has Adam done the same?" Janie retorts. "I don't see you treating him like he can turn shit to gold."
"What do they want with them?" I dare to ask, interrupting the furious tension in the air between them.
"Nothing good," she mutters. "They're probably killing them as we speak."
"But Alec promised—"
Marcus wheels around on me, his eyes burning in the light of the street lamps. "You really trust him after he blew your stepfather's brains out?"
I flinch, the blunt, brutal words delivering a deep blow. "It's not my fault that your girlfriend's been kidnapped. Don't take your anger out on me. And I'm sorry if you're starting to regret saving me instead of her, but I didn't ask for this."
He doesn't answer me. It's hard to tell, but I think he's grinding his teeth. Pablo chuckles. "You guys are such great friends. I can see how much you care about each other."
"Shut the hell up, Pablo," Janie says.
We go back to our borrowed manor in defeat. Some of the rooms are lit from the outside, mostly the parlor and the upper floor bedrooms. Willow greets us at the door and takes one look at our collective depressed expressions before trepidation enters her hazel eyes.
"What happened?" she asks.
He jerks his chin at the doorway behind her. "How's everything in there?"
"Same as you left it. Mr. and Mrs. Heinrich are tucked into bed and the servants have retired to their quarters. The other kids are dispersed throughout the house. Now can you tell me why there are only four of you? What happened to the others?"
Marcus brushes past her without a word. As we walk into the giant gleaming kitchen to get something to eat, Janie fills her in. I watch her face when Janie invokes Alec's name, but other than a slight tic in her jaw, she betrays no other reaction. Something tells me this isn't the first time we've heard news of Alec's activities in the past eight months.
She takes pity on our bedraggled state and whips up sandwiches for us. Or maybe this is her way of keeping busy so she doesn't have to think about the boy who broke her heart. Marcus is sitting at the kitchen table, his expression gloomy. Thinking about his missing girlfriend, most likely. Would he care this much if I was taken? I'd never say this to him, but it would kill me if he was the one Alec and his goons had dragged off into the night.
"All of that for nothing but a dead body hanging from a tree," Pablo grumbles.
"Have some respect for the dead, asshole," Janie says as she sits on a stool at the kitchen island.
He looks up when Willow sets a plate down in front of him, giving her his conceited version of a smile. "The dead don't care about your respect, baby cakes."
Janie looks at our leader. "We are going to try to get them back, right, Marcus? They're our friends. And if that doesn't matter to you, then they're assets we can't lose. Without Rachelle's tracking ability, we'll have a hard time finding more flippers. Not to mention Saige's illusions and Lisa's spying and Adam's . . . well, Adam."
"I don't know."
We all look at him in surprise. He sounds numbed, and even the absentminded way he picks apart his sandwich suggests he's not altogether with us. Saige said before that they're in love, and his demeanor now makes that apparently clear. He's acting like someone who's lost something precious and irreplaceable to him.
"Marcus?" Willow asks.
He looks up at her and sighs. "I don't know what you want me to tell you. I don't have any answers right now. So you should do whatever feels right to you."
His words jar me in a way I didn't expect. It's like fingernails digging at a hole, shaking lose crumbs of hard dirt and letting through enough light to blind me.
My sandwich falls onto my plate. I grip the edges of the kitchen island and bend over as feelings, intense, dizzying, frantic emotions, pour through me. Pain and anger and frustration so deep in my skin I want to scratch until I draw blood.
"Do what you think is right."
Marcus pushes me into the wall, his grip on my biceps almost painful. He blocks my escape, making sure there's no getting around him. No avoiding his obsidian eyes. There's a desperate, beaten look in them that I've never seen before, and I'm weighed down by the knowledge that I caused it. I resent him for it. "What about what I want?" he says roughly. "Answer me, dammit. Does that even matter to you?"
"April?" Janie says, leaning toward me. "You okay?"
"Y-yeah. I'm fine." Just as quickly as the sensations came over me, I'm free of them. I try to focus on my surroundings, still dazed by what I felt. What I saw.
I look at Marcus with new eyes, and with the dawning realization that our relationship, my life, was more complicated than I could ever hope to fathom.