smoke & mirrors
◤twelve◥
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"Where are we going?"
Just like all her previous questions, this one was ignored. Evan let out a huff and crossed her arms over her chest as she leaned against the side of the moving van. The seats were uncomfortable and almost every muscle in her body ached, but she refused to show them.
Gally only glanced at her as he kept his rifle aimed on her. Cliff was driving, occasionally looking over his shoulder to make sure she hadn't knocked Gally out. Him taking his eyes off the road every 2 minutes put Evanna even more on edge. It didn't help that the streets were crowded.
Although the windows of the van were tinted, Evan could look out perfectly. She could see the people strolling about, face masks covering the lower half of their face. Others only had scarves or bandanas. She wondered if they knew the Flare was airborne. Nothing would prevent an infection. Only immunity.
"It's Gally, right?" Evan spoke up, wanting to get rid of the deafening silence. She needed something to take her mind off of everything. She didn't want to think about how most of the people she saw now wouldn't be the same anymore in a year.
He raised a brow, grip on the rifle tightening. "What's it to you?"
"Just trying to get to know my kidnappers, that's all."
She heard Cliff scoff from the driver's seat. "We ain't kidnappers. And you should consider yourself lucky you're still alive, WICKED scum."
"Don't, Cliff," Gally said, eyes briefly glancing at the other boy before settling on Evanna again. "Don't give this shank the satisfaction."
Shank
Shank
Shank
Where had she heard that before?
It sounded like a made-up word. What did it even mean? He didn't use it as a compliment, so it was something bad. But Evan felt like she would've guessed that even if he had used it in a different context.
Something was gnawing at her brain. The feeling was familiar by now. A memory was trying to push its way out of the mess that was her subconscious. She knew the word. She had heard it before. She just couldn't remember where or who had said it. It was nothing short of frustrating.
"What's wrong with you?" Gally suddenly asked.
Evanna only realised then that she had been frowning. Her head hurt and her vision was a little blurry, but it wasn't anything unusual. She shook her head at him. "Nothing. I'm fine."
"No one who's said they're fine are ever really fine," he remarked.
Quirking a brow, she said, "So now you want to talk?"
"Is it the memories?" Gally asked, ignoring her question. He seemed strangely intrigued and interested. Evan didn't know what to make of it. "Are they coming back?"
"What's it to you?" she fired his words back at him.
Gally rolled his eyes and scooted closer to the edge of his seat that was no doubt as uncomfortable as hers. "C'mon, tell me. Are they coming back?"
She was silent for a moment. Why should she tell him anything? She didn't know him, not to mention that he was rude as hell and had a gun aimed at her. But what would be the harm? Her revealing she was regaining some memories wouldn't put her in any more danger than she had already gotten herself in.
"They're trying," she answered as she looked at her fidgeting hands. "Some have come back, others feel like they're coming back, but they just feel ... I don't know – "
"Unreachable," he finished for her. Evan's eyes snapped up from her hands to his. He sighed and nodded. "Yeah, I know what it feels like. Like it's just out of reach."
"How'd it happen to you?"
"Same as you. WICKED took them."
She felt her heartbeat quicken. "How do you know it was WICKED? Did someone tell you?" she paused, feeling her eyes widen. "You got them back. Someone brought them back."
Gally only nodded. Evan wanted to ask more questions, wanted verbal confirmation that it was the Sandman who did it. That he was real and that Gally knew him. But from the way Gally's eyes kept darting between her and Cliff, she decided against it. At least for now.
"We're here," Cliff announced as he turned into the side of a building.
As soon as the van entered, a curtain of iron fell shut behind them, closing the hole through which they had driven. It looked like a garage. Evan rubbed her sweaty hands on her pants and tried to calm herself down.
She couldn't show any of them how scared she really was. They would already know she was a WICKED employee with missing memories, looking for the Sandman. Evan wouldn't give them anything more. She wasn't going to allow it.
Handcuffs were thrown on her lap. Evan looked up at Gally as he stood up, bending a little so he wouldn't hit his head. He pointed at the cuffs with his rifle as he gestured with his head to the backdoors of the van.
"Put those on."
"If I wanted to hurt someone, I would've already done it," Evan said, yet put them on regardless.
The metal was cold and foreign. They weren't anything like WICKED's handcuffs. They were simpler, yet she didn't know how to get out of them. Maybe they had done so on purpose. Maybe Cliff and Gally knew that, as a guard, Evanna would know every trick to get out of WICKED's cuffs.
Gally didn't humour her with a response. He simply waited until she had them on before grabbing her by the elbow and pulling her up. He took a step closer to the door before stopping. He looked behind him and Evanna followed his gaze. Cliff had already stepped outside. When she turned back to Gally, he was already looking at her.
There was something serious on his face. He looked both stern and scared. Evan frowned. It made no sense.
"Try not to talk too much out there," he said lowly, adjusting his grip on his rifle. "Only speak when spoken to, and if I were you ... I'd keep every slinthead comment and remark to myself."
She didn't even pay attention as he kicked open the door and pulled her out alongside him. Her mind was stuck on the words he had said. Or rather just the one.
Slinthead
Again with the weird words she knew had no specific meaning, yet she had heard somewhere before. Evanna wasn't stupid. She knew she had come across these words in the time she was missing. She watched Gally curiously. Had he been with her then? Was he just playing dumb? Did she already know all of these people?
"Who's this then?"
Gally pushed her forward a little. So caught up in her thoughts, Evan almost tripped over her two feet. She glared at the boy over her shoulder. He ignored it. "Found her in the city. At the entrance."
The man looked her up and down. "She doesn't look injured to me. I mean, why else would you bring a complete stranger here?"
There was an edge to his tone, and she felt Gally cringe from behind her. Cliff remained quiet as he stood leaning against an old dusty pillar. It appeared they were used to this behaviour from the man who had yet to introduce himself.
"She knew," Gally began, pushing her a little closer again. Evan pressed her lips together to keep the remarks at bay, but if he kept jabbing her in the back like that, she wasn't going to last for much longer. "She knew what they were going to do. She knew about their guns."
The man raised an eyebrow. His gaze shifted from Gally back to her. There was a glint in his eyes that Evanna did not like and it reminded her of something she couldn't fully put her finger on. "Did she know they were going to blow everyone to kingdom come?"
Cliff nodded reluctantly and muttered a 'yes'. Evan wasn't sure why, but she could guess. Admitting that she knew and could've stopped it but didn't wouldn't work in her favour. They would judge her for it before she ever got the chance to say she did try to stop it. It was just that nobody listened.
"But she tried to get everyone to leave," Gally jumped in before Evanna could even think of opening her mouth to defend herself. "That's how we noticed her. It's because she knew and tried to get everyone to clear out that we brought her here."
The man hummed in response as he circled around Evan. She felt uncomfortable and a chill ran up her spine. She felt like a small prey. "So, you think she's a turncoat, then?"
Turncoat?
They knew she didn't believe in WICKED anymore. Was she really that transparent? Evan hoped not, because if they saw, then surely Janson – who had known her longer – would know, too. He could be watching her right now. Evan knew about the cameras in the city. Maybe the bandana hadn't done enough to cover her identity.
"We do, sir," Gally answered before Cliff could.
Cliff was still uncertain about Evanna and she didn't blame him. She came from WICKED. She worked for them. If she were them, she wouldn't trust her either. Something tugged at her chest, as if she had been through this before.
White halls flashed through her mind. White halls and sand and those haunting brown eyes. Evan wanted to turn and look at Gally. She wondered if he was the one with the brown eyes. The one that always came back in her memories.
She mentally shook her head. No, he couldn't be. His build didn't match, and neither did his hair. Even if his eyes were brown, he wasn't the boy from her memories. But then why did his weird choice of words feel so familiar? If he wasn't the boy, Gally still could've been there.
Letting out a deep breath, the man looked up at the broken ceiling before averting his eyes back to the two before him. He continued to watch Evanna intensely for a few more moments, and then he nodded. She felt Gally let out a sigh of relief.
"We'll take her to Lawrence," he said as he gestured his head towards a closed door. "See what he says."
The rifle dug into her back again. Evan shook it off and glared at Gally over her shoulder. He took a small step back and lifted his hands a little, as if to apologise. He nodded towards the man and the closed door and Evan knew she had to follow even if she didn't want to.
Although she wanted nothing more than to go see the Sandman, a gut feeling told her that this Lawrence man wasn't him. Gally and Cliff had always referred to the Sandman as just that. Lawrence seemed to be an entirely different person.
If they were taking her to him, did that mean he was the leader of the resistance? Did that mean that the Sandman no longer was, if he ever was? A 'what if' pushed itself to the front of the line of thoughts and Evanna wished it hadn't.
What if the Sandman was already dead?
All of this would have been for nothing. Evanna would have dragged Garek in for nothing, let him believe she was dead for nothing. She couldn't have that. She wouldn't allow that to be true.
"Careful," Gally whispered softly from behind her.
It came so unexpected it almost made her jump. So, focused on watching where she stepped, Evanna had almost forgotten about the boy. The underground hideout was filled with broken winding stairs and a mould-like stench hung in the air. Her chest felt tight at the thought of WICKED having pushed so many people into hiding in places like these.
"Who's Lawrence?" Evanna asked instead.
"Someone you'll want to keep as a friendly," Gally replied as quiet as he could. The last thing he wanted was to be accused of conspiring with 'the enemy'.
"Is he the Sandman?" she needed to know for sure. If Lawrence was him, then Evanna wanted to be prepared. If he wasn't, then she wanted to know who this Lawrence man exactly was and why everyone seemed so hesitant to bring her to him.
Gally sighed. "You ask a lot of questions."
"You give few answers," she retorted, looking at him over her shoulder. "Who is he?"
He gently pushed her to walk a bit faster before answering. "I guess you could say he's the boss around here. If you're on his bad side, there's nothing anyone can do for you. You wanna get to the Sandman? You'll have to go through him."
It was all the confirmation she needed to know that the Sandman was here, and he was alive. She couldn't wait to tell Garek. Evan felt something similar to hope bubble up in her chest. As much as she wanted to push it back down, she couldn't. It was something she needed in order to get through this meeting with Lawrence.
There was the sudden distant sound of classical music that echoed through the warehouse. It was muffled and unclear and yet it sounded familiar. It reminded Evanna of something. There was this immense feeling of déjà vu hanging over her, almost taunting her. She breathed out sharply in frustration.
The music was starting to become louder and clearer. Evan heard Gally sigh from behind her, as if he knew what this meant and already had enough of it before it started. The man in front of her whose name she still didn't know shook his head. She felt as though she was missing something.
At the end of the hall, Evan saw a door that stood ajar. It seemed the music was coming from behind there. As they approached it, the music started to become more dramatic, and almost ominous. It didn't help her calm down at all, and the hope she had felt earlier was already practically non-existent.
"Wait here," the man said as they stood in front of the door.
He walked inside and left Evan alone with the two boys. The volume of the music was turned down a little soon after. Evanna almost expected it to come to a complete halt once the man would tell Lawrence who was on the other side of the door, but it never happened. It only continued and when the man came outside again, it even seemed to become a little louder.
"He's ready for you," The man stood aside and held the door open. Evan hesitantly walked through the door, the music only making her feel more unsettled. Then from behind her she heard, "just her."
Alarmed, she turned around and saw that he had stopped Gally and Cliff from following. Evan wasn't sure how to feel about that. She didn't know either of the two boys, and yet she knew she would have felt more comfortable meeting this Lawrence with someone who already knew him by her side.
She swallowed her apprehension and forced herself to continue. Turning back to the room, she saw big broken murky windows. There was a massive collection of plants in one corner of the room, shelves filled with records stood in another. She noticed the record player. Again, a memory pushed its way to the surface, but something grabbed her attention before it could.
There was a table in the middle of the room, littered with books. Behind it stood a man with his back to Evanna. He was swaying to the music, one hand was in the air, finger outstretched as it followed the notes, and the other was holding onto an IV. She stopped a little before the table, not wanting to get too close.
"They tell me you're from WICKED," he said, his voice gravely and rough.
Evanna felt a tug of familiarity at his words. Her hand flew up to her neck. It suddenly itched. Her vision was blurry. She blinked, trying to get the clarity back.
"You came from WICKED, which means you're very valuable."
That voice. She knew that voice. Evanna didn't know from where or how but she knew she had heard it before. Plenty of times, even. Despite the words, she remembered the voice to be kind and caring, protective and careful.
How did she know it? From where did she know it?
"Cat got your tongue?" he asked. Evan realised she had yet to say anything to him. Shaking her head, her vision cleared up and she opened her mouth to answer. His chuckle cut her off. "I know how that feels. Rose got my nose, I suppose."
She wasn't entirely sure what to say to that. Clearing her throat, she carefully asked, "Are ... Are you Lawrence?"
"I suppose I am. And who are you?"
"My name's Evanna," she said, feeling a little awkward talking to someone's back. She felt like he couldn't even hear her over the music. That he didn't care much for what she had to say. "I work for WICKED."
"You still do? Even after coming here?"
Evan gnawed on her bottom lip as she thought about it for a moment. How could she best explain her situation to someone she didn't know? To someone who frankly looked like he couldn't care less?
"Technically, yes," is what she settled with. "but I don't share their beliefs."
His swaying never stopped. "Then why do you stay?"
She frowned. She didn't. That was the whole point she was here, but Evan knew that Lawrence was aware of that. He, too, could see she was here and not with WICKED. "To be of use. To you and your cause."
Lawrence chuckled. It sounded strained. As if the very act wasn't easy for him. "Oh? And I suppose you'd want something in return?"
"I do."
"And what did you have in mind?"
Evan wouldn't lie and say she hadn't thought about it. Andrea had stayed in her mind throughout everything. Her ties with the Sandman, where she was now, what she was doing for the rebellion. Once she had found out the truth, Andrea had turned against WICKED, working against them from the inside.
It only seemed right to finish what Andrea had started. Evanna knew the risks. Hiding her own cause from Janson had been hard enough. Surely, hiding the cause of thousands of people would prove near impossible. And yet, here she was, offering her help to Lawrence in exchange for her memories.
She almost felt selfish. Andrea probably had a better reason for changing sides, but some part of Evanna didn't care. She wanted her memories back. She needed to know what had happened in the months she couldn't remember. The pace at which she was remembering things was too slow.
It almost felt like selling her soul to the devil.
"The Sandman."
Lawrence's swaying ceased. He stood motionless as the music continued playing. His voice, though still audible above the music, sounded softer than before. "What?"
Evan sucked in a breath. She forced the words out. "I want a meeting with the Sandman."
"How do you know that name?"
"Andrea."
It was sort of true.
She saw his posture go rigid. His fist clenched around the IV as he slowly walked towards the record player, his back still turned to her. Lawrence turned down the volume a little, gazing out the broken window as he did so. Evanna imagined a frown on his face; confused or angry she wasn't sure.
"I haven't heard that name," Lawrence said, turning to face her. "in quite some time."
Evan could barely contain her gasp at the sight of him. The first thing she saw was his missing nose. She wondered if a Crank had bitten it off or if it was a side-effect of the Flare infection. One side of his face seemed relatively untouched by the Flare. The other seemed as though it was rotting from within.
His cheek was caved in, decaying flesh stretched over it. The ear was gone, reduced to a small hole covered by deformed skin and veins. Tearing her eyes away from his face, Evan noticed he wore something alike a bathrobe, slippers on his feet. His hair looked unkempt, his hands calloused and ruined.
Lawrence looked hideous, like something out of a nightmare. Evanna was sure she had never been up close with a Crank before, and yet his appearance didn't completely appall her. It was if she had seen worse somewhere. It didn't take long for her to realise the familiarity came from her oppressed memories.
He chuckled humourlessly at her reaction. Gesturing at his face, Lawrence smiled as much as he was able to. "Did they not warn you about my face?"
Evan shook her head dumbly before clearing her throat, pulling herself together. "They wouldn't even tell me who you were."
Lawrence hummed, as if used to that response. He opened his arms wide and said, "I'm the leader of the Right Arm. Everything that happens goes through me."
Her vision blurred, her head pounding. Suddenly she was standing in a dark room. There was sand in her shoes. Her side ached and her wrist burned. Her throat was dry, and she was breathing heavy. There were people standing around her.
"The Right Arm," someone whispered. They looked up at the rest. Evan could vaguely make out their questioning looks. "The Right Arm. If they're really against WICKED, maybe they can help us."
"People ... in the mountains?" a voice asked disbelievingly.
Evan looked to her right. A familiar face greeted her. It was a boy with blond hair and a fading scar under his eye. He looked tired, exasperated. She knew who this was. She had remembered him not too long ago and scolded herself for ever forgetting him.
Newt.
It was Newt – and she recognised him.
"Mountain people?" Newt asked. "That's your plan?"
The scenery changed as she blinked. The dark room turned into a warehouse, much like the one she had been in with Lawrence ... or was still in? She shook her head. She wasn't sure anymore. Discomfort crept up her spine despite the warm and familiar presence from beside her.
"We're heading for the mountains," someone said, an answer to a question. The voice didn't sound distorted or muffled. It was familiar. She knew this voice, had heard it plenty of times before. "Looking for the Right Arm."
As soon as the words were spoken, the room was filled with mocking chuckles and amused laughter. Evanna felt herself shrink. A man in front of her smiled, eyes settling on her. He looked as though he recognised her. She couldn't tell if she knew who he was.
Despite the hostile atmosphere, she didn't feel intimidated by the man's glare. It was as though she could see right through his façade. Evan wasn't sure how, though. From all the people she had seen so far, this one she recognised the least.
"You're looking for ghosts, you mean," the man said, as if the words had conjured some kind of bad memory.
Blinking, Evan found herself back with Lawrence. He was staring at her curiously, breathing in through his parted lips. His head was slightly tilted to the side, one finger tapping against the IV.
She shook her head. "The Right Arm isn't real. It doesn't exist."
An amused small laugh fell from Lawrence's mouth as he straightened his neck. "And yet here we are."
"But how – "
"We had a small number of people stationed in the Scorch that we lost, true," Lawrence said, as if any of that was supposed to mean anything to Evan. "but most of us have been hiding here, right under WICKED's nose."
She didn't know what to say. Remembering mentions of the Right Arm didn't give her any more clues as to what exactly it was. With the way things seemed now, the Right Arm was the rebellion trying to overthrow WICKED, or at least get rid of them.
Evan wanted to groan in frustration, pull at her hair, throw something against the wall. Anything at this point would suffice, because she was going absolutely crazy not knowing anything for certain and missing part of her memories. It was making everything needlessly difficult and complicated and she just wished that, for once, something could go easy.
"How do you know Andrea?" Lawrence asked after a few moments of silence.
"We used to work in the same unit," Evan answered, glad to be pulled from her thoughts. "She'd always tell me stories about the Sandman."
Lawrence's mouth twitched. He swallowed thickly and, for the first time, averted his eyes from Evan. "And, how is she?"
Evan felt her stomach drop, because that single question meant that Andrea hadn't been able to escape WICKED before her unit was wiped out. Unless she did escape but hadn't come back to the Sandman. Where would she have gone to, though? It wasn't as though she knew the city outside the wall or the Scorch very well.
"When I was transferred, we lost contact. I hadn't heard from her in ages and when I wanted to ask her something, I couldn't find her."
"Meaning?" Lawrence simply asked. His voice sounded small, fragile. It suited him better, as a man hooked up to an IV dressed in a bathrobe.
Fiddling with her hands, Evan swallowed the lump in her throat. "The official story is that her entire unit caught the Flare ... but there are no records of it. No one I asked could give me any explanation or clarification. I think WICKED found out what she was doing."
"And, how did you?"
"I found her notes," she decided it would be best to leave out Garek for the time being. Getting Lawrence to trust her to bring her to the Sandman was enough for now. She didn't need to tell him there was another WICKED employee who knew everything. "the notes she wrote to the Sandman, to meet up."
Lawrence tsked. "Careless," he muttered. A breath fell from his lips. It came off as strong and decisive, but Evan could hear the shakiness underneath it all. Lawrence lifted his eyes from the ground and stared at her. He regained his sure and confident posture he had had at the beginning and nodded. "I will arrange a meeting with the Sandman for you."
She felt her entire body lock up; disbelief clear as day on her face. "Tha – "
"If," Lawrence cut her off. "you give us information in return. Valuable information, something we can use against WICKED. They've tyrannised us for long enough."
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hello hello, it's been a little while. i'm finally done with my semester and found some time to write. my year isn't over yet, though, so updates might be slow (so basically how they've always been). i hope this chapter lessened your quarantine boredom a little bit :) if you're still in quarantine because with all these new measures i'm not sure what's going on anymore ahah
hope you enjoyed! leave a comment and or vote if you'd like. stay safe and take care of yourselves.
- saz