Free to Fall

33

THE SKY WAS NEARLY DARK when we reached the center of the cemetery, the last hint of light fading fast from the horizon. The angel’s arm was already reaching toward the sky. They’d left the coffin open for us. The irony didn’t escape me. They’d summoned me to a grave.

“Why are you doing this?” Liam asked as we stepped inside the mausoleum. How different it looked now, in this moment, with this boy. The marble etchings were menacing, not beautiful, the space claustrophobic, not cozy.

“They’re the Few,” I said. “What good would it do to run?” I then forced a laugh. “And it’s not like they’re gonna kill me because I don’t want in.” In reality, I was pretty sure that was exactly what they were going to do. From the look on Liam’s face, he had his own suspicions about my fate. I could tell he was conflicted about his role in all this. But clearly not conflicted enough to walk away.

“I really liked you, Rory.” Liked. Past tense. As if I’d already ceased to exist. He nodded toward the coffin. “You go first. Wait for me at the bottom.”

“No blindfold?”

He didn’t meet my gaze. “Rudd said not to bother.”

I swallowed hard, realizing it didn’t matter if I knew how to get in if I wasn’t ever coming out.

I held the railing tight as I descended the spiral staircase into the dark room below. Liam was right behind me. He reached under the bottom step and pulled out a short metal rod. It looked like a flashlight, but when he punched the button on its base with his thumb, it ignited into real fire. “The altar room is the third chamber,” Liam said under his breath. “They’ll be in there.”

He took my elbow and led me through the only door, a narrow archway into the next room. Square, of course, like the one before it, but bigger, and furnished with plush crimson couches and mahogany end tables, all arranged around a thin, woven rug that formed a curve from one archway to the other. A straight diagonal line would’ve been more efficient, but the Few preferred mathematical elegance instead. I knew without seeing the rest of it that the curve would become a golden spiral as it wound its way out toward the tunnel.

Halfway across, I heard voices in the next room.

“You should be thanking me.” Rudd.

“Thanking you.” Dean Atwater.

“Yes,” Rudd replied, but he sounded less certain than before. “I solved our problem.”

We’d reached the edge of the archway. Liam paused and looked at me. I held up a finger. One minute. He nodded slightly. I could tell he was as curious as I was.

“And how, exactly, did you do that?” the dean asked coolly. “Was it by sleeping with a sixteen-year-old girl?”

Liam’s eyes shot to mine, his eyebrows arched like question marks. I quickly shook my head. Not me.

“You thought I didn’t know?” the dean asked when Rudd didn’t answer. I hadn’t heard Tarsus speak yet. Was she even in there? My stomach squeezed at the thought that she might not be. She was my only hope.

“It was an error of judgment on my part,” Rudd said finally, weakly.

“Indeed. Which is a problem, you see. Because it suggests there was an error of judgment on mine.”

Incomprehensibly, I felt bad for Rudd. He’d miscalculated this.

There was a rustling behind one of the couches to my left. But just as I turned my head toward the noise, Liam’s hand gripped my elbow. The dean’s talk of poor judgment had reminded him whose side he was on, I guessed. With a jerk, he pulled me through the arched door.

“But if it weren’t for my relationship with her, we wouldn’t know about Rory,” Rudd was saying as we stepped into the room. He was defensive now. Pleading his case. All at once I knew who Rudd had been sleeping with. Hershey’s mystery boy wasn’t a boy after all.

“And what about what she knows?”

“She doesn’t know anything. Not that it matters anyway. After they commit her—”

I stumbled a little, and three heads turned toward us. Dr. Tarsus was there after all. Unlike the first two rooms, this one was lit with mounted torches that cast a menacing glow on the three figures in its center. They stood apart from one another, in a triangle, the alliances unclear. Liam seemed unsure of who to approach. He’d gotten his orders from Rudd, but it was obvious who was in charge.

“Liam,” Rudd said, gesturing for him.

Liam hesitated then headed for the dean. The old man looked at me, not my escort. “Thank you, Liam,” he said, his eyes on mine. “You can return to your dorm.”

Liam’s hand was still on my arm, so I felt his surprise. He dropped my elbow like it was hot. “Yes, sir.” Without so much as a glance in my direction, he turned and left.

The dean was still staring at me. There were only a few feet between us, and his gaze felt hot, like a spotlight. Beads of sweat sprung up on my lips and hairline.

“Hello, Aurora,” Dean Atwater said. Revulsion ripped through me when he spoke my name. I despised him in that moment, with such intensity that I thought my skin might catch fire. I managed a confused smile.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“That’s what we’d like to know,” the dean replied. His free hand was in his jacket pocket, as if he were holding something there. Something like a gun. The cold sweat at my hairline began to slide down my forehead.

I gave my head a tiny shake. More confusion. Another smile. I glanced back at Dr. Tarsus. In the flickering light, her ebony irises were inky and opaque and completely inscrutable. “I don’t understand. I thought— Liam told me you’d decided to move up my initiation.”

“So you’re ready to take your vows then?” the dean asked.

“Of course,” I said smoothly. “I just have some questions first.”

The dean looked amused. “You have questions.” He pulled his hand from his pocket. The thing he held looked like a gun, but not like one I’d ever seen before. There was a vial of blue liquid where the barrel would be. “I think you’re confused, Aurora, about who owes who an explanation.” He tightened his grip on the trigger.

“I’ll answer whatever questions you want,” I said, stalling. “I just want to know what happened to my mom.”

“From what I understand, your mother died of a blood clot,” Dean Atwater said coolly. “A common complication after a cesarean section.” Fury shot through me.

“I’ve seen the death certificate,” I shot back, too angry now to be afraid. “I want the truth. Was it nanobots? Did you kill her the same way you killed Griffin?”

The dean’s eyebrows shot up.

“Yes, I know about Griffin,” I said, as smoothly as I could. “His death I understand. He was the CEO of Gnosis. You couldn’t let him destroy what the Few had built. But my mom was a high school girl. How was she even a threat?”

“She wasn’t,” Dean Atwater spat, as cold as ice. “Even if she’d gone public with what she thought she knew, no one would’ve believed her.” His lips twitched into a smile. “Not with her medical history.”

“So why kill her?”

He sighed. “Because she was an inconvenience, Aurora. Because she’d gotten in the way.”

The tears sprung to my eyes without my permission. I tried to blink them back, but it was too late. I knew he’d seen them. I fought to keep my composure. He saw that, too.

“Yes, it was nanobots that did it,” he said, baiting me now. “They came in through an IV bag, into her veins, making it very difficult to predict how the clot would travel through her body. It was luck, really, that it worked as well as it did.”

Luck. I wanted to rip his eyeballs out. But I knew it was exactly the reaction he was fishing for. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. I kept my gaze steady.

He went on. “These days, our solution is more elegant,” he said, raising his gun. “We use straightjackets and padded rooms.”

A shiver shot down my spine, but I didn’t flinch. “So whatever’s in that dart . . . it’ll make me crazy?”

“No, your brain will do that all on its own,” Dean Atwater replied with a sick smile. “Once these nanobots reach your temporal lobe and begin their cacophony. Roars. Explosions. Screams. It’ll be the sleep deprivation that ultimately gets you, but we’ll make sure you’re institutionalized long before that.”

“You’re acting like we’ve already made our decision” came Dr. Tarsus’s voice. I heard the sharp click of her heels on stone then felt her beside me. “It seems to me, Robert, that we ought to give our initiate the benefit of the doubt.”

“The benefit of the doubt,” the dean repeated. “What exactly is the benefit of doubt, Esperanza? There’s certainly no benefit to the Doubt, which is what we’re really talking about here, isn’t it?”

“It’s Kyle’s word against hers,” Tarsus replied. She took a step forward so she was a few inches in front of me now. She was standing on her toes, I noticed, like a cat preparing to pounce. “We have no evidence that she’s afflicted.” Afflicted. Like the Doubt was a curse.

“Are you kidding me?” came Rudd’s voice behind me. “It’s so obvious. I hope neither of you are buying this little act.”

“It’s not an act,” I said, as convincingly as I could. “I’m not my mother.”

“Is that so?” said the dean.

“Don’t be a fool, Robert,” Rudd said derisively.

The dean’s eyes snapped past me to Rudd. “Leave. Now.”

“But I—”

“Now,” he bellowed. Rudd stormed to the door.

“So you don’t hear it?” the dean asked me when Rudd was gone, his finger tight against the trigger. “You don’t hear the Doubt?”

It was one word. No. But I couldn’t say it. So I hesitated.

He didn’t. He pulled the trigger.

I heard a click and then the snap and suddenly I was on my knees and Dr. Tarsus was where I had just been standing, a dart sticking out of her left shoulder.

“Esperanza!” I heard Dean Atwater gasp. He stared at the gun in his hands then at her, his mouth hanging open.

“Rory,” Dr. Tarsus said calmly. “I need you to listen to me.” My head swiveled toward her. She grabbed hold of the dart with her opposite hand and yanked it out. “I am allergic to gelatin, the main component of the suspension serum used in this dart. It’s only a matter of time before my throat will start to close up.” Her tone was matter-of-fact. “I don’t know what you’re planning, but—”

“What she’s planning,” the dean said coldly, spinning the chamber of his gun to load another dart, “is less than irrelevant right now.” He’d regained his composure, the shock and dismay of the previous moment gone from his face. Behind him, something moved in the shadows. Someone. He had a black ski mask covering his face and our syringe in his hand. My breath hitched in my throat when I realized it was North. How did he find me?

“Rory,” I heard Tarsus say. “I don’t have much time.”

Something inside me gave way. “You’re a monster!” I screamed at the dean, getting to my feet. The old man laughed.

“And you’re a foolish little girl,” he said, pointing his gun at my neck. “Just like your—”

North grabbed his arm and twisted it behind his back. Dean Atwater screamed and I heard a bone snap. Gritting his teeth like an animal, North drove the needle so deep into the dean’s neck, I thought the entire syringe might disappear into his skin. I heard footsteps then Rudd burst back into the room. It took him a few seconds to piece together what had happened. A few seconds too long. There was a crack and then a groan and then his body was crumpling forward to the ground.

Hershey stood behind him with an unlit torch, her eyes wild and reckless, black streaks of mascara like war paint on her face.

“Asshole,” she spat, and let the torch fall.

He was still breathing, but Rudd was out cold. She kicked him angrily with her boot.

“Hershey!” I cried, rushing toward her. “Are you okay?”

“I am now. What’s happening to him?” She was glaring at the dean, who North had pinned on the ground. The old man was blinking rapidly, trying to stay awake.

“He’s falling asleep,” I told her.

“You’re letting him live?”

“We can’t kill him, Hersh.”

Hershey crossed her arms. “Why not?”

“Because,” North said, getting to his feet. “If we kill him, he wins.”

Hershey’s eyes flicked to Dr. Tarsus, who was kneeling at Dean Atwater’s ankles, untying the laces of his navy oxfords. “What about her? Why is she still conscious?”

“She’s on our side,” I said. “She’s always been on our side. I’ll explain when we get out of here.” When. Thirty seconds ago it was if.

I knelt by Dr. Tarsus. She was wrapping a shoelace tightly around the dean’s ankles. “Your EpiPen. Where is it?” I asked.

She laid her palm on my cheek and smiled. The skin around her eyes had started to swell. “I used it last night.”

Tears rushed to my eyes. She’d used it on me.

“There’s no time for that now,” she commanded, grabbing the dean’s wrists and pulling them behind his back. His dry, papery flesh slid like snakeskin as she pushed up his sleeves. “We have work to do.”

I hurried over to where Rudd lay. North had him on his stomach already and was wrapping up his ankles. He handed me a shoelace, and I went to work on his wrists. Rudd moaned a little as I pulled the rope tight, cutting into his skin, drawing blood.

“God, I’m glad you’re okay,” North said breathlessly.

“How’d you find me?”

“Your necklace,” he said, nodding at the dove. “I put a tracking device inside it. And a camera.” He managed a smile. “I didn’t want you doing anything crazy without my knowing about it.” My limbs were limp with gratitude. For him, for Dr. Tarsus, for the inexplicable fact that I was still okay. “So did you bring Hershey in with you?”

“No, she—”

“I followed Kyle in,” Hershey said softly. The bravado of the previous moment was gone. She was staring at Rudd’s motionless body, tears welling up in her eyes, which were no longer hateful and fearless but sad. She looked so young standing there. Like a lost child. I stood and pulled her into my arms.

“What happened?” I asked.

“I’d been using his skeleton key,” she said miserably. “While he was asleep. That’s how I got you all that stuff. I thought all the faculty had them. I didn’t know he—” Her voice broke. “He caught me with it this morning, and I told him the truth—that we were trying to take down the assholes that had your mom killed. I thought he could help us. I thought—” Her tears spilled over. “He called the psych ward on me, Rory. He said he was getting me a cab, but I saw him dial the number—the same one they gave us the first day of school.” She pulled away from me and swatted angrily at her eyes. “I’m such an idiot. He told me he loved me. And I believed him.”

“Are we doing this?” Dr. Tarsus called. She was wheezing a little now and clutching her right arm like it hurt. Without waiting for a response, she stepped out of her suede pumps and headed toward the darkness of the tunnel.

“Doing what?” Hershey asked.

“The less you know the better,” I told her. “You should go back the way you came. Wait for us at North’s apartment.” I expected her to argue with me, or to demand details, but she just nodded. North handed her his key ring.

“Be careful,” she whispered, her lip trembling a little.

“We’ll be back in a couple of hours,” I assured her as North went for one of the torches. I prayed that I was right.