Chapter Fifteen

 

Convergence

 

Rebecca Riggs walked alone in the dark.

She had left behind the lights, the path, and the ghost-singing. She was going down blind, with only the night sounds of the forest for company. Her feet were bleeding and scratched, but she could no longer feel them. The one sleeve she still possessed was torn up the middle. Her pants had been fairly shredded as she stumbled helplessly into briars and forced her way through thickets.

She imagined herself stepping out, suddenly, onto nothing. One sheer drop, totally undetectable, and her little escape plan would be foiled in a quick and crippling plunge—or, if she were lucky, a fatal one. She didn’t want to be left out here to starve or for the animals to eat, but it was easy to imagine it happening.

Where she could, she held on to tree branches as she walked.

Her watch told her it was ten at night. She’d left DTR twenty-one hours ago. She’d gone more than a full day without food. She thought of her least favorite DTR supper offering, the infamous Tuesday burger sliders that tasted like hockey pucks on bread. A person had to drown them in ketchup and mustard just to soften them up enough to get down. And yet the thought of them was dreamlike, torturous. The hunger was simply unbelievable.

She tried to block it out, to focus on using her hands to see, to keep putting one numb, bleeding foot in front of the other. Sometimes it worked. Other times she had to manage different, more hopeful things to think about.

She had long since passed the point where she had heard the fake animal roar and imagined a bear lying in wait for her. For that reason she was pretty sure she was in entirely new territory now, going down the side of New Sinai opposite from where she had entered.

I will do this, she told herself. I will come out the other side. If they’re waiting for me there, then fine. Then there was nothing I could have ever done. It was all stupid and for nothing.

Yet the desire to make it that far filled her heart and strengthened her. They didn’t want her to emerge on the other side. All of their efforts had been spent trying to lead her back the way she had come. And that was enough to make her want to succeed.

Let me beat the mountain, God. Just let me beat that.

There was hope that way too. Not much, but a little.

Miss Paula had seemed to think so.

 

****

 

Rebecca on the Run: 0:20:35.

DC took in the scene and sighed.

It looked like Marcy Barrows would be receiving her just reward alone. There was no way DC could turn Paula Darby over to the magistrate and the courts like this. He barricaded his displeasure behind a wordless glare, directed first at Wendy, who was supposed to be the reasonable half of this partnership, and then at Barney.

Fixing the situation could not wait. He’d have to get the magistrate’s ear, stat, and explain. There’d be no real trouble, but Paula’s hearing would have to be delayed until she was presentable again. That would require doctors, medical accelerants…

He could make a case for a closed hearing, but that would take time, and it would require reports. He hated reports.

Or he could just have her killed. Could tell the magistrate she’d made a move and forced his hand. It would be quicker. Safer too. This one had a mouth on her—its current condition notwithstanding.

This one has a conscience, he corrected.

God on a rod, this was inconvenient.

“Didn’t keep her end of the deal, DC,” Barney said in that annoyingly nasal voice of his, discarding his white coveralls onto a folding chair. Underneath he wore a simple T-shirt and jeans. He rubbed his horn-rimmed glasses on his shirt and put them back on. “Didn’t do what she said she would do. If we don’t have discipline, what do we have?” His sneakers were blood-rimmed at the bottom from when he had stepped carelessly.

Wendy chewed her fingernails, but she managed to say, “Blessings of the Lord,” between nibbles.

It was done and there was no undoing it. No time for argument, for conflict. He returned the salutation, unable to fully repress his snarl, and stepped closer for a better look.

She was in the restraining chair, clamped in place at the wrists and shins. Her fingers twitched and shook, all splayed and extended. Barney had given her all ten of the inch-long steel splinters. He’d put four surgical staples through her lips to keep her as quiet as possible. She still made noise, though—caged screams, as she blew blood bubbles and hitched breath. One of the staples had nearly come free.

In order for her to be this aware, after all that, Barney must have given her a shot too.

“Idiots,” he said.

The screams tapered to sobs. She was relieved, DC knew, that someone who was not a full-blown psychopath had returned to this tent. He shook his head. He didn’t want her relieved.

But then he thought of a fourth option. Commutation of prison time—to service. That could be achieved quietly. Immediately.

Perhaps she had reason to feel relieved after all, if she was more cooperative this time.

“Don’t clean her up. Not yet, anyway. But get all that garbage out of her. I need her to talk.”

Barney went for his coveralls.

“Not you,” he said, then motioned to Wendy.

“But I’m already dirty.”

“Barney,” DC said, his voice devoid of emotion, “every time you open your mouth, I want to kill you a little more. And as much as the species would be improved by your absence, I just don’t have the authority. So don’t tempt me. Shut up.”

Barney shut up.

“Right now I need you to go to the med tent and bring back an antiseptic injector or some very strong antibiotics. I don’t trust your tools.”

He escorted Barney outside and pointed in the direction of the medical tent. He didn’t say anything, just watched him go. Meanwhile, DC stayed where he was by the open flap, but he didn’t go back in. He waited, listening impassively to Wendy’s ministrations and Paula’s responses.

He quickly got bored, then remembered he didn’t have time to be bored. He spoke into his shoulder radio, channeling a fellow lieutenant who worked for the Masada PD. “Zach?”

“DC?”

“Yeah. Looks like I’m going to be a while. Maintenance. Go ahead and pick up the other one. Put her on ice until we’re ready.”

“Roger that.”

Meanwhile, if the FBI started wrangling jurisdiction, DC was pretty sure he’d hear from Mrs. Black directly. Still, one could never be too careful. Negotiations might keep her too busy to contact him.

“Let me know if the suits start to move in too. Okay?”

“I’ll let you know if I notice anything” came the response. “But it’s not like they’re going to check with me first.”

Me neither. “Understood. Thanks. Out.”

 

****

 

Rebecca on the Run: 0:21:02.

Caroline found Brian again and stayed close to him. She was afraid. She’d lost Laura in the crowd, and everyone else—grownups and kids alike—seemed like her enemy now. Thankfully he didn’t push her away or ditch her. Not that she would have let him. She stuck to him like flypaper.

They sang together. Not knowing if it was against the rules or not, they took turns holding the sign aloft. No one seemed to mind.

Her eyes returned to the big screens, to the counter that kept going up and up.

At prayer time, they went to their knees and bowed their heads. Miss Lisa tried to lead them. Caroline tuned her out.

Brian regarded her. “Think she’ll make it a whole day?” he whispered.

“I hope so,” she whispered back.

And I don’t even know why.

Prefects moved through the crowd. It wasn’t safe to keep her eyes open during prayer. Even on a normal day at DTR, the offense was always met with swift and resonating consequences.

They get to keep their eyes open, the petty part of her thought, a bitter reflex. Spying on us.

But Brian had closed his eyes and was moving his lips, silently praying or faking it for show.

She followed his example. Then, from behind, she felt a hand take her upper arm. Another went over her mouth.

She opened her eyes. She’d expected to be busted for peeking—by one of the guy prefects, judging by feel. But the man who grabbed her was much older than that. In fact, he was a police officer. Swiftly, he had her on her feet and began marching her away. She dared not make a sound.

The camera people were praying, the screens gone blank. Only the prefects would have seen anything, and they were ignoring her. Even Brian, trembling as he stayed on his knees, kept his eyes shut, kept himself safe. Would anyone do anything if she tried to scream?

No. She knew better than that. Everyone knew better than that.

 

****

 

Rebecca on the Run: 0:22:14.

Paula leaned over the makeshift metal sink and spit. Then she sat back, blinking, still in the restraining chair but unrestrained, and waited for the painkillers to kick in. She felt herself being rolled back to the center of the tent, back to the cop.

“Look,” he said, holding a screen to her face that looked like a slightly oversized phone. “I’m going to show you something you need to see. You’re going to speak to Rebecca again, and soon. After you see this, you can tell her all the ‘truth’ you want.”

The painkillers worked fast. Even as the woman in the tent wrapped her fingers, the torment mellowed to a dull, throbbing heat. Her lips felt fat—she could feel the holes from the inside with her tongue—but there was no real pain there. The side of her face where the teeth had come out … nothing. No pain at all.

She didn’t know if she would be able to speak, though.

But she looked. She found herself unable to resist. Whatever she was told to do now, she would do it. It wasn’t the medicine that coerced her. No one—not even the monsters from Angel Island—used those kinds of drugs anymore, not since the Scourge. Taking away a person’s free will was an offense against God. Absolutely illegal.

If they could do that to her, they could do it to Rebecca.

Paula was certain she was still in possession of her mind. She made a choice. She didn’t want the medicine taken from her. She didn’t want to be tortured anymore.

She focused on the image.

“What you’re seeing right now,” said the cop, “is Rebecca. She’s the little red moving thing, almost like a stick figure. As soon as we first pinpointed her location, we had her unique heat signature. As long as we don’t turn the tracker off, we can determine exactly where she is—for the rest of her life, if we really felt like it. After you’ve received your sentence, we’ll do this to you. It’s not even expensive.”

The image showed Rebecca feeling her way through the woods as if she were blind. The trees looked silver on the screen. Other animals, some birds, appeared in varying shades of yellow. She was making her way down, miles from DTR, on the Masada side of New Sinai. She tripped, slammed her hand on the ground in frustration, and got back up.

The image retracted, showing a larger view. Rebecca was reduced to a blinking red circle as the cop thumbed the grid to another point that showed a large gathering of residents from both DTR and Prodigal Sons. “That group is the one Rebecca will likely encounter if she actually finishes her little hike. We have them positioned at all points. She can’t escape. It’s a mathematical impossibility.” He thumbed the image to a second group of kids, a second likely point of exit. A third. A fourth.

Paula found her voice. It traveled past her broken lips, slurry and slow. “Not sure what you need me for, then.”

“We don’t,” the cop agreed, placing a hand on her knee and squeezing it, like a father—

…or a pervert…

—might do. “We don’t need you in the slightest. But you need her.”

Paula shook her head, confused.

“There’s an opening for cafeteria work at Angel Island. Twenty years of conscripted service in a place with clean air and among the God-fearing. Beats thirty to forty in prison smoke stacks and chemical refineries.”

Paula had to admit it probably did.

The cop switched off the grid display and nodded to the woman, who returned to her camera. “On the other hand, if Rebecca doesn’t make a good show of her surrender—if we have to take her, in the end…”

Paula lowered her head.

“…I may just send your rebellious little soul to Hell myself.”

I’d prefer that. I’m not going to Hell. Wouldn’t surprise me if you did, though. “You won’t kill me. You’d have done it by now. What am I supposed to say, anyway?”

The cop nodded. “Only the truth,” he answered. “You’re uncommonly good at that.”

 

****

 

They could not get her before the timer ticked over to a full day. Putting all the pieces in place took time. The did have a second air-ski very near to her, piloted by a marksman with a tranquilizer rifle—just in case she should wander off toward someplace, or something, dangerous—but it remained unlit and invisible and was never called into real action.

 

****

 

Rebecca on the Run: 1:00:00.

DC watched the clock turn over through his front windshield, driving his cruiser to the interception point. His lip curled when it did. It didn’t matter. He would have his quarry.

Well played. Oh, the counselors are going to love you.

He parked and took out his shock coils. He waved to the forest ranger who was waiting for him and moved through the milling crowds: first the National Guard, then the media, and then—passing under the tape—through the crowd of kids.

 

****

 

Rebecca on the Run: 1:00:00.

As for the kids, they watched it like most of the television audience did: wide-eyed and mute. It happened at a moment without song, without amplified prefect-led prayer. No one dared applaud, not with so much law enforcement present.

But several of them were smiling—some even grinning broadly.

And then a few of them did go to their knees, including Brian, and prayed.

For real.

 

****

 

Rebecca on the Run: 1:00:00.

Ruth Black saw it on her computer monitor within her tent, all while sipping coffee and bidding Lester Tatum farewell for now. She had readily agreed that if they did not have Rebecca by three in the morning, she would step aside without fuss.

Plenty of time.

Caroline was in there, crying, flanked by two of the Masada cops.

I saw you in the elevator, Ruth had told her. The first time with Rebecca. I don’t think Mrs. James did. But I don’t miss much.

“You really should calm down,” she said now. “You’ll be with your friend again soon.”

Your parents will be notified in the morning, she had told her. You’ve aided a runaway. There’s nothing they can do to help you.

“In fact, you won’t be separated from her for a long, long time.”

Best to pack up the darkness and the threats, for now, and let some light shine through. It was time for Ruth Black to begin the work she would later continue on the island.

“Please…,” Caroline whispered.

Ruth came to her, put her arm around her shoulder, and led her away from the police to the middle of her tent. Then she urged her to her knees and knelt next to her. “It’ll be all right,” she said. “Bow your head.”

Caroline obeyed.

By the time they were done, her crying had stopped.

 

****

 

Rebecca slid onto her behind, her back against a tree. For long moments she didn’t move, her arms dangling at her sides, her hands flat on the ground. She had been looking for a likely place to sleep. And if it weren’t for what she now saw ahead of her, she might have found one.

Less than a mile away, she saw lights. She saw the cameras and the crowds. Faintly she could even hear them singing “Blessed Assurance,” one of her favorite hymns.

And she laughed. She just couldn’t help it. Thankfully she was quiet about it, but there was just no resisting. She palmed away fresh tears, getting dirt in her eyes. This was too rich.

In front of her, the ground dipped sharply. Not enough to kill her, nor even do her serious harm. Just enough to roll her right to her captors, if she should misstep.

There were so many of them. Dozens—maybe a hundred. She was too far away to make any of them out. She wondered how many she knew.

She saw the riot cops and was totally perplexed. One cop, she understood. This many—well, maybe they weren’t here for her. Something else must be going on. Something important.

Beyond the people, the lights of Masada burned in a green fog glow. She’d done what she’d set out to do, it seemed. She had made it to the other side.

The hymn ended. She saw the crowd take to its knees as a single body—or a puppet. Where was the puppet master?

Her eyes started to close again in spite of herself, even as her fingers sleepily traced the muddied insignia on her prefect’s shirt. Damascus Teenage Retreat, the raised letters read. Where daughters come home to God.

A noise behind her, a whizzing like an electrical current. She heard branches snap back. A quick crackle—right by her now.

Her eyes snapped open as the shock coils whipped around the base of her tree like a professionally hurled bola with a heat tracker. They wrapped her at the ankles, yanking back and sending her onto her stomach. They coiled around her feet, automatic and taut, and emitted an arcing, paralyzing bridge of bright blue fire that traveled the path of her spine.

She never made a sound. She lay there, flat on her face, and twitched, fully conscious. For at least ten seconds, she couldn’t even breathe. Quite apart from the pain, which would linger for hours, feeling her lungs squeeze shut brought her to a state of total panic so complete that she could not even make words in her mind.

The power to move her arms and legs returned before her breath. She pitched and jerked. Finally, even as she heard the footsteps, her lungs unclenched and air rushed in.

The coils stayed on, but they didn’t shock her again.

She knew they could, though.

Totally busted.

The cop cuffed her, rolled her onto her back, and patted her cheek. It was the asshole with the air-ski.

Rebecca spit full in his face.

He brushed the spittle off with one hand and reached out with the other. He took her by her undamaged ear, forcing her head back, her neck to arch. “You’re done, Rebecca. Ask yourself, ‘What’s it going to be like for me if I insist on being a little bitch about this?’”

“I win,” Rebecca said, her breath forced and uneven and somehow animal. “I—win.” She saw the confusion in his face and grinned at him.

He returned the look with a frown. “Time to listen to Miss Paula again,” he said, reaching into his vest. He withdrew a palm cam and turned it on. “And time for you to be reunited with Caroline.”

She felt her grin melt away.

“Seems she aided and abetted you. You don’t want to go to the island alone, do you? Because I can assure you, she sure as hell doesn’t.”

Rebecca kicked, banged the back of her head against the hard ground. Wordlessly, into the impassive night sky, she wailed.

Then Miss Paula appeared on screen.

 

****

 

Rebecca, it’s over. I’m sorry.

Everything I told you was true, and so is this: they won’t just let you go. They’ll never let you go.

They’re everywhere. There’s no getting away. I’m sorry. I should never have put you up to this. I’ve only made you suffer.

I’ll pay for it, though. I’ll be right there with you. I’ll be there even longer than you will. Much longer, I think.

We can’t escape. I’m sorry.

And Rebecca saw her as she really was, with no special effects. She saw the white bandages on her hands and fingers, gone pink and red from spreading blood. She saw her bruised face, her ruined lips.

If you’re watching this, they already have you. They’ll take you no matter what now. If you don’t do it the way they say, they’ll make it worse for me. Worse for you.

And, after a pause.

Worse for Caroline.

More dead air.

Rebecca, please.

The screen went dark.

 

****

 

Rebecca on the Run: 1:01:13.

Applause preceded her actual emergence from the woods by a full ten minutes. They saw her on the screen before they saw her in person with their own eyes. No one stopped them from applauding her. Ruth certainly made no move to prevent it.

It was a moment for rejoicing. They could all agree on that. Rebecca was safe at last.

Ruth had also arranged it so Rebecca would meet Caroline first. It was best that way. She might completely break down in front of the cameras, and that could only be a good thing. But I will not be far behind. It’s time we got to really know each other, Rebecca. This is only just beginning.

And, finally, she appeared.

She was a wreck. What was left of her clothes was a tattered ruin. She was caked in mud and blood. Her hair stuck out everywhere, like a lost dog’s. Her eyes were blank, like she’d fought a war and lost. Which, really, she had.

But she was met like a hero.

We love you, Rebecca! someone shouted.

And then someone else did. And then another. And another.

It wasn’t until they started chanting, though—

…This is what the truth is…

—that the riot police began shrinking their semicircle, squeezing in on the kids and silencing them.

Caroline ran to her and put her arms around her. She cried too. But although Rebecca hugged her back hard, no tears escaped her eyes.

Ruth approached, with the night blinking on and off behind the flashing of the cameras, with the eyes of the crowd following her progress toward Rebecca. The quiet expanded, then took on life, spreading like the wings of a dragon. The girls disengaged from each other and faced her.

Ruth wanted a hug too. And she got it, to the collective gasp of the onlookers. They had expected something quite … different, it seemed. Ruth smiled benevolently, eyes turned up gratefully to her Lord and Savior. She let one of her own tears loose, a little trick she had been able to perform at will since earliest childhood.

“Are you the one?” Rebecca whispered in her ear.

Ruth held her, rubbing her back. Good heavens, this little creature is filthy. Smells too. “What? I’m not sure I understand.”

Rebecca leaned in closer. “The one who murdered my mom and dad. Or did you have someone else do it?”

Oh, this was going to be an adventure, all right.

“I did no such thing,” she said in her most reassuring tones, pulling back from her. “You’re going to need to give us a chance, Rebecca. All will be clear in His time. You’ll see.”

Rebecca let go and hung her head. But she stared at Ruth with upturned eyes. No one but the two of them heard what she next said.

“I … win.”

Ruth let it go. Let her go with her friend.

Led by police, flanked by a shocked and disappointed crowd, they went to the back of DC’s idling police cruiser and allowed themselves to be ducked inside.

 

Rebecca in Custody: 1:01:25.