––––––––
“How much longer do we have to wait?” Gavyn whined. She pushed her green beans around her plate and pouted. Tendrils of red hair fell free of her ponytail and framed her sour expression. We’d skipped dinner in the main dining hall tonight. Instead, the four of us huddled in the small kitchen in the Pershings’ living area. The food was just as good, though.
Mr. Pershing had eaten most of his dinner already and Cathy and I weren’t far behind him. Only Gavyn chased her food around her plate, not really seeing it.
“You know we can’t leave until we find out where Liam went. Damn it.” Mr. Pershing slammed his fist on the table, causing the plates and silverware to jump. And me—I jumped, too. Nonplussed, I shoveled in another bite of crunchy green beans. They were topped with almond slivers and butter. The food here made me happy.
It’d been a couple of weeks since I’d seen Liam, though it was hard for me to keep track of time. Each day was so much like the others. I woke up, ate breakfast, hung around with Gavyn or Gary or Cathy, ate lunch, and hung around some more. Sometimes Gary let me watch him work in the lab; he even let me brush and style the experiment’s hair. The blonde girl looked just like Goldilocks. After that I ate dinner. Sometimes I got to play with the others in the rec room. We played football or soccer usually. There was an indoor pool, too.
When we weren’t playing or eating, I helped Gavyn with the new recruits. They came in daily, hordes and hordes of people. A lot of the faces looked familiar to me and there were lots of Nevins. They were all held together in a large room until they were injected with the trackers. I didn’t count, but the army was growing by at least one hundred people a day. Gavyn said it was a good thing because the more people they had the more worlds they could take over.
Gavyn made a disgusted sound. “I can’t believe he left her here.” She flung an arm in my direction.
“He’s never acted as we expected, Gavyn. But we’ll find him, I’m sure of it.”
Gavyn scowled at her father. I took another bite, this time mashed potatoes with gravy. Yum.
“I don’t see why we have to wait. He’s just one person, Daddy. Each day we wait, our resources are fewer and fewer. Why would we let Liam screw—”
“Enough,” Mr. Pershing said. Gavyn snapped her lips shut. She glared at me and I smiled back. I hated when Gavyn was angry. She was always so nice to me. She brought me the purple pills every morning and night; they made my headaches go away. Sometimes I woke up in the middle of the night with a headache so bad that I’d throw up. But the purple pills always helped.
“He doesn’t know anything. If he did, he would’ve done something while he was still here.” Gavyn refused to let it go. Mr. Pershing gave a long-suffering sigh and rubbed at the wrinkles in his forehead. He looked tired. Across the room the television let out a low warning beep as new statistics rolled across the screen.
“We don’t know that, sweetheart. Liam is a wildcard—not to be trusted. For all we know he could be out killing her family.” He flicked his wrist.
Gavyn gasped as if the thought hadn’t crossed her mind before. “He wouldn’t do that.” She turned to me. “Would he?”
“Would he what?” I said around a mouthful of potatoes. I’d mostly tuned them out, mesmerized by the statistics on the screen. Water acquired: 16%. Fossil fuels acquired: 47%. Nuclear weapons acquired: 24%...
Gavyn snapped her fingers in front of my face. “Pay attention!” My eyes widened. “Would Liam kill your family?” Mr. Pershing and Gavyn stared at me expectantly while I thought about this. I had no idea if Liam would kill my family. How could I know?
I shrugged.
“Gah!” Gavyn threw up her arms. “She’s an idiot.”
“If Liam was still here we could get the antibody formula from him. We could end all this. If you hadn’t let him escape.” Mr. Pershing pushed his plate away.
“I did not let him escape,” she snarled. “He did that all on his own.”
“Regardless, we wouldn’t need her if we had him.”
“Don’t you think I know that?” Gavyn’s voice rose with every word. She jumped to her feet, clattering her plate and silverware. “Come on, Gavyn, we’re going for a walk.” She threw one last disdainful look at her father before ripping me from my seat.
“Cathy, dear,” Mr. Pershing said as we fled the room, “why don’t you pick up this mess?”
“Of course,” Cathy said, her first words of the evening. The door shut, blocking out anything else.
Gavyn grumbled indecipherable words as we stalked the halls. She took me to the lab and deposited me on a stool while she paced the room. First she checked the stats on the bubbling beakers. Next she read the digital monitors of the experiments. Finally, she sat on a stool next to me.
“Why must I do everything? First I had to get in good with Liam, and then I had to kill Dr. Jamison. I had to find you—isn’t anyone else around here capable of making good decisions?” She didn’t look to me for an answer, just continued ranting. “He promised me we’d be gone by now. Five days ago we should’ve had your mother and father in our custody. We should’ve been settled into our new world.” Her eyes had narrowed to furious slits. With a wave of her hand she cleared the table, knocking the beakers and flasks to the floor. They shattered, reminding me of the noise when someone shifted. “By now I could’ve tortured the formulas I need out of Liam. Instead he’s off doing who-knows-what.” Her eyes landed on me. “And I’m stuck here with you.”
I recoiled from the fury in her words. As she stared at me, her face changed like the sun rising on the eastern horizon. Her pale blue eyes lit up and a smile turned her lips up. “You’re going to help me.”
“Of course I will.”
“Good.” She leaned in close and I strained to hear her words. Her hair smelled like lavender, I realized as she whispered furiously in my ear. When she was finished she sat up and patted my arm. “Maybe you’re more useful than I thought.” With that, she left me in the lab, ready and willing to do her bidding.
***
When Mr. Pershing came into the lab later, I was in the experiment room brushing hair. The door hissed and thudded as he entered. “Gavyn,” he breathed, seeing me seated on a stool.
“Hello.” I smiled. Gavyn told me to be nice. People trusted you when you smiled.
He went to the computers and started punching keys. Strings of numbers and letters that made no sense to me came up. There was a sound like a soft sigh and all the machinery turned off. I looked up, surprised. Mr. Pershing caught my expression. “We’ll have to find new people to experiment on in the next dimension. We don’t want to leave any evidence behind here, just in case.” He winked at me. Standing, he crossed to the first body, the young blonde girl. “Want to help me dispose of them?”
“Of course.” Gavyn’s words swirled in my head.
Following Mr. Pershing’s orders, we pushed the bodies to the edge of the room. Here there was a steel door that led to the outside. Mr. Pershing opened it, letting the scorching desert air invade the room. Outside a large hole had been dug in the sand. It was covered with a tarp to prevent it from filling in. We pulled the tarp aside and dumped the bodies into the pit. They landed with a satisfying thud of flesh on flesh, their pale arms and legs splayed at grotesque angles. Goldilocks’ hair spilled like a shimmering fountain across the hairy chest of a man.
“I know Gavyn is upset with me.” Mr. Pershing sighed as yet another body tumbled into the hole. I wheeled the cart across the sand and pushed it into the room. The wheels clanged against the tile floor. “She’s just a bit more stubborn than I am. I have patience while she prefers brute force.”
I helped him wheel out another body. He paused at the edge, staring down into the pit, his expression blank. “We’ve been planning this her entire life. She will inherit our future; she’ll be the one to take over after I’m gone. I just wish she could see that some things require finesse. If we take over your world before we’re ready...” He trailed off, squinting into the setting sun. “And then there’s Liam. That boy has never known when to quit, just like his father. He could ruin all of us.” His eyes finally met mine and he chuckled. “What am I saying? He’s not going to ruin us. We’re far too involved in this to be stopped now. Your parents will be the final tokens. Once we have them, there’ll be no stopping us.” He grinned. “How do you feel, knowing that you’re instrumental in changing the future?”
I shrugged. Did he really want me to answer? I stared down at Goldilocks’ hair. It was so pretty and straight.
Mr. Pershing laughed again. “And here I am, muttering to an incompetent little girl. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.” He sounded sarcastic.
It didn’t take long to finish dumping the bodies, only thirty minutes or so. By that time sweat poured from me, soaking my clothes and turning my hair into a damp, curly mess. Mr. Pershing surveyed our work with satisfaction. “I’ll have some of the army shovel this in,” he said. He turned toward the rapidly disappearing sun and wiped the sweat off his face.
This was my opportunity. Gavyn told me to wait until he wasn’t paying attention. Moving quickly and silently, I slunk up behind Gary. I dug Liam’s switchblade out of my pocket and clicked it open. While he was still facing away from me, I stabbed him in the back, straight through the heart, just as Gavyn had instructed me. Mr. Pershing made a strangled cry of surprise. I yanked the knife out and plunged it in again. When his knees buckled, it wasn’t hard for me to push him into the pit. He landed on top of the other bodies, looking wrong with his clothes and blood—too colorful. His arms and legs shuddered and stilled.
Shrugging, I wiped the knife on my jeans and jammed it back into my pocket. Gavyn would be pleased.
***
A heavy hand fell over my mouth, jarring me out of sleep. It was a quiet night at the warehouse. After Gavyn ascertained that I’d completed my task, she’d fed me my purple pills and left me to sleep, which I was quite peacefully doing, until now. It was so dark in the room that I couldn’t make out his face, other than it was a he. He was too heavy to be a girl. He had me pinned, his legs on either side of mine.
“Don’t scream,” he warned, breath tickling my ear. I knew that voice. I pressed my lips together. Slowly the hand lifted.
“What do you want, Demitri? Gavyn says I’m not supposed to see you.” I wasn’t allowed to see the other Gavyn either. Or Lena. But I didn’t know if she was alive anymore.
Demitri didn’t answer and he didn’t get off of me. His body sat heavy on my legs. I didn’t put up a fight. There was a rustling sound and then a pop. “Hold still,” he ordered. I pretended to be a statue.
There was a cold pinch in my arm, followed by a dull ache.
“Ow,” I mumbled.
Demitri’s weight lifted from me. I still couldn’t see his face. “Do not leave this room until someone says you can. Don’t make any sound; don’t act like anything is different. Do you understand?” He sounded like he had very little patience for me.
“Yes.”
Demitri hesitated and I waited, gritting my teeth as the ache turned into a burning that spread up my arm and into my chest. “Did you really kill him?” he said finally.
“Kill who?” I’d killed lots of people, I remembered. There was Liam and Nevin and Gary...
“Mr. Pershing. Gavyn told us you killed him.”
“I was eradicating the problem,” I repeated Gavyn’s words. Eradicate the problem, Gavyn, and I’ll let you see your mother again. I wanted to see my mother again, but that wasn’t the point. I always did what Gavyn said. She brought the purple pills. She made me feel better.
The burning spread up my neck, invisible flames licking at my skin. Demitri sighed. “I hope all of this is worth it,” he whispered before stomping from the room. I had little time to process his words before the fire reached my head and I blacked out from the pain.