“What?” I asked dumbly, caught off-guard by his comment.
Aiden closed his eyes. “Sarah… found out about a secret method of Empathic Electromancy that certain factions of the Order had begun employing. And it… disturbed her.”
“I don’t understand,” I started, “you already told me this…”
“Well, there’s more,” Aiden replied. My mouth snapped shut. “Sarah apparently searched the archives to learn more and found unauthorized general-access entries posted there – uncensored articles that had been published for anyone searching the public archives to find with the right keywords. They were put there by your mother shortly before her disappearance. I didn’t know about any of this until last week, when I read my father’s file – because his file also contained excerpts from your mother’s file.”
I lowered myself unsteadily to the edge of the bed.
“These entries explained, in detail, how Asterian Officers were using Electromancers to affect moods, alter memories, even erase them… They were effectively engaging in psychological torture against dissidents, traitors, and non-Elementalists who had inadvertently witnessed things they shouldn’t have…”
I stared at Aiden as he paced; the words spilling from his mouth felt like tiny daggers, each one hitting a fresh, vulnerable spot on my body as he spoke.
“Your mother headed the program for several years leading up to her disappearance,” Aiden continued, “It appears that when she left, she wanted to make sure that other people would learn of the atrocities that had been committed by her and others. But it seems only one person managed to stumble onto those archives – my sister. And when Sarah tried to spread the word of what she’d learned, they had to contain her.
“After my sister’s… disappearance… my father grew cold, callous. Angry. At the time, I assumed it was from her abandonment. Yet another serious misjudgment on my part. Now I’m beginning to see that he blamed your mother for my sister’s imprisonment. It wasn’t until she was gone that his efforts to find David and Elizabeth Fulman intensified. He became obsessed, consumed by his struggle to track them down. Even then, I recognized his increasing rage every day that he failed to find your parents,” Aiden said, slumping into a chair. “And I was there, manning my station in the D.C. Containment Center, the day that tip came in, stating that David and Elizabeth were hiding in Sacramento.”
He looked at me, his eyes filled with agony.
“I not only heard my father’s side of that call, but during my final days in the Asterian Order, I unknowingly helped him train and organize the team that eventually tracked your parents down.”
I stared at him wordlessly. A cold, empty feeling was beginning to spread through my body, replacing the shock and pain his words had inflicted. The silence stretched between us, weighing down the very air we breathed.
“I’m so sorry,” he said, his voice barely a whisper. “I know I should have told you sooner.”
“Let me get this straight,” I said, slowly rising from the edge of the bed. “You helped the Asterians hunt down my parents?”
He slumped into a chair, grimacing at the floor. He never cared about me. He only pitied me.
“Is that why you’ve been so committed to helping me? Because you had some sick feeling of guilt you were trying to alleviate?”
Aiden’s face contorted as though he’d just been slapped. Somewhere behind me, I heard a loud pop.
Vaguely, I could feel my fingernails digging into my palms. “Did you already know who I was when I entered your classroom? Is that why you looked at me the way you did – with disgust?”
Aiden shook his head vigorously. “No, I swear, I had no idea who you were. I sensed that you were an Electromancer when the lights flickered and my first thought was that you were a spy sent by my father. That’s the truth.”
“But that night on the porch, after I broke into Savannah’s office – I mentioned my parents’ names – you knew then, didn’t you?” My voice was rising. “Didn’t you?”
The lamp beside the bed grew brighter and brighter until… Pop! That corner of the room went dark.
Aiden rose to his feet, holding up his hands in a placating manner. “I barely remembered your parents, and even after you told me their names it took days for everything to finally click.”
“You honestly expect me to believe that you didn’t remember training the team that hunted them down?” I demanded, my voice growing shriller.
“I helped train many teams—” he started. My eyes narrowed. “Look – at the time, I didn’t know what that team would be used for, I only did what I was instructed to do. It’s a horrible excuse, I know, but it’s true…” He rubbed the bridge of his nose tiredly. “Listen, you asked me once, on our first date, why I left the Order, what made me realize what they were. It was those last few weeks that made me realize the truth I’d been trying my best not to see: my sister’s disappearance, my father’s rage, my mother’s deterioration, the bizarre memos and whispers circulating around the Containment Division… In a way, it was not just Sarah’s disappearance, but your parents’ reappearance that made me realize that I was part of something…evil.”
I cradled my temples, feeling faint. “Asking me to be your friend, inviting me over for dinner… it was all just to make yourself feel better,” I choked out.
“No, that’s absolutely not—”
Suddenly, I had an even worse realization: Even when Savannah called him out, Aiden swore he didn’t know any of the details about my parents’ capture.
“You lied to me,” I whispered. “That night, in the Records room…”
Beside me, the television suddenly flickered alive and a cheerful-sounding woman’s voice trilled loudly from the screen, “…Not only that, but if you call in the next five minutes, we’ll throw in an extra order at absolutely no extra cost!”
Aiden was staring at me, his eyes wide. “Aspen, please listen – I swear, I didn’t mean to lie to you. I just didn’t realize – didn’t remember – until that night.”
“…but wait, that’s not all!”
I shot an angry look at the television and the screen went black again.
“But I asked you that night!” I practically yelled. “Why did you insist you didn’t know?”
“Because these things happened three years ago!” he shouted, then immediately winced. “I’m sorry – that night, all I could think about was what they might do to you – how helpless I was, how outnumbered we were! Nothing else was registering.”
“Even still – after you read Terry’s file, after you found out all those things about my mother,” I said, my voice rising, “You knew I was doing everything I could to find anything – anything – about my parents, and yet you kept that information from me?”
Pop! Pop! Pop! Every light in the bathroom behind me exploded.
Aiden rubbed his face in exasperation. “I wanted to tell you, Aspen, I swear, I was just trying to figure out how—” The last light in the room, the floor lamp beside the table where he stood, glowed brightly, temporarily bathing the room in cool, white light.
Pop!
We stood facing each other in near-pitch-black darkness. An empty, hollow silence filled the room; the only sounds to be heard were the rasps of our short, shallow breaths. My head was pounding so badly, I dimly registered faint pulses of purple light, thrumming with the same cadence as my racing heart. I shook my head to clear the visions.
“Aspen – nothing from my past dictated my motives or my feelings for you… and I swear to you, I was going to tell you everything. I’ve wanted to tell you every day since I understood the role I played – especially once I’d realized last week that your mother was connected to my sister. I just… I just didn’t know how to.”
“Get out,” I whispered.
“Please—”
“Get out!” I screamed, as all the lights outside the motel window abruptly went dark.
***
I wandered aimlessly along the pitch-black streets surrounding the motel for a long time, ignoring the throbbing in my head, the tightness in my chest, the buzzing of my phone in my pocket. Years ago, after I woke up in that cabin, I was alone, frightened, and destitute – but I still had hope, a sense of purpose, as feeble as it may have been: Find food. Make fire. Earn money. Keep going. And in my solitude and confinement, there was no one around to hurt me. My family members were still faceless, nameless, intangible concepts; my neighbor, Evelyn, was just a kindly stranger who insisted on bringing me dinner. I’d avoided romance, never tried to forge a friendship, never heard of the Asterians. I was a blank, untarnished slate.
But that night, for the first time in my life, I felt completely, utterly hopeless. A maelstrom of thoughts and emotions churned ruthlessly in my mind: I don’t know who to trust. I don’t know what to do. I can’t save her. I can’t abandon her. A man is dead. My father is dead. Savannah’s coming. Aiden lied to me.
…Wes.
My throat caught. How happy I looked in that photo with him, dressed for a ball or some sort of dance, my hair set in curls, my rouged, smiling face worry-free.
Call him as soon as you can, if you haven’t already, I’d written myself. He’ll be devastated when he finds out you’ve left.
Safe beneath the cover of darkness, underneath the black streetlamp, the cloud-obscured moon, I took my phone from my pocket and stared at its empty screen, reflecting upon the past I’d once known, the distant life that belonged to a stranger.
“I wish I’d never left home,” I whispered.
As though in response, the voice that had haunted me for as long as I could remember once more drifted through my ears – only in that moment, the whisper sounded more like a taunt:
Don’t attract attention. Don’t let them find you.