Railius took the entire mountain road at eighty miles per hour, and it was everything I could do to not throw up as he told me the plan in clipped, quiet tones. They were tracking Connelly Stewart, and a Haunt operative would kill him at midnight. We had to be on level 3B, ready to gather whatever Hushed may show up and get them into the woods. It was 11:05.
I agreed to help, with one condition—we check level 2B for Fabian. I hoped he wasn’t there. I hoped that he wasn’t that stupid. Railius agreed, no contingencies. It wasn’t like him.
“You weren’t lying about Adelaide?” I asked.
“No, I wasn’t.” It scared me to hear his voice come out so small.
“Are you going to tell me what happened?”
“There is no time, and it doesn’t matter now.”
“Can you at least tell me what she wants?” I asked.
“Darkness and death. The unraveling of everything. War between humans and Hushed.”
“So, the same thing she’s always wanted,” I replied.
Railius looked at me strangely. He wasn’t used to someone knowing Adelaide like I did.
He nodded.
“How much backup did you call?”
Railius kept his eyes on the road. “None. There’s a chance the other cells are being watched, and I couldn’t risk blowing our cover for this mission. We might have cover from a nearby cell for our exit, but that’s it.”
“So we are the only hope,” I clarified, trying not to sound frightened.
Railius nodded.
The ravine was dark, but I was sure-footed. I stepped over fallen trees and avoided low-hanging branches. I even counted steps like I’d done the walk hundreds of times before. I hadn’t, but Dr. Davie had. And I remembered every time.
“You sure know where you’re going,” Railius whispered, tripping over a branch. It gave me more satisfaction than I wanted to admit.
“Yes,” I answered as he got up. Short and sweet. I liked that he started talking first. For the first time since I’d met him, I felt like I had the upper hand.
Then, we were there.
Ironbark sat on the bottom of the ravine, its great stone face dark and foreboding in the gray haze and rain.
I’d never wanted to be here again. If it were up to me, I’d spend the rest of my life on the opposite side of the earth from this hideous thing.
Yet here I am. Again.
I felt the familiar burn of fear release from the back of my neck and spread over my jaw. I clenched my teeth and curled my fingers up in a ball. Not now.
The adrenaline raged, but I managed to keep my mind clear enough to keep my wits.
Railius let out a low whistle, and someone dropped down from the tree next to us.
“Fuck,” I breathed, throwing my hand over my heart.
Svenja smiled. “I knew you’d come around,” she said, hugging me. She smelled like peonies. Peonies. In the middle of a bloody war zone.
My phone buzzed again. It was Logan, but it stopped after two rings.
“Have you seen my brother around here?” I whispered to Svenja.
She shook her head. “Sorry, love. I haven’t been looking.”
“He’s kind of hard to miss,” I mumbled. I looked around.
“Wait. Where are Ajit and Margaret?”
“On the other side of the ravine. They’ll cover us when we need to get out.”
I nodded.
“Lead the way, Eerie,” Railius said, a strange respect in his voice.
I stepped forward, slipping in mud.
A bullet whizzed past my head and buried itself into the tree trunk just inches from my face.
“What the hell?” I hissed.
Svenja put a finger to her ear. “Um. Yes. That was Margaret. She says ‘Hi.’”
It was now or never, and I pushed through the trees. Dr. Davie had walked that path almost every day. He wasn’t just in Ironbark for monthly checkups or to oversee executions. He was there every day, taking the secret way in, and working on the floor that wasn’t supposed to exist.
I hadn’t stopped long enough to hate him. I hadn’t had time. But there, in the dark, walking the path he’d walked, I started to. He had growing dread and reservations—I got that much from my periphery. But it wasn’t enough to stop him.
Svenja came up beside me.
“Thank you,” she whispered, and I was grateful for the distraction. I could hate Dr. Davie all I wanted, but I was still part of him. My worst fears were true. For the first time in my life, I started to understand Reed, and it made the weight in my chest over losing him that much heavier.
“Don’t thank me yet. Let’s just not get killed.”
The trapdoor was halfway down the hill, and we were soaked by the time we reached it.
I kicked the debris sideways and leaned down, my fingers hovering over the keypad as I took a deep breath. I followed where my fingers led, trying to ignore the raindrops pelting the back of my head.
11. 4. 17. 28. 21. 21. 15. 5.
Nothing happened.
“Does it even still work?”
A hand scanner lit up, though the light was dim enough that those on the hillside would never be able to see it.
I stopped for a moment, and then put my hand against it.
It’s making sure I’m not Hushed.
Of course. They would’ve made provisions in case he was killed.
They hadn’t counted on the slip pill. It read that I was human.
A little green light in the corner of the door lit up, flashing twice.
Beep beep. It popped open.
The light turned red, and for a moment I worried that I’d just sent a signal. Somewhere, someone knew that this door was open.
Then I remembered. Nothing about 3B was in the records. Even most of the security detail on the main floor didn’t know it existed.
The winding stairs were just as I remembered them. Out of instinct, I skipped the third to last step and told Railius and Svenja to do the same. When I got to the bottom, I looked back. It was rusted out. It looked like it had been out for some time. Dr. Davie always avoided that step.
I punched in a different set of numbers at the door.
13. 6. 29. 26.
With a thick hiss, the sliding door opened.
The hallway was massive, with the white tiles reflecting the fluorescents, making the whole place almost too bright. I had to squint until my eyes adjusted.
“There’s a patrol that goes into the stairwell above every fifteen minutes,” Railius explained, pulling two guns from a holster over his shoulders and handing me one. Svenja re-laced a boot as Railius spoke.
My eyes were pulled to a doorway on my left.
Railius was still talking when I walked over and punched in another code that came to my mind, unbidden.
“Eerie? This is important,” he warned.
“So is this,” I whispered to myself.
The door popped open.
The room still smelled like bleach and lemon-scented cleaner, though someone had turned all the furniture upright.
I felt someone behind me as I walked toward the familiar desk.
“Eerie?” Svenja whispered.
I stepped closer to it, craning my head to look below. I knelt on the ground where I had stirred.
My phone buzzed again, but I didn’t even feel it, really. The memory of that night rushed through me like a fed flame, and I saw everything.
Dr. Davie, who was supposed to check Madeline Winspeare out of her cell and lead her to the lab for the first trial run of his new procedure, decided that he couldn’t go through with it.
Instead, he decided to help Sam MacDonald get Madeline out. Together, they were going to expose what the Internment was doing to the inmates, as well as the experiments they were financing. They were going to tell the world about the war the Internment was planning to start.
I saw glimpses.
Dr. Davie meeting Sam in the break room. Both of them walking toward Madeline’s cell. They escorted her down to level 3B, but there were more guards on the bottom level than they expected. Dr. Davie shouted at Madeline and Sam, telling them to run. But he didn’t know about the fail-safe.
The kill-switch the Internment had installed in case anyone tried to escape.
It went off seconds after the guards found Sam and Madeline, setting dozens of fires throughout the prison in a matter of seconds and locking all the doors.
The Internment would rather kill everyone inside than let one person escape to tell their secrets.
Some of the other guards realized what was happening and tried to fight their way out, but several Internment loyalists shot all those trying to escape. Dr. Davie was reaching for a fire extinguisher when a guard shot him from behind. Madeline and Sam locked themselves in a stairwell, where they died from smoke inhalation ten minutes later.
I saw flames and blood. I saw Madeline and Sam holding each other as they took their final breaths.
The screams grew louder in my memory until a sob wrenched from my chest, pulling me back into the present. I was standing in the lab, tears streaming down my cheeks.
I lurched forward, reaching for the bottom of the desk, pulled by the edges of a memory. My fingers searched the bottom of the underside of the desk, stopping when they hit the fraying, cracked paper taped there.
Carefully, I pulled the paper loose. With shaking fingers, I opened it.
If you are reading this, I am sorry. It means you exist, and I do not. I leave you with a terrible legacy. When Connelly contracted me to develop this procedure, I knew I should have said no, should have turned down this post and moved back to New York. But I couldn’t pass up this chance for unlimited funding, and for that I am deeply ashamed. Now you exist, my Hushed, and you know what damage this horrible knowledge can do. I beg you, please. Do not give in to what your very essence asks you to do. Fight to right this devastating wrong I have committed. I hope you will find this note, along with the coat and boots I left for you. You must run, and never stop. Connelly was not the only one who knew what I was trying to accomplish here. There are bigger threats, and they will be hunting you.
I’m so deeply sorry. Only now, hours from committing professional and possibly quite literal suicide, do I understand what Oppenheimer meant when he said: “I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.”
I am become death, so you must become more.
—W. Davie
I wiped tears from my face with the back of my hand.
This room was so full of sadness. I knew what he was doing there. The procedure he intended to practice on Madeline. I knew what kind of hell it could raise.
I’d thought this knowledge would consume me, tear me up with its terrible teeth and spit me out, leaving a gaping wound in my chest that would shred my mind and send me running for my Wounded. But for the first time, I felt purpose, and it filled me with a fire I had never felt before.
I am become death, so you must become more.
The procedure he’d discovered was going to be used to extract Hushed from living people. And while the Internment vowed that it would only be used in the direst situations, Dr. Davie knew better. That’s why he was quoting Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb.
He had created something that was going to be theoretical. Rare. But weapons never stay rare.
I am become death, Oppenheimer had said.
And Dr. Davie knew his procedure would be just as dangerous. The Internment would give the procedure to the military, who would use it to extract whatever they wanted from whoever they wanted. And that wasn’t even considering what atrocities would be visited upon innocent Hushed that were pulled into existence.
No secret would be safe. It would be the beginning of the death of free will. My mind spun as I thought about how many secrets were kept to keep people safe. How many secrets were kept to keep lives together.
“Eerie,” Railius said, his voice strong enough to make me jump.
I spun around, and Railius motioned for me to follow. This would have to wait. We had to go get Fabian. I stuffed the note in my pocket.
“Are you okay?”
I nodded and wiped away the last of my tears.
I looked down at my watch. 11:35.
We moved soundlessly up the stairs to level 2B. Svenja stood behind me and pulled out two small, curved blades. The handles were bent inward and wrapped with leather binding. I looked at her over my shoulder.
“You brought knives to a gunfight?” I hissed.
“They’re called falcatas,” she whispered, spreading her fingers wide and redoubling her grip, “and believe me. The Internment made a mistake bringing guns to my knife fight.”
When I didn’t say anything, she winked.
Level 2B looked nothing like the one below. Where there had been tile and well-lit hallways, there was now rough concrete and open bulbs. The fire damage was more evident up here.
Three guards were headed our way from the other direction, one wearing a hat that said “security.” I held up three fingers over my shoulder to Railius and Svenja as I looked around the corner. When they were ten feet away from us, the guard in the hat stopped. Without a word, he reached up and hit the guard over the head, knocking him out. When the second guard turned back, the one in the hat punched him in the face.
“What the—”
The guard took the hat off and turned to face us.
Logan.
“What the hell?” I hissed, stepping out from behind the corner. Railius and Svenja followed.
“I ran to your house when I heard about the mob and saw Seph and Eva in that guy’s truck. They told me what happened and that you’d run off with ‘a friend.’”
“How did you get that?” I gestured to the guard’s uniform.
“Felony record? I’m good at this sort of thing.” Logan shrugged, as though that explained everything. He pulled a gun from one of the passed-out guards and handed it to me.
“We don’t have time for twenty questions,” Railius said brusquely, pushing past us with his gun braced in his hands. “Stay with us, Winspeare. We’ll get Fabian, and then you two are getting out of here.”
My face burned as Logan looked at me, his expression puzzled.
“What is this, Eerie? I thought we were done with the Haunt.”
“Let’s survive this, and I’ll tell you everything. At least, what I can without, you know. Dying. Okay?” I said.
He kissed me quickly. An agreement.
The locker room was a wide space with metal rafters running across the ceiling and lockers lining all the walls. A small closet with a mesh door was tucked in the far-right corner.
Fabian was kneeling at the base of an open locker that sat in a corner. He looked up, startled, when we walked in. “What is this?”
“What is this?” I snapped, pushing forward. “I told you to not do anything tonight!”
“Yeah, ’cause we always listen to each other,” he quipped.
His eyes went from me to Railius, to Logan in the guard’s uniform, and then to Svenja. My breath stilled in my throat as I remembered . . . Fabian belonged to Sam.
I could see the tension on Fabian’s face, but before I could tell Logan to leave, Fabian shook his head. “It’s fine, Eerie,” he said, answering my unasked question. “I feel the Pull, but it’s not bad. Probably because there is something else I need to get to. Something bigger than just one secret.”
Logan’s eyes widened, but he took it in stride as he looked at my brother and nodded once.
“If you feel it getting stronger, tell me,” Logan said, and Fabian returned the nod.
Fabian turned back to the locker, and Svenja closed the door before standing in front of it. Logan stood next to her, pulling the hat lower and keeping his eyes fixed out the narrow window into the hallway.
“Whatever this is, it’s important, Eerie,” Fabian explained.
“11:42. You have thirty seconds,” Railius warned. I looked over Fabian’s shoulder. Deep inside, at least a foot down, was a metal box. It fit just inside, with its edges wedged in.
Fabian grunted, trying to pull it out again and failing. “We can fight later. It’s wedged.” He looked back at Railius. “Who is this guy?”
“Railius,” I answered.
Fabian paused.
“Like . . . Railius Railius?”
I nodded, purposefully keeping my eyes from his. “And he says you have thirty seconds, and you’d better believe him.”
“Fabe, will this work?” Rory called out, walking out of the closet with some WD-40 in hand.
Railius looked up at the sound of her voice and his face tightened, turning the color of ash.
Fabian yanked the box one more time, and it wrenched free.
“Got it,” he said, triumph in his voice.
Railius spoke, and it was so low I almost didn’t hear him.
“Adelaide.”
“What?” Rory asked.
There was just enough moment for a breath, and then all hell broke loose.
Railius lifted his gun at Rory, and she dropped the can she’d been holding.
Svenja stepped away from the door, her blades ready for a fight.
“Whoa, what the hell?” Rory asked, her voice high-pitched and panicked. Fabian stood up, and Railius pulled another gun from the back of his holster and pointed it at Fabian’s chest. Logan whipped out his gun and pointed it at Railius’s chest just as I pointed my gun at Railius’ head.
Then Svenja took a step forward and wrapped her blade tight around Logan’s neck.
“Don’t move,” Railius said, his eyes fixed on Rory.
“Railius! This is a mistake,” I hissed. “A mistake we don’t have time for.”
Railius shook his head. “The whole time. You were right with her the whole time,” Railius said, a manic, breathy laugh escaping from him.
Rory’s eyes filled with tears, and she looked at me.
“Eerie. What’s he talking about?” she whispered.
“Railius. She’s my best friend. I’ve known her for years. She’s not Adelaide. You’re imagining things, and it’s 11:45. We don’t have time for this.”
I met Logan’s eyes. His hand worked its way slowly to Svenja’s arm, and he squinted at me.
I understood.
Now.
Logan yanked free of Svenja, and it seemed like everything slowed down. Fabian knocked the gun out of Railius’s hand, and Railius knocked Fabian back against the lockers before turning back to Rory, his eyes filled with a wild hatred.
The gun clattered to the floor, and I lunged at him.
Without skipping a beat, he pulled a knife from his boot and held it out, and I stopped just in time so that the tip of the blade touched my chest.
I looked up and met Railius’s eyes, and everything went black.