Twenty-Two

I’d been alternating between disbelief and horror. Everyone here had been manipulated over time, their lives constructed by generations of lunatics.

And I was next in line to become one of them.

Joseph stood up and held out a hand for me to take. “You done reading?”

I could read these files all day and I still wouldn’t be ready.

“Come on,” he said, curling his fingers for me to take. “I promise that if you stick to the plan, it will all be fine.”

Stacking the sheets together, I began mindlessly stuffing them back into the envelope. I’d been on overdrive since his father had left, racing frantically to come up with a better solution than the one I’d been handed. But nothing made any sense.

“I’m not stupid,” Joseph said. “I know you think I’m weird and nuts like my father, but I’m not. I’m also not the only one here who wants out.”

I stopped wrestling with the papers and turned my attention to him. No, I didn’t think he was stupid or even weird. I thought he was downright delusional. “You said yourself that everybody out there accepts what your father is preaching. Even if we can convince Elijah to let his guard down, there’s no way these followers of his will simply let us walk out of here.” I motioned toward the window. “You think they’re just gonna let us take Eden and flip off everything your father stands for? Everything he’s taught them to believe?”

Joseph sighed, the familiar look of exhaustion blanketing his features. “No. In fact, I’m sure my father will do everything in his power to make sure we stay.”

“Exactly.” My voice came out louder than I’d expected, not a hint of negotiation present in my tone. “I’m not stupid either, and I’m not naïve enough to think I can take him on alone.”

“You’re not alone.” Joseph’s expression was fierce, determined, but I didn’t believe him for one second. I was alone. Without Luke and Mike to back me up, then I was completely, utterly alone.

“Even together, we can’t win against him. This town follows his every command, practically worships him. Two against a town of one hundred forty-eight? Those odds suck,” I said.

“Maybe, but it’s not impossible. My Aunt Mary did it. My mother nearly made it. I did it myself, the day he killed her. We can do it too, Dee. We have to.”

“In order for this to work, in order for use to even have a chance of getting Eden out of here, I need Luke and Mike.”

“That’s not—”

I flicked my hand in the air, stopping him. I didn’t need to trust Joseph or memorize the contents of Elijah Hawkins’s demented folder in order to survive. The only truth I’d come to realize during all this was that I needed Luke and his impulsive brother.

“I want them here. I don’t believe you when you say they’re safe. I want to see for myself.” I paused briefly, then laid down an ultimatum of my own. “Besides, you said you were banking on them coming in here to get me out, right? I won’t help you, Joseph, not unless you bring them here.”

Joseph paced the edges of the room, his jaw set rigidly as he considered my demand. “They’ll be in danger, you know. My father … he already knows about them. If he finds them, he’ll kill them.”

“He won’t,” I said, hoping I was right. “I won’t let him.”

The terror I’d been working so hard to reign in was back. I could see the main street through the window. The escape route we needed was so close, so damn close, but virtually impossible to reach.

Joseph stopped pacing and gave a quick nod. “Fine, but I can’t go and get them. That would be way too obvious,” he reasoned. “If I disappear again, my father will … well, let’s say getting Eden out will be a non-issue.”

“I’ll go. You distract your father, and I’ll go,” I said.

“You’re underestimating my father,” Joseph said. “There’s no way for you to slip out undetected.”

My guess was he knew damn well I wouldn’t come back for him. Any idiot would.

“So where does that leave us?” I asked, folding my arms across my chest. “I’m not helping you without Luke and Mike, and you’re telling me that seeing them isn’t gonna happen.”

“I never said I wouldn’t bring them here, only that neither you nor I are going to get them.”

I was surprised I hadn’t remembered it when I first woke up. The stalks swaying as we ran for the shack. The strange voices I heard when Luke tackled Joseph to the ground. And the pain exploding through my head. It wasn’t Joseph who’d hit me. It was somebody else. “Oh my God. You weren’t alone.”

I remembered flashes of their two faces. They were both tall and skinny, not nearly as big as Luke or Joseph. But they’d managed to take me down and wrestle Mike and Luke back into that shed.

“Who are they?” I asked, fear overpowering my optimism. “Who were the other two kids with you?”

“Abram and James, and they want out as badly as me. Maybe more,” he said. “Plus, they have someplace to go, someone waiting for them on the outside.”

That statement brought my anger up short. Why would anybody with an alternative actually choose to stay here? “Then why are they still here?”

“They’re my cousins. Three years younger than me. When the sirens went off and I didn’t come back, they came looking for me. They didn’t mean to hurt you, any of you. But when they saw Luke on top of me, they thought … ” Joseph trailed off.

His cousins had probably assumed Luke was going to kill Joseph, and they weren’t exactly wrong.

“They want to come with me,” Joseph continued. “They want to see their mother … my Aunt Mary.”

“Why the hell didn’t you tell me about them when you first woke up?” I was yelling now, angry and pissed that he’d kept this from me.

Joseph motioned for me to keep my voice down but I ignored him, not caring who heard me. We had four people outside these walls—four people who could help us—and yet he’d simply sat there, feeding me some stupid crap about playing along and trusting him.

“Go get them,” I ordered. “Go tell them to let Luke and Mike go.”