We enjoy an extra couple hours of sleep the next morning since the Olders aren’t around to insist we all attend breakfast at seven a.m., but it doesn’t do me much good. My head’s loaded with clacking marbles the next morning, and my mouth feels like I’ve spent the last week trekking through the Sahara instead of taking part in minimally invasive medical testing.
It might be that I’m coming down with something, or the stress might be getting to me.
Or the GRH-18 injections are altering even more than we suspect.
I don’t want to think about the last option, especially since today will be day two of detox, so I pop three ibuprofen, chug a big glass of water, and spend too long in the bath.
The other girls are awake and dressed by the time I shuffle back down the hall and into our room—at least, I assume Haint’s awake and moving based on the soft thuds around her bed and the sound of her breath.
None of us speaks, and the silence makes me yearn for the days at Darley Hall when we never shut up for more than a collective two minutes straight. Sure, Pollyanna always had something snotty to say, and maybe Reaper had to try harder than the rest of us to come up with funny banter, but we were comfortable. If not with who and what we were, then at least with one another. Back then we knew the days wouldn’t hold anything we couldn’t handle.
I go over to my dresser and start getting ready for the day, but all I can think about is how much I hate what Jude’s father did to us when his reporter nose and conspiracy theories led him to our lifelong sanctuary. But it’s not fair to blame him. Leaving Darley didn’t do this to us.
The Philosopher, and the Professor, and the Scientist did. They started all this when they lied about our origins, about what the CIA would one day expect. They left us without defenses, without the equipment and knowledge we need to navigate the perilous waters filled with sharks on all sides.
An idea brews in the back of my mind, one that could be a compromise between staying to help Flicker—who was still comatose when we went to bed last night—and leaving to find out what we can on our own. If we had access to the internet, we could try to find out who’s funding the research here, and if we could find Dane Lee we could ask him more about what working for the CIA would entail.
The Olders said the government is going to ask for our help, maybe even with this current computer virus. We need to be prepared with the right answer.
Anything we learn would be more than we know, and we can’t keep sitting here letting other people—people who may not have our best interests at heart—spoon-feed us information when they feel like it and think it’s okay to keep us in the dark about our own bodies.
We trudge down the hallway in a group, headed for breakfast, and find the boys at our regular table. It’s the only thing about the room that’s familiar, since there are only two Olders present. One of them is the redhead from the graveyard—she’s also the one who stopped Flicker’s medicine last night and gave us the files outlining her care. I’m not sure what this woman’s talent is but she’s younger than most of the Olders, with freckles so thick you can barely tell the color of her skin.
The other left-behind Older is Gills. The hippie wannabe that we met in Charleston last month doesn’t look up when we enter the room.
“Walk,” Polly mutters, poking me in the ribs.
I do as I’m told, mostly because her finger feels like a knife in my kidney, and we get plates of bread and butter and scrambled eggs and sit down. The sight of Mole hunched across from me drives all thought of plans and scheming right out of my mind. He looks worse than he did yesterday after his seizure—worse than I’ve ever seen him look. Instead of merely pale, the skin on his face is dry, stretched over his cheekbones. His familiar sightless, pea-green eyes are bloodshot and ringed by deep-purple wreaths.
“Oh my God,” Haint wheezes out of thin air, sounding almost as horrified as I feel.
Mole is the strong one. The steady one. The one who keeps me together, who knows all the right questions and manages to ask them with the right dose of humor. To see him like this—frail, so not himself—scares me so much it’s hard to breathe.
“Good gravy boats, Gypsy. Is that the face you’re going to wear to my funeral? Because I’ve got to say, you’re going to regret it when you see the pictures.” His faint smile turns into a cough.
“You can’t see my face, moron,” I squeak, trying my hardest to act normal.
“I can sense it. It has a miserable vibe about it. Like gamey meat.”
“That’s disgusting.”
“Exactly.”
“Mole…”
“Drop it.” His teeth are clenched, but it’s hard to say if it’s because of my reaction or the pain. “I’ll be fine. It was a rough night, that’s all.”
In an instant, my fear is gone. Lifted from my shoulders and replaced with a buoyant glee that paints a giant, goofy smile on my face. I can’t even remember what was bothering me a moment ago, honestly.
Then my gaze lands on Mole, and something about the way he looks sends the slightest concern through my mind before it’s gone again.
I realize what’s happening and grit my teeth, trying to glare at Pollyanna but smiling harder instead. “Stop it.”
“What?”
“Pollyanna.” I press my lips together, fighting her control.
She shrugs and the smile drops from my face. My cheeks ache and I rub them, struggling to control the crash of my emotions. My eyes prick with tears at the strength of the flood, the return of worry and fear.
“That wasn’t cool.” Goose glares at Polly for me.
“Hey, she looked like she was about to melt down. I was only trying to help.”
“How about I help you in the sparring ring tomorrow?” I challenge, still pissed.
“You’re on,” she sneers back.
“Okay, you two, seriously,” Mole rasps, looking exhausted. “Give it a rest. Pollyanna, I know there’s no Professor to rein you in now, so how about you do a better job controlling yourself?”
She doesn’t reply, pouting into her bread and butter. When everyone has dug in, I clear my throat, reminding myself that there was something I wanted to bring up, that, given Mole’s condition, is more important than ever.
The sound is like a thunderclap among the quiet scrape of forks against plates, and everyone stops eating to look at me. Strange that there’s really no reason to wait until we’re alone now that we have no more secrets from the Olders, but even so, I keep my voice low.
“I wanted to talk to y’all about something.”
“What?” Mole asks, perking up a little. Despite our win last night regarding Flicker, I can’t be the only one feeling more trapped than ever.
“I know we’re committed to helping Flicker out of the coma and getting her stable—and I’m on board with that. But what if there was a way to do that and try to figure out which side is the right one before the CIA asks us to help, maybe with this computer virus?”
Pollyanna frowns. “What are you talking about?”
“We could go to Charleston, maybe Beaufort. Grab the twins’ computers and mine, a couple of iPads. Try to get some more information.” I pause. “Not to mention, we have the name Hatfield now. I’d like to find out exactly who they are and why they have an interest in Saint Stephen’s. And us. The more we know, the more leverage we have against everyone.”
“If we find Hatfield, we might be able to find someone who can help Flicker. Really help her.” Pollyanna perks up, looking interested in my idea for the first time.
Athena pales, so much that he goes almost transparent. “You want to use computers while a virus is going around the world killing people through their computers?”
“I don’t think it could be that pervasive or you would have heard more specifics. There would be alerts telling people to stay off the internet,” I reason, dismissing his worry even though my gut senses it’s a risk. “Aren’t you tired of being everyone’s pawns? We’re not without power here—we just have to figure out what weapons we have and how to wield them.”
Mole nods. “I agree.”
“So do I,” Geoff adds. “But I’ll be honest, learning more about our own origins intrigues me more than researching this virus or whatever it is. Let the government worry about terrorists.”
“You know,” Goose adds, thoughtful. “While we’re in town it might not be the worst thing to look up Dane Lee.”
Everyone’s eyes trail my direction at the mention of Dane, even now that they’re aware his recruitment speech worked on Reaper, not on me.
My stomach hurts at the mention of Dane Lee. When it comes to him, my feelings and thoughts and anger have snarled into such a tight ball that there’s no way to untangle them. All I know for sure is that when I saw him lying there, stabbed and bleeding in that warehouse, I didn’t like it.
And that makes me angrier than anything else.
I shake the lingering discomfort away and shrug, trying to force disinterest. “I was thinking that, too. He’d be a good place to start, but the CIA might not have kept him on our case or in Charleston?”
“We don’t know,” Mole tries, his hand snaking my direction but stopping short of my bare skin. “But it can’t hurt to check. He might be willing to tell us a few things about the Olders, since they’ve been dealing with them longer.”
Dane had told me more than once not to trust the Olders. That they weren’t what they seemed, that they wouldn’t help us unless something was in it for them. He was right, of course, and it’s easy to assume the government knows more about our new benefactors than they’re saying.
“I’m sure the government knows more about the Olders than we do,” I concede. “Whether Dane will tell us anything is the bigger mystery.”
“And more about Darley Hall and Saint Catherine’s,” Geoff adds.
“Okay, okay.” Polly pinches the bridge of her nose. “But what about Flicker?”
“We won’t be gone long, and maybe one of us could stay here and look after her.”
“How would we even get into town?” Haint’s disembodied voice wonders. “We’re close enough to maybe walk to Beaufort, but even that would take a whole day.”
I close my eyes and take a deep breath, knowing they’re not going to understand why I kept my visits from them. I’m not even sure I understand it myself, but the time has come to talk about it. We need to do this, and I can help it happen faster.
“The Olders have a car in the barn,” I mumble. “It’s not the ones they use to run errands. It’s pretty beat up, but it works.”
Their mouths drop and eyes narrow, asking the silent question of how I know this and why I’m just telling them about it now.
“I’ve been back to Charleston a few times,” I admit. “Just to…check on people.”
“But you don’t know how to drive!” Haint hisses.
“I do now… I mean, I don’t have a license, but it’s not that hard.”
“Oh my God. What if you had gotten arrested?” Geoff looks horrified at the prospect.
“I didn’t. And now two of us know how to drive and there’s a car that can get us into town. If we want to go.” I wonder if they’re upset about me driving or getting caught or the fact that, for the first time, I’ve kept something serious from them. It hurts my chest to think about hurting them.
Everyone’s silent for a few moments, but nobody keeps eating. Mole tosses the last bites of his bread back on his plate, and Goose pushes the dinnerware away from him. We’re all wondering if the risk could be worth the reward, but I don’t see how anyone could decide it’s not.
One by one, everyone nods.
Mole nods last, his sightless eyes locked on me. “Let’s go as soon as we can.”
“We need to keep an eye on Flicker, at least for the next day or so until she wakes up,” Pollyanna argues. “And who’s going to stay behind?”
“I’ll stay,” Geoff volunteers. “I spent more time around coma drugs than any of you.”
If he’s joking, it falls flat.
Pollyanna’s lips press in a grim line. “I’ll stay, too.”
“No.” I shake my head, wondering where I’m getting the nerve to boss them around. “If we get into trouble or the CIA tries to pull more strong-arm crap, we’ll need you and your ability. If anyone, I should stay.”
“Dane’s not going to talk to any of us unless you’re there,” Goose argues.
It’s weird, but it’s the first time they’ve ever admitted to needing me, specifically. Even if it’s just because of some misguided notion they have about Dane’s affection for me, or the friendship we might have had, it straightens my back.
“I could stay,” Haint says.
Mole shakes his head this time. “No. Geoff can stay alone. We don’t need more than one of us to monitor a girl in sensory deprivation, and there’s a chance we’ll need everyone’s skills to get what we need.”
Whether or not the Olders consider us prisoners, getting out while they’re gone seems to be a smart decision.
“If Geoff’s going to stay behind, there’s no real reason to wait a day or two,” I say, my voice low. “We should leave tonight while the Olders are away.”
From the expressions on the other Cavies’ faces, I know we’re all in agreement. We get up then, put our dirty plates in the kitchen dishwasher, and head back to the dorms to pack a few things.
The boys go into their room and I trail Pollyanna into ours, bumping into invisible Haint on the way through the doorway. “Sorry.”
“This sucks,” is her only reply.
We toss the clothes we’ve amassed into bags, along with bars of soap and shared bottles of shampoo, and I grab my rocks. It doesn’t take long. The Olders didn’t give us any warning before they brought us here, which means all we had were two or three outfit changes since we’d been planning to save Flicker and leave town. At least I’d had a coat on when we went to the warehouse that morning.
We pack in silence, the mood in the room oppressive. I’m not sure if it’s because we’re walking into the unknown yet again; or whether, after everything, we’re leaving Flicker; or if that’s just the way things are now. But whatever the reason, I don’t like it.
“Are you wearing that?” I ask Polly, eyeing her outfit in an attempt at levity.
She looks down at her ripped jeans and plain white T-shirt, then rolls her eyes. “Like I’d ever take fashion advice from you, Miss Prim and Proper.”
“Hey! It’s not like I parade around in dresses. But you know, something clean would be nice.”
The problem with Polly is that she’s too pretty. Well, and that she knows it. She doesn’t need to shower or fix her loose waves or put on dresses and makeup in order to make people look twice. Not that we have anyone to look good for here, but it can still be infuriating.
A vision of Jude—all dimples and sandy hair and bright-blue eyes—enters my head before I can tackle it and kick it away. Pollyanna gives me a look like she’s read my mind. She opens her mouth to give me a hard time, but Haint cuts her off.
“She’s right, you know. You may have come to terms with your natural body odor, but I assure you, the rest of us wish you’d come to terms with a bar of soap.”
“I’m trying a new lifestyle.” Polly’s cheeks turn red but she can’t help smiling. She knows we’re just teasing. “I smell better than the two of you put together after a three-hour August workout.”
“Lazy is not a lifestyle,” I comment dryly.
“Tell that to the potheads of the world,” Polly shoots back, grinning.
We laugh, then, all of us. It feels good, even if Haint’s still missing from view and moments like this one with Pollyanna have always been rare.
Then Goose sticks his head into the room, his eyes closed and eyebrows raised in a suspicious arch. “Everyone decent?”
“Yes.” I’m still giggling, and the expression on his face, as though he hasn’t the slightest idea what to make of the three of us right now, doesn’t help my mirth dissipate.
“What in tarnation y’all laughing about? Did Haint up the ante on the whole silent but deadly thing?”
“Ew, gross!” Haint’s disgusted reply coincides with Goose tipping sideways into the doorframe, and I have to admit, it’s pretty hilarious watching someone get knocked around by an invisible person.
“Ow! You got my funny bone.”
“I didn’t know you had one, sorry.”
Goose sticks his tongue out in the general direction of Haint’s voice, then gets knocked out of the way again as his brother shoves him aside with a hip. “If you’re all quite done acting like lunatics, we should go check on Flicker.”
“Takes one to know one,” Pollyanna mutters under her breath, then widens her eyes in fake innocence as Athena glances her direction.
We’re trying so hard, but the humor feels like we’re about ready to be wheeled into dangerous surgery and are trying to pretend it doesn’t bother us. Tension crackles in the air around us, above us, and nothing but action is going to satisfy it.
“We’re ready,” I say, itching to move. If we arrive in Charleston during the workday, then my dad won’t be home and I can grab my computer without having to confront him, to see the hurt on his face, to lie to him again.
We turn toward the doorway to find the redheaded Older lurking in the doorway. She eyes us warily, twisting her fingers together. They’re wrinkled from the dishwater. “I couldn’t help but overhear your plans downstairs…at breakfast.”
There’s a beat of silence before Pollyanna steps forward, crossing her arms over her chest. “And what, you’re going to stop us?”
“No.” Her shoulders straighten as though she’s decided something. “I’m Madeline. Maddy or Mad, if you want.”
“Because your superpower is being crazy?” Athena queries, as tactless as ever.
Madeline snorts, the first display of an actual personality since we first saw her. “No. It’s my actual name, like the one on my birth certificate.”
My curiosity climbs through the roof. “The one on file at Saint Catherine’s?”
Her eyes widen a little. “Yes, that one.”
“Why don’t you go by your Cavy name?” Goose asks, worrying his bottom lip.
“I prefer Madeline.” She doesn’t offer to share her Cavy name, or her mutation, or an explanation for that matter. It only serves to make me more curious…and distrustful. “And I don’t want to stop you. I want to help you.”
Awkwardness infuses the air for a few minutes, sharp and a little tangy. We exchange glances, wondering whether to ask her more questions or just tell her thanks but no thanks. The truth is, we could use an ally among the Olders, and I’m not sure why, but something’s different about her.
“Why?” Mole asks, shoving his hands in his pockets.
“My reasons are my reasons, so maybe the right question is what I can do to help you.”
“Okay, fine,” Mole snaps. “What can you do to help us?”
“If you leave, you’re not going to come back. I’ve been the one monitoring Flicker since we brought her here and I’m the best one to help her out of the coma. If the GRH-18 works and she’s able to steady her mutation, I can help her with that, too.”
“I’m going to stay and watch her,” Geoff asserts, shoulders rigid.
“Which is fine, but you don’t know as much as I do.”
The way she says it makes me think she’s talking about more than how to take care of Flicker. We exchange uncomfortable glances, unsure of how to reply but maybe all unwilling to turn down help. What if she’s right and we aren’t able to get back here for some reason? It would make me feel better to know someone’s here with Geoff. On our side. Remembering to care for Flicker.
“Come upstairs with me. I’ll go over things with you, share my thoughts on where you might want to go from here.” Her tone turns coaxing, her dark eyes pleading in a way that makes me think she’s desperate for us to take her up on the offer.
“And then you’ll tell us what’s in it for you,” I say softly, watching her reaction.
Madeline’s head jerks up, her surprised gaze landing on my face. She gives a sharp nod. “And then I’ll tell you what’s in it for me.”