SAGE
This was not happening.
Don’t make eye contact.
Look straight ahead.
Follow Dallamore.
Keep walking.
I wished Jack were here. Because if he were here, no one would be staring at me, they’d all be staring at him. Everyone stared at Jack because he was beautiful, and symmetrical, and perfect, and composed. If he were here, I could blend in behind him.
As it was, Dallamore was weaving me through the tables while the claps and stares continued.
I heard the murmurs as crossed the room. “Looks like her father … so beautiful … that dress … what a doll … all grown up … found after all these years.”
We approached a table at the front of the room where he pulled out a chair for me. Numbly, I sat down.
I couldn’t imagine what people were interpreting from the stupefied look I felt on my face, or why they would call me a doll. If we were going with a children’s toy comparison, I felt like an army figurine. Inside, I was ready for battle.
First of all, that Mitchell guy had said the late Dr. Cunningham.
Why? Did they know something about my father that I didn’t? If my father were dead, Sven was lying about him rescuing the boys.
If he were alive, then this man on stage was lying. Why? Why did they want everyone to believe my father was dead?
And then, the eggs. The eggs that weren’t my eggs. Or were they? What if I had passed out longer than I thought with Dr. Stanstopolis this morning? What if she drugged me, kept me under? How long would a process like egg extraction take? I didn’t know about these kinds of things. What if Sven had helped Dr. Stanstopolis do it? What if his job was to confuse me, help keep me subdued, make me wonder and ask questions until it was too late to do anything at all?
The questions rolling through my mind were relentless, and with each new question, my chest grew tighter, my breath sped up, and my thoughts threatened to pull me into a space where I felt totally out of control. And yet, I needed to be more in control than I’d ever been before. I needed a plan. Because, the way things were looking right now, if I were going to get out of Vasterias mansion before Vasterias got to my real eggs, the escape was going to be on my own.
Eventually, enough time passed with me staring down at the napkin in my lap that I felt people cease staring at me and return to their previous conversations, distracted by the hors d’oeuvres and wine being generously served around the room.
I couldn’t bring myself to look up. I didn’t feel ready to do it yet because when I did, I wasn’t looking down again. I wasn’t looking down, or back. I wasn’t going to cower; I wasn’t going to give up.
I was going to fight. I would get out of here.
“Planning something, are you?”
The voice came from my right. I glanced over to see Dr. Evans in the seat next to me. Our table was empty, besides him, but he looked situated in a way, with his napkin in his lap and wine glass half empty, that told me he’d been there the whole time, and I just hadn’t noticed.
I didn’t respond, but Dr. Evans seemed undeterred by my lack of engagement. He swirled the wine around in his glass a few times before taking a sip.
“Did you know that there have been over forty proven cures for cancer, all which have been brought to the table and then silently dropped off the edge or scooted under the rug? There’s no money to be made if no one is sick. But does that mean people stop trying for the cure? Does that mean we just give up and stop providing solutions to very real problems? That we give up trying to make this world a better place?”
Dr. Evans tipped his wine glass toward me, pointing.
“That’s why I’m trusting there will always be more people like your father. More people who are willing to push past fear and do good. To make a stand in their small amount of time here on earth. It’s not about winning. It’s not about stopping bad things from happening or getting to the end of evil forever. It’s about doing the best we can, being the best we can, right where we are, in the brief moment that we are in existence. We must live our lives this way. We must be willing. Because if not us, then who?”
I was just about to tell Dr. Evans I wasn’t interested in his philosophies or conversation, when I noticed Dr. Adamson across the room, near the far wall, standing alone.
He seemed satisfied to be in the periphery, pleasantly observing the action of the room, uncompelled to join it. What was he so smug about?
He caught me watching and raised his cocktail glass toward me, as if to toast.
I looked away.
A chill ran down my spine at the way he appeared so calm, so in control. The composure on his face was so opposite from how he looked when we were separated at the plane, that I had no room to doubt things were going his way now. Which didn’t mean anything good for me. When I glanced back for a second look, he was still staring at me.
“I’m so sorry, Dr. Evans,” I said, placing my hand on his arm. “Can you repeat that? I didn’t catch what you were saying.” I attempted to create the pretense of interest. Hopefully Dr. Adamson would go away.
“Control, throughout the ages, has always been about some people knowing and most of the others not knowing.”
“Knowing what?” I said, feigning intrigue, glancing over at Dr. Adamson again, who seemed pleased I wouldn’t stop checking.
Dr. Evan’s shrugged. “Anything at all.” He sipped his wine again. “Take the code inside of you, for example. The people on the good side want the world to know about it. You see, if it’s available for the whole world, and not for the few, then we’re raising the quality of life for all humanity. But others only want it for the few. For power.”
I snuck another look at Dr. Adamson.
One of the servers approached him, and he frowned at whatever message the man delivered. Dr. Adamson handed the server his glass and disappeared out the back of the ballroom.
Good. And stay gone.
“Listen, Dr. Evans, I’m really not okay with anything right now, let alone whatever point you’re trying to make. I’m not okay with Vasterias, I’m not okay with what they want to do with the code, I’m not okay with anyone in this room, if we’re talking bluntly, which we clearly are.”
Dr. Evans only smiled at me. “That’s fine with me, dear, but you may want to keep your voice down about it.”
He wiped his mouth with his napkin and put the cloth back in his lap. “You’re a thread, Sage. A thread in the tapestry of our existence. No more, no less, yet needed, very needed, just like each and every one of us. We’re woven together, and that’s what makes the tapestry exist at all. Play your part well. Weave your thread. Leave your mark in the way you were destined to. Each of us has a destiny, and yet we get one choice: Will we live it?”
Adamson was still nowhere in sight, and I was tired of the charade. I needed to think. “Can we stop with the esoteric talk? Please?” I said.
“Aah, I see. Too busy trying to work out how to escape.”
I straightened in my seat and took a drink from my water goblet, not wanting to look Dr. Evans in the eye.
How had he read me so completely?
He lifted his wine glass toward me. “Well then, I wish you the best of luck.”
The strange thing was, I think he truly meant it.