It probably means they aren’t friends.
When I step out, I see about twenty faces that look angry enough to pump me full of bullets, but I know they aren’t going to do anything to me yet.
“State your business in Elkhorn,” a man shouts.
“I’m looking for my sister,” I say. “I don’t want a fight.”
“What’s her name?”
“Remi,” I say.
The man shakes his head. “Never heard of her.”
That fact is a blow to my stomach. Has a new group already replaced the people that were here a month ago?
“Jeremiah?,” I say. “Stephen? Are any of these people familiar to you?”
Several of the men exchange glances. “How do you know these names?” the man asks.
“I was here a month ago,” I say. “There was a fight that took place and I was captured by Shadowface. I escaped last night. This is the only place I could think to go.”
Nothing more is said. Instead they tie my hands behind my back and sit me down in the back of one of their trucks like I’m a prisoner. I don’t know if these men were near when the fight went down last month. For all I know, they don’t even care. I could have just brought myself into a horrible situation.
We drive a few blocks until we reach the main office building where Stephen held his important meetings. The entire place is in shambles. Walls are broken down, windows shattered. It looks like the battle was just fought here yesterday, not a month ago.
They pull me out of the truck and lead me inside the office building. The inside isn’t a lot better than the outside, but there are people walking around, talking to each other. When I enter the room with the armed guards, it’s like someone ordered them all to stop talking. The sudden silence unnerves me, and their stares make me look down at my feet.
Will there ever be relief?
Relief comes quickly when a man walks up to me and orders the men to unbind my hands. For a moment, it seems that I’ve never felt so happy. When I look up, I see the man that will do anything to stop Shadowface.
Jeremiah.
“I’m not a man that believes in divine providence, but this situation is particularly interesting,” Jeremiah says as he sits down across from me at a table. We are in a private room away from everyone else. No doubt he has a lot of questions for me, and I have a lot of questions for him.
“Why is that?” I ask.
He holds up a finger and smiles. “I’ll get to that in a minute,” he says. “First, I want to ask how you are. Where have you been? I assumed you were captured.”
“I was,” I said. “But first, did you know that Mitch is a traitor?”
“A fact I regrettably discovered, yes,” he says, looking down at the table. “He is still at large, I’m afraid.”
“What would you do if you caught him?” I ask. “He’s your son, right?”
“He is,” Jeremiah says. “Though I don’t know what I would do. I suppose he would try to fight me, and what would happen, would happen.”
“What would happen is that he would kill you,” I say. “He can control minds. He drank the Starborn blood.”
“I know all this,” Jeremiah says with a smile. “Mitch is a very powerful enemy now. But he is not our priority.” He clears his throat and leans his head to the side. “Please, tell me where you have been.”
I tell him everything. Anchorage. Shadowface being the woman, Olivia. The tests they ran on me and Amber. All of it. Well, all but the vision I saw of him and myself dying by Shadowface’s hand.
He stares at me with his big, drooping eyes, taking in all the information.
“I am fascinated by how you escaped,” he says. “The sewers…” He grinds his teeth together. “Do you think it would be a viable way of reentering Olivia’s compound?”
“I suppose, why?”
“You know why,” he says. “You must think of why I came to Elkhorn in the first place. I’ve been searching for a way to take Shadowface down. Now, I have a way.”
“I’m not so sure I want to be a part of it,” I say.
“Why is that?”
“Because of something Mitch said. He said that Olivia was his mother. And since you are his father, well, that means you’ve known who Shadowface is all along. It sounds to me like a personal war.”
Jeremiah shakes his head and takes a deep breath. “It
is
a personal war, but it is one that affects all of you. To fight it benefits all of mankind. It was personal because I have been with her since the beginning. I know what her plans are. She lurks in the shadows, pretending to be this wonderful supplier to these settlements when really, she is going to use them all to take over the places that resist. Her only aim is to take control of what is left of the civilized world. And I want to stop it.”
“Why did you keep it from everyone that you knew her?” I ask.
“Because of the very reaction you gave me,” he answers. “You just told me that you didn’t want any part of it because you feel like it is a personal battle. Well, it’s far beyond personal. The personal side of all this serves only to give me an advantage against her. I know how she thinks. I know what her plans are.”
“Is it true she’s responsible for the greyskin virus?” I ask.
“Yes,” Jeremiah says. “Without a doubt.”
I shake my head. “I can’t believe it.”
“What can’t you believe?”
“She seemed somewhat nice when I talked to her,” I say. “Determined, but nice.”
“She has an effect on people,” he says as a distant stare glazes over his eyes. He seems deep in thought as if he’s thinking about how her charisma has directly affected him. It’s as if there is some story there that he will never tell anyone, but it is so apparent that the story almost tells itself.
“Do you still love her?” I ask, thinking back to the vision I had where Olivia said that she loved him once.
“No,” Jeremiah says quickly. “There was never much love between us.” He sighs. “I don’t want to talk about this now. There is more to discuss.”
“Yeah, you were saying that something was particularly interesting.”
“Yes. About that. A few days ago, a young man showed up here. And last night, a young woman showed up here. The timing of all this is very strange, and is perfect enough to actually make me feel as though I should be cautious.”
“What do you mean?”
“The young man and woman are people you know.”
I sit a little straighter.
“The woman is none other than your sister, Remi.”
I can’t help but smile when he says this. I almost don’t believe him.
“The man,” Jeremiah says, “comes with a story about how Mitch forced you to shoot him, though he is alive and well now.”
“Ethan?” the name passes by my lips as a stunned whisper.
When he nods and says, “yes,” I don’t believe him.
Ethan stands in front of me like a ghost from the past. A feeling of eeriness mixed with a strange desire to kiss him twists within me. I became speechless when I walked into the room. Jeremiah had told me where Ethan was, and I went there immediately, alone, scared. When he sees me, he stands from his chair, but says nothing. We stand across from each other for at least a minute before either of us say anything.
What should I say? ‘Sorry I shot you?’ No. That won’t do.
My breaths are shallow, and I find myself almost ready to say something to him, but my cowardly brain won’t let the words surface.
“Waverly,” Ethan says, just above a whisper. “I…” He looks away from me and at the ground, his face turning red almost like he’s embarrassed.
“How are you still alive?” I say, tears stinging my eyes. The salty drops start falling down both sides of my nose and dripping off the end of my chin. I don’t bother to wipe any of them away because I know each will be replaced by another. I feel happy and sad at the same time. Remorseful but elated.
Most of all I feel relief. Relief in knowing that Mitch hadn’t beaten me after all.
Ethan shook his head slowly, still not looking me in the eyes. “There was a man that found me,” he says. “I don’t know where he came from, but he loaded me into a truck and took me to his cabin far from here. He took care of me. Fed me. Helped me get better.”
“Who is he?”
He looks up at me and shakes his head again. “He never told me his name. He died about a week ago.” Tears start to fall down Ethan’s cheeks as well. He seems so distant. Is he angry? Does he even want to see me anymore?
“You know Mitch took control of my actions, right?” I say. “I would have never done that to you myself.”
“Of course,” Ethan says. He swallows. “Still. It’s not easy to see you.”
“It’s good to see
you,
” I say. I don’t know what is wrong with him. Why is he keeping his distance? Why is he making this harder for me? For the past month I’ve been living my life in a cell, thinking that I killed one of the last people in the world that I cared about—that cared about me. But here he is, alive and well. Now, he doesn’t even want to see me.
“I plan to work closely with Jeremiah,” he says, changing the subject. “I’m going to help him take down Shadowface.”
I take a short step forward. “We can leave,” I say, whispering. “We can just keep going and never look back, just you and me.”
He looks away from me and sits back down. “It’s too late for that. Maybe a month ago. But not now.” Tears are still falling down his face.
I wish I could get inside his head. I wish I could know what he was thinking, or why he was feeling this way.
“I’m glad to see that you’re alive and well,” he says. “But I want to be alone right now.”
That’s it? He wants to be alone? No questions of where I’ve been for the past month? No wondering how I have been? What has happened that suddenly makes Ethan not care about me anymore?
“Ethan,” I say. My lips begin to quiver as my teeth clench together. His coldness is too much for me to bear right now. Seeing him alive is a dream come true, but knowing that he hates me for some reason is a nightmare. “I’m sorry, Ethan! I’m sorry! I didn’t want it to happen the way it did!”
He turns his head away from me. “I’m tired,” he says. “I need to rest. Please close the door on your way out.”
I stare at the back of his head for a long moment. I don’t know why, but the tears stop. For the entire conversation, I felt sadness, but when he tells me to leave, I only feel rage growing within me. The tears return, but only because I have the urge to break something. My fingers ball into fists, but I compose myself. I leave the room, but not without slamming the door as hard as I possibly can.
“For the first few days, she just cried,” Stephen tells me.
“Well what do you expect from a three-year-old?” I say.
“Remi,” he says, shaking his head at me. “I don’t have the strength to deal with your snarky attitude.”
I swallow and look away from him, staring out into the parking lot where little Evie sits next to Gabe. Stephen found sidewalk chalk for her to draw on the ground and she almost never looks up once she begins to play. Gabe smiles over and over as Evie tries to show him every new drawing she creates.
“I know you’re mad at me for telling Paxton about his granddaughter, but I think it’s safe to say that nothing came of it.”
“You’re right about that.”
I’m not sure if I’m right about making him mad, or if I’m right about nothing coming of it. I suppose both.
“What happened?” he asks.
“Shadowface gave Paxton an order and he obeyed it,” I say. “I thought his granddaughter would be enough of a reason to go against Shadowface, but it seems I misjudged him. He tried to kill us on the road. I was shot. A couple in some village north of here took care of us.” I look away from Evie and Gabe. “What happened here?”
“We lost almost everybody,” Stephen says. “I assumed Ashley was a traitor by the way she acted, but it seemed she was just trying to get to Shadowface. Ashley knocked me out, and the next thing I knew, most of my people were dead and Shadowface’s soldiers were out of here. Days later, Jeremiah quickly started the process of bringing in more soldiers. I don’t know where he came up with them. It’s almost as if he had them ready, though if he did, I’ll kill him, because we could have used them for the battle.”
“And you don’t have any idea where my sister is?” I ask.
“I’ve already told you,” he snaps. “She was gone when I woke up. Ethan was gone too, but he showed up just before you did. He’s the one you’ll want to ask.”
I plan to. I look at Stephen and I feel sad for some reason. I know he partly blames me for all this. It seems that if I hadn’t showed up here, all this might not have ever happened. He would still be caring for the people that were closest to him. He was no longer the leader of Elkhorn. There were almost none of his people left to lead—just a handful. The rest of the men were Jeremiah’s men—people he had seemed to conjure out of thin air.
That’s what I don’t really like about Jeremiah. I’ve never liked it. He always seems to have a lot of information that he is not willing to divulge. He always tells you exactly what you need to know and nothing more. It gives me the sense that he isn’t to be trusted, but who else is there to trust? I suppose I could travel as far away from here as possible, but I’m not just going to leave with only a memory of my sister. I want to
find
her.
“You’ll take care of her, won’t you?” Stephen asks, nodding at the little girl.
Do I have a choice? From what I read in Waverly’s notebook, I’m not so sure I do.
“For a time,” I say, absently.
“I’m not doing a very good job of it,” Stephen says. “She could use some motherly attention.”
His words almost make me laugh loudly, but I keep it in. “I am not the person to turn to if you’re looking for motherly, that’s for sure.”