The Rose Ransom (Girls Wearing Black: Book Three) (16 page)

Her mother was gray-faced,
yellow-toothed, angry, and sick. She pounded on the glass until it broke, then
she rushed after Nicky. Nicky tried to run but couldn’t get away. Her mother
bit her in the neck. Her blood ran cold as sickness entered her body. She
screamed in agony. She died.

She stood in front of the sphere
again.

On and on it went, an endless
loop of terror and death. Back at home, when she had this dream, she always
woke up at the part where her mother bit her. But now the Addonox trapped her
in the nightmare. It started, it ended, it started again. Every time her
mother’s cold teeth bit into her neck, every time that awful sickness poured into
her blood, she prayed that this time it was over, that this time she would wake
up.

So when she did actually wake
up, finding herself in a cold, dark prison cell, with a mattress on the floor
and a commode in the corner, she didn’t feel frightened so much as relieved.

And then the vision started
anew.

“Oh no,” Nicky said, closing her
eyes, willing it to go away. “What’s happening?”

She didn’t know if this was a
new part of the dream or if she had somehow pulled the nightmare into the
waking world, but as she sat in the darkness, she lost herself in the vision.
She was standing in front of the sphere again. She was looking at her
reflection.

“This isn’t happening,” she
said. “It isn’t real.”

Her words did nothing. The world
of the dream was more vivid than ever. In the darkness of her prison cell, the
vision filled her senses.

I am in the courtyard. I am
looking at the sphere. I am waiting.

Waiting for what? Something was
different.

In this vision, her mother
wasn’t behind the glass, but instead was out here in the courtyard with Nicky.
In this vision, there was snow on the ground, reflecting the moonlight and
casting a purple glow over everything around.

In this vision, her mother
wasn’t sick. Her mother’s hair, skin, and teeth were all normal, and Nicky wanted
to run up to her to get a better look. Outside of that horrible vision from the
dream, Nicky had no recollection of her mother’s face, but now she could see
it. Clear and beautiful and everything Nicky knew it would be. This woman was
her real mother.

But as Nicky approached, her
mother held up her hand and shook her head.

“What?” Nicky said. “Why can’t I
come to you?”

There was fear in her mother’s
eyes. She looked back behind her. A stampede of shadowy figures.

“Run, Nicky!” her mother yelled.
“Run!”

The shadows descended upon her
mother, and Nicky recognized the sickness in all of them. The gray skin, the
hunched backs, the gnarled claws—the people coming for her mother had the
sickness.

Nicky turned and ran, finding a
dirt road leading into the forest. Behind her were sounds of chaos. Snarling,
screaming, biting sounds, the noise of animals fighting to the death. Nicky
didn’t turn back to look. She just ran. Into the forest. The snow crunching
under her feet.

I am running into the
darkness, leaving the vision behind. Running...

Her vision was broken when a
light came on outside her prison cell. Her eyes, so used to the darkness,
rejected the light and she had to cover them with her hands. The glass door
slid open and two pairs of feet stepped inside. Nicky struggled to open her
eyes. The first face she saw was familiar and unexpected.

It was Renata Sullivan.

*****

Falkon let Renata go in first.

“Yes, this is Nicky Bloom,”
Renata said, rushing at the girl, who looked weak and disoriented. They had been
feeding her, but it looked like she had chosen not to eat. Falkon couldn’t say
he blamed her. His slaves were never very good at cooking.

Her hair was a tangle of knots.
The only clothing she had on was a silk night gown. She looked like her body
temperature had fallen dangerously low.

But there was still life in her
eyes. Whoever this girl was, she had some fight in her. Even in her weakened
state, Falkon could sense her preparing for a faceoff. She sat up straight
against the wall. She took control of her emotions. She looked at Renata with
defiance in her eyes.

There was something familiar
about this girl.

“Welcome, Nicky Bloom,” Renata
said. “Do you know where you are?”

The girl shook her head.

“Do you know who I am?”

The girl opened her mouth and in
a raspy voice said, “It’s good to see you, Miss Sullivan. Have you come to get
me out of here?”

Hearing the girl’s voice only
heightened Falkon’s sense that he’d met her before. But where?

Renata laughed. “Oh, you’re a
clever one, aren’t you, Nicky? You know, I’ve been curious about you since the
moment you were admitted to Thorndike. It was an absolute shock that the
admissions office selected someone I had never heard of before. I mean, I
didn’t know you, I didn’t know your parents. Had I not been so busy, you and I
would have met much sooner. I’m sorry it took this long!”

“Am I in trouble, Miss
Sullivan?”

Her voice was stronger now, and
Falkon was absolutely certain he had encountered this girl before. Her eyes,
her face, her voice, even the way she carried herself—he
knew
her. But
how? How would he ever have come to know a teenage girl from America?

“Yes, Nicky Bloom,” Renata said.
“You are in trouble. Let’s have a talk and we’ll find out just how much trouble
you’re in.”

For the next hour, Falkon
watched as Renata interrogated the girl. It was the most curious interaction he
had ever seen.

For one thing, Renata did not
have any control over the girl’s mind, even though she thought she did. Nicky
Bloom was lying to her, and Renata was buying it whole. It was a pathetic
display of weakness on Renata’s part, and an embarrassment to Falkon as a
vampire. The way the Samarin vampires outsourced their mind control—allowing
Melissa and Dominic to program all the slaves and ship them all over the
country—it was and always had been an abomination, and the end result was
playing out here in front of Falkon’s eyes. Renata was a rank amateur at mind
control. She was missing all the big cues! Nicky’s eyes, her tone of voice, the
movement of her hands—all of them were practically shouting to Falkon that she
was lying, and Renata was missing it!

But that was only part of what
made the interaction so odd. Even more strange was what happened when Renata
asked the girl if she worked for Falkon Dillinger.

The girl’s eyes twitched at the
question. It was a movement so subtle Renata missed it, but Falkon didn’t. Her
pupils wanted to aim at Falkon. The girl knew where to look when she heard his
name.

How does this girl know who I
am?

And why is she lying to immortals?

First Melissa Mayhew, who became
convinced the girl worked for Falkon. Now Renata, who was getting an entirely
different story.

No, I do not know who Falkon
Dillinger is,
the girl said.

No, I never told Melissa
Mayhew I work for Falkon Dillinger.

No, I have never spoken to
Melissa Mayhew.

No, I did not come to
Thorndike to spy on anyone. I am here to win the Coronation contest. I am here
to become an immortal.

Lies! All of them lies, and
Renata didn’t recognize it!

This girl, this familiar,
fascinating girl...what was her story? She spent the better part of the week in
an Addonox-induced slumber, she woke up in darkness, spent days in solitary
confinement, and yet she had the strength to resist an immortal and the guts to
lie to her.

Falkon was utterly intrigued,
and wished Renata wasn’t here. He wanted to talk to the girl alone. 

“Then why are you here, Nicky
Bloom?” Renata demanded. “If you don’t work for Falkon, why did you come to
Italy?”

“I’ve always dreamed of a
romantic getaway to Italy,” Nicky said.

Renata turned to Falkon. “Well
isn’t that the sweetest thing you’ve ever heard?”

Falkon suppressed a laugh. “Are
we done here?” he said.

“Yes. Clearly, Melissa was lying
to me. This girl isn’t working for you or anyone else. She’s just another spoiled
rich brat.”

“Are we to let her go then?”
Falkon said.

“No, I had an idea last night,”
Renata said. “These kids you picked up can still be useful to us.”

“Kids? We’re keeping all of
them?”

“Show me where you’re holding
the Jenson boy,” Renata said. “I want to talk to him next.”

Falkon took Renata to the
village below the mountain where they each caught someone for dinner. Renata
chose an overweight boy who was just on the edge of being overripe. Falkon went
for a young girl with red hair.

When they were done, and had
thrown the bodies into the forest for the wolves to finish, they went back to
Falkon’s house and sat on the front porch.

“Are you satisfied now that
you’ve spoken with Nicky Bloom?” Falkon asked.

He was flipping through the
research file Renata brought from the Farm.

“I’m more confused than ever,”
Renata said. “What was going on in the Bloom mansion that night I found Melissa
there?”

Falkon was reading a page in the
binder that had, “Hemoglobin Trials in Immature Host Bodies,” written at the
top.

“Your guess is as good as mine,”
he muttered.

Renata wondered if this was her
future. Sitting outside with Falkon like an old married couple, talking to each
other not because they wanted to, but because there was no one else to talk to.

Falkon reached into a flap on
the inside panel of the binder, pulling out some sort of  silver medallion.

“What’s that?” Renata asked.

“Removable storage,” Falkon
said. “More results from the hemoglobin study are stored on here.”

“What? It looks like a piece of
jewelry,” said Renata.

“That, my friend, is exactly the
point.”

The silver piece in his hand had
a black stone in its center with eight lines of engraving in a sunburst pattern.

“I had these made for Hank and
his wife so they could sneak data in and out of secure research facilities,”
said Falkon. “Hank wore this one as a belt buckle. His wife had a matching
version she wore as a necklace.”

Falkon pressed onto the stone in
the center of the medallion. A USB port popped out on the bottom.

“How cute!” Renata said.

“Cute and quite handy,” said
Falkon. “Sadly, only one of the drives is in here.”

“You’re not saying something is
missing, are you?”

“Nothing we can’t live without,”
said Falkon. “Hank was using this drive to store test results. His wife was
storing the genetic sequence on hers.”

“And hers didn’t make it into
the file, did it?”

“It was probably in the safe at
their house,” said Falkon. “Melissa didn’t know to take it.”

“But do we need it?”

“Not particularly. With the data
on this drive and the software in my computing stack, we can recreate the
genetic sequence here. It will take a few weeks at the most. When I have time,
I’ll go down to Rio and get the other drive out of the safe at the Evans house.
We can use it as a backup.”

“As long as I don’t have to go
back to the Farm again, I’m happy,” said Renata. “Would you like to hear how I
intend to get us the money we need?”

Falkon closed the binder in his
lap and gave Renata his full attention. “I would love to,” he said.

“The Rose Ransom is next week,”
said Renata. “I get to abduct one girl from the senior class and hide her away
somewhere.”

“Sounds fun.”

“It’s a lot of fun. My favorite
game of the year, in fact. It’s also a fundraiser. Some years we raise fifty
million or more.”

“Am I to take it that somehow
you can route the funds from this game to our work?”

“That’s right. After the girl is
abducted, her family puts up a big reward for her safe return. We call that
reward the ransom, and we give it to whichever student finds her first.”

“Doesn’t seem like a good
fundraiser if you’re just giving the money away.”

“The student is expected to
donate all of it back to the pot on behalf of one of the girls wearing black.”

“People are giving money, you’re
giving it back, they’re giving it back to you—why can’t we just take what we
need?”

“We will! That’s the beauty of
it. If the princess is never found, the regents get to decide what to do with
the reward money. Guess who is chair of the board of regents?”

“Ah….now I see. Nicky Bloom will
be your princess, and you will make sure she is never found.”

“I can make the clues
exceptionally hard,” Renata said. She was getting excited just thinking about
it. She loved everything about the Rose Ransom, and always thought it could be
better than it was. Now that Daciana was out of the picture, Renata could
finally do it properly.

“Don’t make the clues hard,”
said Falkon. “Make them impossible.”

“No, they’ve got to be real
clues,” Renata said. “It’s no fun otherwise. They’ve got to lead somewhere.”

Potential clues were coming to
her as they spoke. She could write them as poems. Yes! The clues this year
would be poems. Poems with a theme. Something instructive for those little brats
at school.

She would make this year’s Rose
Ransom one for the ages.

“So how much money are we
talking about?” Falkon said.

“That’s the other thing that’s
so perfect,” said Renata. “It’s the families who have to put up the money. If I
abduct Nicky Bloom, her parents have to provide the Ransom.”

“Do you know her parents? Are
they rich?”

“No, I don’t know them at all.
But I know the Jensons quite well, and they are the richest people in
Washington.”