Mac’s face twisted in shock. “You shot her?”
“Well, yeah.”
“Did you kill her?” His voice raised with worry.
“Why do you care?” I shot back. First he let her in, and now suddenly she meant something to him? “I thought you wanted me to start shooting people anyway.”
“You
killed
her?” William gasped. “No,” I answered. “Of course not.”
You only thought about it
. Kara’s voice was in my head.
I whirled around, expecting her right behind me, but she was concealed in the trees a short distance out.
“What?” William asked.
“She’s there,” I said, pointing to her through the trees.
Mac followed the direction of my finger, looking eagerly for the girl I’d taken down.
“Kara, come on out here,” Mac called. “If she tries to shoot you, I’ll give her the hammer dart she deserves.”
I gave Mac a look that said go ahead and try, but he only smiled at the threat. I didn’t know why he was being so nice to her.
We all walked in silence back to the cabin. Kara stayed up front, under the protection of Mac, who shot warning glances back at me every few minutes. Although her gaze stayed forward, I was sure she was sorting through my thoughts. I tried to keep a clear head, but she still had access to my memories. It was infuriating that there was no privacy around her, not even in my own mind. I thought perhaps she would respond to my anger by forcing her own opinions into my head, but she stayed quiet.
“What are we going to do with her?” I asked when we were inside.
“
Her
?” Mac answered. “What are we going to do with
you
? I invited her in, Elyse. She’s not an intruder. She’s our guest. You’re acting like a lunatic.”
Coming from Mac that was saying something, given the man would be considered insane by most people’s standards.
“Fine,” I said under my breath as I retreated to the couch. William followed, at a complete loss for words. It was smart for him to stay quiet. My emotions were razor sharp and unstable.
As the morning began to light up the room, I could see Kara more clearly. She looked worn and ragged, like she hadn’t slept or eaten in a while. The sight of her made me wonder what she’d been through, and for the first time since I’d shot her I could feel the slightest bit of sympathy and regret form in my chest.
“Elyse,” she spoke aloud, probably taking advantage of my moment of weakness. “Will you let me show you?”
“Show me what?”
“Show you what happened,” she said, her face pleading. “I know it won’t change anything, but at least you’ll know.”
I wanted so badly to blame her. It was easier for my enemy to be one person, a simpler opponent to defeat than the massive powers of The Council, but I knew better. Even if she had betrayed me, it wasn’t her that I had to face. She was just their pawn.
“All right,” I said, straightening up as she approached. Her offer was too tempting. I couldn’t resist knowing the details of the nightmare that had been haunting me.
She pressed her palms against the sides of my head. Much like Kara could access the thoughts and memories of others, anyone could access her mind as well, as long as she let them in. I found my way through her memories much easier than the last time. Unfamiliar images streamed past me, faces I’d never seen, places I’d never been, but Anna and Chloe were somewhere. I just had to find them. That simple thought drew them out.
The memory I was looking for was clear and began with her coming home from a job. It was an easy one, just a lookout gig, but the guy never showed. She was carrying groceries I knew could only be for Anna and Chloe, two new toothbrushes and an assortment of non-perishables. There was a spring in her step, or mine as it seemed. It was a strange perspective living out her memory, seeing what she saw, feeling what she felt. She was happy to be doing what she could to make up for the atrocities The Council forced her to partake in. But as her eyes found the front door of her apartment, I felt her skin prickle with fear. It was open. I picked up on the sick feeling in her stomach as she pushed it in, expecting what I still refused to believe—that Christoph had found them.
The place seemed empty at first, but even if Anna and Chloe were there, she knew they wouldn’t be up and about. They were hidden below the floor in a secret room she had discovered a few months after moving in. It was a good place to keep them safe until Dr. Nickel contacted her about joining Elyse and William.
Suddenly there were voices, and Kara stopped. They were coming from the back patio.
Be calm
, she thought. It was probably a Hunter sent to validate her story, their casual way of checking up on things. She knew how to deal with Hunters. They were ruthless and intimidating, but they were also stupid and easy to manipulate. How else could The Council use them for clean up jobs? As she peeked around the corner to get a glimpse of the intruders, her heart sank with such a hopeless sense of dread and panic that I couldn’t help but react.
What?
I yelled.
What is it?
But her memory answered for her—Christoph.
She should have known he’d come to question her. Just as she caught sight of him, he turned his watchful eyes, catching her in the doorway.
He reminded me of a sleazy businessman, corrupted by power and greed, as he stood up to straighten his suit jacket and tie. I wondered how many people he had fooled with his sophisticated style and expensive taste. His hair, a gray that was once blond in his prime, was short and nicely styled, but he couldn’t disguise the evil in his face. His features were sharp. The point of his nose, his protruding cheek bones, the tips of his eyebrows, all unnaturally symetrical. He had thin, tight lips and perfectly white porcelain veneers that made his smile deceitfully charming.
The way he carried himself was intimidating. Kara stood her ground, but with every step he took forward, I felt the urge to step back. His eyes were a cold, pale blue. They were empty, like he didn’t have a soul, and they narrowed in on Kara as if his stare alone could strip her of her life. I could only imagine how much death those eyes had seen, how many times they had widened with excitement at the sight of human suffering.
As he opened the sliding glass door, the two individuals that accompanied him came into view, and with a rush of fear, Kara knew it was over. The man with him was Dimitri, and he was only used for one thing—punishment, or at least the threat of punishment. He could make any living thing age until its death, taking years away from a person’s life, or killing them entirely. He didn’t have the look of a killer; his eyes were gray and indifferent, almost bored. He was short and athletic, younger than Christoph, but still had shades of silver laced through his head of brown hair. The woman was Amber. Kara only knew of her by description—tall, thin, blonde, and beautiful. Since The Council used both Kara and her for essentially the same purpose, they had never worked together. She was used to extract information by deciphering the truth of a person’s words. In an interrogation, there was no use lying.
“Hello, Kara,” Christoph greeted her with a smile. His voice was surprisingly smooth, almost too kind.
“Christoph.” She nodded briefly, returning his greeting. “No doubt you know of Dimitri and Amber,” he added. He had eyes like a snake, ready to strike.
“Of course,” she answered with a polite smile, but despite their etiquette, I could feel the tension in the atmosphere and in the quick pulse of Kara’s heart. “Please, make yourselves at home.”
The four of them took their seats in silence, Amber choosing to sit beside Kara on the love seat, while Christoph and Dimitri chose the couch directly across from them.
“Let’s not play coy, Kara,” Christoph said pointedly. The tone in his voice sent a chill down Kara’s spine, and I shivered from the feeling. “You know why we’re here.”
“Do I?” she answered calmly, though her fear was so immense it was almost painful. The question was the best response she could think of. It wasn’t a lie, and it wouldn’t give away the fact that she knew exactly why they were there.
Christoph glanced at Amber, clearly noticing how Kara had evaded his question.
“You are quite clever,” he laughed, but the sound was menacing, not joyful. He leaned forward before he continued. “Where is Elyse?”
My heart stopped dead in my chest as he spoke my name, but Kara’s slowed with relief.
“I don’t know,” she answered honestly. Only Dr. Nickel knew of our location, and he hadn’t entrusted it to Kara.
Amber gave a subtle nod, letting him know her words were true, and he continued.
“So she is alive?” he pursued the topic with a disturbing grin.
“I have no way of knowing that for sure.” Amber nodded again, but Christoph didn’t need her to tell him that Kara was avoiding straight answers.
“Do-not-mess-with-me,” he hissed each word slowly and clearly with black anger in his eyes. “Are you hiding something from us, Kara? Yes or no?”
“What could I be hiding?”
He shook his head in disapproval. “Dimitri, take away 100 years the next time she does not give me a yes or no.” He tilted his head and came back to Kara. “Would you like to try again?”
This time it was Kara’s heart that throbbed frantically. “Please don’t,” she begged. “It won’t help you find her.”
Christoph smiled with indifference as he gave Dimitri a slight nod. “Do it.”
“Please,” she cried, but Dimitri obeyed, locking his gaze on her.
I felt it, as she began to weaken, and her skin began to itch as it aged.
“Wait,” she screamed frantically, her body nearly paralyzed with shock.
Christoph held up a hand, and Dimitri looked away, ending the torture.
The panic began to grow in me as her thoughts became clear in my head. She was afraid, and she had no other choice. It was her life or theirs. I felt the tickle of her tears as they slid down her cheeks, the pain in her chest when she knew she couldn’t win, and the guilt that spread throughher like an unwelcome disease as she answered with a heartsinking: “I’ll tell you.”
“The human she healed and her daughter. They’re in the basement,” she confessed, overwrought with distress. “Under the bedroom floor.”
No
, I cried out into the empty space of the memory, but nobody heard, and Christoph’s pleased expression made me sick with anger.
Kara refused to look, but I heard the latch lift and the hinges of the hatch door open. There was no hope. As they were pulled out of their hiding place and into Kara’s line of sight, I broke down. Anna’s worried eyes looked deep into Kara’s, past her and into me, like that silent plea for help was meant for nobody else. Chloe’s face, flushed and swollen from crying, never looked away from her mother. Dimitri escorted them quickly by, and although I wanted to call out, grab them, hold them, save them,
something
, Kara’s body paid no attention to my mental commands. She stood helplessly by and watched as they were taken.
“Thank you,” Christoph said with absolution as he turned to leave, “for doing what is right for our people.”
“Yes, sir,” she said through silent tears, but I felt the hatred she had for him.
His last words were a futile plea for understanding. “I only need their child,” he confided. “Once she bears it for me, Elyse will be free to go. Without the next generation oracle, we have no chance.”
3.
HIS RESOUNDING LAST STATEMENT blindsided me, and I pulled out of the memory with force as he closed the door behind him. I’d known I was flagged untouchable for being the new mother. I just never realized it was because he wanted the child. I should have been expecting it. Of course he didn’t want me dead. He needed me. My insides clenched up with worry for a child William and I had yet to conceive.
I almost forgot the three of them were sitting wide-eyed, waiting for my reaction.
“So?” Mac asked, but I had no words for him. My mind wouldn’t move away from what I had just learned.
“Elyse?” William urged, setting a gentle hand on my arm. The warmth in his touch brought me back momentarily, but I couldn’t look him in the eye. This time the heat from our skin didn’t give me comfort. Not when it promised William and I would bear a child Christoph wanted. Instead I addressed Mac directly.
“Christoph and Dimitri were there. They were going to age her until she gave them up.” Though I would have given my life for Anna and Chloe, I couldn’t expect someone else to do the same. “She had no choice.”
“I want to help you get them back,” Kara said. “Whatever you have planned, I want in.”
“Are you okay with that, Elyse?” William asked, still wary of Kara’s presence.
“Yeah,” I answered, unable to ignore the feelings I had experienced through her memory. As much as I’d denied it, the oracle was right. Kara had done her best. It wasn’t her fault.
“All right!” Mac declared, slapping his heavy hands together. “I’m going to start breakfast now that I know you aren’t going to go for her jugular.”
How long have you known that, Kara?
I asked.
That he wanted our baby?
Not long
, she returned the thought.
I didn’t know until he told me
.
“You okay, Ellie?” William asked, interrupting my busy mind.
“Yeah,” I lied, keeping my eyes on Kara.
He must be keeping the idea to himself. I haven’t heard anyone thinking about it.
Why would he tell you?
I don’t know. I guess he assumed I already knew.
“What’s going on?” William asked, picking up on the unspoken communication between us. Our eyes finally met, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell him. He had reacted so harshly about the prophecy, I didn’t want to worry him more than he already was.
It doesn’t really matter anyway
, I thought to her.
There is no oracle baby.
Not yet,
Kara added.
“Sure,” William said with high eyebrows, “don’t mind me. Just continue on with your silent conversation like I’m not here.”