Escape to Eden (13 page)

Anthony tightens his mouth as if he’s considering it, but Colt is still unconvinced and says, “Bad idea.”

“What if she’s right?” Anthony asks. “And the boy won’t come with you? Then everything we’re doing right now will be a complete waste and will surely get you two killed.”

Jenna turns to me. “Can I keep the contacts when you’re done with them?”

Colt glares at her, but I smile. “Sure.”

“Then it’s settled,” Anthony says. He reaches into his bag and removes a small metal case. Inside are four pairs of what look like black dots. “We will all wear these on the inside of our ears. This is how we will communicate. Bram’s guy inside will have a pair too, but he won’t be able to communicate with us, only listen. Jenna and I will monitor things from the outside, listening to various conversations from inside the center. If anyone is on to you, we’ll know.”

“Where are the costumes?” Jenna asks.

Anthony motions to the backpack on my shoulders. “In there.
You’ll have to look at the dress. It should fit Sage, but it might be a little short. And you can do her hair, right?”

Jenna slides her fingers through my long hair, and for a moment I’m worried she might pull it. “No problem. She’ll look just like them.” She turns my chin until I’m facing her. “Just don’t mess it up in the tunnels, got it?”

“I’ll try not to.”

Colt asks Jenna, “Did you pick up the meat?”

She snorts. “Of course I did. Can’t you smell it? Why is it that I always get stuck with the crap jobs?”

“Because you’re good at them,” Colt says and relaxes back into the sofa.

Anthony glances at his wrist. “We have a few more hours until sunrise. Let’s go over everything in detail until we have it memorized and then try to get some sleep. We’ll wake at three in the afternoon, get ready, and get out of here. Got it?”

Our eyes all meet in silent agreement. There’s a knot in my stomach, but I ignore it for fear it will tighten.

When it comes time to sleep, I’m ready. Anthony had each of us repeat the plan, including the layout of the tunnels and Center, so many times that I think my brain might return to mush. But when I lay down on a small bed in Jenna’s basement, I can’t sleep for several hours. I’m plagued with guilt for leaving Max. Memory problems or not, I should’ve sensed he was my brother, the most important person in my life. I am sick that I forgot him so easily.

Eventually I do fall asleep when I can’t mentally take the guilt any longer, but it’s soon after when I hear my name. Half asleep and half awake, I think I recognize the voice. It’s the only voice I heard every morning for the last six years. “Sage. Sun’s up. Let’s go train.”

I open my eyes and blink a few times. Not my father, but Colt. He is staring down at me, his blue eyes practically glowing in the darkened room. “Anthony’s waiting for us upstairs.”

I sit up and rub my eyes. “Is it already time?”

“I know. It feels like we’ve only slept for an hour. Food’s upstairs.” He leaves me alone in the basement.

I tilt my face toward the only window in the room, but sunlight,
more cold than warm, barely filters through its dirty glass. I stand and stretch, then pump out fifty push-ups to get my blood pumping. Tonight is a big night, perhaps the biggest of my life. Tonight I am going to get my brother back.

T
ell me again what you’re going to do once you’re inside,” Anthony says. Papers are scattered across an oval-shaped kitchen table. It looks like he’s been running various scenarios all day. My father used to do that.

I swallow the food in my mouth. “Change into the clothes, avoid cameras whenever possible, make our way to the ballroom where we wait for instructions from you.”

“Correct. And don’t forget to attach the heat sensor on the inside of your sleeve. That’s how I’m going to tell you apart from the others in the building. It’s going to give you a blue aura compared to the reds of everyone else.”

“I still don’t think that’s a good idea,” Colt says. “What if we get caught with them?”

“Highly unlikely. Besides, it’s the only way I’ll be able to keep track of you. I won’t have you going in blind.”

“It’s fine,” I say. “We won’t get caught.”

I already know that any type of weapons, including heat sensors, are scanned for at the initial entrance. Unless an alarm is set off, no one inside will be checked again.

“What about Bram’s guy? What’s his role in all this?” Colt asks. His complexion looks paler than usual, and I wonder if he’s feeling well.

“He’s there only as an observer. If something goes wrong he will be our eyes and ears.”

“For what? To report back that we were all taken and killed?”

Anthony meets his gaze, his expression grim. “Yes.”

“Awesome,” Colt says and leaves the room.

“Don’t worry,” Anthony says to me. “It’s not going to come to that.”

“I know it won’t. I’m getting my brother out of there.”

“Listen to you, Tiger!” Jenna says as she walks into the kitchen wearing only a long t-shirt and underwear. She helps herself to a pastry on the counter, a cup of juice, and turns to face us. “You know there’s like a five-percent chance of this plan actually working, right?”

I fold my arms. “It’s going to work.”

She lowers her glass, smiling, but it’s not friendly. “Says the girl who can’t cook a pizza.”

“Can you just be nice for once?” Anthony asks as he gathers all the papers on the table. “And when you’re done eating, will you help Sage with her hair?”

“Fine, but I have serious concerns that the dress you got for me won’t fit her.”

Colt reappears. “If anything it will be too loose.”

“Stay out of this, Noc,” Jenna says.

Anthony stuffs the papers into a briefcase. “I’m sure it will be just fine. We only have a few hours left, so let’s get to it. Colt, you come with me.”

“Where are we going?”

“Back to your place. There are a couple of weapons I should’ve grabbed, the kind that don’t make noise.”

Over his shoulder, Colt says, “Try not to kill each other, girls.”

As soon as they’re gone, Jenna says, “We better get started. I only have a few hours with you and, honestly, I don’t think it’s enough time.”

I resist the urge to comment back, reminding myself that she’s only thirteen years old. My energy shouldn’t be wasted on her anyway. I inhale deeply and stand up. Just let her do her thing so I can focus on what really matters.

The process of prepping me for the party takes longer than I expect. Jenna bleaches my hair in blond stripes and has me shave my legs and arms twice to be sure I got everything.

“We need to make you as exotic looking as possible without having you stand out,” she says, after twisting my hair into a
design I’ve never seen before. Thin strips are looped in and out of each other into a giant heap on top of my head.

“Who taught you to do all this?” I ask, trying to hold still while she finishes painting my face.

“My mother. She used to do it for all the stars.” Jenna brushes something onto my cheeks. “Everyone loved how she could transform a person. She was amazing.”

I think of her mother, who’s in the next room over, sleeping. On the way to the bathroom, I’d managed a quick peek in passing, the gentle hum of a ventilator having caught my attention. Mostly all I saw was a bunch of machines with tubes plugged into a pale woman with long dark hair. It made me wonder if it would’ve been harder to lose my mother slowly instead of all at once. I decided it would be. No one should have to watch someone they love suffer.

I say, “If she could do half of what you can do, then I’m sure she was amazing.”

Jenna eyes me as if trying to decide how to take my compliment. “Thank you,” she says, but quickly adds, “But there’s only so much I could do for you. You don’t have a lot to work with, so I hope it’s enough.”

A door downstairs opens and closes.

“That must be them,” Jenna says and bounds into the hallway after them.

I stay alone in the bathroom for a moment, staring in the mirror. The reflection doesn’t look like me. I’m someone else, except in the eyes. They are familiar. They have the same fire I often saw in my father’s. I always wondered where the intensity came from, but now I know. The rising heat comes from a burning desire to protect the ones you love.

Before I go downstairs, I dress into the black pants and shirt Anthony got for me to wear into the underground tunnels. Then, as carefully as I can, I wrap a black bandana around my hair. Anthony’s voice drifts up from downstairs. “Is she ready?”

“As much as she can be.” Jenna’s voice.

“Are you sure we’re not making a mistake?” Colt asks.

“What else can we do?”

“We can make her go to Eden.”

“But what about her brother?”

“We can save him later, but at least we will know that one Original survived.”

“We’re both going to survive,” I say from the top of the stairs. “And so will you guys. I promise.”

“You shouldn’t promise anything. Ever,” Jenna says. “It’s a death wish. You look ridiculous, by the way.”

“And you look scared,” I say and breeze by her, snatching my backpack as I walk out the front door. I probably shouldn’t have promised something so huge. It was a silly thing to say, but I know that if they don’t survive, I won’t either. What good will my promise be then?

I slide into the backseat of Colt’s vehicle and stare forward as the others climb into the car. Anthony is behind the steering wheel, driving west toward a setting sun; its light glitters against all the metal buildings, making the world around me look like a mirage. He leaves the city and drives into the forest. The windows are partially down, letting in a cool breeze that helps me breathe easy. No one says a word, but halfway there I wonder if they can hear my heart beating, specifically Colt, who I now know has good hearing. A couple of times his eyes flicker my direction, but he doesn’t say anything.

“Stop here,” I say when I see a large boulder, taller than me, just off the side of the road. It’s exactly where my father said it would be. The Center is maybe a mile from here.

Anthony slows the car and pulls off onto a road that looks like it hasn’t been driven on for a long time. The pavement is cracked and chunks of it are missing.

I’m the last one out of the vehicle. My muscles are tight, like they are rebelling against what I’m about to do. Of all the creatures humans have mutated into, Junks are at the top of the list as one of the scariest. My mind quells the mutiny raging inside me, and I walk to the trunk of the vehicle where Anthony is unloading a couple of bags. He hands me my backpack, and I pull it over my shoulders.

From across the car, Jenna says, “You take care of that hair, Patch. It’s one-of-a-kind.”

“My name is Sage,” I say but know it won’t make a difference.

“This bag smells terrible,” Colt says, his face puckering like he’s chewing on something rotten. He finishes strapping a smaller, blue backpack to the front of him. “You better be right about meat distracting Junks, because this bag is making me sick.”

“It will work,” I say.

Colt swings a long black duffle bag holding several weapons onto his back. “How does your father know so much about Junks?”

This makes me pause. “I’m not sure.”

A memory comes to mind. It’s late spring. A thunderstorm has kept Max and me inside our small house for the better part of the day. My father’s late. He was supposed to return the night before, but never showed up. This isn’t like him, and I’m worried. But I don’t let Max know this. Instead we watch television, a travel channel that shows exotic places filled with even more exotic-looking people. It’s really late when I hear a sound coming from outside. I tell Max I’ll be right back, thinking maybe a skunk has found our garbage again, but when I open the door, I discover a much bigger creature lurking beneath the thick canopy of our oak trees. It’s tall and human-like but covered in something . . . the creature speaks. My name. And then asks for help. It’s then that I realize it’s my father.

I rush to him just as he collapses to his knees. He’s covered in mud and has a deep cut above his forehead; blood runs into his eyes and down his face. After I help him into the house, he tells me he was in a car accident driving back from the city. He wouldn’t give me any more details, but, as I am cleaning the wound in his head, I find the fractured half of a long and hardened, yellowed nail. My father mumbles something about it being bark, but I know better now. It belonged to a Junk.

Anthony finishes tightening the duffle bag to the back of Colt. “All set.”

Colt turns around to face him.

“You take care of her, do you understand?” Anthony places his hands on Colt’s shoulders, and his lips tighten like he’s struggling to know what more to say.

“Don’t worry,” Colt says. “I’ve survived worse than this.”

“Yes. Yes, you have. I’m so sorry.” Anthony lowers his head in reverence.

I turn away, like Jenna, realizing this is a private conversation. The concerned look in Anthony’s eyes reminds me of the way my father used to look at me right before he’d leave Max and me for several days. Like he wasn’t sure if he’d come back.

They say a few more words until Jenna interrupts them. “Get going already! My life is short as it is.”