Sever (23 page)

“You’ll be taking them to the northern compound,” Madame says. “See that they’re fed and they have a chance to rest. Don’t stop for anyone. The whole country’s looking for them.” She pats Cecily’s shoulder blades with so much force that Cecily stumbles. “It’s a good thing you were caught here, where people would think to bring you to me. They know better than to have kept you from me. I own these parts, Goldenrod. I told you that.”

Back when she told me that, months ago, I couldn’t tell if it was true or if it was more maddened nonsense from the woman who smoked too many hallucinogens and was perpetually rambling about spies.

“We need to get our car back,” Cecily says.

“Consider it long gone,” Madame says. “I’m sure the vultures have taken it for themselves by now, and if they haven’t, they’re even stupider than I suspect, which doesn’t seem possible.”

Linden looks at the dirt. He doesn’t ask about his father. He doesn’t say anything at all other than, “Thank you.”

As we’re climbing into the back of the car, Madame grips my arm.

She looks at me, and I can see all of the lines in her face. Now that I’m really paying attention, that neon pink doesn’t hide her thin lips. I can see all the pain she’s ever felt in her seventy-plus years. “When my Rose died,” she says, “tell me, please—was she still pretty?” Beauty is Madame’s obsession. It was Rose’s also. I remember how she looked, languishing on the divan or in her bed, makeup always covering her illness, her hair always arranged in some way or other that was lovely.

I don’t even have to lie. “She was beautiful,” I say.

I can’t tell if this eases the pain or intensifies it, but Madame takes my hand in both of hers and shakes it in gratitude. “Thank you,” she says.

A
S SOON AS
we’ve pulled away from the carnival, Jared meets my eyes in the rearview mirror and says, “Maddie?”

“She’s safe,” I tell him.

He looks back at the road.

Cecily sits between Linden and me. She’s twisting her shirt in her hands, and I know she wants to touch her husband, but she knows like I know that he’s unreachable right now. Madame’s berserk carnival has given him more painful revelations about his father.

I don’t know what’s going to happen when Vaughn shows up to collect us. I cannot imagine what revenge Madame will have for the man who took her only child away.

We’re driving for several miles before Cecily, too restless to stay silent any longer, says, “She told you to take us to the northern compound. What’s a compound?”

“Madame is in charge of this whole area within a thirty-mile radius,” Jared says. “Her business brings in so much money that she’s been able to build other, smaller scarlet districts nearby. She calls them compounds.”

His tone has none of his usual gruffness, and I wonder if it’s because he sees Cecily as a child. He always showed patience for the children who worked as slaves at the carnival.

“How long will we have to stay there?” Cecily asks.

“Until I’m told otherwise,” Jared says.

“No offense,” Cecily says, “but why do you get to be the boss of us?”

He laughs. “I’m not the boss of anybody,” he says. “Madame’s the boss. And I’ve learned that if she wants things done a certain way, there’s always a reason for it.”

Linden watches the ocean speeding by his window. He’s thinking ugly things; I can see the reflection of his eyes, and I don’t even recognize him.

The northern compound is not as grandiose as Madame’s carnival. It’s still comprised mainly of tents. Though, rather than a rainbow of colors, they are mostly earth tones. We stop at a high chain-link fence, and when Jared rolls down the window to speak to the armed guards, I can hear the buzz of electricity. Madame has a love affair with electric fences; Gabriel and I nearly got ourselves killed scaling one when we escaped the carnival.

The guards are new generation boys, baby-faced and
smeared with dirt. They push a button that opens the gate, and Jared drives us in.

There’s still daylight, which would explain the lack of working girls. I see a few of them, though, scrubbing clothes in an old bathtub that has a hose leading into it. Somehow I can still smell the musk of Madame’s perfumes. And there are no carnival attractions, though there are strings of lights decorating the tents, and brightly colored lanterns swinging on wires that form a fishnet pattern overhead. Still an upgrade from the standard scarlet district; Madame truly is a connoisseur of ambiance.

Jared stops the car. “Everyone out,” he says. “It’s about time for dinner anyway.”

We’re led to a green tent that has a matching green sheet for a floor, and more box crates for tables. The chipped paint on the boxes is advertising oranges, and I remember what Rose said about her father owning orange groves. I wonder how wealthy he was, and how influential; did he own the groves as a hobby when he needed a break from saving lives? And then a more sinister part of me wonders if Vaughn killed him not only to steal his daughter but also to be rid of the competition. Vaughn wants to find a cure, but would he accept it if someone else beat him to it?

Jared brings us bowls of oatmeal, which I eye warily. “They aren’t drugged or anything,” Jared says. “Look, see?” He takes the spoon from my bowl, helping himself
to a hearty mouthful, even licking both sides before putting it back. I watch it sink into the oatmeal.

Cecily removes it, dangling it between her thumb and index finger before daintily laying it on the crate. “You can share my spoon,” she tells me.

“There’s an outhouse a few yards to the left if you need it,” Jared says. “I’m going to go track down a radio.”

As soon as he’s gone, Cecily opens the cell phone again.

“Anything?” I ask.

“Nothing,” she says, and sulks. “And the battery’s going to die soon.” She turns her attention to Linden, who is sullenly staring at his bowl. “Please try to eat something,” she says.

It’s as though he doesn’t hear her.

“Cecily,” I murmur, “let him be.”

He does eat a little, though, because she’s watching him. Because she’s the only wife he has left, and he’d better appreciate her, because their time together will run out and there won’t be a spectacular good-bye—only empty hands and a longing for more time.

When Jared brings the radio, there’s music playing. “The regional news always updates at six o’clock,” he says. “It’ll be on in a few minutes.”

Cecily has polished off the entire bowl of oatmeal; it’s the kind of breakfast she’d complain about in the mansion, but after a day without eating, she wasn’t picky. Linden, despite everything, has managed to eat a good deal as well.

Within minutes they’re both asleep.

“You put something in their food, didn’t you?” I say to Jared, who’s fussing with the radio antenna.

“Madame told me about what that boy’s been through today. I thought he could use the rest. And the little one just asks a lot of questions.”

“You had no right—”

“Relax. It’s a mild sleep aid. They’ll wake up feeling in the best shape of their lives.”

They
do
look peaceful. Linden had been withdrawing from human contact since he’d learned those things about Rose, but now in sleep he has his arm around Cecily. Her head rests in the curve of his neck. As long as he’s close to her, she’s happy. She’s home.

It’s true that they need the rest, but I suspect there’s some deeper reason Jared wanted them out of his way.

Jared gets the radio antenna at the right angle, and the static gives way to music. “You told me Maddie is safe,” he says. “Was that a lie?”

“She’s at an orphanage in New York,” I say. I don’t tell him the whole truth about Maddie being with Claire, her grandmother, because I still can’t figure out if this would be too painful for Lilac to learn, or if it’s what she meant to happen all along. “She likes it there. She made a friend.”

He looks like he doesn’t know whether or not to believe me. I can’t fault him for that; it’s a rare thing for a malformed child to meet a kind fate.

“How’s Lilac?” I ask.

“She’s fine,” Jared says. “Busy training some new recruits. Madame’s been especially hard on her since that stunt you all pulled.”

“You mean the stunt you helped us pull.”

“Shh. Listen. This is what I didn’t want them to hear.”

The music has stopped, and a male voice is announcing the six o’clock regional news. As I expected, there’s a recap of the Charleston bombings, guesses as to what type of homemade explosives were used, judging by the size of the blast and the state of the rubble left behind.

The nearest standing research laboratory, which doubles as a hospital, is the Lexington Research and Wellness Institute, approximately 120 miles northwest of the Charleston bombings. The researchers there have evacuated to an undisclosed location as a precaution.

If Lexington is the next target, then that’s where I have to go to find Rowan.

“You’re looking antsy, Goldenrod,” Jared says.

“What do you know about it?” I say.

“I know that whenever trouble springs up, you’re never far behind,” he says. He looks right into my eyes, and his tone is practical. “This has something to do with you, doesn’t it? And that scientist Madame is hiding you from?”

I look at my once-husband. In sleep his features have relaxed, but I can see that there’s a weight on his chest that’s laboring his breaths. He’s got hold of Cecily’s sleeve, because even in sleep he’s terrified of letting go.
And he’s in that state because of his father—I know this. It’s his father who kidnapped Rose so his son would have her; it’s his father who murdered his malformed grandchild. His father is the reason for all the ugliness in our lives.

But I’m the one who opened that door. I’m the one who forced these truths on Linden. He lied to his father and he ran away because of me. And Cecily followed, because where Linden goes, she goes.

I fear I’ve fueled her defiance against Vaughn. I fear he murdered her unborn child to either do away with her or tame her back into submission.

I fear it’s all my fault.

I don’t want to be the cause of any more of their pain. I want them to be reunited with Bowen, and I want for them to spend what’s left of their years together. I’ve already ruined enough.

“Jared?” I say softly. “I’m in no position to ask for any favors, but if I answer your questions—all of them—I’d like for you to drive me somewhere.”

“No can do, Goldenrod,” he says. “I’m under strict orders from the boss lady to keep you safe.”

“You’re right to assume there’s no coincidence that I’m always around when there’s trouble,” I say. “But if there’s going to be a bombing in Lexington, I know I can stop it if I get there in time.”

“Yeah?” he snorts. “How?”

“Because,” I say. “One of the bombers is my brother.”

I tell Jared everything that I know. I start with the day I was Gathered, and I tell him about the arranged marriage to Linden, the escape with Gabriel, which led to our capture by Madame. I tell him about the burned-down house that awaited me when I returned home, and the searches for my brother that reaped no results. I tell him about the orphanage where we brought Maddie, and my strange illness and how my father-in-law found and reclaimed me and subjected me to weeks of bizarre experiments all in the name of this elusive cure he’s so sure he’ll discover.

And I tell him about Cecily losing the baby, how we all suspect my father-in-law was somehow to blame, just like he was to blame for the death of my older sister wife. And as I tell this part of the story, I can’t help the tremor of rage that moves through my arms. Cecily is fast asleep, safe now, but she’s been victim to more horrors than a young girl should ever have to know. And it’s my fault, all my fault, and my eyes are full of tears.

“It is not your fault,” Jared says.

“And I don’t know how, but Vaughn has gotten his hooks into my brother,” I say. “He’s made my brother believe that I’m dead. I don’t know why, and I don’t know how he knew I had a brother, but if I can just find my brother—if I can just explain, I know I can stop him from destroying another lab. But I don’t know when he’s planning to do it. I don’t know how much time we have.”