The Variables (7 page)

Days after he arrived, he awoke in his hospital room with a tray of cooling food next to him and his leg bandaged. Painkillers moved through his body and whatever thoughts he had about his new environment were quickly put aside.

“Where’s Teddy?” he asked first. And the doctor answered that Teddy was safe with Scott and Maxine.

“My friends?” he asked next. “Darla? Ainsley?”

The doctor said that only a child arrived with him on the plane. Then, as if he had been operating under a cloud that had lifted and provided startling clarity, Ethan closed his eyes and bit back both anger and tears.

He had not spoken since.

Lucy didn’t begrudge Ethan for his silence. He was entitled to mourn and grieve in his own way. It wasn’t that she wanted him to snap out of it; she just wanted to know what had happened to Darla. She wanted to know how he had lost his leg. Who had crudely amputated his festering wound? What had he endured in their time apart? What else had he lost?

Crouching at his feet, resting her hands on his whole, uninjured leg, just above the knee, Lucy tried to rouse Ethan’s attention.

“Hey, big brother,” she whispered and then tilted her head a bit to see if he would meet her eyes. He didn’t. “This is my friend, Cass.” She nodded backward toward the tagalong who had positioned herself against the wall, her hands crossed over her body, her trademark braids cascading forward. Cass brought her hand up and waved, even though Ethan wasn’t looking. “Her dad, he’s a super genius architect. Built this place. It’s really remarkable, Ethan. We want to show it to you...there are places to explore.” Lucy couldn’t contain her excitement. “I know I mentioned that last time, but really...there is so much to show you.”

As the big brother, Ethan was always the one showing her exciting places or tricks. He knew all the secrets, and it was rare when she could claim the position of expert. However, even the promise of secrets and intrigue didn’t cause Ethan to blink, so Lucy added in a small, defeated voice, “I guess. When you’re feeling better.”

Cass leaned forward from the wall and stepped into Ethan’s line of sight. She squinted at him and then hummed to herself. “You two look alike,” she replied. “I thought maybe you’d be the outlier, the one King sibling that didn’t have your mother’s nose or your father’s mouth. Dominant genes, I suppose. It’s exceptionally scary how your parents kept producing little look-a-like children. A little army of Kings. Easily identifiable. Yes? You agree? Or you haven’t noticed.” She continued as if Ethan were engaged in her one-sided conversation. She took another step forward, her arms still crossed. Then another. Then Cass tapped Lucy on the shoulder and Lucy made way for Cass to step even closer. She stood in front of Ethan and leaned down over him; she grabbed the wheelchair and spun it at an angle, away from the wall. Ethan looked at the New York skyline for as long as he could until he was forced to let it go and face forward. He made eye contact with Cass for the first time.

She smiled.

“Oui,” she said, “Vous y êtes.” Then she leaned down, inches from Ethan’s face. He narrowed his eyes, tightened his mouth. And Cass wrinkled her nose. “Je vous vois, Ethan. Je vous vois.” Then she reached up and cupped Ethan’s face, her dark hand such a stunning contrast to Ethan’s paleness. He didn’t flinch at her touch, but he stared at her—his gaze wary and full of caution.

Lucy cleared her throat, and Cass turned her head, leaving her body close to Ethan while pulling her hand away.

The two girls exchanged a look, Lucy questioning and Cass expectant of reproach. Cass had a way of pulling people to her and helping them feel safe. Lucy, after all, had followed her blindly through the underbelly of the System and into darkened passageways without knowing if she was friend or foe. If anyone could convince Ethan to give up his silence, it would be the Haitian beauty and her charm. Cass made Lucy feel simultaneously empowered and inferior, and Lucy wished she could just hand over Ethan’s fragile spirit and let Cass work her magic. She wanted her brother back.

Lucy left Oregon in a hot air balloon and left her brother, Darla, and Teddy on the hunt for a doctor. Did the amputation mean they had found one? Or did it mean they hadn’t? Had he asked for friends, plural, like the doctor recounted to Maxine? At one point, she had Ethan as a conspirator in this adventure. Now, he looked at her with disdain, barely concealing the contempt.

“I just want to know what happened with you,” Lucy whispered. She rubbed her eyes. “I just want to know how I can help you. You’re not alone here...there’s so much to tell you, and so much we need you for...and we can’t talk in here.” Lucy gestured around the room, and Cass nodded solemnly. “We need you out. We need you safe.”

“She is right,” Cass continued. “You can be angry and confused, dearest Ethan King. But if you want our help, you have to be willing to leave this room.”

Ethan put his hands down on his wheelchair wheels and spun himself back to the wall with an angry swipe. He took his hand and brought it to the picture and began to outline the buildings with his pointer finger in one fluid line.
 

“Please, stop, Ethan,” Lucy called. She couldn’t hide the tremor. “It’s not just Teddy who needs you. I need you too. I did everything I could to bring you here...I thought...I just...I knew things. You’re safer here, Ethan. I can’t explain it now,” she said, looking upwards as if searching for the invisible listening devices, “but someday I will, and you’ll see.”

Ethan’s hand froze against the picture, his index finger poised at the top of the Empire State Building. He turned his head toward her, his finger unmoving, and his eyes locked onto Lucy’s. She swallowed and felt a coolness trickle down her spine. She saw what was underneath Ethan’s tortured glances. Not fear, not spite. Blame. Lucy tried to say something to respond to his look, but there were no words to deflect the shame. She trembled and felt a distinct shift. Lucy could almost see the compassion seeping from her body. Her face went hot.

“You don’t understand. How can you look at me like that...you don’t know what this place is...what I went through here.” The image of the water closing in over the top of the tanks filled her memory for a brief second before she shook it away. Her lungs seared as if the drowning had just happened, as if Blair had tried to kill her only yesterday. “Can’t you trust me? Can’t you see through your own misery for just one second to think that maybe I knew something you didn’t? You think you’re the only one who has suffered?”

Ethan didn’t blink. He held her gaze. And Lucy let out a frustrated groan. It was Cass who stepped forward between them and raised her hands to call a truce, as if Lucy and Ethan were in danger of flying toward each other, claws out, at any second.

She looked from the brother to the sister and then hung her head. “Ethan. We must be cruel to be kind,” Cass said. “But we’ll leave. Rest, okay? We’ll keep coming back. We’ll discuss it all when you’re ready.” Cass spun and took Lucy by the hand, tugging her toward the door. Reluctant at first, Lucy followed. She stole a glance at Ethan before the hospital door shut behind her: he was still staring; looking right at her, silent and full of fury.

CHAPTER THREE

Dean was a meticulous packer.

While Darla paced, fretted, and grew more anxious with each passing minute, Dean refused to journey outside of the Whispering Waters complex until they had loaded the bed of his pick-up truck with both provisions and luxuries. They were losing ground and losing time.

They predicted the drive would, after they maneuvered past the traffic jams and closed roads, take them three days. For Darla, it was three days too many. But she kept her attention and focus on getting out of the neighborhood.

“Get in the damn truck, Dean,” Darla commanded, and she bit her lip to keep it from trembling. “We’re losing light and there’s nothing more we can take. Stop putzing around. I can starve and wear the same clothes.
 
I don’t need anything but to get on the road. I need my son. And we need to get out of here before the whole complex goes up.”

Dean jumped down from the bed of the truck and the whole pickup bounced under his weight. They had pulled the truck halfway down the street, away from the inferno. After the armed guards from Nebraska kidnapped Ethan and Teddy, they set the house ablaze. And while the fire at the King home was nothing more than smoldering rubble, the flames had licked the houses on either side—smoke was now billowing from a neighboring upstairs window, as if the house had finally decided to succumb to the heat. Darla watched the other houses warily. It wouldn’t be long before they set each other on fire. Like dominoes they would fall one by one, without anyone to put them out.

Dean brushed his hands together and then leaned back. He patted his front pockets and pulled out a half-crushed pack of cigarettes. Slipping one out and holding the pack forward, he nodded to it. “You smoke?”

“Do
you
?” Darla asked. She crossed her arms over the front of her body and her leg shook with impatience.

He examined the cigarette closely, peering at the open end, and tapped the filter against his open palm. “Once upon a time.”

“Smoke on the road,” she replied. She walked up to Dean and, in a stealthy maneuver, slipped the stick from one hand and the packet from the other before he had time to protest. Then Darla walked around to the passenger side, climbed into the truck, and waited.

Dean didn’t move.
 

“Are you kidding me?” Darla yelled at him and she leaned over and gave the horn a healthy honk.

Jolted into action, Dean leaned against the driver side door and peered in through the open window. “You think we should do something? For the others? Despite what’s happened in this world, I still believe in the next one, you know?”

“Good for you.”

“Come on, they deserve something. A prayer. A remembrance.”

Darla rolled her head sideways and her eyes landed on Dean. She felt for the gun against her hip, unhooked her holster, removed it, and in slow motion brought her right hand and arm across her body and angled the gun at Dean’s head. In that awkward position, Darla raised her eyebrows as a challenge. Dean yawned, undeterred by Darla’s act of aggression, and patted his pockets again for his nonexistent cigarettes and then settled his body weight against the truck. He motioned for her to speak.

With the gun still aimed, Darla cleared her throat.

“God, take care of your four new members to heaven, if that’s where those souls ended up. I’m sure you have your hands full dealing with admitting the other seven billion people lined up outside the pearly gates. Must be quite an intake list. But let’s be honest, skip yourself the work and let Spencer rot in hell. Amen.” Darla lowered the gun. “Get in the truck, Dean. Get in the truck or I’m leaving you.”

“You think I don’t have a sense of urgency?” Dean asked, unmoving from outside the cab.

“We should have left hours ago.”

“This trip will take three days with no hiccups. But what if we get stuck? Sick? Trapped? I’m not out here trying to waste time. I’m trying to safeguard success.” Dean sniffed and wiped his nose with the back of his hand. He squinted into the sky black with smoke and ran his tongue across his teeth. “You’re right. We need to get past the back-ups and find some open road before dark. But we’ve got time...not much...but some. And I’ll use all the time we have, because,” he raised his eyebrows, “you’re not the only smart one.”

Darla looked incredulous.

“Generator. And then we’re gone. I promise,” Dean said pointing to the backyard and motioning for Darla to follow. “Come on, tough gal. I can’t carry that thing by myself.”

For a second, it appeared like Darla wouldn’t budge, but then she rolled herself out of the truck and trudged through grass and past the wreckage of the house. Heat still radiated from the collapsed wood, but the King house was nothing more than a heap of blackened lumber. Only the fireplace stood unscathed; standing erect, like a beacon to their tragedy.

Darla tried not to look in the corner of the front yard where she knew Spencer’s body was still slumped against the shrubbery. He was very dead. His gunshot wound to the stomach bled out and Darla took a morbid satisfaction in knowing that his final moments had been painful. She had not wanted to take his life—despite the pain he’d inflicted—but she had not wanted him to survive, either. He’d lived long enough to reflect on his actions. The man who valued personal survival above basic humanity had invited his own demise. Whether or not the men who came for Ethan would have found Teddy on their own was beside the point; Spencer had handed her son’s whereabouts to them on a silver platter—damning Ainsley and Doctor Krause, sacrificing Joey, and leaving her and Dean to escape. Just barely.

Reeling from the loss, Darla couldn’t quite wrap her head around the last few hours. Her heart had not stopped aching. There was a pain lodged under her ribcage, and it nearly crippled her every time she thought of Teddy’s face—wide-eyed, freckled, a tangled mess of wavy hair, uncut and growing longer by the day. How she longed to tousle that hair again, plant a kiss on his forehead, or discuss Star Wars or the meaning of life.

One time he had asked if she would color him a rainbow fish. She told him that she would later.
 

She never drew that fish, and it haunted her.

In her memories of Teddy’s kidnapping, the militant strangers at the heart of the siege were faceless shapes. Ghosts. As she tried to recollect a feature, a concrete detail, they slipped from her grasp like she was trying to hold on to steam.
 

Dean walked into the backyard. A smoky haze lingered, creating the illusion of fog. He walked toward the middle of the grass, where the generator sat unplugged. He bent down and reached out to the metal handle and then drew his hand back quickly.

“It’s hot,” he announced. “The house went straight down, didn’t touch the trees...but this thing is sitting here scalding?” He shook his head.

Darla hadn’t heard him.

She looked out into the wooded area behind the house. It was a small expanse of untouched wilderness, just along the edge of the tract housing. While cookie-cutter homes popped up on either side, this backyard was a comparative jungle. The trees spanned no more than twenty yards before the development started up again. Still, Darla peered.