“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.”
I don’t realize how quickly the tears have begun to overpower me, until Jared offers me a crumpled handkerchief from his pocket.
“Thanks,” I sniffle.
“Well, it’ll be dark soon,” he says. “There’s no sense leaving now. We can leave at sunrise. Your friends here should be awake by then.”
Friends. That’s the least complicated way to describe what they are to me.
“I’ve already dragged them through enough danger,” I say. “Would they be safe here? At least until I come back?”
“Safe and sound,” Jared says. “This place is heavily guarded.”
I don’t like the idea of leaving Cecily and Linden behind, but I know it’s the only option I have. Rowan is my brother, my responsibility. Whatever damage he’s done is because of this hatred he has toward hope, and I’m his symbol for hope. The sister who supposedly perished because of her stupid pro-science notions.
As the night progresses, Jared brings light blankets that smell of Madame’s perfumes. I drape one of them over Cecily and Linden, who have barely moved at all.
I lie beside them and try to sleep, but all night I’m visited by images of flame and ash. There’s no sense in calling out for my brother. In this wasteland of rubble and bodies, he’s nowhere to be found.
We leave just before dawn. Jared tells the other guards that he’s taking me on another of Madame’s missions and that they aren’t to let Linden and Cecily leave the compound.
“Sure you want to leave them behind?” he asks me as I’m climbing into the rusty car.
Right now I’d love nothing more than to have them with me. And I know they’ll be angry when they wake up and realize I’m gone. But am I sure about leaving them behind? Sure that it will be safer for them? Sure that this is something I need to do alone?
“Yes,” I say. And Jared turns the key in the ignition, and we’re on our way to Lexington.
There’s a little screen mounted over the dashboard that displays an electronic map of where we are, the red line of a road twisting and conforming to Jared’s steering.
I can’t help but stare at it. It’s nothing like any of Reed’s inventions, and I think it might be an antique from the twenty-first century. After the wars devastated the rest of the planet and before the virus took over, technology was at its most advanced. That much I know. Hospitals and businesses were sprawling. And then the virus was discovered, and it all deteriorated. What took generations to build took less than fifty short years to come undone.
Jared sees my interest. “Madame hates that thing. She says it’s how the spies keep track of people.” That last part is said as he rolls his eyes. Madame’s fictitious spies are a recurring figment of her opium delirium.
“What is it?” I ask.
“It’s a positioning system. Like a digital map. It reads data from satellite signals.”
“I thought all the satellites stopped working years ago,” I say.
“Just one of many rumors,” Jared says. “The president still has use for them, I think. There are plenty of theories about what the president’s role really is. Then again, maybe he’s just this useless figurehead like everyone says, and the rumors are a way to keep hoping.”
It’s quiet for a while, and then I say, “I heard a theory.”
Jared glances at me before focusing on the road again.
“I heard that the other countries and continents still exist.” Reed’s theory seemed outrageous to me when I first heard it, but now nothing seems too crazy to be considered.
Jared laughs. “That one’s been going around for years,” he says. “Plenty have tried to prove it.”
“What happened to them?” I ask.
“Oh, they came back with tales of the wide blue yonder,” Jared says, and laughs. “They were killed, of course. What did you think?”
I set myself up for that. I ignore the sinking feeling in my stomach and watch the map twist and unfold.
The Lexington Research and Wellness Institute is the heart of a ramshackle city. It’s a multistory brick building, in pristine condition compared to the deteriorating housing complexes that surround it. Multifamily homes with boarded windows, a squat grocery store that doesn’t appear to have any electricity, other buildings that could be more housing developments or orphanages. There are traffic lights still hanging from overhead wires, nonfunctioning.
As is the case with many research towns, the hospital and laboratory is probably the area’s only source of income. Because the president is so adamant about the human race not dying out entirely, he funds these types of institutes, which create jobs locally and provide a shelter for the wounded or the dying.
Situations like Cecily’s when she had her miscarriage, for instance.
If people still believe there’s cause to heal, they’ll believe there’s a chance they’ll be cured before the virus claims them or their children.
The president will fund these establishments, but not defend them from threats like my brother.
There’s not a person to be found. “Did they evacuate the whole town?” I ask.
“They’re probably all hiding indoors,” Jared says. “Where would they evacuate to? We’re just going to make them suspicious if we keep driving around in circles like this.”
“I don’t know where to start looking for my brother,” I say.
“I’m guessing he’s not just going to come out of his gopher hole,” he says. “We’ll have to wait for him to come to us.”
“Where?” I say.
In answer he drives around to the back of the hospital, pulls into its dilapidated parking garage, and shuts off the engine.
The garage is silent. Even the birds have ceased singing. The positioning system goes black; the satellite can’t find us here. I wonder about Jared. I want to ask him how he came to belong to Madame. I wonder what it is that makes him return to her even though she sets him free. He could easily keep driving and never look back. Why does he return? Is it because he wouldn’t leave Lilac to face that woman alone? Because he has no place else to go? Because imprisonment is the safest existence in this world?
I think it’s deeper than that. I think he loves Madame with the loyalty of a child who loves its parent.
Maybe hope isn’t the most dangerous thing a person can have. Maybe love is worse.
I’m starting to think this is a senseless endeavor. Or some kind of trap.
Then I hear the voices accumulating outside. I hear the feedback of a microphone.
I twist around in my seat and look out the back window. From where we’re parked, halfway underground, I can see the crowd of legs. They’re setting up a makeshift stage with wooden crates. The scene is unfolding just like the one I saw on the news on Edgar’s television.
My brother is preparing to make a speech.
I open the door, but Jared puts his hand on my arm to stop me from getting out of the car. “Think before you act,” he says.
“But—”
“There’s a crowd out there. A crowd who not only think you’re dead, but also get off on the idea of this building going up in smoke. You’re not dealing with a whole lot of sanity, Goldenrod.”
“That’s why I have to stop him,” I say.
Jared smiles ruefully at me. “You can’t stop what’s already here. I’ve heard this kid on the radio and seen him on the television Madame keeps in her tent. He’s beyond your control now.”
“I refuse to believe that,” I say.
“Come on,” he says as he opens his door. “We can listen from here.”
My legs barely work when I step onto the concrete floor of the parking garage. My vision bursts with moments of brightness as my pulse throbs in my temples.
Jared and I huddle at the opening to the parking garage, and I have to stand on tiptoes to peer out at the crowd.
It’s a beautiful day, warm with a bright blue sky.
The crowd is mostly new generations, an even divide of boys and girls. “He’s got quite the loyal band of followers,” Jared muses.
“How did they know he would be here?”
He looks at me, smug. “Word travels.”
“You knew,” I say. “Didn’t you? Knew he’d be here at this exact time?”
“You didn’t think I crushed sleeping pills into your friends’ dinner simply because they looked like they needed a nap, did you?” he says. “There were rumors that this would be his next target. Information is always available if you know the right people.”
The shrill microphone feedback forces me to cover my ears. And then it’s replaced by a different sound. A voice I’d know anywhere, saying, “Hello. Welcome.”
Rowan is standing on the makeshift stage.
His voice is booming through the speakers, thundering in the earth, forcing its way inside my skin. My bones shake with the sound. I feel dizzy and sick and unable to speak, unable to breathe, every neuron, every particle of me waiting.
He’s standing just a few yards from me. But if I called his name now, he wouldn’t hear me. The crowd is double, maybe triple, the size of the one I saw on the news. My brother notes this. He says he has benefactors now—benefactors that choose to remain nameless, but who are funding his cause because that’s how important it is. He tells the crowd that each one of them is important, that they are not terrorists, as the news claims. They are a revolution. They are preventing more generations of suffering. He says that destroying these laboratories will end fruitless human experimentation.
Then I can’t hear the words he says next, because the crowd has gone wild with applause. It doesn’t matter what he says. They’re desperate for it, need to know that there’s a leader among them. I try to cling to his words—I can feel them throbbing in my blood, but I can’t make them out. Jared does, though. He’s pushing me back toward the car, saying, “Go, go, go!” My door isn’t even closed before he slams his foot on the accelerator.
We’ve just sped out of the parking garage in time to see the blast that dominates the rearview mirror.
The car is still in motion when I open my door. Jared is calling after me, but that’s no matter. I’m on the ground now. I stumble forward onto my hands and knees, dizzy for a moment before I’m able to stand.
