“Not yet.”
“That was some serious mother lion behavior in there.” She gestured at the bars at the end of the tunnel. “I thought you were going to tear those two Freemasons apart.”
“Illuminati,” I said, returning the hug.
“Whatever.” Elle pulled away and dismissed the mistake with a flick of her wrist. “The one with the baby demon whip needs to learn some manners.”
Gabriel.
We all stared at the floor. None of us wanted to look at the bars.
Priest looped his headphones around his neck. “What are we gonna do?”
“Keep your voice down.” Alara glanced down the tunnel. “We don’t need Andras listening in.”
“Dimitri says the only way to get Andras out of Jared’s body is to find someone else for him to possess,” Lukas whispered. “And there’s still no guarantee the demon will leave.”
Elle frowned. “I don’t know if I can do that to anyone.”
Alara holstered her paintball gun and pointed at the text on her T-shirt: BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY. “This isn’t a fashion statement. No one I care about gets hurt on my watch.”
Lukas stared down the tunnel. “I don’t know how much time we have.”
“Then let’s stop wasting it.” Alara turned to me. “So what’s the plan?”
With Jared’s life on the line, the margin for error was zero—the same number of viable ideas I had right now. I walked to the end of the tunnel and forced myself to look through the bars, where the boy I cared about was chained to the wall like an animal. “We save him.”
Alara and I waited in the hallway at the top of the stairs leading down to Jared’s cell. Priest, Lukas, and Elle had taken off into the steel halls in search of Dimitri and Gabriel.
We were sitting on the floor with Bear stretched out in front us. Alara hadn’t said a word since we left the containment area, and without Elle’s chatter, the silence between us had turned awkward.
“You never suspected anything?” she asked suddenly.
“What?” I glanced over at her.
Alara pulled at a loose string on her cargo pants. “About your mom.”
It felt like an accusation, not a question.
That my mom kept so many secrets that it feels like she lied to me every day? That those secrets and lies were the reason my dad left?
I remembered every detail, every conversation, and every smile. The idea that all the memories my mind had preserved so perfectly were some kind of performance destroyed me.
“No.” The admission made the truth feel even more painful. “The day my father left, he wrote my mom a note. It mentioned me.” I couldn’t bring myself to tell her what it said.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know.” Alara’s voice softened, and she sounded like the girl who had given me the protective medal around my neck, in a hotel room with a pink door.
“I may not be a member of the Legion, but I’m not Illuminati, Alara. I’m still the same person I was a few days ago.”
Just miserable and broken and totally alone.
Alara didn’t respond right away. “When my grandmother told stories about the Illuminati, they were the bad guys. And the reason the Legion was formed,” she hesitated. “Now Dimitri is telling us of the Order of the Enlightened is responsible for all the shady incidents since Priest’s granddad was at Yale, and it turns out your mom was one of them. I’m just trying to get my head around all this.”
If Alara—the most confident member of the Legion—didn’t know how she felt, how were Lukas and Priest feeling? I couldn’t think of anything to say that didn’t lead back to the fact that my mom was not only a member of the Illuminati and the Order, but a spy.
Dimitri lit a cigarette and shook out the match.
Elle pretended to cough. “Are you are aware second hand smoke is almost as dangerous as actually smoking?”
We weren’t in the cell anymore. Gabriel and Dimitri had given us a brief tour of the safe house, a huge sci-fi compound of gleaming metal walls and white ceilings, and now we were sitting in a room surrounded by glass dry erase boards, covered in symbols and math equations, as if Dimitri and Gabriel were developing an Illuminati Theory of Relativity.
Dimitri took a drag and stubbed it out. “Everyone has a vice.”
“I’m sure he has more than a few,” Alara muttered under her breath.
“Let’s go over the rules one more time.” Dimitri paced in front of us, while Gabriel sat at one of the black tables, cleaning his whip.
“Don’t you mean for the tenth time?” Priest asked.
“If you’re going to stay at the safe house until we figure out how to resolve the current situation, your safety is our responsibility,” Dimitri said.
After our tour, Dimitri had invited us to stay in two, identical, sterile-looking rooms, which could’ve passed for sleeping chambers on the Starship Enterprise. To his credit, he obviously realized we weren’t going to leave Jared alone with them.
“Never go downstairs alone.” Elle was stretched across the table, with her head resting on her arm, as if she were listening to a boring lecture in Bio class.
“Or without wearing your glasses.” Lukas flicked the plastic sunglasses on the table in front of him, sounding bored.
Gabriel dropped the whip of the table. “This isn’t a joke. If you make eye contact with Andras, he can jump out of your brother’s body and into yours in seconds. Or he can mark your soul.”
Elle rubbed her arms like she had goose bumps. “What does that mean?”
“If a demon marks your soul, he’ll always be able to find you, no matter where you go,” Gabriel said.
Priest held up his protective glasses, examining them. “There’s gotta be a more effective way to keep him from making direct eye contact.”
Him.
They were talking about Jared.
“Letting them stay here is a bad idea, Dimitri.” Gabriel stopped cleaning the ivory bones. “They’re untrained—”
Priest pushed his chair away from the table, the legs screeching across the floor. “I can make a weapon out of a soda can, or whatever you’ve got in that black bag of yours. So do your homework before you start talking about who’s untrained.”
Dimitri shot Gabriel a warning glance. If Gabriel was the storm, Dimitri was the eye. “I think Gabriel was referring to experience with demonic possession and containment.”
Containment.
Jared soaked to the bone in holy water, probably freezing. Charred and covered in burns. That’s what he meant.
Dimitri continued. “Our apologies, Owen.”
Priest stood up, shoving his chair back. “Don’t ever call me that again.” He pointed at Dimitri. “No one called me that except my granddad.”
Alara stopped sifting the powders in the bowl in front of her and smiled.
“I’m sorry, Priest.” Dimitri emphasized his name.
Priest grabbed his hoodie off the back of the chair. “I’m outta here. You wanna show me where I can do some work? Otherwise, I’m going to my room, or whatever you call those cryogenic chambers where you said we could sleep.”
Elle stifled a laugh.
“Gabriel can take you to the Mech Room. This is one of the Illuminati’s older safe houses, and it’s well outfitted. You should find everything you need there. We might even have a soda can or two.” Dimitri kept his voice light, as if making a stupid joke might win Priest over.
Alara stood up, adjusting her tool belt on the hips of her olive cargo pants. “I’m going with him.”
Gabriel stormed out of the room and led Priest down the hall. Alara rolled her eyes, following them. Bear lifted his head and trotted after her.
Dimitri sighed. “This isn’t going well.”
Lukas flipped his coin over his knuckles a few times before he responded. “What did you expect?”
Dimitri rose and walked toward us. Even his black tactical gear couldn’t offset the dark shadows under his eyes.
Had he slept at all?
Do I care?
“We locked Jared up to protect him from himself. Right now, he’s the blade in the hand of a killer. How do you think he’d feel if he hurt someone—or one of you?”
“All I want to know is how we’re going to get Andras out of my brother’s body.” Lukas looked Dimitri in the eye. “Find a way to do that, and I’ll trust you.”
Dimitri lit one of his black cigarettes, letting the match burn down to his fingertips. “I don’t know if I can.”
Lukas, Elle, and I spent the rest of the morning pouring over the journals, searching for anything that might help us save Jared. We tossed out suggestions to Dimitri and Gabriel, who shot them down. At least, we were sharing.
The Illuminati members spoke in low tones and didn’t invite us to join their conversation, which only made Lukas more suspicious.
After lunch, Priest and Alara returned. Priest tossed a small, white, plastic case across the table in front of Dimitri. At least they made some progress.
“A gift?” Dimitri raised an eyebrow.
Priest crossed his arms. “You wish.”
Dimitri picked up the case. “Contact lenses? Are you concerned about my vision?”
Priest pushed his blond bangs out of his eyes, his expression unreadable. “Hardly. Like I said, based on what happened to Jared, your wraparound anti-possession sunglasses obviously aren’t very effective. And they definitely aren’t my style.” Priest pointed at the contact case. “My granddad used to say if the trap doesn’t catch the mouse, you’ve gotta build a better mousetrap.”
Alara stood behind him with a smug smile on her face. “Tell them how they work.”
“Those babies are soaked in holy water, with some of Alara’s Haitian magic thrown in for good measure.”