The Retribution of Mara Dyer

  Dr. Kells leaned forward and ran her hands through her hair. “I need to study you.”

  “What do you want me to do?” I heard Noah ask, before the screen went black.

  9

  I STARED AT THE BLANK screen, as if just by looking at it, I could make Noah appear. But he didn’t. Nothing did.

  “Did you see a date stamp on that video?” Stella asked, looking at both of us. Jamie shook his head. “Mara?”

  I hadn’t. I was still staring at the screen. It had been Noah’s voice. He was alive. And he was here.

  “Okay,” Stella said. She pressed the power button, but nothing happened. “I don’t think we can turn it on or off from here, which means someone somewhere else is doing it.”

  “So let’s figure out where somewhere else is,” Jamie said.

  That was where Noah would be. Everything in me knew it.

  “Jude said there was a map.” I looked around us, at the mess of papers and files and notebooks, and then remembered the scrolls.

  I pointed at them. “Guys, some help?” We began unrolling one after another. There were maps and charts, as I’d suspected, but we didn’t find what we were looking for until we were almost out of scrolls.

  “Let’s spread it out over there,” I said, tipping my head toward the desk. Stella stacked notebooks over the corners to hold it open.

  We were looking at detailed architectural plans of the Horizons Residential Treatment Center.

  Except it wasn’t just a treatment center. It was a compound. The treatment center was just the part we could see. Beneath it, below ground, was a sprawling, windowless structure, segmented off into different areas that together comprised the “Testing Facility.”

  “Holy shit,” Jamie whispered.

  Stella examined the map and explained what we were looking at. “So I think we’re underground again, in the lowest level of the testing facility. See there?” She pointed to some small shapes within the larger shape. “It looks like these little rooms might be where they were keeping us. You found Jamie on level 2.” She traced her finger to an area labeled KITCHEN, not far from where Jamie said we’d entered Kells’s office—the decoy office.

  “Level 3 is where we are now—not too far from where we started, actually. And we’re still on No Name Island, it looks like.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Where else would we be?”

  She ran her finger across a long line that ran the length of what seemed to be a tunnel. “There are three other structures. On a completely different island.”

  I peered over her shoulder and read the labels: MAINTENANCE, CONTAINMENT, STORAGE.

  “That’s a power line, I think. And there,” she said, squinting at the blueprints, “that’s the power grid. It’s in the maintenance area. That’s where Kells is, probably.”

  And Noah, too.

  “One way in, one way out,” Jamie said, pointing at the tunnel. It wasn’t far from where we were now, but we’d have to go back up to the fake office to get there. I was already moving toward the ladder.

  “Mara, wait—” Stella started.

  “For what?” I called out over my shoulder.

  “What are we going to do, just walk in there?” Jamie asked.

  “Yes?”

  Stella made a face. “Shouldn’t we, like, have a plan or something?”

  I stopped. “It doesn’t matter what we plan. Kells knows we’re coming. She’s probably watching us right now.”

  I looked behind me and scanned the room for a camera. Stella followed my gaze, then stopped and pointed at a tiny little reflective globe suspended from the ceiling, in the far right corner of the room. I stared at it for a moment, then raised my hand and gave it the finger.

  “I thought you were going to give it the District Twelve salute,” Jamie said.

  Stella snorted. “Look, maybe we should at least get a weapon?”

  I lifted the hem of the hospital gown and withdrew the scalpel from my underwear. “Got one.”

  “You’re kind of limited with that, no?”

  Wayne hadn’t thought so.

  “She wouldn’t have left anything here that we could use against her,” I said.

  Stella held up our files. “She left these.” A few papers fluttered to the ground. She bent over, and went very quiet. “Mara,” she said as she picked them up. “I think these are yours.”

  I took them from Stella. They were drawings, some resembling people with limbs missing, others that looked like faces, with the eyes scribbled over and blacked out. As I stared, the lines on the paper began to move, arranging themselves in a way that suggested my face. I looked away.

  “She probably left them here on purpose.” So I would see them. So they would upset me. “Look, you don’t have to come with,” I said, my voice low. “In fact, you probably shouldn’t.” I crumpled the drawings up and threw them at the wastebasket. I missed.

  Jamie and Stella exchanged a look before Jamie rolled his eyes. “Of course we’re coming with you,” he said, as Stella tucked a few files and notebooks under her arm. I offered him a small smile before climbing up the ladder.

  “This doesn’t look like the plans,” Jamie said.

  “It doesn’t look like anything.”

  We tried to follow what Stella remembered of the blueprints, guided only by harsh auxiliary lights, which made the curving, winding, subterranean structure of the place even more disorienting. None of us could pinpoint exactly when the power had been cut off. The air felt dead and stale as we moved through it.

  “I feel like any second there could be a thousand guns pointed at our heads,” Stella said.

  “There could be.” I felt my way through the darkness. Our footsteps echoed on the metal walkway. “Well, probably not a thousand.”

  Eventually, the walkway parted in a fork. We could go left, right, or down a small set of stairs. I decided down. When we reached the landing, we stood opposite a metal wall; a door had been cut into it, with rounded corners and a biohazard symbol in the center. CONTAINMENT, the plans had read. Nowhere to go but in.

  “Nope,” Jamie said, shaking his head. “Nope.”

  I pressed my ear to the door.

  “Is she here yet?”

  I sprang back when I heard those words. Noah spoke them. He was behind this door. I reached for the handle, but Jamie stopped me.

  “Mara,” he said slowly. “Do you know what that symbol means?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then would you kindly share why you’re ignoring it?”

  “Noah’s in there. I just heard him.”

  Jamie looked skeptical.

  “Listen,” I told him. He pressed his ear to the door too.

  “Roth’s here as well, sounds like.”

  Jamie looked like he’d been shocked. “Jesus,” he whispered. “Who’s he talking to?”

  “Probably Dr. Kells,” Stella said it aloud as I thought it.

  I looked at the both of them. Stella looked pale and frightened. Jamie looked determined. Decided.

  It was time. Time to split up. I took a deep breath.

  “I don’t know what that video meant, or why Kells wanted us to see it. I don’t know why Jude helped us get out or if he was even really helping us at all. I don’t know anything, but I know that I have to open this door. I have to. And if you don’t want to be here for it, you should go.”

  “Mara, wait—”

  “There was a hatch, somewhere on the blueprints, right?” Stella nodded. “By the Maintenance Area. You should go. Together. Get to No Name Key however you can. I’ll catch up with you there or I won’t.”

  “I think you’re making a mistake,” Jamie said slowly.

  Stella raised her hand. “Me too, for what it’s worth.”

  I smiled without amusement. “Noted.”

  Jamie ran his hand over his scalp, scratching at it. “I don’t want to leave you here by yourself.”

  “Then don’t.”

  Stella looked back and forth be
tween the two of us, clearly unsure what to do. I reached for the handle again.

  “Stop!” Jamie shouted.

  “Jamie—”

  “Mara, I love you—don’t look at me like that, not in that way—but if you are so far gone that you are about to ignore a BIG RED BIOHAZARD symbol, me going in with you isn’t going to help you. I want my innards to stay inner.”

  “It’s okay,” I said quietly. “It really is.” I wasn’t offended, or even hurt. I was relieved. I didn’t want to feel responsible for Jamie and Stella. It was enough just being responsible for myself.

  “Shit,” Jamie muttered. “Shit.”

  “Go, Jamie.”

  He grabbed my face in his hands, hard, and smushed my cheeks. “If it’s Ebola, you’re fucked. But if not, just—try not to breathe for as long as you can, okay?”

  I nodded. “Go. I’ll give you a head start.”

  Jamie kissed me on the cheek. “Good luck,” he whispered, and he and Stella began to climb the stairs. I waited until the sounds of their muted footsteps disappeared, and then I pressed my ear to the door.

  “Why won’t she come in?”

  Noah again. I closed my eyes. Something wasn’t right. He was alive, obviously, but if he was okay, why wasn’t he opening the door to come to me?

  Every instinct told me to run, but I turned the handle anyway. The door opened slowly.

  The room was white and tiled, like the examination room I’d woken up in. No furniture in this one either, except for a small card table and two chairs. Dr. Kells sat on one of them. The second chair was empty.

  “Where’s Noah?” I asked with steel in my voice. My eyes searched the room, but there was nothing to find. “Why did you tell me he was dead?”

  Dr. Kells was reaching into a cardboard box by her feet as I spoke. “Because he is.”

  She lifted something up, over her head. A gas mask. “I’m sorry,” I heard her say before she lowered it over her face. There was a hissing sound, and by the time I noticed the vents near the ceiling, I had already fallen to the ground.

  10

  BEFORE

  Atlantic Ocean

  I RESTED MY CHEEK AGAINST the ship’s railing, breathing in air that smelled of salt and rain. It was night; the deck was nearly empty. Two young men jostled and joked with each other as they worked to tie ropes, arrange sails. Sailors—that was it. They paid me no mind, and I watched them out of the corner of my eye. They were familiar with each other, family perhaps. They moved and worked together the way Sister and I had when we’d used to cook. Though she and I were never sisters, which is why I was here and she was dead.

  I spent every night wondering why that was, why I was here to stare out at the black sea that seemed to have no end to it, when Sister and Uncle and so many others were rotting beneath the earth half a world away. I wondered why my benefactor, as he had been called by everyone I ever knew, wanted me enough to provide for me even after his death. I wondered of what value he thought I might be to him.

  It was my final night at sea, and I was too restless to spend it belowdecks. I hardly ever spent time in my quarters, preferring to watch as sailors strung the ropes from the masts into a giant web, to watch the sails breathe with wind. On past nights, when my presence had been noticed and I was chased below by a man with spectacles like Mr. Barbary’s and shiny gold buttons on his coat, I would creep along the corridors, sneak behind doors, listen to conversations no one guessed I could understand.

  But that morning I watched as dawn broke, crisp and clear over the horizon, before a dark cloud enveloped us as the sea narrowed into a river. Iron smoke swallowed every scrap of blue sky, and when the ship docked, I was jostled aside as it crawled with people the way the waters below it teemed with fish.

  The river was clotted with other ships, the banks crowded by docks, and buildings with domes and arches and spires that scraped the sky. Pipes spit black smoke into the air, and my ears filled with the sounds of the city, with shouting and whistling and chiming and creaking and other sounds so foreign I could not even name them.

  I went back to my quarters to fetch my things, only to find that someone was waiting for me.

  The man wore black clothing to match his dark eyes, which crinkled at the corners. His face was kind, his voice rich and deep. “I am Mr. Grimsby,” the man said. “I believe we have a mutual connection through Mr. Barbary?”

  I did not answer.

  “He sent word to my mistress that I should escort you to the London home. Are you ready, miss?”

  I was.

  He lifted my trunk from the ground, and I stiffened. He noticed. “May I take your things?”

  No, I wanted to say. I nodded instead.

  I followed Mr. Grimsby off the ship, watching the way my trunk bobbed with his steps. From the sounds of hooves and wheels and canes and feet, I picked out the clop, clop of my new shoes on the stone street. I counted my steps to calm myself.

  The air clawed at my too-thin dress, and I huddled into it as Mr. Grimsby wound his way to a grand carriage that awaited us. The ink-black horse shied at my approach.

  “Whoa, girl,” the driver said, patting her neck.

  I took a cautious step forward, and the horse snorted and stamped. I didn’t understand. I had a way with animals; my mind was filled with hazy memories of feeding monkeys from the palm of my hand, of riding an elephant with Sister as it swam across a river.

  The horse seemed to shriek, and it strained at the straps that bound its head and body to the carriage.

  The driver apologized to Mr. Grimsby. “Don’t know what’s gotten into ’er, sir.”

  I reached out my hand to calm her.

  Just then she reared. Her liquid black eyes rolled up into her head, showing the whites, and then without warning she bolted.

  Mr. Grimsby looked in disbelief after the carriage now tearing down the crowded street, drawing shouts and screams in its wake. We heard the crash before we saw it.

  Mr. Grimsby nearly forgot me and took off at a run. I was as close on his heels as my legs would allow, but then I wished I hadn’t been.

  The carriage had turned over, and its wheels were spinning in the air. The horse had tried to jump an iron gate tipped with spikes.

  She hadn’t made it.

  My throat tightened with an ache that threatened to become a scream. I never cried. Not when Uncle had been burned, not when Sister had been stoned. But when I saw the once-perfect black body of the horse now mangled, her coat slick with blood, and I heard the gunshot that ended her pain and misery, my eyes stung as they filled with tears. I wiped them away before anyone could see.

  11

  MY EYES FLUTTERED OPEN. IT felt like I was being rocked, like I was swaying in the air.

  “I am so, so sorry, Mara.” The voice was muffled, distorted. It came from a creature with huge, dark, empty eyes and a hole-punched snout. It whuffed as it leaned over me, pried open my mouth. I wanted to scream, but my lips and teeth were numb.

  When I opened my eyes again, the world was white and the creature was gone. My nostrils stung, invaded by chemical smells, and the ground beneath me was hard and unyielding.

  Because it wasn’t the ground, I realized as the room came into view. It was a table. A gurney. I was cold, so cold, and I couldn’t feel my limbs.

  “I wish we could have avoided this.” The voice belonged to Dr. Kells, and she appeared out of the corner of my vision. I’d never seen her without makeup before. She looked startlingly young, except for the deep lines that bracketed her mouth. Wisps of hair escaped from a loose bun at the nape of her neck. She smelled like sweat and bleach.

  “I wanted to fix you. I thought I could save you.” She shook her head, like she couldn’t believe she’d been so stupid. “I thought, given regular infusions of Anemosyne and Amylethe, we would eventually be able to release you back to your family. I actually thought you might be able to go back to school!” She laughed then, the sound thin and panicked. She wasn’t looking at
me—I wasn’t sure if she was even talking to me. And—was she crying?

  “I’m sorry I made you believe Noah was alive. I am sorry for that. I know how difficult it must have been, hearing recordings of his voice. But Jude gave me no choice, you understand? He’s . . . not well. I had no idea he would take things as far as he did at the Tamerlane. No idea. Sometimes even I can’t predict him.” She laughed again. “Claire was the only one who could. And no one can bring her back.”

  Kells swiped at her red-rimmed eyes with the back of her hand. “When he let you out and you . . . What happened in the examination room, with Wayne? My God, Mara. What if something like that happened again? I know you must think I’m the villain here. No doubt you’ve killed me a thousand times in your head since you’ve been conscious, and who knows how many times while you were unconscious. But think about what you’ve done today. Think about what you’ve done before. The people you’ve hurt? The lives you’ve ended?” She stared at nothing, her eyes wide and afraid. “I tried so hard, but you’re just not safe.”

  Then she moved over to a row of steel cabinets and removed something from them. I heard the click of plastic as she fitted a cap onto a syringe.

  “I’m going to give you an injection that will stop your heart. I promise you, Mara, you won’t feel a thing.”

  But I could feel something. I could feel my fingers, and the way the stiff fabric of the hospital gown settled and stretched over my chest. I should have been more frightened than I was. I should have been terrified. But I just felt like I was watching all of this happen to someone else.