Where Silence Gathers (Some Quiet Place #2)(75)
“You what?” Andrew stares at me.
Suddenly my cheeks are on fire. Shame and Defiance join the fold, laying their hands on me like they’re praying for healing. “I listened to your messages,” I state, refusing to sound apologetic. “I heard my dad accusing you.”
Pause. Then Andrew asks, his voice tight, “Did you listen to the whole thing?”
What?
My expression is all the answer he needs. Wordlessly he pulls his phone out and taps it a few times. A moment later my father’s voice emerges from the tiny speaker, gravelly and frantic. “Andrew, something happened today,” he says. Dimly I recall him saying the same thing to my mother on the night of the accident. “Stern couldn’t find Christine, and he lost it. He sent Travis after her family. I didn’t know, I swear it. When the boy came back, he was covered in blood. He wouldn’t tell me whose it was, and when I pressed him, he attacked me. I see it now, what we’ve done. You were right about everything.
“I know you took the kids, and I know you lied to me and Stern. But if you think he can’t find them, you’re wrong. He’s put cameras everywhere. Your office, our houses, theirs. You need to change their identities and get them far away from here, understand? I got onto his computer and stole every piece of research I could find—I have it on a flash drive—but it won’t be enough if he can get to them again. I’m heading home to move Tracey and the children. I don’t want them caught in any crossfire. Don’t—”
Static.
Three seconds pass. Five seconds. Ten. In a daze, I tear my eyes away from the phone and meet Andrew’s. “I … you didn’t … ”
“I’m not finished,” he cuts in, using my earlier words. His finger moves over the screen again. He waits. Then he tilts it toward me. “Hello?” a new, younger voice warbles, this one undeniably feminine. A face appears there, in what must be a video chat program, and all the breath leaves my body when I see who it is.
There’s no need for Andrew to introduce us. I recognize her from the profile picture.
Christine Masterson.
TWENTY-SIX
Andrew asks her if she has enough groceries and if her cough has gone away. She’s polite and maybe a little confused when she answers yes, she has enough groceries and yes, her cough is better. She asks Andrew who I am, and he tells her I’m his best friend’s daughter. “You can trust her,” he says, looking at me, and I want her to believe it because it’s true.
After they’ve hung up and the screen is empty again, I sit down on the bench in front of the window, putting my hands beneath my thighs. Andrew settles next to me and I let out a breath. “Tell me,” I say.
He squints at the rising sun, and he does. He tells me everything. “You were five years old. You were playing with some toys in the living room and a cartoon came on. Joy appeared and touched your shoulder. Will was standing in the doorway, and he watched as you looked right at her and smiled. He didn’t want this life for you.”
Shock vibrates through me at this—not only from hearing Andrew mention an Emotion, but at the fact that my father knew about my Sight. Andrew goes on without giving me a chance to absorb it or react. “Will was determined to find some kind of cure,” he says. “I didn’t believe him at first, about the Emotions and Elements. But he wouldn’t stop badgering me until I helped him. So we worked together. We did research. We found a chemist, a Dr. Felix Stern. He’s been mocked for his theories about the existence of another plane and he’s a laughingstock in most scientific circles. When your dad told him about his Sight, he relocated to this area. And the first thing he did was find more test subjects.” A muscle in his jaw tightens.
“Christine? And the others?” A flash of memory, the video of Christine holding a towel to her arm from where someone had drawn blood.
“There’s a part of your brain that works differently, allowing you to see these creatures,” Andrew explains. “It can be inherited, which is why there are more people with the Sight here than anywhere else. You know how it is.” He gives me a look. I do know. People don’t call us hicks and white trash for nothing; around these parts, there’s a good chance the person you’re with could be a second cousin twice removed. “Anyway, we eventually came up with a serum. It doesn’t work on everyone. Some of the kids had bad reactions and … didn’t make it.”
While Andrew struggles to go on, my mind goes back to the files on the flash drive. Those words next to some of the names. Found. Failed.
“Your dad and I didn’t know that to find the antidote, Felix had to first find the poison,” Andrew continues. “He didn’t want to be a joke anymore, so he found a way to give people the Sight, in addition to taking it away. It’s how he can see them himself, now. If this information were released to the public, it would be catastrophic. Which was another reason to hide the remaining children and halt the research.”
A bird swoops toward the ground. “Was my dad taking the antidote?” I already know the answer, but I need to ask anyway. I need to hear him say it.
Andrew hesitates. He’s already told me so much, though, that there’s no point in hiding this. “By the end, Will was addicted,” he admits. “We knew there would be side effects, of course, but we didn’t know how severe they would be. It changed the test subjects, made them violent and unpredictable. See, the serum attacks the part of your brain that allows you to see the other plane, yes, but at the same time it attacks your primitive vertebrate nervous systems. Then it started to evolve. It eventually spread to prefrontal cortex, the deep limbic system, anterior cingulated gyrus, temporal lobes—”