Gameboard of the Gods (Age of X, #1)(127)

“Did you pay in blood too?” asked Justin.

Mae’s mother seemed to have momentarily forgotten he was here. Her defensiveness and contempt faltered at his words, and astonishment crossed her harsh features. “What on earth are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about the cult you signed on with to create Mae, the one that requires human sacrifice.” Justin watched her so, so carefully, on guard for any twitch. Mae’s mother, however, looked floored. It wasn’t something Mae saw very often.

“That is…” Her voice trailed off as though she needed to replay Justin’s words in her mind and make sure she had them right. “That is absurd.” A few moments later, her bafflement turned to outrage. “Is that supposed to be some kind of sick joke?”

“Where did you get”—Justin walked over to the jewelry box and held up the necklace—“this?”

Her mother squinted as the pendant caught the light. “How should I know? It’s Maj’s. Ask her.”

Mae didn’t want to play into Justin’s madness but couldn’t help elaborating. “It’s nothing I ever picked out. It’s just been around.”

“Then it was probably part of your grandmother’s collection.” Frowning, her mother glanced back and forth between their faces. “What’s this about?”

“Nothing,” said Justin, snapping a picture of the necklace with his ego.

Mae had no doubt it’d be sent off to the other land grants’ law enforcement offices in an attempt to find a match among the various victims’ possessions. They wouldn’t find one, though. Mae was certain of it. I have no connection to the rest. Leo said so. Of course, maybe she shouldn’t have put that much stock in Leo, seeing as he had yet to explain the shadowy figure in the video. Justin wasn’t coming out and saying it, but she knew he no longer believed the video had been manipulated.

“It’s late. We need to go,” said Mae. Justin’s head swiveled toward her.

“But we—”

“You’re not going to find out anything else useful,” she told him. “Because this—as ludicrous as it all is—has nothing to do with our work.”

He opened his mouth to protest again, and she shot him a hard look that finally made him back down. Tessa looked all too relieved, and Mae’s mother had recovered herself enough to act as though it were all no big deal. Mae hesitated by her before walking out the front door after Justin and Tessa.

“Why tell me all this now?” Mae asked.

“Because your ‘friend’ caught me off guard. That, and it’s all in the past. Nothing to be done for it now, and there’s no hard proof of my guilt if you were going to turn me in.” She crooked Mae a smile that held no warmth. “And I don’t believe even you would sell your own family out.”

It was ironic she’d mention that, since Mae, before going up to her old bedroom, had had a heated argument with Claudia about the baby they’d smuggled away. Mae had demanded to know if Claudia knew her child had ended up with the savages in Arcadia. Claudia had been aghast—but not because of the girl’s fate.

“What are you thinking looking into this? Do you think you’re actually going to find her and bring her back?” Claudia had exclaimed.

“I don’t know,” Mae had admitted. “I’m just looking.”

“You’ll ruin my marriage if this gets out! Not to mention get me arrested. Are you really cold enough to do that, Mae?”

Mae hadn’t had an answer. The little girl seemed too far away, too impossible to ever find. With no proof of her existence, there was no proof of a crime.

The car ride back to the hotel was full of tension. Justin was too smart to say anything more in front of Tessa. And Tessa was too smart to push on something she knew she probably shouldn’t have heard in the first place. She was also tactful enough to ask if she could go for a walk when they got back to their hotel. No doubt she assumed Mae needed some quiet time.

“Stay around this block,” Justin told her. “It’s getting late.” It was still well lit and full of people out for the evening’s entertainments, especially since the rain had held off. Across the street from their hotel, a band was having an outdoor concert in a small park. Tessa assured him she’d stay safe, and once she was gone, Justin beckoned Mae upstairs. “Let’s talk.”

Mae trudged along beside him. “I don’t want to talk.”

“Yes, you do.”

She followed him up to his room. He immediately turned toward the minibar, then caught himself and took a seat on the bed instead. He patted the spot beside him.

“Haven’t we done this before?” she asked morosely, sitting on the bed’s edge. “Except last time you were confessing to believing in the supernatural.”

“Well, now it’s your time to shine. How do you feel? What do you feel?”

“Nothing. I feel empty.”

“That’s impossible after what you just heard. You have to feel something.”

She stared bleakly ahead. “Mostly I feel that I should’ve figured all this out on my own. Maybe I was na?ve to think I could really be a natural nine and a professional castal athlete.”

She spoke as calmly as she could, even though she felt sick on the inside. Knowing she’d been conceived in a petri dish had never bothered her. Knowing someone had altered her DNA was an entirely different matter. Everything about her own body took on a sinister edge. Looking at her hands, she had a surreal sense that they were not truly part of her, as though they were foreign objects.