Girl One(113)

“Why wouldn’t she?” Cate asked. “Who would want to be here with this creep?”

“I didn’t see him as a creep,” I said softly. “Not for years and years.”

“Hey,” Cate said, catching the pain in my voice, and she got up, wrapped her arms around me, kissed the top of my head. “Listen. We’ll play this safe if it means getting Fiona out of here with us. If you have a plan, I’m all ears.”

“Bellanger doesn’t know that we have powers. He thinks we’re just eight duds who came before Fiona. You heard him. Not fashioned from the same cloth.”

“I noticed that too,” Cate said. “If he’d known about our powers, he would’ve been yammering on and on about them. That’s good, though. That could work to our advantage.”

I looked to Isabelle; she shrugged. “He never even asked me.”

“Mathias never got close enough,” I said. “He didn’t expect to see our powers and so he didn’t even look for them. Just like Junior.”

“Then we can overpower them,” Isabelle said. “I grab the guard, and Josie, you tell Bellanger to stand down. Simple. We find your mother, we find Fiona, and we leave with them.”

“She has a point,” Cate said.

“It’s not as easy as Freshwater,” I said. “There are a lot more people here. There are weapons…” I quickly explained what I’d seen. “They’re all under Bellanger’s spell. Not to mention Fiona. If she’s against us, it could be ugly. We didn’t have to worry about her in Texas.” That bird spiraling toward the ground, eaten by flame; the way her unseen power suffused everything here. “This is my mother, not yours,” I said. “I’ve asked so much of you two. If you want to leave … then … I understand. If anything happened to you because of me? I couldn’t—”

“We aren’t leaving,” Isabelle said, before Cate could speak. Her voice was assured and steady. “I’ve been thinking about why I couldn’t find my powers. I was trying everything. I put myself through enough trauma, didn’t I? And I wanted to be powerful. I wasn’t like the rest of you. I knew what I could be. I knew.” The first time I’d seen her: lying in that creek, the water braiding through her hair, lips gone blue from the cold. “That should have been more than enough. So why did my powers only come when I met you and Cate?”

Cate and I watched her, not speaking. My throat hurt with unshed tears.

“You fought those men for me,” Isabelle said. “I knew when I called them there that you’d be on my side. I was never afraid because I knew I’d have you two with me. So Cate and I are doing the same for you now. Because you’re my power. You and Cate.” She reached for my hand. “We can do this. Easy.”



* * *



There was a knock at the door. It had to be afternoon now, time passing restlessly and sluggishly. All three of us straightened, instantly alert. Mathias stood at the doorway. He beckoned to me. “Girl One.” His voice was low, like he had to conserve it carefully. “She wants to see you.”

“My mother?” I asked, half rising.

“No. Fiona.”

My disappointment was replaced by a keen curiosity. Fiona. My lost sister, the one I’d never expected to talk to again. I had more questions for her than I’d had for any of the others.

Outside, the blue sky was startling against the oranges and reds of the desert. We moved through the quiet labyrinth of buildings. I watched for the particular shed that had housed all the guns, making a small note of it at the back of my mind when we passed.

Then I stopped. Fiona stood just ahead of us with her brilliant hair glowing painfully in the sun. Instinctively I imagined touching her hair, how hot it would feel under my fingertips. She wore a simple white dress, her belly almost concealed by the volume of the skirt. But I looked for the swell, wanting to see proof of Bellanger’s next step. When I glanced up, Fiona gave me a small and knowing smile.

“Josephine,” she said. “I’m glad you came. Father thought it might do us some good to have a little chat.” She held out a hand. I was shaken by the easy way she said Father, a possessive term that even Junior hadn’t used. “I usually walk the grounds every day for exercise. Walk with me.”

I let her guide me as we went behind the nearest building and began walking the ersatz alleyway, the thin space between the buildings and the fence. The whole desert stretched out beyond the chain-link. “Is he coming too?” I asked softly, jerking my head at Mathias, who trailed us a foot behind, a faithful shadow. Close enough to eavesdrop.

“He’s just here to offer extra protection. You don’t mind, do you?”

The way she spoke. It was uncanny to hear Bellanger’s old-fashioned, pretentious talk mirrored in her teenage girl’s voice. She’d never picked up the little tics and quickly evolving, snappy slang that circulated through public school hallways, phone calls, cable TV. She channeled one man perfectly, uninterrupted and uncorrupted. His voice in her mouth. “It’s fine,” I said. “I’m used to that guy following me. Feels like old times.” Mathias’s expression was unmoved. “What do you want to talk about?”

We walked slowly, past the silent, shuttered windows, our feet stirring the dust. I wondered if my mother was behind one of those windows, and it was all I could do not to stare into each window, calling her name. I took a deep, aching breath.