Anarchy Found (SuperAlpha, #1)(28)

Me, Thomas, and Case in that order.

Thomas brushed past my shoulder as we walked through the Prodigy School doors, damaged even more at the end than we were going in, trying our best to pretend that shit didn’t just happen.

“It was a good design,” he said. “And hey, you knew it better than the rest of us. So good job on being first. But brothers don’t let brothers die in the maze, Lincoln. A little heads-up next time, eh?”

It was the first time he ever called me Lincoln and it changed everything for me.

How he got his hands on those old plans, I have no idea. I don’t really care either, I’m just glad he did. Because the only way to stop a public scene now is to get Molly Masters inside the hedge maze where we can at least have some privacy. Not many people want to wander around a dark maze at night.

I duck in through the opening in the hedges, then check behind me, and yeah, sure enough, her feet are flying down the stone steps. She’s looking everywhere for me.

How much does she remember? I guess I’ll start there first. It’s possible she’s just getting little hints. And maybe my face triggered a memory, or maybe she just knows she recognizes me and can’t place it. Either way, I’ve got her attention.

That makes me smile a little more than I’d like to admit. Because… well, Sheila was right. I like her. I more than like her. I crave her.

Laughter pulls me out of my introspection and a few young couples go running by, probably thankful that they found the exit. There’s another exit on the far side, but once you make it to the middle most people don’t want to push their luck. They go out the same way they came in.

I walk up around a corner, then double back though a cut in the hedge to an alcove that has a window cut through, so I can watch the detective pass by.

The sound of soft footsteps on the large flat stones make me duck back into the darkness. A few seconds later, she walks past the window. Her eyes dart around. She looks right at me, but she’s unable to see past the shadows.

Can I turn her? It’s a good question. One Case and I discussed at length this week after I told him the whole story. He came by the cave earlier and watched the footage with Sheila and me, and then we pulled up the tracking map from the transponder I magnetically attached to the undercarriage of her work car.

She was at Blue Corp all week. Which, as Case pointed out, might be useful to us. If we can get her to cooperate. Everyone—I do mean everyone—knows why she was put on that Blue case and it wasn’t because they’re short-staffed.

It was because she’s new. She’s got no history. No context. No memory.

I wait until her footsteps fade and I walk to my left, deeper into the maze. It’s not the right path, and eventually it will dead-end on the far side of the garden after twisting and turning so much, a person unfamiliar with this puzzle might feel dizzy.

But it goes in the right direction and meets up with another side path that will take me back to the main one. So I continue. I hear her a few times. And she hears me too. Because she stops, like she’s listening.

I pause for several seconds and let her get ahead, and then, as silently as I can, weave my way through the heavily shadowed corridors until I’m back on the main path that takes you to the center. Thomas spared no expense building this place and rehabbing the cathedral. And I wonder why? Why spend all that money just to relive what we left behind? I’ve spent the past fifteen years trying to forget that place. Don’t get me wrong, I remember the important parts. The drugs. The doctors. The manipulation. The end.

But the maze? And the cathedral? No. That’s not shit I need to keep.

“I know you’re here,” Detective Masters says from a hedge or two away.

“Come find me,” I whisper back.

Her feet whirl on the stone path and she’s closer than I first thought. Sneaky thing, isn’t she?

“I remember you.”

“Yeah?” I ask, easing into another alcove. She’s gonna pass by me if she goes towards the center of the maze, so all I have to do is stay put now.

“It was raining.”

“It was snowing, gun girl.”

“And you crashed a bike in front of me.”

“I pushed you out a window.”

“What?” she asks. I walk forward a little, and then slip across the stone path and into another corridor where I make a turn that will bring me back towards her, but on another side of the hedge. “You drugged me.”

“You drugged yourself that night. I was just the supplier.”

She’s silent. And then, “I was with you last weekend, wasn’t I?”

“I thought you remembered?” I can hear her breathing, that’s how close she is. I can see bits and pieces of her cream-colored gown through small breaks in the hedge. “What do you think I did?”

“Took me home—”

“I sent you away, remember?”

She hesitates. So she doesn’t remember all of it.

“I didn’t have a party last Saturday.”

“You sound unsure. Like parties are your thing. Are you a party girl, Molly?”

She starts walking without answering.

“That’s the wrong way.”

“Why should I believe you?” She’s breathing hard now, like she’s scared. And she should be. Because she’s alone out here with me. She’s the last person on earth who should be alone with me.