Whisper (Whisper #1)(67)
Stop.
I can’t go there. Instead, I focus on Sneak and try to understand his biting accusation.
“I don’t get it,” I say. “Why do you blame Jeremiah if you know it was Vanik all along?”
“Because Vanik was crazy back then, but Jeremiah wasn’t,” Sneak spits out. “Jeremiah should have paid more attention to him. He should have known. He should have stopped him. And when he couldn’t, he should have — he should have been able to heal them. He had the power. Why didn’t he use it? He could have saved them!”
Ah. There it is. A four-year-old’s perspective is hard to argue against. But I more than anyone know that having an ability and controlling it are two entirely different matters. I could no more justifiably blame Jeremiah for what happened — or didn’t happen — in that lab than I could blame myself for —
NO!
STOP!
I’m breathing heavily from my turmoil, choosing to ignore the wary glances being passed around the room as the others take in my wavering composure. I briefly wonder how Dante’s reading ability works and if he has to be touching me to hear my turbulent thoughts. Then I wonder if Liana has seen what future lies in store for the next few minutes, and whether I’ll survive it.
“Give us a moment, guys,” Kael says. Other than Sneak, who struggles against Dante’s hold on him, they leave the room without objection.
“You okay?” Kael asks me once they’re all gone.
Not in a sharing mood, least of all with him, I say, “I’m fine,” and I jump to my feet. I’m now the one pacing, needing to release some restless energy.
“Good,” he says, though it’s clear he doesn’t believe me. “Because there are a few more things you need to hear before we’re done here.”
My temples pound, and I let out a quiet groan, not sure how much more info dump I can take right now. But still I say, “Go ahead.”
“You might want to sit back down for this,” Kael suggests. I ignore him, and he adds, “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
I let out a deep sigh and take my seat again.
“I’m hedging a guess you know from personal experience that Vanik is pushing the boundaries with his experiments, right?”
I can only nod at his understatement.
“Well, what you don’t know — what we think even Falon doesn’t realize — is that Vanik hasn’t stopped his invasive practices. He’s just hidden them.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Not understanding Kael’s declaration, I ask, “What do you mean?”
“Vanik is still experimenting on Speakers today, just like he did ten years ago,” he answers. “Only, now he’s more careful about how he does it. He makes sure to cover his tracks so that no one knows.”
My eyes narrow in question. “If that’s the case, how do you know?”
Kael chooses his next words carefully. “I’ll admit, most of it is guesswork. We have a few people on the inside, but even they can’t get close enough to confirm anything.”
“Then how —”
“Because I’ve seen the failed attempts,” Kael interrupts. “I’ve seen the non-Speakers he’s practiced on and what’s become of them. I’ve seen the results of him needing ever more Speaker test subjects to experiment with. And I’ve seen what happens when he’s close, but not close enough.”
“What —”
“Ebola, 2014,” Kael interrupts again. “Did you hear about the outbreak that happened back then?” He swivels his chair around and clicks away at a keyboard until the screens fill with news footage of the hazmat-suited medics and the rising numbers of dead. “That wasn’t an organically occurring event. For decades, Ebola was contained within the small pockets of Central Africa, but suddenly it was crossing state lines and international borders. Hardly anyone knows this, but it was all because of a non-Speaker guard named Quentin who Vanik was convinced he’d transferred a healing-ability gene to. He thought being in the wilds of Africa with the worst kind of infectious disease imaginable was an ideal testing ground for Quentin to prove himself, but he was wrong. Quentin’s DNA had taken on some small part of the Speaking anomaly, but it wasn’t that of someone who could heal. Instead, it was a mutated gene that degenerated exponentially. Within days of his arrival at the isolated little village where, at that stage, the virus was contained, he managed to Speak the wrong word at the wrong time with the wrong intent, sparking the pandemic that sent the world into a panic. He himself caught the disease and died a horrible death before Vanik could even try to extradite him to the safety of Lengard’s walls.”
I know my face must be showing my dismay, but I can’t help it. What he’s saying …
“That’s just one case of Vanik’s failed attempts at cloning Speakers, but it’s nothing compared with the times when he more or less succeeded,” Kael says. At my perplexed look, he explains, “Vanik did correctly isolate and replicate the Speaking gene, eventually. But while he could make normal people gifted for short amounts of time, it always wore off. Even so, he still utilized their abilities while they had them, with terrible consequences.”
A few more swipes of his keyboard and the screens change to show more news coverage, this time of planes vanishing off the face of the earth, missing without so much as a hint to their whereabouts. Earthquake victims never found among the rubble. Trains derailing. Nuclear reactors failing. Tsunamis, volcanoes, super-cell storms — all headlines from the past few years that I missed while being locked away from the world. Everywhere, people missing, missing, missing.