Nine
Fractures
I managed to avoid Aaron until breakfast the next morning. He was asleep when I emerged from my shower and up before I woke, which all suited me fine. I’d made up my mind to ignore him as much as possible without being overtly rude or impeding our job here. Noticing those little things—muscles, legs, smile—was just too distracting.
Caleb was doing a fine job of entertaining all of us by making pancakes in the shapes of our initials. He cooked for everyone except Luisa, who was in the living room ironing clothes and watching the morning news. Caregiver, tutor, housekeeper—whoever paid her had basically hired Simon a wife who spent her nights elsewhere.
A slightly overcooked E and S were dumped onto my plate by a grinning almost-six-year-old.
“Thank you, Chef,” I said.
Caleb beamed, then bounced off to make himself some breakfast. As the last to arrive, I was the next-to-last to be served. I added a little bit of syrup to the darkest parts of the pancakes, unable to stomach too much of the sweet stuff.
The volume on the television suddenly shot up, and then Luisa shouted, “Mr. Hewitt, please come. You should see this!”
Chairs scraped, and we moved as a group into the living room. Luisa was pointing her hot iron at the television screen, her mouth hanging open and dark eyes filling with tears. Panic hit me hard as the news broadcast started to make sense.
The screen showed an open field somewhere and the back end of a pickup truck. But it wasn’t the simple, Middle America image that sent bile into the back of my throat. It was the ticker at the bottom of the screen that said: Out Teenage Meta Killed; Dragged to Death.
A strange, hoarse sound tore from my throat as the connection between the truck and the ticker hit me. The reporter’s voice droned, saying things about Missouri, unregistered truck, no witnesses, horrible way to die.
“Daddy?”
“Caleb, go to your room,” Simon snapped.
Little footsteps stomped down the hallway as Caleb followed orders immediately and without question.
The screen switched to two reporters in a newsroom, their faces reflecting the appropriate amount of sorrow over the murder of a teenager. The whole thing seemed fake, though, an act. They didn’t care that a Meta had been killed. No one who wasn’t Meta would care except the boy’s parents, maybe a few friends.
One of the reporters was handed a tablet. He skimmed the contents, his expression shifting from curiosity to surprise. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, effectively shutting up his still-chattering coanchor, “I have in my hands a surprising confession to this morning’s murder of eighteen-year-old Mark Sanderson. If you’ll allow me . . .” He raised the tablet so he could read directly from it.
“ ‘We are the people you see every day. We are your waiters and doctors and lawyers and teachers. We are Humankind, and we believe in the sanctity of man. Not of Meta. These creatures brought us to within an inch of Armageddon, and we will not rest until they are exterminated. Mark Sanderson was but the first of many today. Humankind will take back our country for the good of all mankind.’ ”
I don’t remember sitting down, just the sensation of blood rushing to my head while I held it between my knees.
This isn’t real, this isn’t happening. This isn’t real, this isn’t happening.
The living room went quiet, except for the sound of our collective ragged breathing.
“ ‘The first of many today,’ ” Simon said.
I raised my head. He’d only muted the television. Conversation continued in the newsroom hundreds of miles away, but no one here seemed to know what to say. I knew I should call someone but couldn’t recall whom. My phone was in the other apartment, anyway. I couldn’t take it to the island with me, so I’d gotten into the habit of leaving it there.
Simon’s phone rang. Luisa ran into the kitchen to answer it. “Yes, of course,” she said. “One moment.”
Instead of bringing the phone to Simon, she offered it to me. I didn’t ask, just pressed it to my ear. “Hello?”
“Ethan?” Teresa’s voice, angry and broken. “You saw it?”
“Yeah.”
She said something on her end, then to me, “How are you?”
“I don’t know. F*ck, he was just a kid.”
“Yeah. Look, we’re trying to get in touch with Rita McNally, to see if she’s heard anything about this group Humankind.”
“They killed him for being Meta.”
“I know. We all need to be extra cautious today. Maybe stay out of—”
“No.” She didn’t have to finish the thought. I knew her too well, knew she was going to get overprotective and suggest we don’t go to Manhattan today.
“Ethan—”
“No, we’re going. And you know exactly why we have to go, Teresa.”
She was quiet a moment, then sighed. “If not, then we give in to fear. How come that didn’t work when Gage said it earlier?”
“Maybe you just needed to hear it twice.”
“Just please, for God’s sake, be careful. All of you.”
“We will.” Aaron nudged my shoulder. The intent look on his face, coupled with the anguish in his eyes, didn’t need an explanation. “Hey, can you find Noah?”
“Of course,” Teresa said.
I handed the phone over to Aaron, who left the room with it.
“Teresa suggested you stay off Manhattan today, didn’t she?” Simon asked.
“She tried to,” I replied.
“It’s good advice, Ethan. We don’t know what else this Humankind group has planned, and that prison is the largest possible target.”
“The prison has been protected for fifteen years, Simon, from land, sea, and air. I’m more worried about Hill House.” The property had security sensors, sure, but we had no idea of the resources behind Humankind. “Teresa is trying to get information from Agent McNally.”
“I have to think of Caleb.”
“I know.”
He didn’t need to say it; I knew he wasn’t coming with us. Simon stood without another word and went down the hall to Caleb’s room. The door opened and shut. Luisa returned to her ironing. I sat on the sofa like an idiot, unsure of my next move. Continuing our search of Manhattan was the right thing to do. Canceling meant explaining why, and while I didn’t want to hide this news from the Warren residents, part of me wanted to shield them from it. Shield Muriel and the other kids, if no one else, from the atrocities that human beings still committed against those who were different—just another ugly chapter in a stained, shameful history book.
Aaron returned first, expression hard, resolved. Determined. “If we don’t leave soon, we’re going to be late,” he said.
• • •
Bad news traveled fast. We had to drive through a big crowd of reporters to get inside the gate to the prison helipad, and I swear the vultures had doubled in number by the time the copter lifted off and headed for Manhattan. Two people were waiting for us by the Pulitzer Fountain—Mai Lynn and Keene.
“Where’s Simon?” she asked.
“He stayed home with Caleb,” I replied.
“Is he sick?”
“No, he’s fine.” I told them about the news report, including the promise of something else happening today. Aaron and I had agreed to that on the flight over—the last thing the Warren needed was a large-scale panic over a still-theoretical attack, but hiding the possibility wasn’t our call.
“That’s unbelievable,” Keene said. “But I understand why Simon would rather stay with his son.”
“Are you volunteering to help in his place?” I asked.
“Yes. Mai Lynn mentioned the child who’s still out there, and I want to help.”
“Okay. What about the threatened attack?”
“It isn’t a guarantee, and the location is unknown,” Mai Lynn said. “It’s best if we don’t worry everyone for nothing.” She paused as she worked through something. “Before we begin searching, I’ll return to the Warren and report on the boy’s murder. That alone will cause extra caution today, especially with the children.”
“Sounds good. We’ll continue with grid two today, but first I want to check out St. Catherine’s and see if anyone collected the walkie we left.”
“Fine.” Mai Lynn handed me my own walkie-talkie for the day. “We’ll divide the grid. First check in thirty minutes.”
“In thirty.”
I let the air lift me up, energized again after a good night’s sleep, and despite my inability to eat any breakfast after that news report. I kept both eyes on the city below as I soared over to the small park we’d discovered yesterday, watchful for activity, but not expecting to see any. The group we were hunting was smart. They’d stay quiet during the day, then move at night while we were away.
On a full moon, a night search wouldn’t be completely out of the question.
I dropped down into the park, next to Whitney’s grave, and froze. The walkie was gone. A tiny kernel of hope burrowed into my gut. I retrieved my own walkie and lifted it, picking my words carefully.
“To the person or persons who retrieved the walkie from St. Catherine’s Park, my name is Ethan Swift. Is anyone there?”
Static was my only answer.
“All I want is a conversation. Hello?”
Nothing.
“I’ll be in front of the Bloomingdale’s building at Fifty-Ninth and Lexington at ten o’clock this morning. If someone would like to speak with me, please meet me there. I’ll wait for fifteen minutes.”
Maybe no one would show, but at least I’d given them a chance.
• • •
After a brief discussion, we agreed that Mai Lynn and I would wait at Bloomingdale’s, with Aaron and Keene stationed a block away—just in case. Chances were we’d be stood up, but there was no reason to put all four of us at immediate risk. The street looked like any other in the city: empty, cracked pavement occasionally dotted with weeds and small bushes, buildings missing glass and small sections of masonry.
For what was apparently once a high-end department store, the remaining exterior of Bloomingdale’s wasn’t very impressive, with its crumbling gray stone and shattered windows. Then again, it had thrived in a vastly different world than what existed today. A square awning with the company name on it still (somehow) hung in place, and we stood beneath it. The spot gave us a good view over and across East Fifth-Ninth.
We’d arrived early, and we didn’t have to wait. At exactly ten o’clock, a man turned onto the street at the corner of Lexington and walked toward us. He seemed for all the world like a man out on a morning stroll, hands in his pockets, moving with a casual gait. He stopped in front of us, his expression mild and face familiar. Thick, wavy brown hair, gray eyes, a square jaw. Late-thirties, if I had to guess, and handsome, in a classical way.
“Good morning, Mai Lynn,” he said. Then, to me, “Derek Thatcher.”
Derek Thatcher, aka Chimera, one of the deadliest Banes working under Specter during the War. His power had been linked to alchemical transmutation—the ability to change weaker metal into a stronger one, and vice versa. Iron structures became aluminum and collapsed; weak tin shields became impenetrable titanium. Thatcher was also one of the Banes I remembered seeing at Belvedere Castle that final day. He’d come toward us after our powers disappeared, and Gage held him off with the gun.
I tamped down the sudden urge to do him great violence—that was not the reason for this little meet-up. “Ethan Swift,” I said.
Neither one of us offered to shake hands.
“You’re far from home, aren’t you, son?” Thatcher asked.
I ignored the condescending use of “son” and said, “I like a job that lets me travel.”
“And what job is that? Last I heard, the Rangers no longer exist.”
“Technically, we don’t. But our team has been working with Warden Hudson on an initiative to—”
“Break down the prison walls, see us all pardoned and returned to regular society.” Thatcher rolled his eyes. “I’ve heard the party line and I know why you’re here. We have no intention of being part of a voluntary concentration camp.”
“That’s not—”
“Bullshit. The minute the feds have us on some official registration, they’ll slap a different kind of collar on us”—he yanked at the black tracking collar he already wore, like everyone else on the island—“and turn us loose again like zoo animals.”
He had a good point, and I had trouble coming up with a proper rebuttal.
Mai Lynn saved me the trouble. “Our allies on the outside won’t allow that. They’re fighting for us, Derek.”
He scoffed. “Our allies? A bunch of kids playing hero? They don’t know a damn thing about our lives these last fifteen years, and now they want to swoop in and play rescuer? Help the people who killed everyone they knew and loved? If I were them, I’d rather put a bullet between my eyes.”
I stared, stunned stupid by his candor. He was the first person on Manhattan who’d spoken so plainly about our shared past, who didn’t try to sugarcoat history and pretend all was easily forgivable.
“You’re right,” I said. “I don’t know a damned thing about your life here, just like you don’t know a damned thing about mine. None of us had it easy after the War, but you know what you did have?”
“Enlighten me, please.”
“You had sixty-four other people around you who understood what it meant to lose your powers. Maybe you didn’t like them all, but you had common ground. You were left here in hell, but you had a chance to build a community with others like yourself. Running around like a posse of outlaws and hiding from the guards? That was your choice. We didn’t have a choice about being separated.”
Thatcher’s left eye twitched, the only movement in his face. “They never told us what happened to you kids after the War.”
“Did you ask?”
He shook his head, and I’ll be damned if he didn’t look a little ashamed of himself.
“Derek, this is about more than just us,” Mai Lynn said. “There are other Metas outside Manhattan. Metas who need a safe place, a community where they can be with others like themselves.” She told him about the Mark Sanderson murder. With each detail, his face grew stonier, more violent.
“Humankind.” He snarled the word. “Wouldn’t this just be the perfect thing for them, then? Get all Metas into one place so we can be wiped out in one go, and then the world is no longer a dangerous place.”
“Your powers are more than capable of defending this island,” I said. “Even with the walls down and the prison guards gone, you’re not helpless.”
“You keep saying ‘you’ instead of ‘we,’ as though you won’t be thrown in here with us.”
“Living here will be voluntary.”
“Maybe at first, but as soon as it’s convenient, the government will pass measures ensuring all Metas are tagged and tossed in here with us. Yourself included.”
“Your resident psychic tell you that?”
“It’s logic, kid. Ranger, Bane, it doesn’t matter. They don’t want us around anymore, and they especially don’t want us now that our powers are back. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone was working on a way to take them away again.”
A tiny tremor of fear wormed its way into my stomach. Honestly, I’d never really considered that as a possibility. The creation of the machine that stripped us of our powers had taken years and the device had only worked because of the two Metas powering it. Making another seemed about as likely as a tsunami hitting Kansas.
“My point,” I said, “is that we don’t know what will happen in three months. Hell, I don’t know what will happen in three days. Things change in an instant. But this isn’t about us, Thatcher, it’s about our kids.”
He went rigid—good, I’d struck a nerve.
“A boy died today,” Mai Lynn said. “How many more need to be killed before we can give them a haven?”
“Your Warren is that haven?” Thatcher asked.
“Maybe, for now. What happened to Whitney?”
Hello, conversation curveball.
Thatcher glowered. “She died.”
“No kidding,” I replied. “We saw the grave.”
“Would you like details, then? I don’t have them. She was perfectly fine one day. The next she woke with a fever, chills, and vomiting. By the end of the day, she’d died. We buried her near her mother. End of story.”
“Why didn’t you bring her to the Warren?” Mai Lynn asked.
“For what? To have her whisked off to the hospital, only to die surrounded by strangers who hated her for what she was? If they tried to save her at all? Whitney died in her father’s arms, and he buried her.” He spoke so coldly, I expected frost to appear in the air between us.
The symptoms sounded like food poisoning. “Did anyone else get sick?” I asked.
“No. She was only four years old, too delirious to tell us much. We found no bite marks, and had no idea if she’d eaten something bad.”
“I’m sorry.” Off his sharp look, I added, “I mean it. I am sorry.”
“How did Dana die?” Mai Lynn asked.
“I’ve told enough stories for one day,” Thatcher said. “I should get back.”
“Will you take our words to your group? Please?”
“Yes, I’ll tell them what you’ve said. If it comes to anything, I still have the walkie.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet, Mai Lynn. We may be planning our own extinction.”
With those charming parting words, Thatcher turned and strode back down the sidewalk. We watched until he disappeared around the same corner.
“He’s a fun guy,” I said.
“Derek takes children very seriously.”
“Should I ask?”
She started walking back to where we’d left Keene and Aaron, and I hustled after her. “Derek had a wife and young son during the War. In order to keep them safe, he told no one that they existed. A year into our incarceration here, he received word that both had been killed in a house fire. His son was four when he died.”
“Shit.”
“Exactly. Derek understands the need to keep our children safe from those who would hurt them. Despite his attitude, if anyone can convince the others to join us, it’s him.”
Fantastic.