I sat at the edge of a red-and-black rug playing with a toy car, rolling it over dolls. Bowls of powder and water circled me. Helen was in front of me, a black ink pad and several towels beside her.
“I made molds of your hands,” vision Helen said, “and now we’re going to add your fingerprints to the ends of the fakes. That way, I can upload your prints into Anima’s system.” She smiled at me. “One of their greatest flaws is their cloak of secrecy. The medical side is never told what the security side is doing, and so on and so forth, so that no one can ever reveal all of their schemes. I’ll create a fake name for you, call you an agent, give you the same security clearance I have, and they’ll never know, never remove it, because you’ll never be reported as missing or dead.”
She cleaned my hands, smiling triumphantly, almost manically. “If ever they capture you, you’ll be able to free yourself. Just hold your palm to their scanners. Hopefully, I’ll have destroyed Anima long before anything like that can happen. But if not...” She pressed each of my fingers into the ink pad. “I want you taken care of.”
Thoughts raced through my mind. Helen had loved me. Did love me. Cole was wrong about her. She wasn’t here to harm me or betray me. She would die first—as she’d proved.
Because of her, I could get in and out of Anima. I could free Justin, keeping my promise to Jaclyn.
I just had to find him first. But Ethan would help me with that.
Thank you, I mouthed.
“I’m sorry I didn’t appear to you sooner,” the real Helen said. “I’m sorry you were captured and tortured, and the way out was within your reach, you just didn’t know it. They have ways of blocking Witnesses from their buildings, and I couldn’t get to you. Knew you wouldn’t believe me even if I could. People don’t listen to what they’re not ready to hear. Now you know everything, and if you want me to leave and never return...for you, I will. For you, anything.”
Never see her again?
It’s what Cole wanted.
“Stay,” I said.
Chapter 25
ZOMBIE SEE, ZOMBIE EAT
I thought about Helen—my mother...my beloved mother—all night. Alone. Cole never snuck into my room.
In his defense, I never snuck into his.
The next morning, however, he banged on my door. “Ankh’s office. Now.”
That’s it? That’s what I got from him? Where was the cuddler I’d left at River’s?
I rushed through a shower, brushed my teeth, dressed. Cole, River, Frosty and Bronx were already assembled in the office.
Cole wouldn’t meet my gaze. “Call Ethan. Set up the trade.”
Bleeding inside.
But I’d made my choice, hadn’t I? I’d have a relationship with Helen, no matter what.
I gulped and dialed the number. The phone rang over and over, but Ethan never answered.
I texted him, and though we waited five minutes...twenty...forty....he never replied.
It made me nervous. Was Justin okay, or had he—
No, don’t go there.
We spent the rest of the day on a hunt for Dr. Wyatt Andrews. The name Helen had given us. But we found absolutely no hint of him.
It was as we were stomping back into Mr. Ankh’s house that Cole finally looked my way—and I really wished he hadn’t. His violet gaze proclaimed: Told you so.
He was certain Helen had lied about the doctor’s identity.
I stopped hurting, stopped bleeding and got angry all over again.
A day passed, then another and another. Still no word from Ethan.
Cole and I barely spoke, the tension between us like needles in my skin. He felt as if I’d betrayed him, and in a way, I had. But he’d betrayed me, too. We were supposed to put each other first. Right now, we were closer to last.
Every night I climbed into my big bed, alone, and cried. We weren’t even having visions anymore.
By choice?
If so, it was his, not mine.
Helen came to see me only once. I suspected she was keeping her distance, even though I’d asked her to stay, in an effort to make things easier for Cole and me. I was relieved—and angrier.
I asked her how she was able to visit, when Emma struggled more and more to do so as the bond between us weakened. She said it was the slayer side of her—used to operating in the spirit realm, she could do more than the average dead girl.
She also told me where one of Anima’s laboratories was located. I told Cole. He knew where I’d gotten my information and dismissed it. So, I did the only thing I could. I called River and made plans to raid the building with him.
When Cole found out about that, he utterly lost it.
He stomped into my room, slammed the door. “You don’t go to River for anything.” He was savage, intense. “You come to me.”
I was in the process of gathering my things, expecting River to arrive at any moment. I stopped to glare. “I did. You ignored me.”
“I’ve never ignored you. I just didn’t mention that I told my dad about the lab and intended to do a stakeout tonight.”
Wait. “You were going to do a stakeout without telling me? Why?” Did I really need to rack my brain? “Never mind. You didn’t want me to warn Helen.”
A muscle ticked under his eye.