A Vault of Sins (8 page)

From the RNC News Blog:

A warrant has been sent out for the arrests of Valerie Crane, Casey Hargrove, and Evalyn Ibarra, the three Compass Room survivors recently involved in
The People vs. The Division of Judicial Technology.

Due to the malfunction of Compass Room C, the surviving candidates must be retried for their original crimes.

While Crane, Ibarra, and Hargrove are each equipped with a probation tracker, it is unclear if any of them have yet been taken into custody.

TOP COMMENTER: Sylvia (1,882 upvotes)

So they’re going to arrest them right when a leaked feed proves their testimonies were true?

This is just another example of a big government cover-up, folks. Disgusting.

I must be dead.

Death feels like sinking into the softest pillow, completely relaxed, maybe even a little drunk. I’m not hungry, I’m not thirsty, I’m not tired, I’m not anything.

I don’t even feel guilty.

I could get used to this. How silly I was to be so afraid of death before. I’m right beneath perfection; all I need now is a margarita and the hot sun. Maybe heaven offers complimentary drinks.

Heaven? Who am I kidding?

My eyes flutter open to white, clean light and soft blobs of color.

“Evalyn.”

The voice is unfamiliar.

“Focus now.” Light and musical and happy. My vision sharpens. The groan escaping me belongs to some disgruntled prehistoric monster.

“Shh, shh, you’re fine!” she coos. She’s young and pale with big eyes and freckles. But her hair. Maybe she’s an angel or a demon, a gatekeeper to the afterlife. That has to be it.

“What the hell happened to your head?” I slur.

A deep chuckling rumbles from across the room.

“I said you couldn’t be the first thing she saw. Why didn’t you wear a hat or something, Piper?”

Piper?

The girl with the cotton-candy blue French braid rolls her eyes. She wears rubber gloves and fiddles with the IV stuffed into my arm.

Lucidity slams down on me like a cold bucket of water. I’m definitely not dead. I regain enough composure over my body to roll my head toward the guy sitting in the windowsill of a wonderfully white-washed bedroom. Maybe in his thirties—he’s slouchy and skinny with narrow eyes and a long nose. He’s half-distracted by the sleek, black tablet in his hand.

“Do something useful for once instead of sitting around and mocking me,” Piper says.

“At your service, milady,” he drawls without looking up.

“Check on the tracking devices and make sure that the firewall’s still active.”

“Maliyah’s already on it. Gotta think deeper, Piper.”

Piper groans like a thirteen-year-old being teased. “Wes!”

“You rang?”

“Just get out!”

I can’t help but snort. The conversation is way funnier than it probably should be. I blame the drugs.

“See, she likes me.”

“Out, Wes!”

Wes makes to go, but before he leaves the room, he swivels toward me. “You’re much cuter than your online personality.”

I feel my eyes widen. Piper frowns, and when Wes leaves the room, she mutters, “Pig.”

“That’s Rebel_W?” The words feel funny spilling from my mouth, but at least I can finally form them.

Piper rolls her huge doll eyes. “If that’s what you want to call him. Such a dramatic username for such an obnoxious twat.” She crosses her legs and settles back in to taking my vitals, swaying back and forth in an antique rocking chair that matches the dresser against the wall. My eyes flit to the window, and I see the one thing that has the power to drive fear right back through me.

“Oh balls.”

“What’s the matter?” Piper asks, but before I can say anything, someone else slips into the room.

The throbbing headache returns with full-force, nearly blinding me. After the cotton-candy hair and Rebel_W appearing, I know it has to be a dream, considering Casey makes an appearance in almost all of my dreams, but it doesn’t matter. My heart pumps rapidly at the sight of him, refueling my body with oxygen-filled blood. I could soar out of this bed.

“Maliyah wants an update.”

Piper smiles brightly and motions toward me. “Well, as you can see for yourself, we’re right on schedule.”

Even with Piper’s hand gestures, Casey doesn’t glance at me. “Is that what you want me to tell her?”

I try to ignore the pulse in my ears and stretch out my legs, but a hot, grinding fire shoots through my entire body.

This isn’t a dream. Casey’s real. The disgust written all over his face is real too.

Piper sighs. “Tell Maliyah she woke up literally three minutes ago, her vitals are fine so far, and she’ll probably be able to make it down the stairs in about thirty minutes.”

After Casey leaves, my brain finally kicks into gear, thoughts unraveling like a loose thread was tugged somewhere in my head. I remember passing out in the truck and the few minutes before that. The woman coming to my door.

I return to the window, my eyes stinging with tears. The forest is thick and endless, just like inside the Compass Room. I can’t get away from the woods.

“Where the hell am I?” Overwhelmed with uneasiness, I try to squirm out of the mountains of plush white covers surrounding me. I sit up and immediately understand why I’m being given a half-hour to wake up.

“Ohh ohh, don’t do that!” Piper’s hands are like fluttery insects as she waves them in front of me. “The anesthetics won’t fully wear off for another twenty-four hours.”

I relax against the fluffy pillows. “How long have I been out?”

“Mmmm . . .” She checks her tablet on the nightstand. “Approximately forty-nine and a quarter hours.”

“Jesus.” I press my hand to my forehead. “That was some swig.”

“It’ll getcha, alright.” She straps a band around my arm to check my blood pressure. “Looks like you’re doing a-okay though. Hmm . . . a little high. You stressed out at all?” She elbows me in the shoulder like she’s trying to be funny. I wipe the drool from my chin and shut my eyes, ignoring her.

Piper, my overseer, doesn’t let me budge for another hour, so I use the time to ask her questions. We’re in Northern Canada, about two hundred miles away from the nearest town. The thought makes me want to puke.

I’m so sick of nature.

She confirms my suspicion that she, and everyone else here, are hackers from Reprise. She’s a med and psych student, recruited by the hacktivists a year ago. “This is one of our many bases!” she tells me excitedly. She’s excited about everything.

“A base in the middle of the Canadian wilderness? In the middle of a place that looks exactly like the Compass Room?”

“Sorry about that. Unintentional, I assure you.”

I think about Mom and how she’s taking my disappearance—if she’s freaking out. She’ll be heckled by authorities if she hasn’t already. I’m lucky I left her when I did; she’ll be able to be completely honest with the police. She hasn’t seen me in two months and won’t have to lie for me. I wonder if I’ll be able to send her a message while I’m up here to let her know I’m okay, but I don’t think that’s likely, since I wasn’t even allowed to take my phone.

Finally, Piper lets me stand.

It’s a slow process—first, the removal of the down comforter. I shift to the edge of the bed. Piper’s hovering like I’m a nine-month-old taking my first steps.

I lift myself up and fall flat on my face.

I try again and again, my legs bending like jelly with every attempt. It’s the first time I notice what I’m wearing because I’m floundering in it—an extra-large white t-shirt and black leggings. Someone changed me.

Piper notices that I’m studying my clothes. “Don’t worry. It was just me who dressed you.”

I scoff, attempting to heave myself up again. “It doesn’t matter. The whole world has seen me naked.” My body crumples. “Alright, Piper, I give up.”

“She knows my name!” Piper shouts to no one. “I have to let you know, Evalyn, I am such a massive fan of yours.”

I flail on the floor until I’m facing her. “You know, being a fan of a murderer is enough of a warrant for a psych evaluation.”

She scoffs. “I’ll have you know, psychologists usually are fans of murderers. We’re fascinated by them.”

“You one of those weirdos who writes fan-fiction?”

“No! No, goodness no. But I read it. Of course I read it. I had to, you know. Part of my job.” I watch her upside-down as she studies me with a frown, twirling the end of her powder blue braid. “I could try picking you up. . . .”

I moan and go limp. “Just leave me.”

Her eyes brighten. “I have an idea. Casey!”

Shit.
This isn’t exactly how I pictured our reunion. I need to be suave and apologetic and articulate, so he’d understand my reasons for leaving him. Not drugged and a tangle of limbs on the floor.

“Oh no. Don’t grab Casey. That’s not . . .” I try to scramble up on all fours and end up sprawled across the carpet like a baby deer on a frozen lake. “Necessary.”

“Casey!”

“Shut up!” I hiss.

It’s too late. He pushes open the door and sticks head in, his eyes darting from Piper to me. His face is flat, just like earlier. Flat, flat, flat. He’s a robot and not really Casey. I’m with hackers, right? I mean, it doesn’t even faze him that I’m a fish out of water flopping on the floor.

“Could you be a dear and help me move Evalyn downstairs?”

Casey sneers and tilts his head toward me. “Her?”

“Yes, please,” Piper says, totally unaware of the huge ball of tension in the room. “If it’s not too much of a problem.”

Casey’s shoulders rise as he inhales deeply, and then his eyes finally rest on me.

“You’re going to make him pick me up and carry me?” I squeak. As if I hadn’t already stomped him into the ground enough.

“Well, I’m not going to make him . . .” But by the time she’s half-way through her sentence, Casey has strode across the room and stooped down next to me. He doesn’t leave me any time to hate myself more.

“Shit,” I breathe as he grabs me by the waist and hauls me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. I grunt as my stomach connects with his shoulder, and he spins me swiftly so when I lift my head, I’m staring at a horrified Piper.

“Oh dear!” she squeals. “You shouldn’t . . . don’t . . . the anesthetics . . . she’ll throw up all over you.”

I’m too mortified to throw up. I go limp, because that way Piper won’t see the burning in my cheeks. I wonder how much she knows of our relationship. I mean, she knows a lot more than I want her to. Everyone does.

Casey doesn’t even acknowledge she’s said anything. I leave the room over his shoulder, lacking the energy or dignity to fight against him. Apparently his hip has healed all of the way, which I thought wasn’t supposed to happen ever, because he carries me fluidly down the stairs like I weigh nothing.

Casey dumps me on a couch, and I moan at the impact. He turns away quickly and makes his way toward what I assume is the kitchen.

“Morning, Sunshine.” Wes’s voice is playful, and the familiarity makes me shudder. My Rebel_W. He grins behind a cup of something steamy.

I admire my surroundings. The couches are as plush as my bed. The living room is decked out like a modern cabin with a hefty, stone-crusted fireplace and huge floor length windows that allow a liberal amount of natural light to filter in. I take note of the wrap-around deck and infinite pine outside.

“They didn’t throw me in another Compass Room while I was out, did they?” This lodge is unearthing all kinds of traumatic memories. Piper tried convincing me the similarities are unintentional, but I think she’s full of it.

“You know, Casey said the same damn thing.” Wes sets down his mug on a coffee table covered with strange gadgets, most of which I’ve never seen before in my life. He picks up a spherical object to fiddle with it.

Piper
has
to be full of it, because Wes is holding . . . “A Bot,” I breathe.

He smiles deviantly. “Having flashbacks?” When my expression doesn’t ease up, he frowns. “Sorry. I’m not a very sensitive person. These babies are my pride and joy and sometimes I forget how people have been emotionally tortured by them.”

“That’s an understatement.” My headache starts to pound again. “Your baby?”

“Wes is a rogue CR engineer.” The woman who drugged me walks into the room with her head up and her arms behind her back. She sits on a couch at the far end of the room.

“What’s with the dramatics?” I rub my wrist, and it’s the first time I realize that my wristlet is missing. “Where’d my cuff go?”

“I apologize.” The woman crosses her legs. “Our methods of moving you across the border were a bit unorthodox. It was best you weren’t conscious.”

“Currently being used as a hand-towel ring in the bathroom.” When I gape at Wes, he deadpans, “What? I’m not kidding—there’s always a double use for everything.”

“But the tracker.”

He laughs dryly. “Please tell me you knew the wristlet was a fraud. I mean, why would a bunch of unapologetic murderers behave because of a
bracelet?”
He knocks on his skull. “You have hardware in your brain.”

My mouth hangs open. “I thought . . .”

“They disabled it? Why would you believe that when they’ve lied about everything else?”

I clutch my head, like I’ll somehow feel the pulse of an
alive
chip against my palms. Of course they wouldn’t trust a bracelet to keep tabs on us. We’re conniving criminals. But a chip inside of us . . .

“Don’t worry. I’ve hacked into it and disabled it myself.” Wes tosses the Bot in the air and catches it, like a baseball. “Luckily I could divert the signal in Casey’s chip. Took the feds weeks to figure out he wasn’t still in Illinois.”

“
You’ve hacked into our brains and I’m not supposed to worry?”

“We had no other choice. The three of you were desperate.” The woman presses her hand to her chest. “I’m Maliyah, head of the sector in charge of keeping you safe.”

“Sector of
what
, exactly?”

“Reprise.”

“You’re terrorists.”

She arches an eyebrow. “So are you, if I remember clearly.”

“But if you were ever found . . .”

Her response is calm. “We’d all be sentenced to a punishment worse than death, I’m sure.”

Piper walks down the stairs and sits on the couch next to Maliyah, and Wes continues to toy with the Bot as if Maliyah’s talking about the weather. When they work for an organization like this, everyone must know the risks far in advance.

“Wes.” Piper sighs. “Do you really have to tinker with that in front of her?”

He acts like he doesn’t hear her.

“How many of you are there?” Piper said that this was
a
base of Reprise. There could be several others.

“Hundreds,” Maliyah says. “Many are involved in this operation. But of course, to avoid suspicion, you won’t see most of them.”