“It’s OK,” William said. “Just a nightmare.”
“Well, get yourself together. We’re almost there.” Rudd motioned for the driver to keep on.
Lily removed her hand. William wiped his eyes and leaned in towards her. “Lily… you have to talk to me.”
As she had done in each of the several attempts he’d made in their overnight travel south, she once again turned away but scooted up next to him. She’d proven that she physically couldn’t get close enough to him, like a nervous child to a parent, but refused to communicate.
I’m a monster in the mountain, she’d said.
Lily’s eyes in stone. Eyes in the mountain? People dying in a hospital nearby. People dying as Lily watched.
Once they got wherever they were going, he would find a way to get her alone. She had to explain what she meant by those words. Why she had made the national parks investigator bring her to Little Rock. How she had tracked him from the motel to the federal building.
And, more important than anything else: How she wielded the power to kill.
“We’re here,” Rudd said.
The expansive oaks claustrophobically close to the windows were another reminder that their final destination was Florida. If the windows hadn’t been locked, he could have reached out to touch the Spanish moss hanging in the branches.
The narrow road opened out to a vast clearing, still surrounded by the same sprawling trees. If it weren’t for their massive trunks, it would be difficult to see where one ended and the other began.
In the midst of the yard was a house; a mansion, to be more accurate. Antebellum in design, sweeping white pillars with upper and lower porches. Bright pink azalea bushes spread across the front.
“Where are we?” William asked.
“Right now,” Rudd said, taking out his pistol and engaging the safety button, “the only safe place in the world.”
They pulled up to the front, keeping the engine running.
“Last stop,” the driver said.
Rudd reached over and gave him a hearty handshake. “Thank you, my friend. I know this wasn’t what you expected when we needed a ride out of Memphis.”
“Just doing my part for the cause. Give Miss Blue my best.”
As Rudd slid out and opened the back seat passenger door, motioning for William, Lily, and Quincy to exit, the driver turned around.
“You keep little miss safe, you hear?”
William nodded. As soon as they stepped out and the door was closed, the SUV pulled away. They watched it leave the clearing and disappear on the shadowy road.
“If I took off running, how long would it be until an alligator ate me?” Quincy asked.
“Feel free to try and find out.” Rudd began to climb the stairs to the house.
“What are we doing here,” William asked. “Where are we?”
“Where she told us to bring you.”
“She? Who is she?” Quincy asked.
Nanna? She couldn’t be here. Could she?
“My grandmother? Is she here?” William asked.
“Your grandmother?” Quincy whispered, keeping pace with Lily. “Really? Here?”
When Rudd didn’t respond, William shook his head in frustration. “I don’t know.”
They entered the front doors into a hallway with a stairwell surrounded on both sides by murals depicting peacocks and other birds nestled in billowing bushes and trees. A tall, stately grandfather clock stood guard next to a writing desk.
Rudd marched past it all to approach the two men standing by another set of double doors. Both wore pistols in holsters at their waists.
“She’s on the porch,” one of them said.
“It’s too hot right now for her out there, even with the fans on,” Rudd said.
“Go ’head and try to convince her of that,” the other responded, opening the doors.
They followed Rudd onto a sprawling back porch. Boston ferns sat in urns overlooking a carefully manicured lawn with a reflecting pool. The sound of waves echoed in the distance.
Observing it all was a woman sitting in a domed rattan chair. Beside her was a wheelchair, with a file resting in the seat. She turned to them as they stepped out.
William swallowed his disappointment. It never made sense that his grandmother would be here, that she was behind all of it. But there was a part of him that had hoped at the end of this bloody and frantic journey, she would be there to somehow make sense of it all.
The woman was, without a doubt, the oldest person he had ever seen. The hand she reached out to Rudd was small and frail, her cotton-white hair was pulled up in a tight bun. Thin glasses sat on her tiny nose.
Even as Rudd knelt before her, she did not take her eyes off William.
“You lived,” she said to Rudd, her eyes remaining fixed. Even at a distance, William could see they were a deep shade of blue.
“Barely,” Rudd said, holding her hand.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, at last looking to Rudd. “About Kevin and Neve. I know better than anyone what the Suits are capable of doing.”
“They knew the risks, just like all of us do.”
“Still…” She paused, looking at his singed arm. “You all must be exhausted. Rudd, make sure that burn isn’t serious. You know where we keep the first aid kit. The rest of you, we’ll have food brought up to you. We’ve laid out clothes for you in your rooms. All except for Mr. Chance. I need to speak with him.”
“Actually, I need to hear this too,” Quincy said. “I need some goddamn answers—”
“Show some respect.” The men from the doors moved in closer behind them.
“Respect to who? Where the hell are we? Who the hell are you people?” Quincy asked.
“Mr. Martin is right to ask,” the woman said. “You may have come to find William to make money, sir, but it has led you on a dangerous path, one you now cannot veer from.”
“I’m the only driver on my path, Ancient One,” Quincy said. “You can’t keep us here.”
“Show Mr. Martin to our finest accommodations,” she said.
Quincy was practically spun around into the house. With a slight shove, he was inside, the sound of his complaints echoing from the hallway.
“Rudd, you can’t risk infection.”
“I’m fine, Miss Blue.”
“Just go make sure that wound is clean. Come right back. When William and I are done here, I’ll need a full debriefing from you.”
Rudd nodded and went to leave, holding out his hand to Lily. “I bet you’re hungry.” Lily shook her head and clung to William.
“I figured as much. She never leaves his side,” Rudd said.
“That’s just fine,” the woman said, her eyes crinkling at the girl. “Miss Lily, you are welcome to stay if you’d like.”
The remaining guard brought forth two chairs and sat them before the woman. He then walked away and, crossing his arms across his burly chest, leaned on a pillar on the far end of the porch.
As William and Lily sat, the woman clasped her hands on her lap.
“I am sorry for what you’ve both been through.”
William leaned forward. “Once you tell us what you can, you need to let us go.”
“I wish I could, sweet boy. Well, you aren’t a boy anymore, are you? I know your family wants to know you’re alright. And pretty girl, I wish I knew of anywhere safe to send you. But there is nowhere safe now, for either of you.”
“I don’t even know who you are.”
She sat up surprisingly straight for someone of her age. “Everyone here calls me Blue. My eyes are the only thing about me that hasn’t dulled. Tell me, William, how much did your grandmother tell you about the Researchers? Did she ever mention a group called the Corcillium?”