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Blue shook her head. “We had to wait two months before we felt it was safe to even leave Steven’s house. It isn’t far from here, but still very remote. Once again, Dr. Richards came to my rescue.”

Steven smiled wearily. “We old people have to take care of each other. For your daughter, it was the least I could do.”

“I don’t understand… you never reached out to my grandmother? After all that… you never told her you’re alive?”

“Trust me, my boy. It has pained me every single moment since I returned to US soil,” she said. “But that terrible escape from Mexico made me realize that the closer I got to Lynn, to your mother, and her daughters, and even you, the more danger you all would face. If they learned I had gotten to her… there would be a freak gas explosion, or car accident, or something awful. I couldn’t risk it.”

“It weighed heavily on all of us,” Steven continued. “All I ever wanted was for your grandmother to know the truth. But I’d seen too much as well. I know what the SSA is capable of doing; no one, and I mean no one, is safe when they determine you know too much. They’ve been permanently removing witnesses of abductions for decades. We didn’t just keep ourselves from your grandmother, but from everyone and everything. We’ve lived in isolation.”

William let that sink in. “So ever since my grandmother found me…”

“I’ve been watching. From afar. As long as life appeared to go on as normal for you and your family, and I never surfaced, the SSA wouldn’t dare touch you. As I began to share with the Corcillium what I knew about the abductions, including the files I stole on your mother and yourself, I became an asset to them.”

“More than an asset,” Steven said. “For the first time in the history of the Corcillium, we had someone with direct knowledge of how the SSA worked and their purposes. To us, there is no one more valuable in the world.”

“And also dangerous,” she added softly. “And we all knew that no one, save for a few of our members, would know who I truly am.”

“Listen,” William began, “I know people have died, and I’m truly sorry for that. But the fact that my grandmother was unaware of all of this—”

“I actually extended an offer to your grandmother to join the Corcillium,” Steven said. “I even told her that letters existed from her father that she hadn’t read. I fully intended on her having it all. And when I first learned that Blue might be alive, I only told Lynn that I was trying to find something of significance to her. But when Mexico went so badly, and we knew the SSA would be desperately searching for Blue, we had no choice. To protect Lynn, she had to think the Corcillium—including myself—had disappeared.”

Blue trembled. William reached out and took her hand, cold even in the summer heat. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for what you’ve had to go through.”

She smiled through her tears, her voice choking. “But here you are. My great-grandson. My whole life, all I’ve been awarded with is time. And now that I need it, we have none.”

“What do you mean?”

Blue looked across the yard to Lily, now sitting by the fountain, trying to convince one of the dragonflies to land on her finger. “It stopped, you know. After the abducted vanished from Argentum and the others sites, the disasters ceased. The diseases slowed, even the violence. And the numbers of missing people dropped dramatically. But last year, the fires out west started without a clear ignition source. Hurricanes in the south started churning, one after another. Increased violence on the East Coast and widespread, unexplained diseases in the upper Midwest. Similar disasters are now unfolding in every country. And we knew.”

“Rudd is a talented hacker,” Steven continued. “With Blue’s assistance in unraveling their security codes, we’ve kept tabs on the SSA. And a year ago, they detected four single beams of light from the sky on a single night in every major country around the world. Then, a day or so later, it happened again. But not in Argentum, or the Yucatan, or the other locations where you and the other abducted were returned.”

Blue motioned slightly to Lily. “What do you know of her?”

William watched the girl for a moment. “I only know what an agent with the parks service told me: She was found somewhere in a national park in North Dakota just a few days ago, wandering alone. I can’t get her to tell me anything else. She just tends to repeat one saying, over and over.”

“And what is that?” Steven asked.

William exhaled through his nose. “Something about being a monster in a mountain.”

Blue tilted her head. “What does that mean to you?”

William stood, wincing as a final beam of sunlight cast across his face. The pained look on his face remained as he moved from the light.

“Let us help you unravel this,” Steven said. “You saw the video of your interrogation when you were a child. You know how you, your grandmother, and the others who were abducted were implanted somehow with technology that we still don’t understand. To be used as weapons to be tested on the people of this planet. And you…”

“I’m the conduit. Yes. I heard it in that video. And my grandmother said the same.”

“She did?” Blue asked.

William turned back to her. “She would never talk about Argentum or what happened. But in a very bad moment after my grandfather died, I overheard her tell her friend that I was a conduit of some kind. That if triggered, I could cause her to do something terrible to the people around her. It’s why I had to run. I couldn’t risk her safety, or our family’s.”

“That must weigh heavily on her,” Blue said quietly.

“She doesn’t know that I overheard her. She probably assumes I figured something out. I hated isolating myself, but if anyone would understand, it would be her.”

Blue slowly looked over to Lily. “If she knew about that little girl over there and had the chance to talk to her like I did… she would certainly come to the same conclusion. In my talks with Lily—and she is still extremely guarded—she explained that she’s desperate to protect you.”

“Protect me?”

“Rudd debriefed me on everything that happened. Quincy filled in the rest of the blanks of what happened in that cotton field. Poor Lily, she won’t talk about it. But she did say some things. She doesn’t understand why she’s able…”

“To kill,” William said.

“She says she isn’t doing it intentionally. The way the bodies of those agents were described to me by Rudd… she’s making them sick. In an instant. So sick that they’re dead within moments. What the abducted from before were implanted with… is nothing compared to what Lily is able to do. She told me she does it because she thinks she’s protecting you. She says you want her to do it.”

“But, I’m not…”

Blue reached out for his leg. “She says she felt it at that cotton field and at the airport. Even in the agent’s car in Memphis. All she knows is that she feels your fear and anger. She told me what happened when you were in the back seat of the agent’s car. She says she saw him holding you, and she was going to kill him to save you. But she heard your voice, telling her to stop.”

William watched Lily dip her toes in the water. “I think I did. That particular agent seemed like he honestly wanted to protect me. I didn’t want him to die.”

Blue smiled sadly. “Your connection with her is extremely strong.”

William exhaled. “It’s stronger than you know.”

“What do you mean?”

“I dream of her.”

“You do?” Steven asked.

“Just her eyes. About a year ago, I started having these nightmares when I moved to Little Rock. I dream of awful things, in different places. Fires, storms, shootings, people suffering. But just days ago, in the nightmares, I started seeing the eyes. A different single pair at each disaster. I often see people dying at a hospital, and when I do, one pair of deep brown eyes watches as well. Lily’s eyes.”