Silence hung heavy in the van. Only my dad and Zoe kept their faces uncovered, and I turned my gaze on her. “You sold me out.”
She hadn’t been prepared for the hardness in my voice and eyes. She swallowed. “Y‑you sold yourself out. You’ve done horrible things. You’ve let them corrupt your mind.”
“Is that what this is really about?” I asked. “Or is it because I was going to testify for Mom?”
My dad flinched. “This is about us showing you what family really means. I take responsibility, of course. I should’ve known when you ran off with that dhampir girl that this would happen. I should’ve intervened then, but I was blinded by sentiment.”
I gave a harsh laugh. “Really? Sentiment? I can’t believe you said that with a straight face.” I turned back to Zoe. “Did you steal the phone?”
She shook her head. “I found it in the car when I was practicing those turns.”
Any other laughter, mirthless or otherwise, withered inside of me. Of course. Adrian had noticed the phone was missing the day after my birthday. It must have fallen out of his pants when we’d strewn our clothes all over the backseat.
No, I realized with a start. It hadn’t fallen out. It had been taken out. By me. When I read Adrian the William Morris quote, I grabbed the first phone I could find, which wasn’t hard since we had four of them between us. I hadn’t paid much attention to whose it was, and I certainly hadn’t been careful when I tossed it back into the pile of clothes so that I could go back to being naked with Adrian.
“But there were other things too,” Zoe was saying, her eyes glittering with tears. “Just the way you talked and laughed around them. The way you always disappeared. The cupcakes.”
My defiance faltered, mostly due to confusion. “The cupcakes?”
“You said you bought them. But in the cafeteria that one day, when Angeline was complaining about the cake, she started going off about the chocolate‑peppermint cupcakes Adrian had made. Something about waiting until they’re cool to frost them.”
It was another horrible yet almost laughable moment. Cupcakes and birthday car sex had been my undoing.
No, Sydney, I thought. Don’t think too highly of yourself. You slipped up long before this.
Her voice was tremulous. “We’re going to save you.”
“I don’t need saving,” I said. “There’s nothing wrong with me. You should’ve come to me first before unleashing all of this.” I tried to wave my hand for effect, but it was stuck. “We could’ve talked. I’m your sister.”
“No, Sydney.” The hard, flat look on her face was frighteningly close to our dad’s. “You’re just another Alchemist, and I’m treating you like one–just like you told me to.”
Her words struck me deeply, and my dad was quick to jump on my moment of weakness.
“You’ve been brainwashed, and we’re going to undo it,” he said. “This’ll be a lot easier if you cooperate.”
“I told you, there’s nothing wrong with me!” Anger I hadn’t known I held burst out, shoving aside my fear and sadness. “You’re the ones deluded by centuries of bigotry and superstition. The Moroi and dhampirs are just like us–well, except they’ve got more honor and decency.”
I didn’t see the slap coming. For all his faults, my dad had never struck us, but the blow he delivered then made me painfully aware that he had no moral qualms about that kind of discipline. My head snapped back, and I bit my tongue.
“You don’t know the sacrifices I’m making here for you,” he hissed, his eyes cold. Keith’s glass one had more feeling. “You have no idea how lucky you are that we’re doing this for you. The darkness has corrupted you so much that I don’t know how long it’ll take to fix. But we will. No matter how long or how difficult, we will undo whatever that Moroi boy has done to you.”
I managed a wavering smile, tasting blood in my mouth. “You sure about that, Dad? Because he’s done everything to me.”
My dad’s eyes flicked to someone in the seat behind me. I flinched as I felt the sting of a needle in my neck. The world spun, and I felt light and tingly all over. His and Zoe’s faces swam in my vision for a few moments, and then I fell into darkness.
CHAPTER 23
ADRIAN
IF EDDIE WAS THE DRINKING TYPE, I’m pretty sure he would’ve joined me at a bar. I wouldn’t go so far as to say he was as upset as me about the disaster we’d fallen into, but he probably took the next spot on the list.
After he’d burst into Jackie’s with his story that night, we’d immediately tried the obvious things. We’d called Sydney’s phone, multiple times. We’d driven out to the closed‑down restaurant. There wasn’t a trace of her there–or even at Amberwood. In barely two hours, her room had been completely cleaned out, and the administration had been notified that Sydney Melrose and Zoe Ardmore were withdrawing, effective immediately. No forwarding address. Our confusion was understandably perplexing to the staff, seeing as we were all supposed to be related.
Marcus had waited for us back at Jackie’s, uneasy about showing his face at the dorm, just in case the Alchemists were still in the area. He stood up as we entered the living room, agitation all over him. Jackie had already been up, pacing around.
“Anything?” she asked. Eddie shook his head, and I strode over to Marcus.
“Where is she?” I demanded. “Where would they have taken her?”
“I don’t know,” he said, face drawn.
“Yes, you do! It’s what you’re all about.” I had to resist the urge to shake him. “You know these things, damn it! You’re supposed to be some great big mastermind! Where is she?”
Eddie came up and caught hold of my arm. I think he was afraid I really would attack Marcus. “Easy,” Eddie warned.
Marcus looked pale. “I’m sorry. I really don’t know where she’s at. I can make guesses, I can make calls . . . but without anything to go on, it’s the proverbial needle in a haystack.”
Real people didn’t use the word “proverbial.” Only smart people like Alchemists did. Sydney would have. Groaning, I flounced back into an armchair.
“They said they were going to save her from damnation,” said Eddie. He still looked like hell and hadn’t made any attempts to clean himself up.
“Yeah,” said Marcus darkly. “I’m sure that’s what they think they’re doing. And there’s any number of places they could hide her–many, no, most of which not even my contacts know about. The places they take people like her to . . . well, they’re not really on the public Alchemist grid.”
People like her.
I felt ill and buried my face in my hands as I thought back to the frantic story Eddie had told us. “That phone. That goddamned phone.” It was my fault. My fault she’d been caught. If I hadn’t been so careless, I wouldn’t have lost it wherever I had. When I glanced up, I saw everyone looking at me, puzzled. Even Eddie, who’d related the story, didn’t entirely understand the phone’s role. Marcus suddenly sat straight up.
“Wait. We can find her. I know how.”
I stopped breathing. “How?”
“You,” said Marcus eagerly. “Your spirit dreams. She has to sleep sometime. Find her, and have her tell us where she is.”
I sank back into the chair. I wanted to laugh. I wanted to cry. I wanted to punch something. “I can’t. My spirit’s kind of out of commission right now.”
And there it was. The fear of being unable to heal Sydney if she got injured had haunted me from the first day I took the mood stabilizer. Never, ever, had I imagined that it was a dream I’d need. Even though I knew it was hopeless, I tried to reach out and touch spirit the way I used to. Nothing happened. It wasn’t even like I could sense it and not reach it. It just wasn’t there at all.