“She didn’t take it well,” he said hoarsely, looking away for a moment.
“What if… if there’s any chance the cops could get Chub and Prairie back-”
But Kaz cut me off. “Think about it, Hailey. If you’re not… one of us? If you’re just another person who’s never had a vision and never healed anything and never heard of the Banished, if you’re just doing your job and trying to catch bad guys and keep order, would you believe it? Any of it?”
I thought about how I’d resisted when Prairie first told me what we were. How I’d refused to believe even after she’d proved it, after she’d healed a bullet wound in Chub’s leg right before my eyes.
The mind refuses to believe what it knows is impossible.
Before I could answer Kaz, he took my hand again. The sensation-his touch, his warmth, the electric rightness of it-rocketed through me.
“Hailey, together we have a chance of finding Chub and Prairie… Once we have them, we’ll come straight back here and figure out what to do next. But for now it’s down to us.”
“What do you mean?”
“Me and you. We have to go get them. We’re the strongest. We have my visions. You can keep us well. Mom will be safe here. She doesn’t know anything, and the General must know that by now, since they’ve probably been watching the house and tapping our phone for weeks.”
I looked in Kaz’s pale gray eyes, saw his determination and energy. And I felt the current that ran between us, felt how it danced at the edge of my heart, in the Banished blood that ran through my veins, and I knew that when I was with him, my gift was stronger; I was stronger.
At that moment it felt strangely as though we were not alone. As though in addition to me and Kaz there was some presence, something larger than life and older than history and deeper than time, that reached to us across myth and impossibility and pushed us forward, that blessed and comforted and promised everything would be all right.
“Okay.”
It was what Kaz had been waiting for, my permission, my agreement. But he hesitated a moment longer.
“They’re all going to be all right.”
I heard the fear in his voice and I knew he was saying that for himself as much as me. Leaving his mother behind was undoubtedly the hardest thing he’d ever done, but Kaz and I both knew that until we defeated the General once and for all, none of us would be safe. My shiny new life, the beautiful apartment and the new school and new friends, none of it had been real. We had all been waiting, knowing that this moment would come someday.
I’d seen the toll the last weeks had taken on Prairie, the worry on her face, the dark circles under her eyes. Maybe that was what parenting meant-constant fear of what might happen next. I didn’t know. Gram had never acted like a parent to me. Neither Prairie nor I had ever really had a mother, and we’d never had fathers, either.
Only Kaz had grown up with someone who loved him more than life itself, and maybe that was what gave him the strength to leave now. Because he was protecting Anna. He was almost a man, or maybe he was a man, in the same way that some days I felt like I was an adult and others I missed being a child. But when I looked at Kaz, I saw it clearly: he would be strong for the ones who couldn’t. For his mother, and Chub, and Prairie.
And I would be strong with him.
I put my hand in his. “I’m ready,” I whispered.
We slipped out into the descending evening, the city easing into its night self around us, and I knew that whatever lay ahead of us, Kaz and I would give everything we had to make things right again.
9
PRAIRIE SAT UP STRAIGHT in the upholstered chair and kept her expression impassive. They were watching her-she was sure of it-and they had been ever since they’d deposited her, still unconscious from whatever they’d given her, on the hotel bed. There was a beautiful sunset over Lake Michigan out her window. The room was on a high floor in what was clearly one of Chicago’s finest hotels, but Prairie ignored the view. She would wait for them to make their next move, and she would not give them the satisfaction of seeing how afraid she was.
Whatever they’d given her must have taken many hours to wear off, because when she woke, curled up on the bed, the sun had already dipped low in the sky. She’d tried the phone and found it disconnected. The door was locked from the outside. She thought about pounding on the walls, but all that would accomplish was to bring them running, and that could easily make things worse.
Thoughts of Chub and Hailey made her almost desperate enough to take the chance, though. If the men had managed to find her, despite the new identities, despite how careful she had been, then all was lost. The General would have sent teams to the apartment, the preschool, everywhere at once, giving them no time to warn each other.
But Hailey was something special. She was smart and gifted and brave. And she had the blood running strong in her. She was the most powerful Healer Prairie had ever known, the hope and the future of the Banished.
Was it possible that Hailey could have escaped?
When the sun finally slipped under the horizon, leaving an orange glow on the water, the door opened and one of the men from the lab walked into the room. He was still wearing the black jacket he’d had on earlier, but he’d taken off his earpiece.
He looked around and nodded in approval. Prairie had smoothed the bedcovers neatly; the room looked undisturbed. She stood and faced him silently.
“We didn’t have time for proper introductions,” he said, extending a hand. He was about her age, handsome in a bland way. “I’m David Graybull. We’ll be working together.”
Prairie ignored his hand. Working together. Was he serious? “You dragged me out of my office at gunpoint. I’d say that’s all the introduction I need.”
Graybull’s expression tightened, and he let his hand drop. “You don’t need to make this harder on yourself,” he said, but as he ushered her out of the room, he didn’t try to make further conversation.
The hall was quiet and thickly carpeted. Graybull pulled a key ring from his pocket and worked at the locks of the next room down. Prairie looked up and down the hall and saw that it was oddly short, with only four doors and a single elevator. Prairie guessed they were on the penthouse floor, one that had been customized at what was no doubt a very high price.
“After you,” Graybull said with an exaggerated sweep of his arm.
Inside, the drapes were drawn, and the room-twice the size of an ordinary hotel room-was dim. As Prairie’s eyes adjusted, she saw several beds lined up along the wall and, on the opposite wall, two people working at computers, their faces illuminated by the monitors’ glow. One of them was her other kidnapper, and one was a woman with a mass of curls around her face.
“Ah, Ms. Tarbell. Welcome. I’m Phil Cutler.” The man rose from his computer.
“She’s not feeling very friendly,” Graybull said.
“Really.” Cutler considered her for a moment. “Well, I suppose I might be a little… irritable myself. Maybe it will help to know that the boy is doing well. We just received a report from the lab. He had two chicken nuggets and some applesauce for dinner. Didn’t think much of the Tater Tots, apparently.”
“I want to see Chub,” Prairie said quickly, trying to keep the desperation from her voice.
“All in good time,” Cutler said. “Your niece, on the other hand, managed to… have other plans this afternoon. Most distressing.”
Prairie bit down on her lip to keep from reacting. So it was true-they didn’t have Hailey. Good girl, she thought, staring at a crack in the curtains, where the evening light filtered through.