A Vault of Sins (9 page)

Casey walks into the room and sits in the empty love seat. His gaze remains fixed on his own hands, like he’s trying to burn holes in them.

“But Valerie.”

Maliyah frowns.

“You said all three of us were desperate, but there are only two of us here. Where’s Valerie?”

Wes stops fiddling with the Bot and stares at me. Piper’s teeth are sunken so deeply into her bottom lip that she might bite it clean off.

“Evalyn.” Maliyah leans forward, intent. “I need you to remain calm.”

Those are the last words that will keep me calm. “Tell me what happened. Now.”

***

When the feed is booted and illuminating the wall, I scan through headlines. Sinking to the carpet, I clutch my stomach, as if that will lessen my need to throw up.

The police intercepted Valerie on her way home. They’re still searching for Casey and me—America’s most wanted. We managed to escape and she didn’t, and now they’ll retry her for her crime.

I press my fists into the cleft of my ribcage as I try to control my breathing. “Why didn’t you send someone for her?”

“We did.” Piper points to herself. “Me. And I was too late. I’m so sorry, Evalyn.”

I push the air from my lungs and suck it back in slowly, growing dizzy. Tears shake in my eyes. “You know this will destroy her, right?” I watch the footage of Valerie’s arrest at the train station as it plays on the feed. Her driver escorted her right into the hands of the police. I had her. Hours before, I had her and I let her go home. This is my fault. “I can’t do this. I can’t be here while they have her. I have to go back.”

“No you don’t,” Casey says, the first words he has spoken directly to me.

I glare at him. How could he be so heartless?

Maliyah speaks up. “Casey’s right. They’ll fry you. You don’t have any other choice.”

I grit my teeth and try to conjure an argument, but I know she’s right.

“Don’t worry. We’re creating a plan to shed light on everything before the Division of Judicial Technology has a chance to cover it up.”

“A plan?”

She crosses her arms.

“A plan that began with me leaking the truth of Compass Room C malfunctioning,” says Wes.

I think back to when Liz told me that we finally had a case. Gemma had signed paperwork stating that Casey, Valerie, and I were survivors of a perfectly functioning CR. They were going to cover up everything until someone leaked the truth. “That was you?”

“Damn straight. My last evil deed as a CR engineer was betraying the very people I worked for.” He shrugs. “They think I’m dead now.”

Reprise were the ones who leaked to the press that the Compass Room had malfunctioned before the division could cover it up, and they were the ones who leaked the real CR feed a couple of days ago. “Why? What’s in it for you?”

The glint in Wes’s eye reminds me of a salivating animal. “There is so much more to the Compass Rooms than you can even begin to imagine.”

“Don’t patronize me.”

“The purpose of the Compass Room isn’t only to eliminate the wicked,” Wes says. “It’s to gather data.”

“On
what
?”

“The way your mind works, Miss Ibarra.”

***

Valerie was right. Casey is a phenomenal cook.

He whips up fish and sautéed vegetables on top of the kitchen stove like it’s nobody’s business. I’m starving, but the meal can’t be complete without a stiff drink. My head hasn’t stopped pounding. Wes pours me a glass of scotch from a bottle in one of the kitchen cabinets. I sip on it slowly as I try to digest his words.

“What do you mean,
experiment
?”

He sits across from me, elbows propped on the table in front of him. “Your brain. For generations we’ve been trying to uncover the secrets behind human nature. Our decisions and justifications and why we choose to think the way we do. Right?”

“Okay.”

“So say the true purpose behind Compass Rooms isn’t to comb the wicked out of society. Say it’s to place the criminally inclined beneath the lens of a microscope, dissecting their decisions, emotions, and relationships—comparing them with the more sane members of society.”

“Test subjects?”

Casey sets the table. I look to him for his reaction, but he keeps his focus averted from me.

I take a long sip of scotch. “You’re telling me that the purpose of placing us in the Compass Rooms is to dig through our brains and figure out how we
work
?”

Maliyah and Piper join us. The scotch is somehow sobering, my situation aligning in my brain. I’ve been taken to the base of a conspiracy group in the middle of nowhere. Casey’s here. We’re part of a conspiracy.

Conspiracy.

The word tastes sour as I whisper it out loud.

“Don’t get me wrong,” says Wes. “The Compass Room is still completely functional and accurate.”

I raise an eyebrow.

“Fine, fine. It’s supposed to be completely functional and accurate. And all rooms
were
except for yours. Criminals enter and take part in an obstacle course that tests their morality. But in all honesty, do you really think the government would care that much about uncovering who’s really evil? No. It’s easier to let all of you fuckers rot in jail . . . no offense.”

“None . . . taken?”

“But in the process of uncovering moral compasses, they’re collecting data in an ongoing study of the way a psychopath’s mind works in comparison to a normal person. That was my job as a low level engineer—while we oversaw your room, we also sifted through all of that data and stored it.”

Maliyah and Piper serve themselves as Casey sits. It’s an incredibly systematic procedure. I wonder how long Casey’s been here, playing cook for this group of rebels.

“So what?” I stab at the vegetables on my plate. “They’re collecting data on us. Somehow that seems more important to you than the fact that you people somehow screwed up our room and killed a bunch of moral inmates.”

“But by law, Gemma and the higher-ups are bound to relay that information to the court. It’s a felony of the highest charge if they don’t—a crime worse than murder. But they’re so desperate to hide what happened, right? I mean, immediately after the room malfunctioned, they scheduled paperwork to be filed on the day that Compass Room C was
supposed
to end stating that you three were the survivors of a perfectly functioning Compass Room. Then they created false data to use in their court case.”

“So they’re hiding something.”

“Maybe. I mean, I don’t know. I was just a low-level engineer. If they’re hiding something, we didn’t know about it. But it’s a good possibility, right? Why would they risk being thrown underground for the rest of their lives instead of being honest? Under law, we’re all protected if something happens to go wrong. It wouldn’t really be a loss other than the Compass Room’s technology needing to be re-evaluated and re-approved.”

“And the wrong people dying,” I remind him.

“Of course.”

I take a bite of fish and watch Casey stare at his plate.

“So is that Reprise’s job then? To out the liars?”

Maliyah clears her throat and sets her utensils in front of her. “I believe that if we’re able to keep unraveling this scandal for all the public to see, like we’ve been doing, we can shut down the Compass Rooms for good. But it’s going to take time and a lot of work. We brought you and Casey up here because, as you can see with what’s happened to Valerie, you aren’t safe. Gemma tried to bribe you to keep quiet and the three of you turned on her. Now you’re a threat.”

A threat. Despite how good this food is, I feel like throwing up everywhere. Valerie isn’t safe. “What can I do?”

“Stay here. Lay low.”

“But Valerie . . .”

“We’re working on Valerie. We’ve sent a team of our best lawyers to work with her father and get her out of jail. The best thing that you can do now is wait.”

Wait. I push my food around on my plate and attempt to swallow the painful knot in my throat. Stay here, hidden in the Canadian wilderness, and wait. I’ve
been
hiding and waiting for the past two months, and what did that do other than drive me crazy and break me away from Casey?

There’s no other option.

“One of the hackers used to paint to pass the time when she had to stay at this base.” Maliyah’s eyes glitter, as though she’s waiting for me to light up. “I think her supplies are still tucked away in a bedroom somewhere.”

It’s the best news I’ve heard since I’ve woken up.

***

Reprise: A group of brilliant hacktivists dead set on re-evaluating government cover-ups to reveal conspiracies. The Compass Rooms are currently their most important project.

The lodge consists of ten rooms structured with old pine paneling, decades-old appliances, and a heating system that depends mostly upon several fireplaces scattered throughout the building. Food, alcohol, and supplies are delivered by other Reprise members twice a month via an old service road.

This is the last place where I’d expect anyone technologically savvy to hide, although I guess that’s the point. All that’s expected of me here is chores. Cooking and firewood for Casey, and linens for me.

Piper helps me fold and refold towels and sheets in a loft overlooking the common room. With a fresh beer just within reach, I watch below as men and women come and go, resting on couches and exchanging hushed whispers with Maliyah and Wes. They’re all dressed in layers—sweaters and thick jackets, boots and gloves and hats—their faces red like they’ve spent the last several hours outside in the cold.

“Who are they?” I ask Piper.

“Reprise members. They’re staying in trailers and cabins a couple of miles away. Working on a project.”

“What kind of project?”

“Just a project.”

I narrow my eyes at her, but she’s playing oblivious, concentrating on folding pillowcases with faded cabbage roses printed on them.

My need to pester her weakens when Casey passes us on the way up to his room. He keeps his eyes averted from us as he continues up the stairs. I hurry, sloppily folding the couple of sheets I have left, grab my beer, and follow him.

His room is almost identical to mine, except the view from his triple-paneled window looks out over the pine-covered valley instead of the service road leading from the lodge. He’s staring out that window when I enter, only glancing back when I set my beer on top of the dresser near the door.

He says nothing. The angry fire inside him burns hot—I can nearly feel it against my skin.

“Your hip.”

His voice is monotonous when he responds. “Reprise replaced it. Their doctors are a lot better than the government quacks. But that was several weeks ago.”

“You’ve been up here for that long?”

I take his silence as an answer.
Yes, but you wouldn’t know, Evalyn. You left
.

“I’m sorry.” The words escaped me slurred. I must be getting drunk.

He shakes his head. “You don’t get to say that.”

“Every decision I made was to keep you safe. I left because Liz told me . . .”

“I know what she told you. About being a bad influence. She told me too.”

“Then I don’t understand why you’re mad at me.”

“Because you left, Evalyn!”

I wince away from the raw anguish lacing his voice.

“The three of us were supposed to do everything together. That was the deal, remember? Our lawyers were from the same office. We promised each other that we wouldn’t go to court unless all three of us agreed it was the right thing to do. And then you left. I’ve had nightmares of that hell every fucking night and have no one I can talk to. I’ve been waking up every morning wondering if you’re safe or if you’ve been arrested or kidnapped or killed with no way of reaching you for
two months
.”

His voice trembles, the torment inside of him surfacing, brimming in his glistening eyes.

“I . . . I know.” Admitting I was wrong has never felt so right. “I thought that hiding could diffuse the bad press against you, and I thought that mattered more than anything else. But it doesn’t. I screwed up. And I screwed up with Valerie too. I won’t ever be able to forgive myself.”

His eyebrows furrow, and I realize he doesn’t know.

“She stayed with me.”

“
She
was staying with you?
She
knew where you were?”

“She wasn’t eating, Casey. She was skin and bones and living in a dump in New York by herself. So yes, I let her stay with me. And she gave me enough grief about running away. Right when the feed was released, she left to go back to her dad’s. And now they’ve taken her.”

His face softens. He opens his mouth like he’s going to say something, but I cut him off. “I abandoned you for two months, and it was wrong. We watched each other’s backs in there and we should have done it out here too, but I was so afraid that they’d think you were a monster like me.”

“You’re not—Ev—”

But as he composes his thoughts, I swing around and leave the room, taking my beer with me.

I run away again, even though this time I can’t get far, because he knows where I am. Maybe I run because I don’t know who I am anymore. The media, my mother, Reprise, Valerie, Casey, Liam—to everyone I am someone different. A thousand Evalyns floating around the universe, and what scares me is that I don’t know who’s the closest to knowing the true one.

When I’m alone, I don’t have to decide who I want to be. I can just drink and paint and dream and pretend I am no one.

***

I dream of Jason Earhart.

I haven’t seen his face in my dreams since prison, and back then I only dreamed of the moment I shot him, over and over again. I’d shoot, watch his head explode, and run back to find Meghan dead on the ground. Repeat. Shoot, watch his head explode, and run back to find Meghan dead on the ground. Repeat.

Tonight, I stand before the crowded banquet hall. The smell of brunch wafts through the air, eggs and cheese and blackberry jam. Before me, Jason sits at his table, hunched over as he listens closely to his female colleague. They laugh and he adjusts his thin wire glasses.

I grip the cold gun in my hand, raising it and aiming.