Iron Cast (32 page)

“They're the ones who asked for it,” Ada said.

“I know.”

With slow, painful movements, Corinne edged her chair closer to Ada's, until their shoulders touched. They sat in silence like that for several minutes. When the lock on the door turned, neither of them moved. Corinne told herself that whatever came next, she and Ada could handle it. She only wished she could believe herself.

It wasn't Dr. Knox or the agents who came through the door.

It was her brother.

“Come on, Corinne,” he said, taking in the room with an expression of pure disgust. “We're leaving.”

It took Corinne another few seconds to even register that she wasn't hallucinating, that her brother, Phillip Wells, military academy graduate with honors, aspiring politician, and fiancé to one of the wealthiest women in Boston, really was standing in the room with them, still wearing his tuxedo from the rehearsal dinner.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“One of the nurses called Angela's father when she heard that you were here,” Phillip said. He was eyeing the metal gags on the table with obvious disquiet. “Thank God he came to me instead of Father. How did you even— Never mind, let's go. Mother's in the car.”

“You brought our
mother
?” Corinne demanded. Somehow that seemed like it warranted immediate discussion.

“I didn't have much of a choice when she overheard Mr. Haversham. As far as she knows, this is all a terrible misunderstanding,
and we're going to keep it that way. Now let's go.” He crossed the room and grabbed her arm, but Corinne yanked herself free.

“Not without Ada,” she said.

“Absolutely not.” Dr. Knox had come into the room, handkerchief in hand. “Miss Navarra is a dangerous criminal, and I cannot allow her to leave this facility. I'm sorry, Mr. Wells, but your influence doesn't reach far enough to pardon convicted felons.”

“There was never even a trial,” Corinne protested.

Phillip stared at Dr. Knox for a while, sizing him up. The doctor wiped at his forehead with the handkerchief but did not back down.

“Come on, Corinne,” Phillip said at last. “Angela called in a few favors to get me down here, but she's not going to call in any more.”

“I'm not leaving without Ada.”

“Cor,” Ada said sharply.

“No,” Corinne said, looking straight at her.

“Corinne, I swear I will carry you out of here kicking and screaming.” Phillip took a step forward.

“Are you sure, Phil?” Corinne sat back in her chair. “Think of what that headline would do to the Wells name. Just go. You can tell everyone that I died of Spanish influenza. That way I won't be a smear on any future campaigns.”

Phillip was taken aback by her words. He was wearing the same expression he'd had outside the Lenox only hours ago. Wounded and uncertain. Two things she had never thought that the mighty Phillip Wells, soon-to-be heir to both the Wells and Haversham fortunes, could ever be.

“Do you really think I came here for my political career?” he asked her.

“Phillip,” Ada said, not taking her eyes off Corinne, “would you give us a couple of seconds?”

Phillip looked between them, at a loss for possibly the first time in his life, and nodded.

“I really must protest—this is highly irregular,” Dr. Knox said.

“What's highly irregular is the fact that the basement of this facility is supposed to just be for storage.” Phillip put a massive hand on the back of Dr. Knox's shoulder and propelled him toward the door.

Dr. Knox's mouth worked like a fish's as he tried to come up with a reply. He hadn't found one by the time Phillip shut the door. Corinne stared resolutely anywhere but at Ada. She had never accepted help from her arrogant, grandstanding brother in her life, and she wasn't going to start tonight. No matter what Ada had to say about it.

Ada knew the look in Corinne's eye. She'd seen it earlier that night outside Down Street. Corinne had always been stubborn, but this was more fatalistic than that. In the dim, unsteady light, with her hair plastered with sweat to her forehead and her eye makeup running down her cheeks and her shoulders hunched from the pain of the handcuffs, Ada almost didn't recognize her. That scared her more than anything else.

“You have to go with him,” she said to Corinne. “This is your only chance.”

“I won't go without you.”

Ada nudged her arm and stared at her until Corinne finally met her eye.

“They're going after Saint,” Ada said. “You have to get to him before they do.”

Corinne hesitated at that. She had obviously forgotten. She shook her head again. “If I go with Phillip, he'll never let me out of his sight. I'll be trapped in that house until I die.”

“Not if he thinks you just want to go home,” Ada insisted. “As soon as he lets his guard down, you can get away. Please, Corinne. You know Saint. He's not like us. You know what this place would do to him.”

“Those things that Wilkey said—” Corinne's voice broke. “As soon as we leave, that's what they're going to do to you.”

Ada's breath caught in her throat, and fear lanced through her chest. But she fought it. She was stronger. She had to be.

“So you want to stay here so they can do the same to you? Now is not the time to be noble, Cor.”

“I'm not leaving.”

“You've broken me out before, and you can do it again,” Ada said.

“You don't know that! I'm not leaving.”

“Dammit, Cor. Why not?”

“Because I've seen what leaving you behind did to Saint, and I can't do it.”

Corinne laid her head down on the table, her cheek pressed against the wood. Ada rested her cheek on it as well, so that they were eye to eye.

Corinne's eyes were red, though she wasn't crying. “I can't live with that,” she whispered.

“Saint was afraid, and he made a mistake,” Ada said. “I'm telling you this is the best way—this is the only way.”

“It's not fair for you.”

“You think this is the first time life hasn't been fair for me? Don't be an idiot, Corinne.”

“You're being an idiot. You're the one being noble.” There was a fever in her tone. “As long as we're together, we can figure this out. There's another way. There has to be.”

“There's not,” Ada said. “Please, just go. They'll be back any second.”

The girls' faces were still only inches apart, their cheeks pressed into the comforting wood, their eyes locked.

“I won't,” said Corinne. “I have to do what I think is right.”

Corinne was still trembling. Ada could see the burn of the iron written all over her face. She could see how much Corinne wanted to leave, wanted to be free of this place. And she could see that she would never admit that to herself. Ada loved her for it, and hated it too.

“I know you do,” she whispered. “I'm sorry, Cor.”

Ada squeezed her eyes shut, found focus deep inside herself, far away from the pain and the anger and the guilt that had already begun to take root. She found a melody from her childhood and started to hum.

“Don't.” Corinne's voice was a strangled gasp.

Ada made herself look at her. Tears had sprung into Corinne's eyes. Corinne straightened up, shaking her head violently, but Ada kept humming. The melody had already begun to take hold. Ada knew she was too weak now to resist the full force of the song.

“Please” was the last thing Corinne said before her eyes began to glaze.

Ada felt tears well in her own eyes. Her heart ached inside her. It was worse than iron. It was a kind of betrayal.

It was the only way.

She hummed, weaving the music like a net over Corinne, trapping her best friend into her will. She could make people feel any
emotion she wanted. She could make them trust her implicitly and even blur their memories, but she'd never been able to make people
do
anything but the simplest of actions. She could make a rowdy patron sit down or a cop walk past on the street, but nothing more.

With Corinne it was different. She knew her so well, every twist and turn of her mind. Convincing Corinne that she had to leave was easier than convincing herself that it had to be done. Somehow that only made it worse.

When Phillip and Dr. Knox reentered the room, Ada stopped humming and closed her eyes.

“I'll go,” Corinne said. Her voice sounded distant, mechanical.

“Thank God,” said Phillip.

Ada heard Dr. Knox fumbling with Corinne's handcuffs. She heard the scrape of the chair against wood and the shuffle of footsteps. When she opened her eyes, she was alone with Dr. Knox.

“Strange,” he said. He didn't say more.

Ada was surprised that he didn't consider all this data for his little notebook. She wouldn't let herself think about what was coming next. Corinne was safe, and Saint would be too. Maybe down here she didn't have any choices or recourse or power, but she could still protect the people she loved.

“There you are,” Dr. Knox said as Agent Pierce appeared in the doorway. Dr. Knox stepped into the other room, pulling the door behind him, but it didn't latch. Through the narrow gap, Ada could see the white of Dr. Knox's sleeve and catch scattered fragments of what he was saying.

“—tell him—I want her back—Temple—” Dr. Knox's voice was low and frenetic.

Agent Pierce said something, but all Ada could hear was Phillip's name.

“We'll move them all if we have to.” Dr. Knox was speaking louder now, more agitated. “We finally have subjects who might survive the tests. I won't let all this work go to waste.”

Pierce said something else, and the door slammed shut. Ada heard the lock slide into place. Once she was sure they had left, she inched her chair sideways until she was as far from the iron coin as possible. She leaned her head against the concrete wall and sang a lullaby that her mother had taught her. Even though she couldn't manipulate her own emotions the way she could others', the familiar melody gave her a small amount of comfort. Music was easier than thinking about the renewed screams outside the door, or the gnawing fear that she had just seen her best friend for the last time.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Corinne's world was a haze of colors and sounds and the grip of her brother's hand on her arm. Her thoughts were wraiths. Her emotions were blank. All she knew was that she had to leave. She had to leave this place.

The beds full of bodies in various stages of dying evoked no grief anymore. That same woman, screaming, screaming, was only a distant idea now. A vague notion of horror. Phillip was pulling her faster now, and her footsteps on the tiles seemed to drum out the only thing she knew for certain. She had to leave this place.

The corridors with their iron floors pricked at her consciousness, but even that felt irrelevant. Phillip hesitated at a junction and tried the door on the left. Cool air flooded Corinne's senses, and for a moment her mind cleared. The room was some kind of cold storage. And it was stacked with corpses.

Phillip cursed and backed out. Corinne stumbled with him. She fell to her hands and knees. The iron rose up to meet her. Scalding pain and nausea rose in her chest, and she retched. Her mind was fogging again. There was a fading melody inside her, telling her she had to leave this place. But she couldn't move.

Her brother picked her up, cradling her, and pushed through the other door. The stairs were in sight now. Beyond them the lobby. Beyond that the outside world. She had to leave this place. Phillip was saying something, softly.

“I can't believe we let this happen.”

Corinne tried to reply, but her mouth wouldn't form the words.
She rested her cheek against her brother's shoulder and recited poetry in her head until the haze dissolved, until the melody was gone.

Corinne didn't regain her full faculties until she was at the car and buried in her mother's arms, breathing deeply of her perfume. She swore.

“Corinne,” her mother snapped. “Watch your language.”

Corinne looked back to see the asylum waiting behind her, its brick facade unperturbed by the icicles along its eaves, by the frigid wind whipping around them. The cold cleared Corinne's mind even further.

“Dammit, Ada,” she exclaimed into the open air. “Mother, I have to go back. My friend—”

“We're going home,” said Mrs. Wells. “And we'll never speak of this to anyone.”

She was gripping Corinne's upper arm, her lips pursed tightly. Her fur coat gaped open in the front, revealing her silk dress from the party. Corinne was suddenly aware of her own pitiful state. The hem of her dress had dried from their tromp through the sewers, but there was a rip in it, past her knee. She'd been too distracted in the asylum to think much about it, but even in the fresh air the smell was appalling. And she still had the taste of vomit in her mouth.