Pandora's Key (21 page)

“Are you through?

Evangeline felt sick to her stomach. She wanted to make Sam hurt like she did, or hide beneath the quilt, go to sleep and forget everything. Neither was an option. “What’s your real name?”

“Samantha Nedrow.”

“Do you know that Melia’s
dead
? Dead, like a hole in her stomach and blood everywhere. Dead like never coming back.” Evangeline’s insides felt raw and she could barely swallow the thick lump in her throat.
I’m never going to see Melia again. She’s been my best friend since we were little. She saved my life. Now she’s the first person I loved to die. Will she be the last?

“Melia was sixteen, Sam. But she was a
traitor
, right? So you would’ve killed her anyway? Good riddance. Again, fantastic job, clearly you’ve inspired great loyalty in your followers.”

“Enough,” Sam said. Her hands were casually folded in her lap, but the knuckles were white.

Evangeline took a deep breath. She needed to be calm if she was going to get out of this place. “Is my mother still alive?”

“Yes—but she has congestive heart failure and her organs are shutting down one by one. E, I know it’s hard for you to comprehend all of this—”

“Because it’s insane.”

“For your sake, I truly wish that it was.” Sam blinked back tears.

Crocodile tears.
“Don’t bother crying. It won’t make me believe you or forgive you for what you’ve done.” Evangeline looked around the room. “So, this is it? Your big plan is to keep me locked up in this room until I magically produce the next descendant?”

Samantha stood up. “My
big plan
, as you call it, was to never have you find out who you really are. My big plan was to protect you, just as I protected Olivia, so that you could live a normal life. But once you saw me in the hospital and found my apartment, it was too late. I know you as if you were my own child, Evangeline. You would never have let what you saw go.” Samantha walked toward the door. “In time, you’ll come to understand who you are and accept your fate. Then I can give you back your freedom.”

Freedom? That’s a lie.
“I’ll never be free again.”

“Not like before, no,” Sam agreed, “but that life you were living was just an illusion.”

“You really believe it all?” Evangeline asked, a feeling of overwhelming exasperation almost choking her. “Pandora, the box, descendants, gifts from the Gods? You believe that I can sing because Apollo decreed it, and kill because Athena gave me that gift? You actually think that Hephaestus gave me the power to create reality from my own imagination? For God’s sake, Sam, you believe that I can grow and heal things because Demeter bestowed that gift on a mythical woman named Pandora who only ever lived in Greek mythology?”

Samantha’s eyes met Evangeline’s. “Maybe you don’t have all the gifts the Gods bequeathed—through the centuries, some are lost to the descendants as their genes are mixed with mere mortals. Sometimes, if those gifts do appear, they are weaker than the Gods originally decreed and descendants can only marginally control them. But one thing always happens. When a descendant turns sixteen and puts on the key necklace she becomes beautiful. I can’t explain why, but this metamorphosis has happened without fail throughout Pandora’s history.”

“I don’t believe anything you’re saying.”

“Look back on your life, Evangeline—on you mom’s life. Think about all the things you could never quite explain—all the inconsistencies that made you feel different—all the strange occurrences and abilities. And then ask yourself, how can you not believe?”

“Because I’m not crazy!”

“Dawn said Melia’s boyfriend tried to drown you.”

Evangeline’s heart skipped a beat. She looked away from her godmother.

“How long did he hold your head beneath the water?”

“I don’t know. A while. I can’t remember.”

Samantha arched an eyebrow. “Poseidon decreed that Pandora and her descendants would never drown. And don’t forget, you killed that boy. Athena would be proud.”

Evangeline felt a chill blanket her entire body.
I couldn’t have killed Tristin…could I?
But before she could reply to Samantha’s ridiculous statements or pull out the revolver, her godmother had slipped out the door and the locks were again thrown into place.

“I. Am. Not. The. Descendant. Of. Pandora!” Evangeline screamed. “I am not!”
Please—please—please don’t let this be true…

They drove by a cedar house set on a one-lane road. The name on the mailbox was M. Hopkins. There were no other houses on the desolate street. Raphe insisted that Dr. Sullivan park a half-mile away and then bushwhack through dense woods so that they could approach Mrs. Hopkins’ home from the rear.

“Maybe I
am
drunk,” Dr. Sullivan grumbled. “Tell me again, what do you plan to do once we get to the house?”

“Find out if Evangeline is inside,” Raphe whispered.

“Okay. How?

“Look in the windows.”

“So, we’ll get arrested for being Peeping Toms,” Dr. Sullivan muttered. “And then?”

“Sneak in and get her out of there.”

Dr. Sullivan grabbed Raphe’s arm. “Whoa there double-o-seven.”

“Shhh!”

Dr. Sullivan lowered his voice. “I told you, Raphe, we’re not breaking and entering. We agreed that if I drove you here, and confirmed that Evangeline was in the house, we’d call the police.”

“But if we have the chance to get her out—”

“No.”

“You could’ve just dropped me off.”

“Yeah, that would’ve been a responsible move.”

Raphe looked down at his sneakers. “If we call the cops my mom will go to jail.”

“If you really saw your mom helping kidnap Evangeline, then she deserves to go to jail.”

Raphe sighed. “Okay—okay—you win.”

He shook free of Dr. Sullivan and they pushed through a thick clump of briars. Glimpsing a building through the foliage, they crept forward. It was a greenhouse. They approached it cautiously, catching sight of the Hopkins’ house only twenty-five feet in front of it.

A light from the second floor blinked on. Instinctively, Raphe and Dr. Sullivan crouched behind a tree. Even from such a distance, they could make out a figure walking past the illuminated window, then turning and pressing their hands against the glass, staring out into the night. It was Evangeline.

Raphe leapt to his feet and bolted toward the house.

“Damn!” Dr. Sullivan ran after the kid.

Evangeline moved away from the bathroom window—there was no escape that way. She splashed cold water on her face. The bruise on her cheek was purple and her lower lip was crusted with dried blood.

“Who are you?” she whispered. But the girl reflected back was a stranger and only the black key responded—glinting in the light with a conspiratorial wink.
What did it matter, anyway?
Whether she was the fantasy descendant that Samantha and Melia believed in, or just a kid whose mom was dying and who’d been kidnapped by a cult, she was still standing in this bathroom with a guard waiting outside the door to lock her up again.

Drawing Malledy’s revolver from where it was tucked against the small of her back, Evangeline looked for the safety. She flipped it off, just as Melia had instructed.
“Point and pull the trigger easy-peasy.”
But was it that easy to kill someone?

There’s no other way out of this place,
Evangeline told herself. And the longer she waited, the harder it’d be.
Can I pull the trigger?
“I guess we’ll find out,” Evangeline said to the bruised and battered girl staring at her from the mirror. And then she opened the door.

Raphe was well inside the house before Dr. Sullivan had stepped through the back door into a mudroom filled with coats, boot, and shoes of various sizes. The light was murky, but the doctor could just see Raphe as he crept into a large, empty kitchen. There was nothing he could do but follow, wincing as he stepped on a creaky floorboard.

Glancing over his shoulder, Raphe held a finger to his lips. Then he turned and walked beneath the arch leading into the front hall. There was a room to the left and a curved, wooden staircase to the right. Raphe was starting to climb the stairs when the doctor caught up to him, reaching for his shoulder.

And then the entire room was suddenly flooded with light.

“Welcome to my home,” Melodie Hopkins said from a seat in the living room.

Raphe and the doctor whirled around to see fifteen women sitting calmly on an assortment of velvet chairs and floral sofas. There was a collection of guns, knives, and tasers among the group.

“I know Raphe from school, of course, but who’s this man?” Melodie asked.

“He was Olivia’s doctor,” Samantha said, gesturing toward a couch. “Please, Dr. Sullivan, come in and sit down.”

“I’m
still
her doctor,” Dr. Sullivan said, not making a move toward the couch. “She’s not dead yet—no thanks to you.”

“Semantics,” Sam replied.

“Mom?” Raphe was staring wide-eyed at a woman who stood beside a large picture window.

“I can’t help you, Raphe,” Beca Petersen said to her son, her voice heavy with emotion. “No one can help you now.”

“You’re right, kid, she
is
a heartless witch,” Dr. Sullivan put an arm around Raphe’s shoulders. “We’ll be going now.” He turned Raphe around and began walking out of the room.

“One more step,” Samantha warned, “and you’re both dead.”

Evangeline walked out of the bathroom. “That was quick,” Stephanie said. “After you.” She gestured down the hall toward Evangeline’s room.

“No,” Evangeline raised the revolver. “After you.”

Stephanie’s gasped, deep-set eyes widening. “You don’t want to do this, Evangeline. You’re a sweet girl, not a killer.”

I was, but your freakish cult killed that girl; Malledy killed her; Melia’s death killed her.

“Turn around and go.” Evangeline pressed the revolver into Stephanie’s back.

The woman turned and walked down the hallway. “You’ll never get past them all.”

“Shut up!”
I’m terrified enough without you talking.