Chapter 52—Earth

I know it's not safe, but how does clueless Henry know? It occurs to me then, the stupid thing I should have thought about earlier. Henry is on Terra. His mom must have powers, and she's a woman. So when she met me. . . and she disliked me unreasonably. . .she probably knew who I was.

She probably recognized me, maybe as the woman who defeated her son in the Ascension. Ugh.

“Who do your parents work for, Henry?”

I saw Declan a few hours later, on the very day I met her.

Henry shakes his head. “We've always worked with Isis. I swear I had no idea who you were. I just liked you, okay? I still do. My mom, though, she was mad. Apparently you beat me in some kind of fight on Terra, and she was angry. She called someone she knew with Amun. She thought they'd take care of you.”

“Your mom turned me in?”

Henry sputters. “I had no idea, I swear.”

I stumble backward, my butt hitting the wall. Everyone I thought was a friend is somehow involved. The only good news is that I’ve got a way to reach Devlin.

“Where's your mom now? I need to call someone with the Followers of Amun.”

He shakes his head. “She's in a holding cell. Isis is upset, to put it lightly. They said if Amun had managed to Wake the Warden because of her, well. . .they're pissed.” Henry's mouth shuts with a click.

“I need a number for Amun, Henry.”

He sits back down. “I can't give you something I don't have, and I'm pretty sure Isis wants to keep you away from them for a reason. I need to call and tell them you're here, or I'll wind up in a cell, too.” His eyes are round and full of regret.

“Grow a backbone, Henry. Help me like you said you would.” I plead with my eyes. “Don't call anyone.”

He shakes his head again, and I realize that John was right. Henry really isn't housebroken—he’s a big old puppy.

I groan, but I pull out the dart gun again and shoot Henry, too. I still have no way of reaching Devlin, and now I’m standing in Perry's Steakhouse with the owner's son passed out on the floor at my feet. I grab his cell phone, flip location services off, put it on airplane mode, and walk back outside. I haven't gone three steps when John comes running down the sidewalk. “Alice, wait. Your brother never showed up today. I called his cell a few times and he never answered. Is he okay?”

His eager, concerned face, and his normal assumptions, that Jesse's home sick or at the hospital, stab at something inside of me. Which is why I burst into tears. Without paying any attention to the people walking to shops who are staring, he steps toward me and pulls me into a hug. For some reason, that makes me cry harder.

He leads me over to the bench where I usually sit and lets me cry on his shoulder until the tears dry up. “He was murdered last night, John. He's dead.” Saying the words shatters something inside me.

And for the first time, it feels true. I’ve been running on fumes, hoping against hope that I can do something Earth-shattering, or I guess, Terra-shattering, to save him. But now that I’ve said the words, how could I possibly?

You can’t reverse dead.

My brother, my everything, the only person I love, is gone. Forever.

“I’m—” His face falls. “—I’m so sorry, I don't even know what to say.”

I should tell him it's okay, but even I can’t force out a lie that big. The people passing us turn to stare, and I realize I'm sitting here like a Thanksgiving turkey, waiting for Isis and Amun to find me. I've botched everything so badly I don’t see a way out. Jesse's gone, and all I want to do is find the man who killed him, torture him for information, and kill him too. But instead, it looks like I’ll either end up back in a cell or with a hole in my head before I can do anything useful.

I lean back against the bench and close my eyes.

“Is there anything I can do for you?” John asks. “Anything at all? Are you. . .” he bites his lip, “hungry, or anything?”

I haven't thought about food since yesterday, which means it’s probably a good idea. “Uh, not really. But I ought to eat.”

“Where do you want to go?”

I shake my head. “I don't know. Not here. Not something close.”

“My car's behind the office. I can take you anywhere you want.”

I stand up and follow him without saying a word. John opens the passenger side door of a red BMW Z4. Not exactly something that will blend in, but I need to get somewhere to regroup and formulate a better plan.

“What sounds edible?” he asks.

I notice he doesn’t say ‘good,’ as though he knows there’s nothing in the world that could approach ‘good’ right now.

I shake my head. “Honestly, I don't even care. I just had to get away from there.”

“At the risk of sounding creepy, I can pick up takeout and we can eat at my place. There won’t be anyone around to stare at you. Or I can take you home. Wherever you want to go.”

John's the opposite of creepy, and my place is out, so. “Any kind of food is fine, and your place sounds good if you don't mind.” I swallow. “I feel terrible. You hardly know me.”

“Stop.”

He doesn't ask me questions, although he must have a million. He doesn't even speak. He drives through Chick-Fil-A, of all places. His car looks absurd sandwiched between two minivans. He orders five orders of chicken nuggets, and several large French fries.

“I bet you haven't eaten in a while,” he says. “And if I remember right, you don’t eat like a bird.”

The nicest non-compliment I’ve ever had. In spite of everything, I smile. John's a good guy. I hope he's not too upset when I die in the near future.

I don't know where I expect him to live, but an older house in a small midtown neighborhood isn't it. He opens the garage door on the little white house with the touch of a button and parks his flashy car in the garage. When he grabs the bag of food, I follow him inside, numb.

“Not what you expected?” he asks.

“I didn't know what to expect.”

“My mom inherited quite a lot of money, and when she passed, it all came to me, in trust of course. My grandmother's the trustee, and she told me she thought I should take an interest in investing some of it. I bought this house and the one next door. I live here and rent out that blue one.” The blue house next door looked exactly like this one when we pulled up.

“Seems like a good idea,” I say.

He groans. “Don't be so sure. These houses are both pretty old, and everything keeps breaking. I have to contact my grandma every time I want a disbursement until I turn twenty-five, so if the repairs exceed the rent, I usually just put them off or figure out how to take care of them myself. It eats up way too much free time, but the family that lives next door is really sweet, and their little girl is adorable.”

My heart aches, thinking about a normal family with a little girl they love. Why couldn't I have been born into a life like that?

John walks into the kitchen and sets the bag down on a simple oak table. The kitchen’s small, with terra cotta tile floors and tiled counters. But the appliances all match, and the furniture looks almost too new for the room. I pull out one of the spindle-backed chairs and slide up to the table. I start eating then, just to have something to do. Before I realize what I'm doing, I've inhaled all the food.

All five orders of nuggets.

And fries.

I flog my brain for other ways to locate Devlin. I have Henry's cell phone. Maybe I can find something there, but I doubt it. I lay my head down on the table, frustrated and confused. I don't know what to do or how to proceed. And I’m running out of time.

Without meaning to, I almost fall asleep.

I jerk awake and gasp. John walks into the kitchen. “Everything okay? You look tired. I have a guest room. You're welcome to take a nap.”

I shake my head. “I can't sleep, I can't.”

He pulls up a chair and sits next to me. “Why? Bad dreams?”

I shake my head. I can't exactly explain that as soon as I go to sleep, since I won’t remember a single thing that I currently know, I'll have to watch my brother die. Again. I don't think I can bear it. “You wouldn't believe me if I told you.”

“Try me,” he says.

I sigh. “It's complicated and it makes no sense.”

“Your brother was murdered yesterday,” John says. “I don't mean to pry, but I expect complications.”

“It's not just that.”

“Because you dream about Terra?” He raises one eyebrow.

I Lift him and slam him up against the wall, which knocks a picture to the ground.

“Take it easy.” He’s surprisingly unconcerned for someone I might kill any second.

“Who are you?” I ask. “And which side are you on?”

“I'm a friend, Alora. I swear it. I'm not with Amun or Isis, but I've known about you and your brother for years. In fact, I started looking for you because I was angry about how much time Devlin Rochester was spending looking for you. Maybe I was even a little jealous. At first I wanted to find you to show him that I could, to prove my value.” He grunts. “But then I got to know you both, and I felt awful. You didn't deserve any of the horrible things he was doing to you. I really just want to help you. That's the absolute truth.”

I lower him to the ground, shove him into a chair, and Bind his hands and feet behind him.

“Talk. Why did you care what Devlin Rochester did? How did you even know who he was or what he wanted? And most of all, why should I believe you aren’t one of the Followers of Amun?”

“For starters, Devlin Rochester is my father.”