Unseen

“Are you insane?” he demanded. “Don’t you understand that whatever happens, we do not interfere with the training of those children?”

“Training!” I spat, and struck his hands away from me. “I didn’t see training. I thought they were going to kill her!”

“Their methods may seem harsh, but—”

“It’s cruel, Will! And I’m not sure they wouldn’t have let her die, if we hadn’t been watching! I couldn’t—”

“Listen to me! You have to, Laura. You have to learn that they know best!”

“Or?” I lifted my chin and stared into his eyes. His pupils slowly widened in response, as if he was swallowing my image whole.

“Or you won’t have a place here,” he said very gently, and touched my cheek. “And I’d regret that. I’d regret that very much.”

So would I, I realized. Even now. Even with the panic and pain in Zedala’s face, the icy indifference in the boy-Warden’s cruelty. I didn’t want to leave this place.

I didn’t want to leave him.

I took a step away, until my knees were steady enough to hold me, and walked back to the barn, head down.

Then I picked up the rake, and went back to work. As I combed through the straw, I reached out for Rostow, to deliver Merle’s message.

I couldn’t make contact.

There was only emptiness on the other side of the fence, where Rostow and the FBI agents should have been. Nothing. An eerie silence that made me pause in my work and rise up into the aetheric, just enough to see.

Beyond the forest’s cover, the FBI trailer was still in place. So were the cars, the SUVs, the tent where the agents slept.

But there was no sign of them at all.

They had all just ... vanished.

Every single one.

Merle and I were very much vulnerable, and on our own.

Chapter 11

THE REST OF THE DAY passed without incident, and I trudged back with the others to the lodge, where I showered, dressed in fresh clothing, and ate with Will’s usual group of friends. They didn’t mention the unfortunate Zedala, or my dip into the earth in a failed rescue attempt. No one did.

Merle sat alone at one end of another long table, head down. It was as if he’d already been ostracized from the group. I wanted to warn him that there was no rescue, no exit plan, but I didn’t know if I dared now. If Pearl and her followers were powerful enough to abduct, destroy, or otherwise relocate the entire FBI presence, it would be dangerous to display any power that might draw their attention; I knew my aborted attempt to save the girl had already roused some suspicion. There was too much focus on Merle already.

I sipped my water and stared down at my plate as the others talked and laughed, and finally, very carefully, reached out and vibrated the delicate bones of his ear to say, FBI presence is gone. We’re on our own. Watch out.

He looked up, startled, and checked himself before he stared in my direction. Instead, he stared at an entirely i

And I noted that a man near him was watching, and tracing any potential interactions Merle might have with others.

Merle’s quick thinking had just preserved my cover—but had endangered Oriana, who was entirely i

My peaceful idyll here had, in a matter of hours, turned into a dangerous pit of vipers. The difference between me and Merle, or me and Zedala, was that I didn’t intend to leave this place—not until I’d accomplished what I came to do.

I needed to lure Pearl here in the flesh, and find a way to destroy her—or cripple her. The Dji

Surely.

Yet looking around the room, seeing the peace these people felt, the gentle love and regard they held for one another ... I felt that this would be less a sacrifice than black, cruel murder.

Not that I wasn’t capable of that, too.

I had only myself to answer to now. Not Luis. Not Isabel. Not even Ashan. Only me, and my human-born conscience.

It should have been easier to silence.

The next few days passed in silence, a kind of tense standoff of waiting. Part of me felt at ease now; the stubbornly Dji

Merle continued on as he had, without any incident, until the third morning. It took me a short while to realize that although the other workers in the field beyond the barn were familiar, there was no sign of Merle.

I took it upon myself to visit the food hall and return with a heavy pitcher of cool water and a cup, and made the rounds of the sweating workers to deliver the refreshment with a smile. When I got to Will, he wiped his damp face, gave me a blindly sweet smile, and drank two deep cups before sighing in gratitude.

“Where’s Merle?” I asked, looking around. “He’s usually here, isn’t he?”

Will had been stretching his long arms, but now he lowered them to his sides and looked sidelong at me, brows raised. “Usually,” he said. “Why?”

“No reason. I just wondered if he was all right. He seems quiet lately.”

“I don’t think he worked out,” Will said.

That sounded offhand ... and ominous. I drank some water myself, trying to decide how to approach the subject, and finally abandoned subtlety. “Did he leave?”

“Yes,” Will said. “He left.” After an awkward second of silence, he nodded. “Thanks for the water. I need to get back to work. These rows won’t tend themselves.”

I walked back to the food hall to return the pitcher, thinking hard. Merle might have been able to leave without incident; they might have allowed that.

But I couldn’t believe it, not really. He’d seen the incident with Zedala. He knew the children were at risk, and that made him a dangerous witness indeed. They would never let him simply walk free, even if they hadn’t suspected him of being some sort of spy.

As I put out food for the pigs, greeting them with friendly pats, I ascended into the aetheric to get a glimpse around me. Merle had been solidly visible before, an easily recognizable target to locate ... but now I could see no sign of him. My attention was drawn instead to a spot of darkness on the aetheric, like a wide, violent splash of blood. It was in the field, and it was far beneath the surface.

It was the shape of a corpse. No ... not just one corpse. I counted four, at least, all buried deeply in the earth.

All fresh enough to retain their basic human shape, and the aetheric stain of their death struggles.

One of them had to be Merle.

The emotion of it hit me a moment after the factual information: Merle, as competent and careful as he was, had been killed. I was alone here. No friends, no allies, no chance of leaving with my life. Like Merle, I’d seen too much, asked too many questions. I was trapped.

But I wanted to be trapped. Didn’t I? Hadn’t that been my purpose in coming here all along?

Still, in that moment, seeing the blunt reality of what had happened to a man who had seemed, in many ways, indestructible, I felt fear, real and visceral. If I died here, I’d leave Luis and Ibby without ever really reconciling with them. They would believe that I hadn’t really loved them, really wanted to stay.