Fearless Read online

  In my bleary, disoriented state, I tried to get out a question, or words of any kind, but my vocal cords failed me. My eyes slid shut, stinging and watering from the smoke, and when they opened again, the woman was gone, vanished into the haze. I called out, “Mom?” But there was no answer. There was no trace of her, not even the faint clacking of her heels—as though she’d never existed at all. And quickly I found myself wondering . . . maybe she hadn’t.

  I pulled myself to my feet and limped up and down the underground hallway, looking for her, trying to figure out where she might have gone. “Mom?” I creaked out again. After a few minutes of searching, I found no entrances or exits. If she’d left this hallway, she must have gone out through the silver door upstairs.

  I staggered back that way as quickly as I could, with two competing imperatives drumming inside my head: first, I needed to get out of here before I was caught, and second, I needed, more than anything, to figure out where my mother had gone. I emerged back into the janitor’s closet, in that secluded hallway of the main hospital; I was back where I’d started. I looked around, but there was no sign of her, no sooty footsteps walking one way or the other. There was also no sign that a bomb had gone off directly under the building.

  You need to get out of here, I reminded myself, overriding my foolish desire to comb these halls searching for her.

  I walked quickly toward the exit, my ribs twinging with every step, certain some hospital administrator was going to stop and question me at any moment. My grimy clothes and hair got a few odd looks from other patients as I passed, but I found my way back to the ER, where my stretcher was still waiting, empty. I realized I hadn’t been gone that long—my whole expedition into the bunker had only taken about fifteen minutes.

  The doors to the outside were in sight, I was almost there . . . until that nurse walked up and intercepted me, annoyed. “There you are. Where on earth did you go?”

  “Sorry, I had to use the bathroom,” I explained innocently. “I think my mom’s outside, I need to go find her . . .”

  “Your mom can find you in here,” she said and blocked my path until I reluctantly plopped back down on my stretcher for my medical exam. I’d tried to wipe off the smoke and grime from the explosion with my sleeves, but there was nothing I could do to hide the lacerations all over my arms and legs.

  “You were in a car accident?” she asked, perplexed.

  “Yep,” I said. “I feel fine, but someone called an ambulance.”

  “You don’t look fine.”

  I peered past her, inspecting every passerby, hoping to see even a wisp of my mother’s familiar dark hair. “Have you seen someone who looks like she could be my mother?” I asked the nurse. “A little taller than me, wearing a suit jacket with a skirt? I don’t have my phone so I don’t know if she’ll be able to find me back here . . .”

  “Someone out front will be able to direct her to you, don’t worry.”

  As new nurses and doctors came over to check on me in quick succession, my unease intensified. Was this building in any danger? No alarms were going off, and none of these people seemed to know an inferno was raging below us. Dawn had promised the shelter’s seal was airtight, and it seemed that promise must have been real—I couldn’t think of any other explanation for the normalcy all around me.

  While I waited to be diagnosed, I found my mind drifting over and over the facts I knew about my mother’s death, trying to organize them into something that made sense. When I was a little kid, my father had lied to me initially about my mother’s disappearance, saying she’d fallen ill on the day of the American Revelation. Even once I suspected that her illness wasn’t some coincidence, I’d never confronted him about my suspicions that she’d been Punished; I’d never known how.

  But what if I’d been wrong in my conclusions? What if my father’s lie was bigger than I’d ever imagined, and he was actually hiding the fact that she was still alive?

  But why lie at all? And if he knew she was alive, why wouldn’t he have given his desperately grieving daughter some kind of hope? My head pounded. None of it made any sense. All I knew was, I had to find that woman, I had to get some answers.

  I was finally discharged with a few stitches and a diagnosis of bruised ribs and booked it out of the hospital. Bandaged and numb from all the painkillers, I looked around the busy street outside the building. Dawn had told me to wait outside until I could hail taxi number 532, which pulled up a few minutes later.

  When I plopped in the back, I noticed it was empty. This was a driverless taxi, a technology invested in heavily since the Revelations—a way to prevent accidents like Jude’s, save more lives. As we inched through the parade of tourists and clubgoers, Dawn’s face popped up on a screen on the back of the front seat. “Well?” she asked me.

  I was beyond relieved to see her. “It worked. I blew up the vault.”

  Relief swept across Dawn’s face. “Wonderful. This taxi will take you to a safe house—you’ll get a new passport, and we’ll get you into hiding.”

  “Wait,” I said, desperate for some answers. “There’s something else. There was this woman . . .”

  “Someone saw you?” Dawn’s voice sharpened.

  “This woman saved me from the explosion. And . . .” It was harder than I expected to say the words out loud. They sounded so absurd. “She really looked like my mother.”

  Dawn seemed confused. “I thought you told me your mother died in the Revelations.”

  “She did! Or I thought she did. But just now, this woman . . . She pulled me out of the vault just in time. I swear it was her.”

  “She pulled you out, and then . . . ?”

  “She left.” It sounded stupid and strange to me, too. Why had she left so quickly?

  “What did you say your mother’s name was again?”

  “Valerie. Valerie Luther. Cooper was her maiden name.”

  My hopes were dashed as Dawn shook her head. “I’m sorry. I don’t know anyone by that name.”

  I pushed harder. “But it’s possible, isn’t it? I thought Jude was dead, but he’s alive. And Ciaran, he turned up in that cell in West Virginia. Why not my mother, too?”

  “I guess it’s not impossible,” Dawn said hesitantly. “But before I recruited you, we checked into your background pretty thoroughly. I have a lot of connections, I don’t know why it wouldn’t have come up—”

  I interrupted her. “What if she’s living under some other name? She could be hiding, like Jude is. Don’t people call him Ben sometimes?”

  “I gave Jude that secret identity. If I’d given your mother one, I think I’d know.” Dawn must have seen the distrust bubbling up on my face. “Grace, I’m trying to help you, I promise.”

  I was growing more and more suspicious the more she tried to convince me not to be. “You hit me with a car today,” I pointed out, not hiding my anger. “You killed all those people in West Virginia. You asked me to help you, and I have been helping you. But in return, I want the truth.”

  “I’m telling you the truth. I’ll look into this for you, I swear I will,” she said. But something about the way she said it . . . A little voice in my head kept echoing all the sins she’d committed. All the reasons I shouldn’t have trusted her six months ago, all the reasons I shouldn’t trust her now. She tried to shift the subject, saying, “You did a good thing today, let’s focus on that.”

  But suddenly I didn’t care. The resistance, the fate of the world, they all paled in comparison to the possibility of reuniting with my mother.

  The obsession must have been written all over my face, because Dawn delicately added, “And . . . you should be prepared for the likely possibility that this woman, if she even exists, is not your mother.”

  “If she even exists?” I repeated, dumbfounded.

  She spoke quickly, “You were in a traumatic situation. Your memories may not be entirely accurate. And, correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t your dad have a new girlfriend you don’t like v
ery much? It just seems possible that, in a moment when you were afraid, when you needed comfort, you imagined the person you’ve been missing a lot lately.”

  At that moment, I deeply regretted whining about Samantha to Dawn. “I know what I saw,” I snapped. “Why are you trying to convince me that I’m imagining this?” Unless there was something she wasn’t telling me?

  “I’m not trying to convince you of anything,” she protested, but her voice seemed strained. Something was wrong. Dawn clearly didn’t want me digging into whoever this woman might be.

  And then I realized there was a more pressing problem—even if my mother was alive, I would still never get to see her again. I had chosen this moment to go into hiding forever. Maybe we’d win this war in six months, six years—but by then, the trail would be cold.

  I couldn’t do it. I had to find her. I knew, deep in my bones, that this was something I needed to do. And if Dawn wasn’t going to help me, I would have to stay and look for her myself. “I’m not ready to leave New York yet,” I said, steeling my resolve.

  Dawn was flabbergasted. “What do you mean? Grace, you need to leave right now, you’re in danger.”

  “I don’t care. I have to find my mother.” I knew it sounded insanely stupid. But I’d spent every day since I was nine years old wishing that I could see my mom again, dying to hear her say she loved me just one more time. I’d risk just about anything if there was a real chance I could do that.

  “Grace, you don’t understand what you’re saying.” Dawn begged me.

  I held firm. “Explain what I saw then. Tell me where to find her.”

  Dawn was getting angry now. “I can’t. As far as I know, your mother is dead. You can’t give up your only chance to save your life on the minuscule possibility that someone who supposedly died a decade ago might have instead gotten amnesia and found her way, unnoticed, to work in a hospital in New York City.”

  Everything she said was logical. But I felt myself opening the taxi door before I even realized what was happening. I could see the pavement gliding along beneath us. With all the traffic, we weren’t going faster than about ten miles per hour.

  “Yes, I can,” I said, and I jumped out. My feet stung at the shock of hitting the ground, even at such a slow speed, and it took me a moment to catch my breath.

  “Grace!” I could hear Dawn shouting from the screen as I ran off, down the street. My lungs burned, and every bit of my body ached, but it didn’t matter. I was giddy with possibility, electrified by this new goal. By the only thing in the world that mattered to me at that moment.

  My mother was alive, and she was in New York. I was going to find her.

  2

  After a few blocks, once I was safely away from Dawn’s cab, I slowed and considered my destination. My adrenaline rush was wearing off a little, and now I had to try and think logically. While I knew my mother was somewhere in New York, I wasn’t stupid enough to go back to the hospital and ask about her, the way that voice in my head was begging me to.

  So instead, I returned to my dorm, quietly borrowed my sleeping roommate’s phone (I doubted Zack would be tracking her browser history), and began digging. No references to anyone named Valerie on the hospital’s website, no Valerie Luthers or Coopers in New York that could have been her. What else did I know about her? What other trails could I follow?

  As I reached digital dead end after dead end, it hit me just how rashly I’d acted, jumping out of that taxi. But it was too late; I couldn’t go back now. This was the path Great Spirit had chosen for me, and I had to believe it was the right one. I had to follow the clue trail I did have, and my next, safest lead was the one I’d had all along, the last person I was sure had seen her alive—my own father.

  And so, in the middle of the night, I hopped on a train back to Tutelo, Virginia. On the way into New York, public transit had felt freeing—each person next to me a potential new adventure, signs of a big wide world to explore. But on the way home, their stares felt oppressive. Any of those people could be working with Joshua, could be here to arrest me. Any moment now, someone would pull up video footage of me at that hospital, and I’d be done for. I had to get home to my father before that happened. Once I had some answers, I could focus on getting out of town, to safety.

  As wisps of fall foliage whipped by out the window, I let my mind drift, to imagine the scant possibility of actually finding my mother. Where would she be? What would she be doing? Would she be happy to see me? Why hadn’t she wanted to see me all these years?

  Asking those questions made me nervous. Sure, there was the possibility that my mother had gotten amnesia or something, that she didn’t even remember me. But more likely, she did . . . and for some reason, she’d chosen to stay away. Was she in some kind of trouble, a trouble I couldn’t even imagine? The kind of trouble even Dawn wouldn’t know how to solve? Or worse . . . was she completely fine? What if she’d taken the Revelations as an opportunity to escape to a new life? What if she’d simply wanted to ditch my father and me? What if I found her and she was . . . disappointed?

  Lost in thought, it took me a moment to register the glimpse of a figure approaching in the window’s reflection. I didn’t even turn my head; I knew I had no hope of running, of evading whoever was after me on this moving train. As my pursuer sat next to me, I finally hazarded a glance.

  “What are you doing, Grace?” Zack asked me quietly. His voice was simple and curious—I searched it for a threat and found none. Yet still I knew a threat was there—Zack’s mere presence was threat enough.

  Did he already know about my involvement in the bombing? The fact that he was here told me he might. “Heading home,” I said, keeping my expression level.

  “So that’s it, a few weeks and you’re over college?” he teased, as casual as he had been just a few hours ago. Could he really not know what I’d done?

  I kept playing my part. “My most important job is to get information for the prophet. I want to deliver what I found to Samuel in D.C. as soon as possible.”

  Knowing Irene was safe, I handed him the purple folder I’d stolen from Aviva, and he paged through it, curious. “That’s very . . . devout of you.”

  “I guess. I figured I can skip a few classes.”

  “Sure.” He glanced over at me, a wry look on his face. “You realize no one actually goes to college for the classes, right?”

  “That’s what everyone keeps telling me,” I said. “An older friend of mine said all she did in college was smoke weed.” I didn’t mention that the “friend” who’d told me that was Dawn.

  Thankfully, Zack didn’t press for details, he just grinned. “Yeah, I hear college was more fun before the Revelations. Still though . . . you don’t want to make friends? Even without Prohibited substances, you can still have a pretty good time.”

  I shrugged. “I’ve tried. I say I’m a cleric’s daughter, and then they want to talk about religion, but I can’t talk about Prophet Joshua because it’s this giant lie of omission . . . So I’ll probably never make another friend again.”

  “I get it,” Zack said, and I could tell he actually did. He offered me a smile. “I’ll be your friend.” Whether you want me to be or not, I finished for him.

  Instead, I found a different way to bite back. “I thought you were busy being Aviva’s friend.” The words came out harsher than I’d intended them . . . as though I actually was jealous.

  Zack thankfully didn’t seem to notice the unintended venom. “I’m a social guy,” he quipped back. “I can have more than one friend.”

  “I’m sure you can,” I said, voice full of disdain. I hated the way he talked to me, half flirty, and the way that, against my will, it made me feel special. I hated knowing that, objectively, I wasn’t, because this was just the way he acted with women, the way he got what he wanted. And I knew just how dangerous that could be.

  “C’mon, I’m serious,” he said. “It bums me out that you’re just hanging out alone all the time. I’ll ta
ke you out, I’ll introduce you to some people.”

  It was almost like he was asking me on a date, except we both knew he wasn’t. “You don’t have to take pity on me,” I said.

  “But I love taking pity on you. It’s fun.” He grinned again.

  I tried to ignore his bluster, focusing on my problem at hand. “Earlier tonight, after we split up, did you enjoy that New York City nightlife?” I asked, fishing to find out if he’d been near the hospital. “Or were you too busy doing your important work for the prophet, following around an eighteen-year-old girl?”

  He laughed a little, but avoided giving too much away. “A little nightlife. I saw your cell signal leave the dorm an hour ago. Kinda cut the night short.”

  He’d just admitted to tracking my cell phone . . . another revelation. Another sign he trusted me? Maybe he really didn’t know about the hospital yet. He’d find out soon enough though. Any moment they’d pin me to the bombing, Zack would get a text about it, and that would be it. “Is everything okay?” he asked, brow furrowing.

  Clearly I wasn’t doing a great job at hiding the anxieties that were constantly running through my mind.

  “Hmm?”

  “You just seem a little . . . I don’t know. Frazzled.”

  “I’m just sleepy,” I said.

  “Take a nap. You can lean on me.” Zack patted his shoulder. After a moment, I leaned into it. It was comfortable, and I worried about being lulled into a false sense of complacency. But . . . for the moment, that complacency felt too nice to turn down. “Sweet dreams,” he said, brushing my hair away from my face, and the skin on my cheek tingled as his fingers made contact.

  I was sure I’d never fall asleep—I was wound too tight with anxiety. But the next thing I knew, the train was chugging into the Tutelo station in the early light of dawn. Zack had also fallen asleep, his head resting on top of mine.

  “We’re here,” I said, nudging him to wake him up.

  Zack stirred, scrubbing a hand over his face as he glanced around. “Wow. I was out.”