It abruptly turns to a soul-piercing scream.
I wish I could shelter my ears from the horrible, unending sound. Why isn’t Stefen running away? I think numbly. His hand is bleeding heavily, streaming down his arm, but he is ignoring it. Trying to staunch it with the fabric of his coat while also tightly holding something he’s taken from Larkin—?something glass, almost like a vial. He crouches over Mrs. Cliffton, fumbling with it, his hands shaking, when Will suddenly launches across the grass to tackle him.
Dr. Cliffton is one step behind him, but Stefen doesn’t try to defend himself against them. “Don’t break it,” he gasps as Will wrenches his arms behind him and slams him face-first onto the ground.
Miles frees me, and my arms spring forward, aching, burning from being tied.
Dr. Cliffton yells, “Aila! Call for help!” His voice is urgent. “Hurry.”
I run for the telephone, pulling Miles along with me just as Stefen recovers the breath that’s been knocked from his lungs.
“I’m the only one who can help her. Please—” he chokes. “Let me try.”
By the time the police and the doctor arrive, we’ve moved Mrs. Cliffton inside to the bed. Restraining her takes the combined effort of me, Will, Dr. Cliffton, and even Genevieve, who had been knocked unconscious by the Hypnosis on the kitchen floor. We hold Mrs. Cliffton down on the bed, thrashing and screaming, until the doctor arrives with something strong enough to sedate her. She collapses back into the bed. Whimpering until she’s silent, and only occasionally twitching.
Will paces near the foot of her bed. Wipes away a tear with the heel of his palm.
“What have you done?” Dr. Cliffton asks quietly.
Stefen sits in a chair in the corner. The doctor has bandaged the stumps of fingers on his hands, and they are now handcuffed behind him. Three policemen ring him, hands on their guns.
“I invented something,” Stefen says. “Something new. An extrapolation of your Variants, Malcolm.” He looks up through a long fringe of hair. “Something so much bigger than them, though. I call them the Virtues.”
Dr. Cliffton inhales. “Virtues?”
“Peace, to start.” Stefen shifts in his chair. “I found a way to extract it and store it,” he says with an edge of pride. “I was working on others. Courage. Joy.”
“For what purpose, exactly?” Dr. Cliffton’s voice is shaking.
Stefen pauses. “I’m sure you know.”
“To sell it?” Dr. Cliffton asks. The words are quiet and filled with horror.
Stefen stares back at him with defiance.
“You’ve taken Matilda’s own Peace from her? Are you such a monster?” Dr. Cliffton thunders.
“I didn’t take it from her,” Stefen says fiercely. He bangs his handcuffed hands on the back of his chair, his bravado dimming. “Never from her.”
“We should finish the rest of the questioning in a holding cell, Malcolm,” the police chief begins, taking a step toward Stefen.
“Wait,” Dr. Cliffton says. He holds up the glass vial between shaking fingers. “I need to know if he can fix this.”
Stefen clenches his jaw. “This is all very new. I’ve never tried to reinsert someone’s Peace after it’s been removed from them. I’ve only ever had two successful transfers of Virtues.”
“Out of how many attempts?” Will growls.
Stefen doesn’t answer. Eventually he says, “If I don’t try, this will assuredly remain permanent.”
Dr. Cliffton takes a long breath. Then he gives the police chief a curt nod.
Stefen is released from his handcuffs, and he holds up a strange-looking syringe. At the end of it is a carved wooden bird. He draws the full vial of Peace up into the syringe, fumbling with the thickness of his bandaged fingers, and then tenderly brushes back Mrs. Cliffton’s hair.
“Shh,” he says, his voice barely more than a whisper, pressing the needle to the side of her neck. Then he slowly empties the syringe.
“All right,” he says. He sets the drained vial on the nightstand. “Wake her.”
It takes a minute for the sedation reversal to work its way through her veins. Her eyelids flutter. She attempts to sit up, but she is held back by the restraints we’ve fit over her bed. She takes one look at our faces, and her eyes widen with fear and horror, and I feel it spread to my own face when I realize that she doesn’t recognize any of us.
