“They can’t tell you. It’d be a HIPAA violation.” He kisses me on the top of the head. “Let me take you to lunch? Please. If we leave now, we’ll beat the thunderstorm that’s moving in. The weather here has a split personality.” He’s been complaining since we’ve had a flash flood warning and severe thunderstorms, with a sunny hot day mixed in here and there since being in Illinois.
He’s right. Anytime I asked about Keir, I was given a ‘sorry, I can’t discuss his treatment or status with you.’ Once Dr. Vargas took over as his emergency contact Blaine lost the ability to find anything out either. I had just wanted to lay eyes on him at least. The last half hour has depleted my energy. The disappointment over getting this close, but not getting to see him, and then the surreal encounter with Jolie leaves me feeling unsteady.
A downpour drenched us on the way to lunch at a bar and grill a block from the hospital. Twice, Blaine picked me up and whirled me around as I squealed in the pelting rain. I’ve never had a strong urge to dance in the rain, but the playfulness is easing some of the tension in my chest.
I’m soggy and feeling gross sliding into the booth across from Blaine. He asks the bewildered looking waiter if they have a kitchen towel that we could wipe off a little with. “Fucking Illinois.” I laugh at him. This weather happens in New York, too.
“Miss home?” I accept the towel with thanks and dab my face and wipe it up and down my bare arms and across my chest. “We’ll be going back soon.” Then what happens? Do I lose my connection to Matt, Caleb, and Keir? I duck my head and huff out a breath.
“Ha. Do I miss home?” He looks across at me as I hand him the towel. “Didn’t you know? You’re home to me.” We maintain eye contact as he wipes his face and then his glasses.
“Anna leaves tomorrow. She wants to take us to dinner. Will you come?” I avoid commenting on his sweet admission. Too riddled with emotions for me right now. “For some reason she likes you a lot,” I tease him. When she met Matt, she was leery. I tried to explain my feelings to her, and she opened up to him more, but I sensed that his career choice made it hard for her to relate to him. She’s often said that she was born in the wrong era, and she should have been a hippy during the protests of the war during the sixties and seventies.
“This doesn’t mean she’s going to start crocheting me clothing, does it? Hard pass on that.” Blaine reaches over with the towel and wipes at some of the water I missed on my chest.
“You’re a real riot. You make her feel like I’m safer with you around.” I grab his hand and hold it. “I feel that way, too.”
“I love you, Ed,” he says it often. It doesn’t lose any meaning to me hearing it, but the way he announced it just now, makes me feel in a real sense that I’m not fighting alone now.
“I love you, too, B. More than I can even explain.” I can’t tell him. That even if my heart isn’t his alone, I can’t ever lose him.
21. X/HUTTON
I knew what I was doing. It was a bargain. My life for hers. I would do it again, without hesitation, because she makes me feel. Something other than the agitation I’m usually filled with. Only Achilles and her.
I’m not supposed to know how to contact Number One, but it doesn’t matter what punishment awaits me for finding her. They won’t end me until I’m used up, and then any part of me that still wants to live will be snuffed out. I follow Dr. Wells after our session of tests. He no longer speaks to me, roughly moving me around and stabbing needles in my arm.
He took a call from her and cut our session short. So, I followed him. To the main house over the hill. There is a secure door where he scans his thumbprint, catching the door before it closes completely, I slip in behind him. Two steps and a piercing alarm sounds.
Before I can strategize my next move, something is thrown over my head and I feel a jab in my side. As I’m falling to the ground, I hear her voice, “Bring him in. Let’s see just how well it’s worked.” That voice. I’ve heard it before, and it’s laced with evil intent. This might be the beginning of the end. The canvas bag over my head shifts slightly before I black out and I see her arm move down to pull the bag back in place. The only thing I see is a slender arm and a rose gold bangle with a design etched in it, before I lose consciousness.
Present Day
In a game of cat and mouse-who has the edge? An argument could be made that it’s the cat hunting down it’s prey. I’d say it’s the mouse evading the cat. Drawing it close to a trap. I never anticipated the turn of events when Matt returned to the Center. He informed Rick and Todd that the protective detail could be disbanded. The bureau chief we’d met with when the charges were dropped against me granted my wishes. He told Matt that I can proceed, on my own, how I’d like.
Is this a trap?
If it is, I’m ready. I’ve been ready since I discovered Eden at the Center. I didn’t even have a challenge in getting close to her again, since Matt suggested that I stay at his rental house with them until I make arrangements of where I will live. I couldn’t have planned it better. I don’t trust Matt; he works for one of the organizations that sanctioned unthinkable things on children in the name of ‘testing’. I’m prepared to end his life if he becomes a threat.
“Now that we’re here, I have a few things to say to you.” Matt turns around after placing his keys on the counter. He looks skyward and sighs, then rubs his face. “I know. I know that someone or more than one person has been compromised within the FBI. I know about Wells, and I’m starting to get an idea of… some of the shit that happened at Camp Carroll. I need you to tell me what you can. All of it.” I keep my expression blank and weigh his words. That’s what I’d say to someone I was trying to convince.
“What am I going to find when we subpoena all the records of the lab? Are you even listening to me?” He waves his hand in front of me in agitation. “This isn’t some fucked up game. How many more people will lose their lives before you start to talk, kid?” I don’t respond. Agent Luke… Matt… or whatever he wants to call himself (I still think he looks like a Luke), can’t stop them. No one can.
“You’re not going to give me anything are you?” He steps closer and his jaw is clenched. “What is the damn connection you have with Eden? Tell me that at least.”
We’re interrupted by Eden coming in the door. She stops midstep in confusion. Then rushing over she steps in between us. “Whoa. What’s happening here?”
Matt steps back and shoves his hands in his pockets. “Hutton is going to spend a couple days here; his protection detail is over.”
“It is?” She looks between us. “Did something change? Did you arrest who attacked Caleb and I?” I have the urge to grab her and run.
“No,” Matt says. She shakes her head at him, and he puts his hands up trying to placate her. “I have a lot to tell you and I will. The most important thing right now is that Hutton and you are safe staying here.”
She calms at his words and turns back to me with her beautiful smile. “As for you… cameras in my room? Really?” The smile drops and she glares at me. “That was a creepy invasion of privacy. No cameras here in this house. In fact, no watching any… activities… unless you’re participating.” It’s hard to contain my smile in response. She’s so lively. As long as she doesn’t remember anything, I can play my part.
“I’m not going to tolerate any shady shit from you, kid. You’re welcome here if you keep your hands and eyes to yourself. Unless invited to do otherwise. Can you agree to that?”
“Sure,” I say with a certain note of detachment. The thing is, I’m getting used to him and to having Eden around.
