“Willa Peterson doesn’t exist; she was made up,” I counter her.
“Neither does Caroline Bradford. Not anymore.” She wipes at her cheek. I’m not going to get a chance to speak to her again. She’s going to run.
I start to reply but stop myself. It won’t help to throw her kids’ safety at her. She already knows that they’re in danger.
“Please call me,” I say over my shoulder as I leave. This tangled web of psychotic games is taking its toll on me. I would bet my last dollar that Eden is biologically related to her.
25. X/HUTTON
Moving in the shadows in the middle of the night is easy enough to do. After a day of being stuck in a hotel in Pennsylvania I’m on the move. Finding the way to Camp Carroll with the internet took two minutes. I called my contact, and they arranged a car to pick me up. Finishing my letter, I tuck the copy of the thumb drive I made into the envelope then write Eden’s name on it. Placing it on the bed for someone to find if I don’t return.
A dark sedan pulls up to the side of the residential street, the driver’s window lowered two inches. “Adam?” I nod at him. It’s not my name, it’s a code word we arranged. The contact and I. Number one may have referred to me as Adam because of the project, but I was a number in her mind. It’s scarred into my flesh.
After a couple of hours, the landscape becomes rolling hills and woods and I feel like we’re getting close. Does she know I’m heading back? Will she be waiting? I turn to the nameless contact. “What’s your name?” I lived a life believing what you called people and things were fluid. Meaningless. I don’t want to live that way anymore.
“It’s… it’s Hoyt, sir.” A year before the massacre, I was approached by an undercover agent with the FBI who gave me a phone number and said that they were investigating the laboratories and the Naturalists. I swore I’d never use that number, but he hasn’t let me down yet. I can’t trust him completely but knowing I can’t means I’m careful with information I don’t want Number One to have.
“You can call me Hutton.” He nods back at me in the rearview mirror. We pass a rest area that reminds me of the one I first saw Eden at. I’ve never understood the meeting Dr. Wells had with that other man over her. Nothing happened without Number One knowing and pulling the strings. “When we get close, drop me off at the access road, I’ll walk from there.”
“Sir?” He looks back like he didn’t hear me right. “Is that safe?” He must not understand the amount of time I spent hiding in these same woods. It’ll be the safest I’ve been for a while.
“If you don’t hear from me before three days are up, you’re not going to. I have a safe deposit box at Unity Bank. The code is in a letter I gave Eden Davis. Here is her phone number.” I hand it to Hoyt. “The evidence you need to go after them is in the safe deposit box.”
He places the letter in the pocket of his jacket. “You shouldn’t do this. I can tell you think you’re invincible, but they want you dead. They outnumber and outpower you, sir. I’m going to ask you again to reconsider this move.”
I choose not to acknowledge his plea. “Oh, and I need to know. Who is responsible for the groundskeeper you sent me dying? I just knocked him out and left him near the shed.”
“You know the answer to that,” Hoyt says simply. I wanted to be wrong. She’s been following me since I left Camp Carroll in an ambulance.
I hoist the hiking backpack onto my shoulder and set off down a worn path through the trees. One I’ve taken hundreds of times. Pines tower around me and the scrub trees that brush against me, center me. I’m on a mission now. Hoyt told me that the perimeter of Camp Carroll property is marked and patrolled as long as the FBI has the case open. I’m not worried about encountering anyone, I can knock them out and proceed.
I take a break about a half an hour in, sitting on the trunk of a downed tree, I drink some water I’d packed. I want to get onto the property before the sun rises, and I’m making good time. I pick my bag back up and hear movement… more specifically walking. I drop the bag and crouch down with my knife at my side.
“It’s just me!” Caleb calls out.
Standing back up, I pocket the knife.
“You have terrible instincts. Did anyone ever tell you that?” How he’s managed to survive this long is a mystery to me. The fact that he’s followed me here only convinces me further that he’ll get himself killed if I don’t watch his back. Idiot.
“No.” He smiles at me. “Maybe you don’t. I followed you in a cab all the way here.”
I knew I was followed, but it wasn’t Caleb I expected to see out here. “How did you pay for it?” I pick my bag up and start walking towards the Camp. He scrambles for a minute to keep up.
“Jed sends me money.” The big brother. I warned Caleb away from him before landing on the proper culprit in his drugging. I almost feel sorry. Almost.
“Don’t talk. Just march.” If I have to hear his happy chatter all the way to the camp, I may change my mind about stabbing him.
“Aye, aye, Captain,” he jests and starts whistling to himself.
I stop and turn his way. “There’s a reason I need you to be silent. I don’t want anyone to hear us approaching. Can you handle that?”
He makes the gesture of a zipped lip and nods. He could be the worst kind of person to be coming back here with. Zero survival skills, he believes anything someone tells him, and he thinks God will protect him if he just prays.
I knew I’d be back here again, but it’s not like I imagined. Carefully maintained grounds are overgrown and the vacant buildings have a haunted air. Like a walking dead man, I breech onto the grounds with my shadow. We half slide down the steep embankment to the bottom of the parking garage under the lab offices. “There wasn’t an easier way?” Caleb asks me after getting back up and wiping away dirt and grass. Yeah, he could’ve minded his own business.
“Did you already forget the part about no talking?” I ask harshly. Instead of checking out my hiding spot, I lead us to the stairs from the underground parking. The door is chained. Not expecting that it takes a few minutes to formulate another plan. I need into the labs. Caleb taps my backpack and points to an outer set of stairs to an employee door. I nod sharply and we head that way. Caleb rubs at his shoulder and pauses. “Does it hurt?”
He smiles at me and shakes his head, but I can tell he’s in pain. We luck out with the employee door, but the next set of doors that would require a pass card are locked tight. I’m not going to let that stop me. The afternoon before the Naturalists made global news, I made sure I had grabbed several different pass cards. One has to work. I fan them out and start trying them. Caleb grabs my backpack to hold and dumps the ones I’ve tried into the bag. The beep and green light of the fourth card I try brings with it a feeling of… is that happiness? Contentment? Or vindication?
