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“I don’t know if it was too much for her or if she was scared,” Ryan answered grimly. “One moment she was fighting a vardoger, the next moment she was running out of the apartment.”
“I don’t understand. Why would she just run away?” My head felt clouded and I tried to put my thoughts in order. Marie running away was uncharacteristic of the seer I had come to know. She had taken so many chances helping me that it didn’t seem to make sense that she would just run off because we were being attacked by vardogers. Then again, I knew fear could make a person do things they wouldn’t normally do. Still, it was hard to accept.
Simon guided me to a chair and gently put pressure on my shoulders until I was sitting down. I didn’t protest although I felt my strength starting to return.
“I don’t know,” Ryan said. “It doesn’t seem like something Marie would do, but who knows nowadays.”
My mind was working frantically, trying to make sense of things. A thought kept interjecting itself into my mind, and I kept pushing it away until I could no longer ignore it.
“Do you think she’s the one that stole the palladium and iridium disk? Maybe she ran off because she didn’t want to get caught.”
Simon frowned. “Why would she do that? She’s the one who helped us to find someone to melt it down in the first place.”
“I know, but maybe she was having second thoughts. Or maybe…” I trailed off before continuing. “Maybe she’s not on our side after all. Maybe she’s working for my father.”
There was a grim silence as the idea sunk in. Ryan clenched a hand into a fist, looking angry. “I never would have suspected her of it. But it makes sense.”
Thoughts of Marie vanished as I turned towards the couch. I had completely forgotten about Sophia, who still lay there. “Shit,” I said, rising from the chair. “We need to call 9-1-1.”
Ryan leaned over Sophia and lifted her arm, putting two fingers against her wrist. He shook his head after a few moments. “She’s dead.”
I swallowed the hysteria that was threatening to bubble up inside me. How many more dead bodies would I have to see before my father was stopped? “We can’t be sure. We still need to call an ambulance.”
Ryan shook his head. “We don’t want anyone to know that we were involved, including the police. We need to get out of here right now. If Marie really is a traitor, your father knows exactly where we are. His energy isn’t getting stronger so he’s not any closer, but we can’t take any chances. We’re too weak right now to fight him.”
“We can’t just leave her here!” I was unwilling to leave her battered body alone in the apartment, regardless of whether or not she had already passed. She was still a human being that deserved to be treated like one. “It’s not right.”
“There’s a pay phone outside the apartment building,” Simon said. “I’ll call the police anonymously from there.”
“It’s not a good idea,” Ryan started but Simon interrupted him.
“It’s not your call.” Simon’s steely expression softened when he turned to me. “Let’s hurry and pack our things and I’ll make the call on our way out.”
I went on autopilot as I blindly shoved my things back into my bag. Simon grabbed both our bags and I followed him and Ryan out the door, but I couldn’t help glancing back at Sophia one last time. She had been so scared the last time I had seen her, when she had helped put me under hypnosis, terrified at even the mention of palladium. But she had used her last breath to warn us to run. She was yet another person whose death I vowed to avenge. I just prayed the list didn’t grow any longer.
We quickly ran down the stairs and Ryan and I got into his car while Simon made the call on the pay phone.
“Are you okay?” Ryan asked as we watched Simon through the windshield.
“Yes,” I said quietly, not wanting to talk.
“All the vardogers seemed to go for you. Marie and I didn’t have multiple vardogers attack us. They attacked us one at a time like they were just trying to keep us distracted. But five attacked you at once. I’ve never seen anything like it. Marie told me about Claudia’s powers to sustain vardogers without bodies, but I never would have believed it if I hadn’t just seen it for myself. The fact that your father seems to have found someone else with those powers shows the magnitude of what we’re up against. Yet you’re even more powerful than I thought. I don’t know how you destroyed all those vardogers at once.”
I didn’t answer him. The last thing I wanted to do was talk about Claudia and what had happened in the past. I didn’t want to talk about my great powers and how strong I was. There was a dead person upstairs in the apartment and I hadn’t been able
to do anything to prevent that.
Ryan didn’t say anything more when I didn’t respond. I was relieved when Simon finished the call and walked over to the car. He slid into the backseat and no one commented when I opened the passenger door and climbed in next to him. I needed to be near him right now. I wanted to shudder with relief when he enveloped me in his arms. I didn’t feel safe but I felt loved. It had to be enough for now.
I saw Ryan watching us from the rearview mirror but I couldn’t decipher the look in his eyes. His voice was expressionless when he spoke.
“Where to now?”
“Just drive,” Simon answered. “I don’t know where the hell to go, but we know Caitlin’s father isn’t far behind. We’ll figure out where we’re going on the way there.”
Instead of arguing, Ryan just nodded and pulled the car into the street. We were silent as we drove nowhere. I hoped that we would soon figure out what the hell to do and where to go. Our lives, and everyone else’s, depended on it.
Chapter Twenty
