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“He already asked me to go. I made an excuse and said no.” I glance at Jackal who is frowning for different reasons now. I feel terrible about leading Sean on—using him to get to the Red. Not only that, but if we’re caught, there will be repercussions for him—ones that will affect his career. I blow air from between my lips; Jackal sees and cocks his head to the side. I look away quickly lest he reads my thoughts.
“What’s your excuse for being there?” Gwen asks Jackal. She picks up her glass and raises it to her lips, but before she can take a sip, she sets it down again. “I mean, they don’t just let End Men leave their Region.”
“You’re right,” he says. “My mother lives in the Red. I had her put in her official request to see me. As the esteemed mother of an End Man, she gets two visitations with me a year, no questions asked. But it’s no exaggeration when I say we’re overdue a visit.”
I think of what Sean told me that day in the restaurant and my stomach clenches. How long has it been since he’s seen her? Do they keep in touch? There are a dozen questions I want to ask, but Jackal doesn’t know that I know about her.
“Do you...can you…?”
“I will go to the Red under the guise of visiting her,” he says. “See what I can find out…”
“Is that okay? I mean, do you really want to?”
“Visit my mother?” he asks, eyebrow raised. “I’d rather peel the skin from my body, but I’d do anything for Foley.”
My heart is being jerked every which way. I want to tell Jackal that he shouldn’t do something he’s not comfortable with, but this is the only way we can get to Rebel. We need information and Jackal is the only one I trust to get it.
Gwen grabs my arm and I look up at her, startled. “Phoenix, if anything happens to me—you’ll get Rebel to Folsom, won’t you?”
“Of course. I’ll do everything in my power. Nothing is going to happen to you, though. Understand?”
She pats my arm and picks up the dishes, carrying them to the sink.
If baby Rebel is a bad sleeper, our plan will be blown to shit. I focus on the areas I should go in...the kitchen or the study off of the kitchen. I study the layout of the Villanova house and hope to God the staff is a reasonable size. Having spent numerous summers and afternoons with the Starter girls at their estate, Gwen helps me draw up plans.
“The best way would probably be to go through the courtyard and along the lake. You come out here.” I lean in to see the map better. “But there’s also a side door here,” she says, pointing to a place on the map. “It leads to the upper garden. If you follow the path, you’ll come out in the woods behind the house.”
“Is there a way through the woods and to the road?”
“Yes, but it’s at least a mile and it’s rough terrain—tree roots and slopes. Langley’s sister broke her wrist playing back there when we were kids.”
“So we’ll make that plan C,” I say.
“What’s plan B?” Gwen asks.
“I’m still working on that.”
Jewel looks back and forth across all of us before laying her palms flat on the table and standing up.
“My part here is done. If you’ll excuse me.” She leaves through the back door.
“Gwen,” I say. I chew on my lip, unsure of how to continue. I’m bringing up a touchy subject matter. I don’t want to hurt her any more than she’s already been hurt.
“Do you have any idea why your mother would do what she did?”
Gwen’s voice is steady when she answers me. “As in betraying her daughter and handing her grandchild over to that bitch Langley?”
I grimace. “Yes...that.”
Gwen shrugs, her thin shoulders lifting all the way to her ears. She blinks rapidly, her eyes narrowing like she has a headache and her pain so evident I wish I could take back my question. I press my lips together and squeeze her arm.
“We had differences of opinion on things all the time. But, we’re family, so it was easy to move past that, keep our views to ourselves. To her, the End Men are doing their duty and serving the nation. She sees them as civil servants rather than human beings. Most people do, you know. I thought that too, until I met Folsom. She believes what she’s doing is the right thing. Even by taking Rebel. In the end, she thought I’d gone crazy and she was protecting him from me. And she’s protecting the Regions by keeping him safe as a future End Man.”
“How do you think she feels about all of this now? Petite having you thrown in prison without a trial. The movement you started…”
“I can’t be sure. I thought I knew her. I was wrong. I thought I could make her see the truth, but she’s not able to see past what she’s always been told. She wanted me to be something else, and when I disappointed her, it was like she stopped being my mother.”
Gwen’s words hit me hard. I have two mothers like that. Granted, they’ve never sold me out, but I’ve never gone against them either.
