Page 103 of A Better World

A jolt ran through her, bursting and zinging with electricity.

Fifteen minutes later, Chernin and Pratt left the way they’d come, without the doll and teddys. It was the end of the day. Cyrus and his partner had to be leaving soon. They’d take this back exit where the staff cars were all parked. She placed a pen with a wide cap on the ground, within the arc the open door would make. Then she hid in the nook under the stairs.

No movement.

Around dinnertime, she texted Russell and the kids to figure out dinner on their own. Ninety minutes later, her door opened. Cyrus and his partner headed straight for the exit. She rushed around the corner. But the pen glided out of the way. No time to grab the handle.

It shut with a hardclick!

She waited another hour. The relief guards in the hall now were older and seemed like good friends. “Dumb thing bit Jessie so he kicked it,” the one said. “Now it limps. Don’t tell any of these Hollow fanatics.”

“Pooping hate these pooping birds,” the other answered, and then, scandalized, both laughed.

It was time to go home.

She was distracted enough that she almost missed the turn for her house. As she headed inside, lumbering Sunny crossed her path and hissed.

Inspired by the old security guard’s confession, she came closer, felt extra weight in her right foot. It was itching to swing in a low arc. Send Sunny flying like a football, make her limp, or die mysteriously from internal bleeding.

Most animals can feel violence before it happens. But Sunny wasn’t scared. She was bold. She hissed louder:SSSSSSSSS!

Linda swung, knowing even before her foot landed that she wouldn’t be able to carry through and hurt a living creature. She kicked air near the bird and the bird hissed harder. She kicked closer,grazing her fat, feathered side. Sunny got scared and backed up. Linda followed, kicking and stomping, until Sunny retreated into her shelter. Her temerity gone, she hid in the very back.

“You’re a lying piece of shit. You lie to me, you lie to the kids, you lie to yourself. All you ever do is lie,” Linda told the bird.

Inside, Russell was waiting. He wore an Omnium robe, cinched, and it didn’t seem like he had pajamas on underneath. There was something urgent and wild in his eyes. “Late night?”

“Yeah. Where are the kids?”

He pointed above, meaning upstairs, in bed.

“I thought we were going out tonight,” he said. “Daniella and Lloyd had that prefestival get-together. Everyone missed you.”

“You didn’t get my text?”

“It didn’t explain where you were.”

She caught something in his expression. “But you turned on the locator. You know where I was.”

After so many years, she knew that his lack of response was an admission. He started for his office, where their voices were less likely to carry. She followed. Inside, he sat behind the desk with his hands in fists against the classic chestnut wood. The mugs were all still there. The papers and tea bags and mayhem, too.

“Those kids aren’t with the ex-wife in Palo Alto,” she said. “They’ve been keeping them locked up in the basement of that hospital. If they were in a clinical trial on the outside, they’d be getting marrow transplants. I doubt that’s happening here, where they’re trapped behind a locked door. It’s like the residents want to keep them alive, but not cure them. They’re keeping them for the festival.”

“How can you know this?” he asked. On his desk, he seemed to notice the mess for the first time. He stacked and realigned in a kind of panic, but the mess was overwhelming. “Did you see them?”

“No. But security’s guarding the door. Chernin brought toys. Who else could it be?”

“But you didn’t see them.”

“I’ve never seen gravity, either.”

Russell’s neck and jaw—his whole body—went tight, as if he were pulling a tug-of-war rope. “So you don’t know.”

“I do know. What I want to understand is why they’re hiding them. What goes on at this Winter Fest?”

Russell’s fingers ticked the scattered items on his desk, as if they might provide an answer. “Linda, these people you’re talking about, thisthey—they’re your friends. Gal gave you alcohol poisoning. She set her house on fire. Would you rather those kids went home to her? Isn’t it better they’re kept away and safe? I’m not saying it’s true, but if it is, there’s a reason no one told you. It’s not your business. Maybe they don’t like the ex-wife, either. Maybe you’re right, and they plan to involve the kids in the festival. But for all we know, it’s a healing ritual. The myth of the caladrius is that it eats sickness. These people don’t have cold-blooded murder in them. Why would anyone trust you with the truth when you act like this?”

“Russell, they lied!”

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