“What’s your role in all of this?” Zoe asked.
“I was head of tactical training and security. I helped the patients form their advanced skills in weaponry, combat, survival skills, and so on,” he answered.
“And Olivia came to you with her plan, why?”
“She needed someone to help her and Lucy get out of Xerox undetected.”
“But they were followed,” Zoe pressed. “That’s why Olivia is dead.”
Agent Seeley stood. “You think I don’t know that! I failed her, but I’m doing everything I can to make it right.”
“By conveniently showing up to help us just when you did?” Zoe said, standing herself.
“When word came through that they’d connected Lucy to Summer, I knew I needed to be on that tactical team to get to you before they did. I’ve been keeping my ear to the ground so we know what they know, so we can intercept their moves.”
“And what do you get out of all this? What makes an agent flip sides? Because in my experience that doesn’t happen often.”
“I get my humanity!” he yelled. “I get to sleep again.”
Zoe fell silent, her pulse racing in her ears.
“They were killing kids,” Agent Seeley said. “I didn’t sign up to kill kids.”
Lucy disrupted their fiery engagement as she stood from the couch and walked toward the front door.
“Where are you going?” Zoe called after her.
“Outside,” Lucy said.
“It’s raining.”
Lucy ignored her, opened the door, and slammed it behind her. Zoe and Agent Seeley just stood there for a long moment, neither looking at the other, neither speaking. Then Zoe exhaled and decided to go after Lucy.
She heard the agent’s heavy footsteps and whirled around to face him. “Stay here,” she demanded.
He didn’t object, he just moved quickly to the closet and yanked out a jacket. “At least take this,” he said as he tossed it to her. It was a red raincoat. She didn’t say thank you as she caught the coat and stepped out into the cold night.
The rain had eased a bit, now just a steady thrum that drenched the earth. Zoe yanked on the jacket and pulled up the hood. She descended the short set of stairs.
The cabin light gave off soft illumination for a few yards. Beyond, it was pitch-black without even stars to shed some light on the forest.
“Lucy,” she yelled, hoping for a response. There was none. Zoe yanked the jacket tighter across her chest to shield herself from the chilly wind. She turned in circles, searching through the darkness for signs of life.
Then she saw her. Standing to the east, staring up at the sky as rain splashed down over her face. Zoe walked to her, and as she approached, Lucy lowered her face so she was staring straight ahead.
“Lucy,” Zoe said, “let’s go back inside.”
“I don’t have a mother,” Lucy said, “or a father, or a home. Am I even a human?”
“Of course you are,” Zoe replied.
Lucy whipped around, her fiery eyes startling in the darkness. “Are you sure, Zoe? Can you look at me and be sure?”
Zoe opened her mouth to reassure the girl, but her words fell short. What made someone human? Their body, upbringing, mind, soul? Zoe wasn’t sure she was even human.
“If I’m not human,” Lucy said, “then what am I?”
She didn’t wait for an answer. She stepped back toward the cabin, leaving Zoe standing in the rainy night wondering exactly that.
SIXTEEN
ZOE SAT OUTSIDE on the cabin’s front porch. The sun was rising, and rays of light pierced the tree branches and danced on the forest floor. Birds chirped morning songs, and she watched a family of deer casually stroll through the gathered trunks, eating grass and weeds. The scene was calm and soothing, a complete departure from the situation she found herself in.
When she’d come in from the rain the night prior, soaking and shivering, Lucy had announced she was tired and slipped into one of the downstairs rooms to sleep. After twenty minutes of awkward silence in the living room with Agent Seeley, watching him stoke the fire, the shadows of his figure hulking across the hardwood floors, Zoe knocked on Lucy’s door, but she didn’t respond. Zoe nearly burst in but thought better of it. Didn’t the girl deserve a moment alone?
Eventually Zoe had taken the second room, and Agent Seeley took the mattress up in the loft. Sleep was impossible. Every time she felt herself drifting from reality, it would roar back to life in vibrant, distorted color and send blots of energy pulsing through her body. The more she told herself to sleep, the harder it became.
After hours of struggling, she got up. She slipped into the bathroom for a shower, thrilled to find hot water and soft towels. Back in her bedroom, she discovered that a trunk at the end of the single wire-framed bed held extra clothes—men’s and two sizes too big for her, but dry and warm. She slipped into the black track pants and large hooded sweatshirt. In thick wool socks she wandered outside, trying her best not to disturb Lucy, whose room was still silent.
Zoe couldn’t remember ever sitting outside to watch the sun rise. It felt like something people who lived in luxury did. Those who thought life was kind and happy. Who didn’t have to battle against the constant injustice of cruelty.
People like her didn’t watch the sun rise.
But maybe she should more often. It was quite beautiful.
The door behind her opened, and she glanced back to see Agent Seeley walking out with two mugs in his hands. Steam rose from the cups and played through the soft morning light.
“Please let that be coffee,” Zoe said.
Agent Seeley gave a half smile and held one out. “A peace offering.”
Zoe took the mug, feeling energized just smelling the delicious dark substance.
“May I?” he asked, gesturing to the open space on the porch beside her.
She sipped her coffee without responding, which he took to mean yes, and he inched away slightly as he sat. He towered over her, even sitting. His shoulder span was twice hers. It made her feel smaller than normal, and she sat up straighter to compensate.
“Did you sleep at all?” he asked.
“Do you actually care?” she responded.
He gave a huffed chuckle and shook his head. “You really don’t like me, do you?”
“I don’t trust you.”
“How do I change that?”
“Why do you need me to trust you?”
“Because it would make this easier.”
She looked at him with a mocking smile. “Easy is overrated.”
He turned his face back to the forest, looking slightly annoyed. Zoe didn’t want to care but was struggling to ignore the fact that she sort of did. She tried a different approach.
“No,” she said, “I didn’t sleep. I don’t know how one could sleep after everything you told us.”
“You can’t,” he said.
“Then why stay? You seem intelligent. Surely you knew what they were doing. Why not leave before it all went south?”
“You ask that as if leaving was even an option.”
“You always have a choice, Agent Seeley.”
He looked at her, his eyes connecting directly with hers, causing her heart to beat a tad faster. “No, you don’t,” he said, holding her gaze a second longer than was comfortable before releasing it. “And you can just call me Seeley. Most people do.”