“Do you have my phone?”
“No.”
“I want to call Adam.”
“Adam?” Wendy sat up. “Are you insane? He’s one of them. If you call him our whole plan will go to shit.”
“You haven’t even told me what the plan is. You keep talking about how my life is so much better than yours and how you tried to save me and how you’re going to end the injustice but you haven’t told me how I fit into all of this.”
The front door unlocked then, and opened. Wendy and I froze and looked in that direction. As Wendy predicted, Stella walked inside, shutting the door behind her, but she wasn’t alone. Dr. Thompson was walking right behind her, and behind them, Debbie.
“What the hell?” I said loudly.
“Oh my God,” Stella screamed, looking at Wendy. “You were the one sneaking into my room. You cut my hair, you bitch.”
“What are you doing here?” I looked at Debbie, at Dr. Thompson. “And you, you’ve disappeared off the face of the Earth.”
As I stood there, looking around the room, it occurred to me that maybe they were all in on this. Maybe I was the butt of the joke. Maybe the nuns had been right. Maybe I was the sacrifice they were all going to make tonight.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Adam
Nightfall came and Eva was still nowhere to be found. The show had to go on despite that. I knew it better than anyone. They wouldn’t let my absence pause whatever was going to happen. Not when they made it such a big deal, inviting all of the past members to partake in the big ceremony. They’d set up torches in a large circle around the clearing in the woods, surrounding the plots they’d dug. The ones closest to The Manor anyway. The woods were covered in buried caskets. There must have been three hundred of them wearing red cloaks. No one had checked IDs or faces; they just assumed if they were here, they were Swords or monks or nuns. The Chancellor himself said this was the most important ceremony of his lifetime when he called me this afternoon. He’d said it would be unforgettable and would unite us in an unbreakable bond. The most unbreakable bonds are the ones in which a crime is committed. The thought shook me to my core, but I knew it was true. If anyone spoke of the crime, we’d all go down. It was the way billion-dollar organizations dismantled time and time again.
“I was reading the history of this place recently,” Wolf said. “They say it’s built on a Native American burial ground. That has to mean it’s haunted, right?”
“America is built on a Native American burial ground,” Will said. “Where have you been?”
“Germany.” Wolf raised an eyebrow.
“True.” Will shrugged and nodded. “Your ignorance is semi-excused.”
“Can you focus?”
They both looked at me and quieted.
“We don’t know what’s going to happen tonight, but we need to do everything we can to protect Eva.”
“How do you know she’s even here?” Wolf asked. “Maybe they took her away from here.”
“She’s here. We need to try to separate her from them before the ceremony starts.”
“Okay, so we get her and take her somewhere else?” Will asked.
“Anywhere else. Away from here.”
“Understood,” Wolf said.
“Hoods up.” I reached for mine and brought it over my head. With it on, it was difficult to see in this lighting, but not difficult enough. I’d know when I saw Eva. I just hoped I saw her before this started.
“Welcome, Swords.” The Chancellor walked to the middle of the circle. He was the only one who didn’t wear a hood, but a large pointy hat with a cross instead. “Welcome, Brothers. Welcome, Sisters.” He opened his arms to everyone. “Tonight, we are all one, but we will ask our members to stand on the side of The Manor,” he said. We were already on that side, so we didn’t move. “Tonight is about unity. It’s about sacrifice. It’s about power. Long before we were a blip in history people have been using sacrifice as a sign of respect. As a way of asking for something. Tonight, we will be performing a ritual that has been performed alongside our Brothers for millenniums. This ceremony is one that is performed every thirty years. This year’s, we’ve been looking forward to for a long time. We’ve been blessed with a trinity. Thirty years after the last sacrifice, we will make three sacrifices.” He smiled then and stepped back. “Let us begin.”
Three people stepped forward. I took a step forward. Was it Eva? I couldn’t tell. The three people lit the wood they’d laid on the floor and it took me a second to realize what was happening. They were forging a fire between us, as if to make sure we knew our place.
It was the first time in my life that I stood still. Probably because it was the first time that I truly felt the weight of responsibility resting on my shoulders. My last name carried integrity, honor. It was one of the reasons I was the president of the secret society. When they asked me to do something, I did it. I wasn’t compelled by a moral compass that others seemed to have. I only knew facts and calculations and those were the things I used to ensure I could do whatever was asked without getting caught.
It was what the men before me would have done. I followed a lineage of men who had led and fought in revolutions. Skilled workers who made money long before I was born. Plaques, busts, and photographs adorned my homes growing up. Reminders of what I should aspire to be like, of what others who came before me accomplished. Some would say that that in itself was a responsibility. The knowledge that not meeting certain requirements by a certain age meant failure. It was the sum of all of those things that drove me to try harder, to be better, to push myself to beat my twin in all things academia, since my brother had me beat in contact sports and other things.
But, as I stood there, my gaze on the licks of the flame, I realized I didn’t know a thing about responsibility. And worse, I didn’t want it. If being responsible for someone was going to make me feel this helpless, I’d rather not have it, because as she stepped toward the fire and stood still on the other side of it, my heart leaped into my throat. I knew that there were only two things I could do and both ensured the same outcome: we were all doomed. I would have loved to have thought the cops I’d thought to call would help, but we were outnumbered. No amount of hand guns would help, no amount of force. Worse, I realized, was that none of the people on this side of the fire held any power of authority over what was being done. It was church versus state and without a constitution or laws implemented, church would win. I lowered my hood and glanced at Will, who lowered his hood as well, and Wolf who lowered his, and Nolan who lowered his, and Logan who lowered his, and Mae and Nora and Marcus who lowered theirs. How wrong had we all been in the past to pin our societies against each other? Riley and Toby were standing a few feet away. They also lowered their hoods.
It was completely against the Creed for us to lend out hoods like this, but I had no choice. I needed backup and I wasn’t sure who I could trust. An unspoken, unilateral, what the fuck is happening seemed to cross every single one of our minds. I closed my eyes for a moment, looking down at the ground as the priest who had stepped into the middle of the circle began to pray. The Chancellor had confirmed that there would be three sacrifices, but even as I stood there, I didn’t know what to make of that. The crowd on the other side of the fire made way for six men to bring a bench to the center. Another person stepped forward, shoulders shaking. My heart dropped. Was it Eva? Whoever it was, was practically dragged to that bench by two of the monks.