With these words, Pansy smiles, but it’s not triumphant, not arrogant. It’s the battle-scarred smile of a woman who’s about to push a piece across a chess board, a move that will result in checkmate.
If Botten had seen this expression on Pansy’s face, he wouldn’t have left the tent so cavalierly. He wouldn’t be filling the bivouac with the sound of his whistling and dreams of things to come. He wouldn’t, Ophelia realizes, have let down his guard.
Oh, yes. Hope is cruel, indeed.
Chapter 86
Pansy
King’s End, Minnesota
Sunday, July 16
They come for me just before sunrise. I’ve tried to kick dirt over the splotches of blood, but there’s nothing I can do about the stains on my shirt.
No one, notices, though. Mort isn’t among the agents sent to haul me up and out of the tent. He would have certainly questioned both the blood and me. But no, Botten has sent near strangers, agents from Academy classes before and after mine. Which, considering what he’s planning, makes sense. No allies, no friendly faces, no one to intervene. To them, this blood is merely collateral damage.
The trek to the housing development is rough. My hands are still bound. Apparently, protocol demands that we walk rather than ride in one of the many SUVs and sedans about the bivouac. But it gives me time to think and to sniff back the blood that seems to build. The dam is about to burst, and I must be careful.
Because I still don’t know if this will work. The Sight never let me hear the words of the ritual, so Botten must speak those. I have mere seconds between that and the knife that will find Henry’s jugular. This is something the Sight insists will happen if I don’t act fast enough.
The image of that buckles me with terror. I stumble. The two agents gripping my arms jerk me upright so my feet skim the gravel road for several steps.
The oppressive night is slowly transforming into an equally oppressive and brilliantly red dawn. The sunrise stains the entire area, even the space beneath the Camelot Lots sign. Mosquitoes natter in my ears and light on my neck, attracted by the blood, no doubt. They probe the skin, and while this is the least of my problems, I give my head a shake just as we pass through the gate.
One, two, three drops of blood strike the ground.
The earth rumbles beneath us.
“What the f—” one agent begins.
“Keep moving,” another one snaps.
We round the showcase home, and my gaze lands on the fissure there. The expanse is deep, an endless gray, but rimmed with teeth. I blink, and they vanish. No one else seems alarmed, so perhaps it’s only my state of mind, or the Sight. But no, there, from the corner of my eye.
Teeth. A double row. So very ravenous.
I think of my mother’s words: With each passing year, the hunger for that completion grows.
The gateway must be very hungry, then. Perhaps by feeding it our blood, Jack was essentially offering it an appetizer. The epicenter itself is beneath the showcase home. Short of total demolition or raising the house off its foundation, it’s still inaccessible. But this current fissure is like a tentacle, grasping, reaching. It’s more than enough to do the job, to seize the sacrifice and sate its hunger.
Botten and Henry are already standing at the fissure’s edge. I’m being paraded forward like a reluctant bride in some perverse marriage ceremony. It strikes me then. That’s what this is, an unholy sort of marriage. Of course, Botten sacrifices Henry—because Henry is every inch the man his father was. Botten needs to rid himself of this constant reminder that this better man exists.
Woven into that is another layer. Once upon a time, Botten wanted my mother, wanted her power along with that of the gateway. One is inexorably linked to the other. Did he ever love her? I don’t think that matters.
My mother wasn’t entirely wrong when she told me to give Botten what he expects. But I went one better. Maybe it was the Sight, or Jack’s words about revenge. I gave Botten what he needed. Deep down, what he needed, craved, was proof that Rose Little lived a sad and pathetic life.
I presented him with that, gift-wrapped in the form of her sad, pathetic daughter.
This might be the only advantage I have. Botten remains within striking range of Henry. My heart skitters and I waver, legs wobbly once again. One of the agents jerks me by the elbow, and I stagger forward.
“Not too close,” Botten instructs. “We don’t want her tumbling in.”
In the air hangs the unspoken: Not yet.
The agents position me opposite the two men. My mind scrambles, sorting out the choreography of how Botten plans to sacrifice us both. That, too, is part of his revenge.
Henry first, yes. That’s obvious.
