“Yeah,” Chae Rin said. “No.”
Lake sent a gale crashing into them, and before the rest could raise their hands to shoot, Chae Rin broke open a hole in the wall for us to escape through. We leapt out and began running once again down the hall. Belle’s wall of ice sealed the hole after us and blocked off the path so that the other officers in the corridor couldn’t follow. I could hear their gunshots clink against the ice.
“Belle,” I started. “You—”
My next words vanished as I remembered Rhys’s confession. Her devastation. Belle didn’t look back at me as she ran. She didn’t say a word as we made our way through the building.
“Blackwell,” Sibyl said quietly once the communication link was back up. “If he manipulated Director Prince into using Minerva . . . then he was part of this too. A part of Project X19. But all they did was turn the world against the Sect, against the Effigies. Maybe that was the plan all along. Maybe that was Phase III, not the weapon itself.”
“Where can we go?” Lake said once we stopped to catch our breath. “Those police said the building was surrounded!”
“There’s an underground pathway beneath the building that will take you outside the facility,” Sibyl said. “Not many people know about it. You need to leave the city until we can get you transportation to our safe house. Dot, Pete, and Cheryl are all already on their way. Keep going down the hall, and at the first bend, turn left.”
We followed Sibyl’s instructions. My thoughts were racing, blurring pain and confusion together as my legs carried me down stairs, through corridors. We couldn’t stop Saul. We hadn’t stopped Prince. And now Rhys and who knew how many others were dead. And June? It didn’t make any sense. But even if I could piece it together, it was too late to save any of them.
Five minutes had already passed.
“The beam hit.” Uncle Nathan had whispered it. “It . . . the city . . .”
He didn’t need to say anything more. We were failures. And now we were fugitives.
Rhys . . . I’m sorry. Tears stung my eyes. I was broken.
I’d lost someone again.
So many words left unsaid because of my own cowardice. My body felt as if it would collapse into pieces on the floor. I was already haunted by it: his smile, that beautiful smile I would never see again. The boy who’d confessed that he’d fallen in love with me. I wanted to scream, to cry, to curse, to die. But I had to keep going. I had to. He would have wanted me to. I blinked my tears away as Sibyl guided us to a small underground hangar, empty but for two cars. Once again, there were agents waiting.
“From here, we should split up,” Belle suggested suddenly.
“I would advise against that,” Sibyl said. “I don’t understand exactly what I just saw, but people around the world saw Maia Finley, an Effigy, help Saul essentially cause the destruction of a city.”
My stomach lurched. “Uncle Nathan . . .”
“I know. I saw her too.”
He sounded so small. I’m sure he could hear the sob in my voice as I breathed in, trying to keep myself together.
“This is a catastrophe on the level of the Seattle Siege,” Sibyl said. “And in the eyes of the world, the Effigies—the entire Sect is implicated. You have to stay together.”
“We’re fugitives now,” Belle pressed. “They’ll be looking for all four of us. If we split up, it’ll be harder for them to capture us all.”
Sibyl went quiet. But after a moment, she acquiesced with a sigh. “Two per car.”
“Maia.” Belle was already staring at me, the dark circles under her eyes deep and unforgiving. “Come with me.”
I didn’t argue as the agent opened the backseat doors for us.
“Is this really happening?” Lake said. “We’re splitting up?”
The four of us stood in a circle, close together and yet still separated by the chasm of the unknown. Belle was the only one who avoided our gazes. Her bloodshot eyes remained steadfastly low as the rest of us joined hands.
“It’s going to be okay,” I told them, mustering up what little bravery I could through the pits of despair and fear. “It’ll just be for a little while.”
“I don’t have the best feeling about this,” Chae Rin said. “I’m kind of with Sibyl. But maybe splitting up really is the best way to go. In that case . . . well, just don’t get caught. Or killed. Or I’ll be super pissed, okay?”
Lake laughed a little, and the strain in her voice made it obvious that the gesture hadn’t been easy. I felt her squeeze my hand. But when I looked over at Belle, she was still in her own head, staring at the floor. I grabbed her hand, trying to smile. She didn’t look up.
“Okay,” I said, letting go of both girls. “Let’s go. I’ll see you guys again at the safe house.”
“Right, then. See you in a bit!” Lake’s cheerfulness may have been artifice, but it gave me courage like I suspected she’d meant it to.
We entered our own cars and drove out of the hangar, down the underground path, until we surfaced outside the facility. We came to a fork in the road, and there, under the night sky, we separated. I twisted around, watching the other car until it disappeared into the darkness.
“Where are we heading?” I asked carefully.
“The Straits of Dover,” the agent answered, looking at me in the rearview mirror. “We’ll rendezvous with some people who’ll help us cross into France.”
“France,” Belle repeated lifelessly. “My home. The place I was . . . born.”
She fell silent.
I half expected her to be limp against the door again, but this time she was surprisingly stiff. Her back was straight as if held up by a metal rod. Her hands were placed on her lap, her fingers curled at an odd angle against her knees. She said nothing. She didn’t even look at me throughout the almost two-hour drive. The entire time, I kept to my side of the bench, my hand awkwardly gripping my seat belt as I tried to keep my eyes on the antiphantom threads weaving across the highway, keeping us safe from the horrors outside. I made sure my gaze stayed on them. I’d been awake for so many hours I’d lost count. I was running on nothing, but I couldn’t let my eyelids flutter closed like they wanted to. Because if I did, I’d see his face. I’d see Rhys obliterated by a weapon that to him would have looked simply like a beautiful light from above. Before absolution.
I held my sobs in for the ride until we came to the White Cliffs. It was somewhat still under the glow of nearby antiphantom protection, so we didn’t have to worry about phantoms here. But the strait wasn’t protected. The agent had told us to expect a fishing ship coming down the strait. I was sure it would come with its own APD, lest we let the monsters lurking beneath the waves drag us down into the deep with them. We waited patiently for the rendezvous, but after we stood close to the edge of the cliffs for several minutes, nothing showed up.
“They’re late.” The agent checked his watch impatiently.
“Redman.” Belle approached the young man. “I need to speak with Maia.”