Page 22 of The Outsider
“So are you…” Claire said, then trailed off awkwardly. “Are you looking for a way out, too?”
“Yep,” Asha replied with a sigh.
Holly gave a small, slightly hysterical-sounding giggle.
“Out?” she said, staring at Asha. “None of you are getting out. There are patrols everywhere, and the Gathering will be over soon. Everyone will be out in force. And it’s only a matter of time until they notice your tracking beacons anyway.”
I exchanged a glance with Claire, who looked horrified. My worst fear about this situation had been right.
“Tracking beacons?” she asked Holly, sounding breathless with fear. “How?”
Holly gave a weird little laugh again, and I rolled my eyes.
“Talk,” I said, and when she laughed again at me, I hauled her to her feet. I smashed her back against the solid stone wall, and she yelped as her head smacked the concrete.
I didn’t want to hurt Holly, but I wasn’t going to pick her survival over ours, no matter how hard it was for Claire. I grabbed my hunting knife from my belt and held it at Holly’s throat.
“Here’s the deal,” I said, my voice low. “Tell us what you know and how to get out of here, and I’ll be a nice guy and not slit your throat on my way out like I did your friend back there.”
Holly paled a little.
“Help your sister,” I hissed, “since it’s your goddamn fault she’s in this mess to begin with.”
I backed up and glanced at Claire, who looked pissed off. About damn time.
“So, they know where to find me,” Claire said. “If they can track me, how do they do it?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Holly said with a shrug. “Your implant. We’ve all got them. How else could we have found you at your little camp inthe woods, hmm?”
Claire’s lip curled, and my stomach twisted. They hadn’t found her by accident. They’d followed her.
What if I couldn’t take her back to the Valley now? I swallowed hard.
“You sent them after me?” Claire asked, murder in her voice. “After everything that happened?”
Holly gave an ironic chuckle. “Jim J sent them after you, not me. I couldn’t’ve cared less what happened to you after you left. I assumed you and Asha would both die off within a few days. What a surprise, then, when Mom told me that we’d finally hacked into the Cave’s security systems after months of work, and who should still be alive, but you?”
At the mention of their mother, Claire flinched. I wanted to end this shitty conversation, but we needed the info too badly. Asha folded her arms over her chest, looking tense.
“Why do they care about bringing me back?” Claire demanded. “I’m not this Vessel thing they keep talking about—I’m nobody.”
Holly’s weird bravado suddenly faltered. When she spoke again, she sounded like a different person: serious and guarded.
“It all started a couple months ago,” Holly said. “When they discovered you were alive. Jim J delivered his Message one evening and said that he’d had a Vision. A powerful one. About you.”
Her eyes glazed over and took on a dreamy quality.
“He’d seen you before,” Holly continued. “Just in passing, not long before the Cleansing happened.”
“The Cleansing?” Asha said sharply, speaking for the first time. “I’ve heard them use that term here. Is that what you call the mass murder of everyone we knew?”
Holly smiled. “Not murder. It was a ritual in blood, a Cleansing of all those unworthy to join our cause, who would not follow us into freedom from our bondage here in the compound. It was a mercy.”
“A mercy,” Claire repeated, and her voice shook, a muscle in her jaw twitching.
“Jim J was taken with you before the Cleansing,” Holly said. “Mom told him you wouldn’t join, that you were your father’s daughter—a lost cause. But he wanted us to try. When it failed, he was resigned to killing you.”
Fuck. I remembered Claire’s story about them drugging her without her knowledge. Seemed like she was right that it was some fucked up initiation ritual. It took a lot of effort not to execute Holly right then.
