“Was Anna a Healer?”
“No. She says no one knows what happened to the Healer line in Poland, whether it died out or whether the Healers emigrated somewhere else.”
For a while neither of us said anything. It was so much to absorb.
“So I guess Anna did her job, then,” I finally said. For some reason I felt bleak. “She found you. A gold star for her. Two pureblood Banished in a city the size of Chicago.”
If Prairie minded my tone she didn’t mention it.
“No, Hailey. Not two. Three.”
“Three-what do you mean?”
“Anna has a son.”
PART THREE: CHICAGO
CHAPTER 17
IT WAS TWILIGHT by the time we reached the outskirts of Chicago, the skyline a sparkling row of towers off in the distance, stretching out impossibly far in both directions. We left the highway on a looping cloverleaf crowded with speeding traffic.
Despite the brief nap in the motel, I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I must have drifted off, because when Prairie gently shook my arm to wake me, we were parked behind another motel, this one huge and new and anonymous, backing up to a wide avenue across from a car dealership. I didn’t even ask where we were. I went through the motions of getting Chub, who was fast asleep, as Prairie took care of Rascal. In the room, I collapsed with Chub and didn’t wake up until late the next morning, when the sun was streaming in the windows.
I sat up, disoriented by the unfamiliar surroundings. The room was almost a copy of the one from the day before, but reversed, the television on the opposite wall. Chub sat on the edge of the bed, swinging his legs, watching TV with the sound turned low. He was already dressed, and his hair was sticking straight up.
Prairie stood at the window, clutching the fabric of the drapes in her hand, staring out into the parking lot, Rascal sitting at her side, staring at nothing. When I said her name, she jumped.
“Good morning, Hailey,” she said. “Are you feeling better today?”
To my surprise, I was. I felt rested and strong, and the events of the past few days had faded in my mind, like a movie I’d watched but would someday forget. Not that I would ever lose the images of the wrecked kitchen, of Gram on the floor, but as I washed up and packed, I felt like it was all in the past, like that phase of my life was over.
I felt the faint stirrings of hope.
It was almost one in the afternoon by the time we walked Rascal and put our things in the car. We went to a diner next to the motel for lunch. My appetite was back, and I ordered a burger and fries and a big glass of milk. Even Prairie ate most of her chicken salad, and the worry lines around her eyes had smoothed.
“So,” I said as I finished the last of my fries, “I guess it worked, huh? The… thing you did. So he wouldn’t be able to find us.”
I didn’t say his name, could barely stand to think it. Rattler. The image of him plunging the knife into the man in the gray jacket flashed through my mind and was gone, leaving only a shadowy outline of the terror of that night.
Prairie nodded thoughtfully and sipped at her coffee. “If he was going to be able to track us…”
She didn’t finish the thought, but I knew what she was thinking. He would have found us by now, if his visions were able to lead him to us. I wondered if Prairie had slept, or if she’d stayed by the window worrying all night, waiting for his old truck to roll up in front of the motel, waiting for him to come crashing through the door the way Bryce’s men had the day before.
I felt guilty because I’d collapsed and slept like a rock, leaving all the guarding and worrying to her. I almost apologized, but I couldn’t quite find the words.
“So he probably stayed in Gypsum,” I said hopefully.
Prairie nodded. “Mmm. With any luck I can finish… what I need to do tonight, and we can move on.”
She was looking not at me, but out the window. I had so many questions. She said we, but did she mean all three of us? And I had no idea what she meant by “move on,” or where we would go next, how we would live.
“What do you have to do tonight?” I asked.
She looked at me directly and chose her words carefully. “I need to destroy Bryce’s research.”
“How are you going to do that?”
“I have some ideas. First thing is to get into the lab. And for that I’ll need my key. It’s too dangerous to go back to my house, but I keep spare keys at my neighbor’s.”
“Don’t you have a key with you?”
Prairie pushed her salad around on her plate without looking at me. “This is a special key, Hailey. It’s a prox card for an electronic lock, and I’m pretty sure that by now Bryce has changed the code so I can’t get in. But I have a master key at my friend’s place.”
“Does she know you’re coming?”
“No…” Prairie hesitated and bit her lip. I could tell she was trying to figure out how much to tell me. “I thought it was best that I didn’t call or do anything that might tip someone off. I do have a key to her house, so I can let myself in. The quicker I get in and out, the better.”
I… She said I. Not we. Panic stirred in my gut-panic at being left alone, left to defend Chub against any threat that came along.
“I’m going with you,” I said quickly, my tone harsher than I intended. “We’re going together.”
“I don’t think that-”
“Please. We can wait in the car, it’ll be better this way, we can watch for… for…”
I didn’t finish my sentence, but I figured Prairie knew what I meant. I could watch for the men Bryce had sent or for Rattler or for any of the other threats I’d never thought to worry about, threats that until a few days ago hadn’t existed for me, but that had changed the course of my life.
I’d argue with Prairie if I needed to. I wasn’t going to let this drop. She had saved me from Bryce and Gram and Rattler, and I was grateful. But she couldn’t leave us now. I wouldn’t let her.
I didn’t have any other choice.
“All right,” she finally said, and I let out the breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. “You can come with me to Penny’s. But after that, when we get to the lab, I go in alone.”
I wasn’t going to argue that-yet. One step at a time.
She wanted to wait until dark to make the trip to her neighbor’s house, so we spent the afternoon in a park. Chub played on the swings and the slides and dug holes and tunnels in a sandbox with a plastic shovel someone had left behind. I tried to interest Rascal in chasing a stick, but he just walked beside me and sat whenever I stood still. Late in the afternoon Prairie drove us north of the city to Evanston, the suburb where her apartment and the lab were. She parked near the lake and we walked out on a strip of land from which we could see Chicago to the south, the setting sun glancing off the windows of all the high-rise buildings, making it look like a city made from gold and mirrors. Chub was more interested in throwing rocks off the pier than at looking at the city, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the skyline and the sun sinking toward the inky blue of the lake.
At last it was nearly dark. Prairie drove around for a while before choosing a parking spot on a quiet side street, near an alley. Cars were jammed in tight on both sides of the street, but a red Acura pulled out just as we were cruising past. It took several minutes of careful maneuvering to get the Ellises’ big car into the spot, but when Prairie finally shut off the ignition, she seemed satisfied.