Suddenly, I was hit with a terrifying awareness. Where was Callista? And Thad?
Like a freight train driving over me, I realized that they weren’t with me anymore. I nearly stopped, but my flight continued on its own, pulling me higher into the sky. Where were they? Hadn’t they been right behind me second ago?
Maybe they’d escaped through the other door? Or they’d gone another way? I searched the sky to see if they’d scrambled off to hide. I was already so far from the restaurant that I couldn’t even see it. Everything had become a mess of buildings and shadows from the sliver of dawn that’d appeared. Cars were out in droves now, drowsy people walking with coffees in their hands and breakfast drive-thrus filling up.
I hovered in place, feet dangling beneath me, eyes searching wildly for any sign of the others. It was hard to see with the fog. No! I couldn’t have left them behind!
Suddenly, I was slammed into from the side.
Like a missile coming out of nowhere, someone had flown out of the cloud and rammed into me, sending me into a spiral. I struggled to regain my balance, twisting only for me to be struck by my attacker again from the other side. I couldn’t find which way was up and went plummeting toward the earth.
21
Desolation
I fell toward the ground like shattered pieces of a clay target. The treetops neared, spinning in circles as I whirled uncontrollably. I tried in vain to catch the air, to bring myself up as the gray concrete rushed to meet my face.
Arms grabbed me around my middle, slamming with me into the ground and rolling in a bout of grass. The momentum carried us until we rammed into the side of a tree and stopped abruptly.
I sprawled beside it to catch my breath, dizzily trying to roll over. I shook my head, clearing my vision of the haze, looking up to find that I was in the middle of a large park. Trees that surrounded the concrete path blocked me from view of the cars I could hear already racing nearby to go about their business, drivers oblivious to my latest almost-demise. Sensing danger was near, I scrambling to my feet—only to have the back of my shirt grabbed and my body slung against the tree.
“Don’t run!” came a sudden, mechanical hiss, like a toy robot whose batteries were dying. I spun, ready to fight, but a hand hit my side, grabbing for something in my pocket, taking it before I could react.
I leapt away as my attacker threw whatever he’d grabbed onto the concrete beside us. With his back to me, he began stabbing at the device with his foot. Before I knew what was happening, his boot had already cracked the screen of my cell phone. The next stab split it into crumbled fragments.
“Hey!” I shouted. He struck it again, glass and plastic going everywhere. My mouth hung open for a moment but then I realized he wasn’t even watching me anymore. Let him keep the stupid phone.
“You…are…an…idiot!” the mechanical voice continued before I could run, the boot stabbing my phone with each word. Finally, satisfied by the dusty pile that remained, the man spun back to me.
He wasn’t any of the people I’d expected, the claws that I’d lifted to slice him hesitating. He was dressed in a sweeping black coat much too heavy for the sun of California, the cloth gathered around his legs and the collar turned up over his neck. He wore gloves on his hands. His face was like a block of stone, middle-aged and entirely hairless.
But that was only for a second. Before my eyes, the face of the bald man suddenly changed. Like they’d turned to putty, his cheeks sank in, the bones shifted out, his eyes became thinner, and the irises faded from brown to gray. Black hair grew from his head like grass, a covering of stubble on his chin.
I wanted to run.
“Don’t you dare, Mr. Asher,” the voice warned from the mouth of the new man. The sound was the same as before: deep and processed, like a computer was speaking the words with incorrect pitches and accents.
“You’re a master of idiocy,” the voice proclaimed. “It’s a wonder you live an entire day without supervision.”
He waved his hand at my destroyed phone. “Did you even think once that maybe you should get rid of your phone? That maybe they’d had time to tinker with it while you were strapped down and immobile in the interrogation room?”
I was at a loss for words. The man was furious and yet wasn’t making any move to attack. I drew back a small step.
“How do you think they’ve been following you, Mr. Asher?” he continued his tirade. “How’d they know you went to that tunnel? Because of your damned phone. Because you’re a damned idiot.”
He kicked the shards and sent pieces skittering down the concrete walk. It hit me all at once: somehow, Wyck had followed me by using my phone as a tracking device.
“W-—who are you…?” I demanded with an unintentional stammer, still ready to fight if I needed. I could feel the blood going cold in the ends of my fingers as I realized that I’d led Wyck right to us without even knowing—and according to who?
The man spun back to face me. He had a new face again. Now, his skin was wrinkled, his eyes and hair a matching gray. He looked like one of the gentle old men I’d sometimes see wandering in the park and feeding the ducks, if not for the fiery rage in his eyes.
“Who do you think I am?” he spat. “Who else would risk everything to save you once again when you’ve just gone and blundered it all up?”
He scoffed distastefully at me. “Your brazen disregard for all the sacrifices made for you only proves you are not prepared for a part in restoring the Grand Design.”
When he said that, I knew exactly who he was.
“Anon!” I gasped, but he sliced a hand through the air to silence me. I was left with my mouth open, fingers that had been fists loosening, feeling my face go pale.
As if to prove just how anonymous he still remained, his face had continued to change as we spoke. He was old then he was young again, then in the seconds of dumbfounded silence, I watched his skin sink into bags and hang off flabby cheeks. No matter how many new people he became or how many times the irises changed colors, his eyes continued to glare at me with distaste. I noticed that around his neck, nearly hidden by the collar of his jacket, was a black circle, almost like a thin, mechanical scarf—some device of Guardian technology, no doubt.
“I’m sorry,” I said, feeling wretched inside. Even the ever-changing disguises could not mask the urgency and importance I felt radiating from this man.
He showed me no sympathy. He shook his head sharply, changing form again, growing hair that was parted over his forehead.
“Do you have any idea how much you’ve ruined?” he went on. “Searching the Internet on a phone they already knew was yours? Carrying it with you everywhere you went, so they could trace your exact location any second of the day or night?”
“I—I thought I’d led Wyck to go north…”
Anon would hear none of it.
“Because of you, they now have the Blade,” he hissed. “They’ll do anything to get you to open its case. They’ll pry bits of your skin away piece by piece until you can’t tell your screams from the sounds of their tools. They’ll get you to open that case.”
He threw both of his hands apart in exasperation. “But I’ve been the stupid one. I’m to blame for helping you, when I should have let you die long ago when you first started doing things wrong.”
All of his horrible words were bullets. It was all sinking in at once what had just transpired. How could I have been so stupid?! I hadn’t even taken a second to think of all these things that now looked so obvious, and with every word Anon’s rasping voice said, I only felt all the more dejected, all the more a failure.