“I’m not drinking wine,” I said. “I’m not drinking poison.”
The chancellor lowered his gun.
“Love,” said Miranda, “is a poison. Too much love kills you.”
I thought of how far I’d come: the places I’d seen, the friends I’d met, Mom’s death. The way my life had changed in an instant. Charlie was still shaking, but when she squeezed my hand, my heart was warm—I wasn’t afraid of anything.
I stared at Miranda. “It saves your life, too.”
She laughed hysterically. So hysterically that even Hackner seemed alarmed. “You think I can’t get to you?” she said. “You think I don’t know how to take everything from you? Make you feel like nothing? Make you become nothing? You think I don’t know how to stop your pathetic heart, you little shit?” She glanced at Hackner. “I could have him shoot you in the chest right now, Kai Bradbury.”
“Go ahead,” I said. “I’d still be standing.”
Hackner scratched his head. “How’s that?”
“Because,” said Miranda, her voice shrill and mocking, “his heart—everything that matters to him—isn’t in his chest at all. Isn’t that right, darling?” Her body shook with laughter. “Your heart beats outside a body that’s all your own. It doesn’t beat in your chest at all anymore, does it?” She pointed to Charlie. “It beats in hers—in the girl you tore up half the Federation trying to save.
“But I’m afraid you’ll soon realize that from the moment you brought her on the Pacific Northwestern Tube, you doomed her. You,” she spat, “not us, you are the one who has done this to her. You are the one who will be responsible—perhaps the only one responsible—for the death of Charlie Minos. You’re the one who killed her. Aim at the girl, Hackner. Aim at the girl and fire.”
I moved to block the bullet, but I was too late. Hackner pulled the trigger.
Chapter 43
Sage heard the gun go off before the others, and knew instantly where the sound had come from. She turned and ran back down the hall toward the chancellor’s chambers.
She smashed right into Chancellor Hackner, coming the other way down the hall. “Outta my way,” he growled as he pushed past her.
Sage heard screeching wheels roll by—a trunk, she thought—and a familiar voice. “Bye, darling,” Miranda’s voice called to her.
“Miranda? Where are you going?”
Miranda laughed, her voice echoing back down the hall. “Ah, darling,” she said. “You really were a dumb bitch.”
Sage curled her hands into fists. She knew now, for certain, that she’d been lied to all these years. Manipulated by a heartless woman who dribbled out feeble acts of affection. And she’d foolishly gobbled it up. After all, it was the only affection she had known for a long time—until recently.
Sage had figured out some time ago that Miranda wasn’t really there. It had taken her a while, granted, but eventually she’d deduced why the woman never touched her, why she kept her distance. Why the woman needed her help mixing the antidote in the first place. Why, no matter how close Miranda got to her, Sage never felt her breath, her body heat.
The blindness had actually helped her with this. Since she couldn’t see, she had grown accustomed to feeling a person’s presence—their heat, their smell, the subtle air currents as they moved. But with Miranda, she’d never felt anything but coldness.
Miranda was a ghost in a box.
Sage had never said anything, of course. She didn’t want to invoke Miranda’s wrath. And it was useful to her that Miranda think her stupid. But she knew far more than Miranda could have imagined.
She’d even figured out where Miranda’s consciousness was housed: in the globe on the chancellor’s desk. Sage had gone out of her way to touch the globe from time to time, and noted Miranda’s irritated reaction. Yes, she was pretty sure. And she was willing to bet that if that globe ran out of energy—even for a split second—then Miranda’s consciousness would be lost.
She’d heard the people, too—the ones that went wailing into the chambers and came out, weeks later, in bags. Strong and husky when they went in, thin when their corpse came out, their life energy burned away. The machine sapped their souls like lamps sapped electricity. Sage had a feeling there’d been a body in the trunk Hackner dragged as he ran by. Food for Miranda.
Sage had a theory that Miranda had wanted to use Charlie as a battery. The girl was skinny now, but Sage still felt her energy, and she guessed Miranda could too. It explained why they’d carted her back and forth between the chancellor’s chambers and her celclass="underline" they were prepping her for the procedure.
When Sage reached the doorway of the chancellor’s chambers, she heard Kai’s sobs emanating from within. She quickly joined him on the floor, and found that he was huddled over a body. Charlie—it had to be. The shot Sage heard must have been fired at her. Warm blood coated the floor—she was bleeding out.
Sage turned to Kai. “Does she still have pulse?”
Kai only moaned, inconsolable.
Sage squeezed her eyes shut tight. She didn’t have many friends to begin with, and she wasn’t about to just sit here as one died in front of her. “Does she have a pulse?” she asked again.
“It’s—it’s weak,” he whispered. “Soon, she’ll be—” His breath caught in his throat.
Sage jumped to her feet and searched the desk, hoping she hadn’t yet destroyed it. Nothing—it wasn’t there. She quickly reached her hand underneath—and there it was. The cardboard package—the other “paperweight.” Miranda hadn’t yet had a chance to destroy it.
It was a long shot, but Sage didn’t have any other choice. She lifted the orb from its box.
Just then the other two Lost Boys entered the room. They must have finally figured out where Sage had run off to.
“Oh my god,” said Mila. “Oh—oh my god—”
“I need help over here,” Sage said. Phoenix ran to her side. “Check the box for directions,” she instructed.
Phoenix sighed. “They don’t put directions in the boxes.”
“How do you know?”
“I just—I know.” She heard him grab something from the box. “But we’ll need these clips, and these metal nodes. They’ve got special salve on their backs. They’ll need to go on Charlie’s temples after we’ve attached the battery.”
Sage wondered how her new friend knew so much about it, but she was glad he did. She nodded and moved over next to Kai.
Mila was breathing hard. “She—she’s dying, Phoenix.” Sage could hear the hesitation in her voice.
“We can save her, Meels. Sage, hand me those cords attached to the ConSynth.” Sage passed him the two cords. They were hollow like tubing. “One for the current battery,” he said, “and one for when the battery needs replacement. The ConSynth can never be without power.”
Sage’s arm brushed his shoulder—she could tell he was strong. “How—how do you know all this?”
“Look—we don’t have much time. We have to find Charlie a battery. Are there guards in the hall?” Sage got the feeling he wanted to avoid the subject of how he’d known about the ConSynth.
There were no guards in the hall—they’d all disappeared. Gone to the roof, probably, to assist with Hackner’s escape copter. There was no more time. If they wanted to save Charlie, they needed a battery.
Sage felt along the length of one of the cords Phoenix had handed her. One end led to the globe—the ConSynth, Phoenix had called it—and the other end led to a needle wrapped in plastic packaging. Like an IV of sorts. But this kind didn’t feed you, she knew. You fed it, and it drained you to the bone.
She touched Charlie’s hand one last time, and then slid the needle into her own vein.