I spun around, still cradling my wrist. “Are you?”
Dimitri lit another cigarette. “You needed to know the truth.”
The truth.
“Even if she isn’t the fifth member of the Legion, that doesn’t prove her mother was Illuminati.” Jared wasn’t giving up on me.
The fifth member.
Faith must have picked my father, her only other option.
Dimitri rubbed his temples. “Your mother didn’t have much family, did she, Kennedy? Just one sister, and I’m willing to bet they weren’t close. The Order of the Enlightened never chooses operatives with close family ties. It’s one of the criterion for selection.”
“What did you call them?” Alara sounded stunned.
Dimitri flicked his ash on the floor. “The Order of the Enlightened. Do you recognize the name?”
Alara tensed behind me. “No. I thought you said something else.”
She was lying.
“The Order of the Enlightened operated outside the laws of our organization. They were engaged in dangerous behavior, which the Illuminati wasn’t even aware of,” Dimitri said. “After your father left, we sent someone to speak with your mother and try to reason with her.”
I squared my shoulders, trying to look confident. “I don’t believe you.”
Dimitri turned to Gabriel. “Please confirm that Elizabeth Waters was one of us.”
“She was part of the Order. I wouldn’t call her one of us,” Gabriel said.
“A shepherd is responsible for all his sheep, Gabriel. Even the lost ones.”
He threw Dimitri a hard look. “Some sheep want to stay lost.”
“Why don’t you tell Kennedy how you knew her mother?”
Every muscle in my body tensed. I was still trying to figure out what was wrong with my memory. The last thing I wanted to hear about was how he supposedly knew my mom.
Gabriel didn’t move for a moment, and I thought the conversation was over. Then he took a deep breath. “I was a member of the Order of the Enlightened, until I figured out what they were really up to, which had nothing to do with the garbage they were feeding us. I told the Illuminati what I’d learned, and they welcomed me back. Eventually, I convinced the Grandmaster your mother was worth saving, too.
“So I went to your house in Georgetown, the one with the green door. Your father was gone by then.” He smiled to himself, as if he were recalling a fond memory. “Your mom cooked me dinner a few times. She made a killer lasagna, and the best red sauce I’ve ever had in my life.”
Red sauce. My mom’s signature dish.
“Anyone can drive by Kennedy’s house and see what color her door is.” Elle said, her tone venomous.
Gabriel’s smile faded. “I knew that house inside and out. Elizabeth lived there before she married Kennedy’s father.” He turned to me. “I stained those wood floors and built the shelves in the library. Are they still there?”
I didn’t react. Anyone who’d ever set foot in my house would know about floors and the library shelves.
“I built a few things you probably never saw, though,” he said. “Your mom had this hidden door in the back of her closet.”
The words slammed into me, and I couldn’t catch my breath.
The crawl space.
I’d never told anyone about the tiny crawl space in my mother’s closet, or the night I spent hidden inside. Not even Elle. My friends knew about my crippling fear of the dark, but no one knew how it started.
Gabriel was still talking, as the memory crashed over me.
“Someone’s in the house,” my mom whispered, pulling a board away from the wall to reveal a small opening in the back of her closet. “Stay here until I come back. Don’t make a sound.”
Don’t make a sound or the bad guys will hear you. That’s what she meant.
I squeezed inside as she replaced the board, drowning me in darkness. Not the kind of dark where you could see the silhouettes of objects, but a blackness that swallows everything. I closed my eyes and tried to pretend I was still in my bed.
Then I heard the sounds—the stairs creaking, furniture scraping against the floor, muffled voices. I wished my dad hadn’t left us. He would’ve scared away whoever was in our house. I held my hand against the board, praying for my mom to come back. Eventually, the wood gave beneath my palm and a thin stream of light flooded the space.
Black splotches exploded in front of my eyes as they adjusted to the light again. I saw the closet floor through the opening—my mom’s red high heels and her fuzzy bedroom slippers. Then her face peering into the crawl space and her arms reaching for me.
And something else…
I fought to hold onto to the memory I’d spent my whole life fighting. Usually it ended the moment my mom pulled me out. But there was more—pieces of the memory my mind had repressed.
As she pulled me out, I glanced back at the terrifying space. An image blurred past—painted on the wall, black like the darkness and the bad guys.
Don’t look.
But I already had, I just never remembered until now.
A Medieval cross with a hawk in the center, and Latin script running down the bottom. The letters I thought I’d seen on Gabriel’s arm, before I realized he was standing too far away. The rest of the tattoo—the part I had seen must’ve broken through whatever wall my mind had built around that night.
Which means they’re telling the truth about my mom.
This was worse than not being a member of the Legion.
“I’m sorry,” Gabriel said. “We shouldn’t be the ones telling you this. I wanted your mother to leave the Order and start over.”
Elle pushed past us and walked up to Dimitri. “Even if your friend here did wax her floors and raid her fridge, it doesn’t mean Kennedy’s mom was Illuminati.”
“Maybe they were friends, and Kennedy’s mom had no idea Gabriel was a member of the Order. None of this proves anything.” Jared didn’t believe Gabriel’s story. But he didn’t know about the crawl space, or the symbol.
He didn’t know it was true.
“Maybe you were a spy like that guy Archer,” Lukas said. “And you just pretended to be her friend.”
My mom lied to me and betrayed my dad. She was a member of the Illuminati.
Jared stormed across the room and grabbed my hand, “She’s not one of you,” he said to Dimitri. “She’s one of us.”
I glanced at my friends’ faces. Lukas and Elle were staring at Dimitri like they wanted to kill him, but Priest and Alara’s eyes were fixed on the ground.
They know I’m not one of them.
Jared tightened his grip on my hand. “You’re wrong.”
My knees buckled. I felt myself falling, the room and the darkness closing in on me.
Jared caught me and helped me sit down. “Are you okay?”
“Of course she’s not okay,” Elle said. “Look at her face. She’s as white as a ghost.
”
I looked up, and Gabriel was staring at me. “You know I’m telling the truth, don’t you?”
“Kennedy?” Jared’s eyes searched mine.
I couldn’t lie to him. “My mom was one of them.”
21. DIVIDING LINES
I’m going to check on our guest,” Gabriel said.
Dimitri nodded. “Never underestimate—”
“What an animal will do to free itself from a cage,” Gabriel finished. “I know.”
Jared ignored them and pulled me up. “What’s going on?”
“Gabriel’s tattoo.” I could barely get the words out. “The cross.”
Elle rushed over and threw her arm around me.
Lukas was right behind her. “What about it?”
“I remember seeing the same one a wall in my mom’s closet.”
Priest and Alara hung back, but they were listening.
“That doesn’t mean—” Jared began.
“Don’t say it doesn’t mean anything.” I shook my head. “You think my mom just happened to have a cross with a hawk and Latin writing all over it, hanging on her wall?” Tears burned my eyes, but I didn’t let them fall. “It means everything.”
“Dimitri.” Gabriel’s voice echoed from behind the containers. “I need help in here.”
“We can talk about this later,” Jared said, watching Dimitri.
Everyone agreed without a word, following Dimitri as he ran between the rows. At the end of the aisle, I caught a glimpse of the dockworker. He was chained in the corner of the room and drenched in holy water.
Dimitri slipped on his sunglasses and held out his arm, stopping us. “Don’t look the demon in the eye, whatever you do. That’s how he jumps from one body to possess another. He needs to be close to make the switch, but if you don’t know what you’re doing, I wouldn’t take any chances.”
I remembered the way Andras had stared at the people on the street, before he moved from one body to another.
The demon thrashed against the chains, and Gabriel looped the bone whip around the demon’s neck. Barbs jutted out from the dozens of vertebrae, teeth, claws, and other small bones that formed the whip. The moment the bones touched Andras, the barbs burrowed deeper into his skin, pulsing and twisting on their own.