“I don’t want to be holding them if we have to run,” I say.
He stares at my hand as I pull away and then, when he looks up, he has this strange look in his eyes. He reaches forward and tucks a strand of my hair out of my eyes before turning away and heading up the hall again.
When we reach the end, the hall exits to the outside through a hole in the wall. We slip into the shadows of the night, carefully treading through the park to the dark streets, keeping to the alleys while listening to the vampire cries around us.
Sylas pauses for a moment when we reach a corner of a building and then sticks out his hand behind him, grabs hold of me and pulls me forward. I step up to the side of him as he puts his fingers to his lips, warning me to stay quiet, then he peeks around the corner and motions for me to do the same. I lean around him and look into the street. There are fires burning in barrels everywhere and three figures standing next to one of the closer fires, wearing all white that matches their hair. Their snow-white skin carves their perfect features and their pale eyes are haunting.
Highers.
I can’t hear what they’re saying, but I want to; I want to see if they’re talking about something that could clue us in on what they know. I start to sidestep around Sylas, wanting to get closer, when he catches my arm, but I shake my head and point to my ear. He hesitates then lets me go, following on my heels. We stick to the shadows and then duck behind a rusted vehicle on the street, just out of the glow flowing off the flames in the barrels.
Gabrielle’s voice rises and I tense, recognizing the sound of it far too well. I strain my ears to listen, hunkering low at the same time Sylas sits down on the rubbly street with his legs out.
“We need to send our army out,” he says. “Now that we know where some of the humans are hiding.”
“If Kayla gets the papers back to Mathew,” another one says, his voice is unfamiliar, but it holds the same icy tone, “eventually they’ll be able to figure out Monarch’s work. He’ll be able to figure out the cure.”
It grows quiet and I dare to peek up through the cracked window of the car. Gabrielle’s peering around the dark streets, his pale eyes ultimately resting on the rusted vehicle we’re hiding behind. I hold my breath, thinking he knows we’re there, but then he turns back to the other Highers.
“It’s more important to find her first, so we can capture her,” a Higher says, one that looks familiar, but I can’t quite place. “It’ll take some time for Mathew to decipher my work and we need her blood more than anything.”
I gasp when I realize Monarch is speaking and then slap my hand over my mouth. Sylas reaches up and pulls me back down, shaking his head at me.
“You need to stay down,” he hisses.
He’s right. I can’t allow my emotions to make me become reckless. I was trained not to.
“How do they know about the papers?” Sylas whispers. “And if they did, why didn’t they just pick them up to begin with and destroy them.”
“I have no idea.” I pause. “Unless someone told them.”
Gabrielle and Monarch grow silent but then a shuffling sound causes Sylas to lean forward, carefully peeking around the corner from our hiding spot, ready to bolt if we have to. However, they’re still standing in the same spot, in a circle, Monarch and Gabrielle in the center.
“How do we even know that Aiden is telling us the truth?” Gabrielle sneers. My eyes widen as I feel Sylas tense beside me, his fingers brushing mine. Aiden? He was talking to the Highers? Was he the one who told them about the papers? I hate to think it, but he has to be.
“Aiden’s been programed by me since he was a small boy,” Monarch replies, swishing his robe behind him as he moves over beside the fire, peering at it. “Just like all of the children, he can’t lie to me, even when he fights it. He can try all he wants, but in the end, he tells the truth against his own free will without even understanding what he’s doing. He was telling the truth about the town and the papers.” He pauses and tears his eyes away from the fire, looking around. “And we’ll know in a few days what will happen to Aiden.”
“As I said before, we need to send our armies in and have them take over the town,” Gabrielle says in a low voice as he walks up beside Monarch. “We need to bring all the people back to us before Kayla returns there. We’ll have Mathew as our prisoner and without him, Kayla won’t understand how to make the cure.”
“You know that we can’t execute that command on our own,” Monarch says, turning to face Gabrielle. The two stand tall, rising to each other’s height, like they’re both trying to be commander, and the rest of the Highers hover back and watch. They looks almost the same, hair like snow, eyes that match, and I wonder if the man that I once thought of as my father is even in there anymore or if he’s dead.
“We must present it to the rest of the Highers and it must meet their approval. Rules. Remember?” Monarch asks.
“That could take days,” Gabrielle growls. “Even weeks.”
“We go by rules and order for a reason,” Monarch reminds him. “Everyone agrees, or we don’t go through.”
Gabrielle considers this for a long time with the fires crackling as the only backdrop noise. “Fine.” Gabrielle sounds angry, yet he agrees. “But we need to do it quickly. I want the army sent out as soon as possible, so that the humans are caught off guard.”
Monarch nods and then they hurry off in the opposite direction toward where the street narrows with the other Highers following behind them. I wait until they’re gone before I sit back down behind the car on the ground covered in ash drifting from the burning barrels.
There’s silence between us, neither of us knowing what to say about any of this—about Aiden.
“What do you think Monarch meant when he said that they’d know in a few days what was going to happen to Aiden?” I finally dare ask Sylas.
Sylas shakes his head as he stares out at the dark street in front of us, lined with broken cars. “I don’t know, but apparently Aiden told them everything he knew about Mathew and the cure.” His tone is tinged with anger.
“It wasn’t Aiden’s fault,” I say, because it’s not. I know what it’s like to be controlled like that. “You can’t blame him. Monarch said he programmed him to obey him and not to lie to him.” I always felt that Monarch cared about me. How wrong I had been to believe that. He was and always would be nothing, except a liar. A fake.