A Vault of Sins (4 page)

I wish I could tell her it’s that simple, that I sent Liam away because I have feelings for Casey. One boy for another. But some problems can’t be so surface—about love or sex or what relationship is best for me. I’m forever beyond that.

“I told him the truth.”

“About?”

About . . . it’s a loaded
about
. “Everything. My life for the past year and a half.”

A long, dry pause fills the air. “And then he
left
?” She’s afraid that I’ve told him something she doesn’t know. And I did, I guess.

“Something happened.” I concentrate on ripping the label off my bottle. “There’s this whole new, terrifying side of me I never knew about, not until the shooting. And the Compass Room. It’s like they poked and prodded us in all the right ways just to make us snap. And I did.” My fingers roll the shredded paper into a ball. I wonder what Mom’s expression would be like if she’d seen me with Gordon’s blood soaking my clothes, his corpse in front of me. Liz is trying so hard to uncover video that proves what really happened in Compass Room C, but maybe it’s better if all of that stayed buried. “I snapped.”

Like the live wood at the campsite. Casey would always tell me to never grab it because it smoked instead of burned, and when you’d try to break it in half it would just bend and bend until it doubled over and couldn’t resist any longer. . . .

“Evalyn?”

My eyes focus back on her. “I can’t reset myself.”

She blinks slowly. “Maybe he’d still love you.
This
you. You haven’t even given him a chance.”

I know I won’t ever give Liam that chance. No matter what he expects from me, and even if he wants to accept and love the person I am, there will always be a part of me he’ll never understand.

She waits for the answer I can’t give her. Finally, she sighs. “They’ve found us again.”

I bite down hard on my bottom lip. “How?”

“Must have followed Liam here. Apartment manager called me about a half hour ago. Said some reporters were snooping around, asking tenants questions.”

I know better than anyone that the vicious reporters never miss a shot. With my meet-up with Casey yesterday and Liam visiting me today, the tabs and blogs tomorrow will brim with scandal if they aren’t already. We’re going to have to move. Again.

I can’t drag Mom and Todd down with me.

Scooting toward Mom, I wrap her in my arms. I don’t know what the hug means exactly, but it’s just as violent as the ones she’s been giving me lately. I squeeze her tight, an apology for not only screwing up the past two years, but the past twenty-two. I apologize for the quiet, escalating fire of our relationship.

“I have to leave,” I whisper.

“I know, baby.” She starts to cry. “I know.”

RFC Flash News Update: January 18

BREAKING STORY: DIVISION OF JUDICIAL TECHNOLOGY FOUND NOT GUILTY OF PRISONER NEGLIGENCE.

The case of the century has finally ended.

Early Friday morning, the Division of Judicial Technology was found not guilty for prisoner negligence.

The Division was brought to court after Evalyn Ibarra (22), Casey Hargrove (20), and Valerie Crane (26), were extracted from Compass Room C this summer due to what the division called “a minor system malfunction.” The three survivors claimed that the Compass Room was not a series of virtual simulations, but an obstacle course in the middle of the wilderness. The persecution also argued that the Room had been glitching from the start of the test, unintentionally killing several moral candidates. After a two-month long trial, the division was found not guilty of candidate negligence due to the lack of evidence to support the former inmates’ claims.

While updates are being made to the Rooms, the next series of tests for newly sentenced candidates are on schedule.

Two Months Later

In my painting, Casey’s shirtless, his scars entrapping him like Compass Room vines.

A part of me wonders if it’s wrong to paint him in the Compass Room, like I’m reminiscing about our time there. But somehow, painting in order to remind myself of everything that happened seems more important than my shame of not wanting to forget.

I’ve been painting a lot. The others are tucked behind my plastic dresser beside the double bed, the only pieces of furniture in my six-hundred-square-foot shack of a rental house in the middle-of-nowhere, Pennsylvania. Half-empty bottles of pretty amber liquid line my counter space, and my easel sits in front of the biggest window, a half-finished painting of Casey gracing the canvas.

This is my version of lying low. Mom pays my bills until the controversy surrounding my existence dies down or until the division arrests and retries me for the shooting—whichever comes first.

Mom and Liz are the only ones who know my whereabouts, other than the government officials assigned to keep tabs on my tracking monitor—the stupid bracelet I have to wear for the next year. Jenna, the cute name I gave my operating system, takes care of me, announcing when scathing news articles pop up on the Internet, or when there’s an incoming phone call from Casey I need to ignore. I haven’t spoken to him in fifty-seven days.

I’m very much alone.

I paint Casey from memory. I’ve learned that the pictures of him on the Internet aren’t him—they aren’t
my
Casey.

Mimosa in hand, I work at the detail of the thread of his scars. Some of them stretch from his body to entwine with the surrounding vines. This is my favorite part because it reminds me of the paintings I used to create from Meghan’s photographs. Expanding reality.

In the morning I paint, and in the afternoon, after two vodka cranberries and an early microwave dinner, I browse my favorite website on my tablet. Named CR Collective, its sub-forums consist of conspiracy threads, news updates—even
fan-fiction
—of Compass Room casualties and survivors. These people, for whatever reason, are obsessed.

I’ve been following a particular thread for the past couple of weeks that began after the trial ended. They use an abbreviation for me—EI. Makes me sound like something less-than-human.

TimtheTheorist:
Been closely following EI articles and interviews for the past few weeks. Nothing really stands out like she’s remorseful at all, which makes me believe the whole trial with the Division of Judicial Technology really was an elaborate scam for money and she’s the soulless bitch I first thought she was. Damn. Really was hoping the crazy obstacle course CR and the mass glitch were legit.

Nine Lives:
You think EI’s a soulless bitch but you wanted her to be telling the truth? Make sense, please.

TimtheTheorist:
Because a Compass Room conspiracy would have been awesome, but EI is the essence of evil. Can she just get the lethal injection already so we can call it a day?

Santana18:
There’s rumors of her getting back with the guy she was with before the trial.

TimtheTheorist:
Fucking moron. She probably brainwashed him.

Nine Lives:
Whether EI is evil or not, something can’t be right. If the division is telling the truth about everything, that the CR is made up of virtual simulations and EI, CH, and VC were extracted on day sixteen, why did EI last so long?

TimtheTheorist:
What do you mean?

Nine Lives:
Why wasn’t EI dead yet?

TimtheTheorist:
Did you not READ through the trial transcript? Here, [LINK] for your future reference. Gemma Branam explained it all in her testimony.

Nine Lives:
But that doesn’t make any sense in comparison to other psychopaths who’ve committed similar crimes and died in the CR. All of them were killed within 48 hours of the CR beginning. Why not EI? If she’s really a psychopath and the CR wasn’t malfunctioning, shouldn’t she have been executed in the first few days? I mean, she’s a terrorist.

No one has responded to Nine Lives yet. I don’t know who the member is, but I like him or her. At least someone is suspicious of the so-called truth that everyone else believes so easily.

***

In my dream, I’m alone.

The forest swells up all around me, warm and dark and moist. It’s a cocoon of comfort, if I didn’t know better. This is always the worst part of the dream—the feeling of entrapment, of loneliness. I’m lying on the ground, the underbrush of the woods spidering over my body, and I smell the Compass Room again. The wood fire, the soil, the sweat—and the blood, permeating above all the other odors.

It’s always night in the dream-Compass Room. Fog rolls through the air, thick enough to taste.

I hear the other candidates. Tanner and Jace scream the loudest. Shrieks of anguish, like their flesh is slowly being ripped from their bones. I shut my eyes to wait it out because I know that I can’t save them.

But then I hear Casey.

The underbrush ropes me to the ground, growing tighter as I twist and writhe, trying to free myself to get to him. His voice rips the night in half, and I scream to match his, back arching off the earth, the entire forest shattering into a thousand sharp pieces.

I jerk awake, lying on my back with my hand pressed to my chest, waiting for my heart to stop pounding. I inhale the cold air of my living room and hold it in my lungs as the terror dissipates. It’s like waiting for a brain freeze to end. I get up, flipping on all the light switches in the silent house, checking the shadowy corners for dream monsters.

Not dream monsters. Illusions. Nick or Meghan, a Compass Room test crawling from the darkness. There’s nothing in the house, but of course there wouldn’t be.

I peel back the curtain in the living room. Fingers of the dark trees sway back and forth with the wind and I want to throw up my heart. I let the curtain fall back into place, rush to the kitchen, and take a long pull from the tequila bottle. The
good
tequila bottle.

Returning to the living room, I flop back onto the bed.

The woods in my dreams are thick, always lurking with Compass Room devils. The woods around my home are nothing more than a scattering of sad little trees, but my mind doesn’t care.

Gemma and the division thought they erased Compass Room C from existence, but they can’t. It’s everywhere.

Posted by Figar077:
Let me set things straight.

I am not some crazy conspiracy theorist in every aspect of my life, nor am I a huge EI fan in particular. But looking at the bare bones of this case, someone is lying, and I don’t think that it’s EI and her criminal posse.

Gemma Branam is the CR creator and leading witness for the defense in the Malfunction Trial, so her word would generally be taken as fact. But she has to be covering up something.

The only thing that we do know from previous Compass Rooms is the order in which the criminals die, and that never varies.

The most evil die in the first handful of days. Terrorists, serial killers, serial rapists. Then, over the course of the rest of the month, the moral arrow of the remaining candidates take a little longer to determine.

This was the case for every CR up until EI’s room—Room C. So tell me, if Branam claims the room worked just like the others, why was both Gordon Ostheim, a torturer, and Ibarra, a terrorist, alive in week two?

Why hadn’t they died before the others?

Compass Room memories are slipping from me. Every day, another hour or so has evaporated. I should consider this a blessing, but people are locked away in those memories. They’ll never get the chance to breathe again. I’m most afraid of losing Jace.

I begin by washing the background of a canvas with deep blue. No, turquoise. Wouldn’t turquoise be more Compass Room appropriate? The color starts to dry as I fill up a drink. I down it.

I take a hair dryer to the paint because I can’t wait any longer. I start sketching out Jace’s body. She’s going to be staring up at the sky in awe. The turquoise color is her last glimmer of hope, after all.

The hope for extraction. The hope to make it out alive.

Mom texts me.
Miss you. So does Todd. He’s working on his trees. They’re getting really good!

My nose stings as I text her back. I’d rather not think of Mom and my little brother. I feel like I’ve abandoned Todd and given up my only chance of healing my relationship with Mom. Life’s a bitch like that. Life makes me want to
drink
.

Drinks are becoming necessary for my survival. Three screwdrivers in the morning just means a crash in the afternoon. But at least it’s passing the time.

I drift off the moment I shut my eyes.

In the Compass Room clearing, glittery sunlight winks between the leaves. We’re seated at a long table—all ten of us. Gordon sits at the end. He wears a crown on his head.

In front of everyone is a cheerfully colored teacup filled to the brim with blood. I dip my finger into the cup in front of me. It’s warm like bathwater.

Stella sits across from me, slurping loudly. Pulling her cup away from her lips, she grimaces and says, “I asked for black currant with just a hint of honey. They always get it wrong.” Her teeth are stained red.

The blood thickens inside my cup and begins to bubble. “Do I have to?”

“It’s an elixir.” Jace picks up her teacup, lifting it high above her. She tilts it until the blood trickles onto her head and streams down her face. “You take the elixir and they let you out of here.”

“Whose blood?” I ask.

“That one man.” She waves her hand in the air indifferently. Her fingers catch on the rivulet of red running from her chin, spraying droplets across Valerie’s face. Val licks her lips and Jace clarifies, “The one whose head you shot off.”

I swallow the thick spit in my throat and watch as the blood in front of me froths and bubbles over the lip of the cup.

A loud crash sounds at the end of the table, and I look up to see a smashed teapot in front of Casey. He lifts his crimson covered hands, gaping in horror at the ceramic shards sticking out of his flesh.

Tanner sighs. “How many times did I tell you to control your temper?” He pushes his glasses up, leaving a red thumbprint right on his lens. “You can’t let their blood mix with your blood. Now you’ll never get out.”

Tanner starts to cry, followed by Casey. Soon everyone at the table is sobbing into their own teacups, except for Gordon, who sits tall and adjusts the crown on his head. And me, who watches the thick river of crimson roll across the tabletop, sweeping up cups as it goes . . .

. . .
ping . . .

. . . ping . . .

. . . ping . . .

My eyes flutter open to the chime of my tablet, my stomach rolling. When I swallow, I taste iron.

. . . ping . . .

. . . ping . . .

“Jenna,” I slur. “What’s the notification?” Rubbing my pounding head, I think of all the drinks I could make and the one that sounds best. Something with tonic . . . gin, vodka . . .

“One message from The CR Collective. Shall I read?”

I roll over and sit up so quickly that I almost fall off the bed. “What message?”

“I know who you are.”

With images of blood and teacups and a banquet table of criminals still lingering in my head, my first reaction is that I’m still dreaming. I have to be. But when the realization finally kicks in that I’m lucid, I swipe my tablet from the covers, my eyes focusing on the one-sentence message from a user named Rebel_W.

I know who you are.

I panic—so much, so quickly that the first thing I think to do is shut off the screen of my tablet. I take a deep breath, my shaking hands gripping the device.

Maybe I imagined it.

I tap the sleep button and the screen illuminates. I have a new message.

There isn’t much time, Evalyn. I have information pertaining to your case . . . information that will get you off the hook. Meet me in New York in an hour and a half at a bar in Midtown called Cherry’s and I’ll let you in on the truth.

The truth. The truth? How does this stranger know it’s me? I think of technology and how little I know. If this person knows who I am, does that mean that they can track down my location in Pennsylvania? It’s clear that they already know how close I am to New York City. A thirty-minute car drive will get me to the station, and a train will zip me right to the neighborhood of the bar. His estimation is almost precise.

There’s nothing I can do about it now. I’m already dead in the water.

How can I trust you?
I type back.

I send, and then I wait for a response.

I know where you are
, the stranger says.
If you don’t come to me, then I’ll have to come to you.

Panic unfurls in my stomach. Rebel_W is full of shit.

“You’re full of shit,” I whisper.

And, as if Rebel_W heard me:

Or I could just tell the media where you are. I’m sure the news stations in Philadelphia can get to your place before dinner. You wouldn’t want an unannounced Q&A, would you?

***

The only person who knows the truth is Liz, and she wouldn’t toy with me like this. There is no way this isn’t a trap.

Remembering the last time I was in the outside world alone, I realize there’s a possibility that at some point during this escapade, I’ll be followed. But when I reach the train station, no one seems to recognize me or pay me any attention, even at this slow hour. Most look like weary long-distance travelers or exhausted business men and women. I pay for my ticket in cash and make for the string of silver cars, finding a seat in one of the empty ones. Luckily for me, my pulled-up hood isn’t suspicious. It’s freezing, even in the train.

I busy myself with the screen of my tablet, like a normal girl in her twenties would do. I venture onto CR Collective and read some of the fan-fiction to distract myself. I find it more hilarious than insulting. Most fics involve me, Casey, and Valerie for
our
CR. Some writers are invested with the stories of the dead criminals. As far as shipping and romance go, writers like to pair me with Gordon.

God, people are dark.

Even after Casey and I were caught at the Missouri motel together, more members ship Valerie and me over me and Casey. I’ve come to discover by reading the threads in other parts of the forum that Casey has a pretty large underground fan club. People like to make him out to be a saint—the abused child only trying to save his mother from the grip of his alcoholic father (there are thousands of fics reimagining this story). Of course, this makes him far too innocent to ever be marred by a cretin like me.

There is one new piece of Evalyn/Casey fan-fiction that I haven’t read yet. This one plays off our secret meeting in Missouri. In this universe, I lured Casey to the hotel, had dark, kinky, poorly written sex with him, and then used it as blackmail to force him to say certain things when he took the stand during the trial.

Evalyn Ibarra, the manipulative bitch.

***

After twenty minutes, the train deposits me close to the bar where I’m supposed to meet the stranger. I don’t know what kind of bar I was expecting, but what I stumble upon doesn’t do anything to ease my clenching insides.

I stall in the street. A bunch of burly guys stand outside the front door in the old gray snow smoking cigarettes. Above them the neon pink sign illuminated by buzzing florescent lights reads
Cherry’s
in cursive script. One of the R’s has gone dark.

Even with my hood up and wearing considerably less makeup than I was in the courtroom, I’ll still be recognizable. My face is still plastered all over the news. There’s got to be at least one shady dick in here who’ll be more than willing to give me a rough time, and that’s not even considering the person who threatened me in the first place.

I don’t even know who I’m looking for.

I get into the bar fairly easy, flashing my ID with a fake name to the bouncer. He looks at the card and says absolutely nothing, waving me along.

Maybe I am blowing this way out of proportion and no one here will acknowledge my existence.

The dark bar reeks of cigarettes, booze, and sweat. My eyes flit to the vacant stripper poles on top of tables scattered about the place. The cheap, florescent mood lighting is about as classy in here as it is on the sign. It’s relatively dead for a Friday night, and I don’t immediately spot any women. My gaze rests on the only soft light in the room, the light behind the bar. I laugh beneath my breath.

Valerie sits on her stool, hunched over a glass of amber liquid. She stares vacantly at the game playing on the television above the top shelf.

I slide next to her and tell the bartender, “I’ll have what she’s having.”

Valerie does a double take when she glances at me. “What the hell are you doing here?”

The bartender slides me the drink, and I sniff it. Whiskey. Never had a liking for the stuff, but a drink’s a drink. I down it in one gulp and slam the glass on the counter.

“Two more, please.” I slide cash across the table.

The bartender studies my face, and then he turns to Valerie. “The whole gang getting together, or what?”

“I don’t know why she’s here,” Valerie says. “I’m not looking to cause trouble.”

“Relax, sweetcheeks.”

Valerie grimaces at the horrid nickname.

“I’m not gonna kick you or your friend here out. I’m sure you already have enough shit to deal with. Just keep to yourself and most of these folks will probably ignore you. This crowd isn’t big on national events. They stick to their own lives.”

“Thank you,” I mumble when he slides me the next drink. I turn back to Valerie. “What are
you
doing here?”

“Asked you first.” Her sunken eyes stay glued to the television screen. She brings her glass up to her mouth and slowly tips it, sipping slowly. “Gotta savor. Can’t afford shit when the government wants to up and destroy my life.”

“We should take up that book deal we were offered.”

“Yeah-fucking-right.”

“Is that why you’re not eating? Because of money? I thought your dad was loaded. Didn’t he buy you a Porsche?”

She blinks and turns her head toward me. “Hey, fuck you. What is this, an intervention?”

“Didn’t know you’d be here.”

“Well guess what . . . I’m here. Been here for the past week every damn night.”

“It’s true,” says the bartender.

“Why?” I ask.

“You know. Don’t have much else to do while waiting to be arrested and retried.”

“That might not happen for months.”

She shrugs and glances back up at the television. It gives me an opportunity to study her while she isn’t staring at me. God, she’s so skinny. The coal liner beneath her eyes is smudged. Her hair has grown out so her natural color shows in dark bursts near her scalp. I don’t even remember her letting her hair grow out when she was in
prison
.

Something isn’t right.

“Where is your dad? Your sister?”

Her shoulders sag, and she frowns. “Why are you here, Evalyn?”

“Where is your family?”

Holding her drink up to her mouth, she says, “Come on.” She knocks the rest of it back. “You know as well as I do that as much as they say they love you, they don’t get it. They don’t get why you’re not filled with fucking joy every second for making it out of the Compass Room in one piece. For getting to live longer.” She stares down at her clouded, empty glass and I motion for the bartender to refill it. “I’m trapped at home. I tried school for a couple of weeks and couldn’t do it. I thought it would be better if I leave, but I’m stuck here too.” She extends her arms on the grimy countertop and clenches her hands into fists. The sleeves of her thermal are rolled up, revealing her silver monitor, and something that she didn’t have when I saw her last. A new tattoo on the inside of her wrist.

As I reach out and touch it, she doesn’t flinch away, but watches my fingers trace the outside of the key ring. Jace’s trigger object.

Valerie lost the one person who loved her unconditionally, and it only happened months ago. The grief must still be so raw for her.

She’s trapped. She’s grieving. “You can’t be alone right now.”

She rolls her eyes and pulls her wrist away from me. “I’m fine.”

“I don’t give a flying fuck if you think you’re fine.” And then I remember why I’m here. This can’t be a coincidence. “There’s someone else who feels the same way.”

She furrows her eyebrows. “What the hell are you talking about?”

I tell her about the forum and the strange message. “It wasn’t you, was it?”

“Please. I don’t have the energy to pull off a stunt like that.” She looks around. “And I don’t think any of these bastards are your mystery man. I recognize all of them. They’re regulars.”

“I think they wanted me to meet
you
here.”

Valerie sips her drink and makes a face. “Why’d they want that?”

“Where are you staying?”

“A shit hotel. What’s it to you?”

I can’t believe that I’m about to suggest this. After everything I did to get Casey away from me. But I can’t leave her, not in this bar, in this part of town.

“Stay with me.”

Her eyes darken.

“Just for a week or so, until you get on your feet. I have a place in the middle of nowhere.”

She takes another sip from the drink I bought her. “No thanks. We’re not supposed to be near each other, remember?”