Escape from Eden (24 page)

I walked over to the scope, trying to find a viewfinder, but Edgar stopped me.

“No, look here.” He swiped his finger across the small screen. An image came into view, blurring in and out before becoming clear.

“That’s the pavilion!” I said. The image on the screen wasn’t perfect, but I could see the stage of the pavilion, the Reverend’s empty throne located in the center, and a few boys straightening the benches, preparing for evening prayer. “That’s amazing,” I breathed. “What else can you see?”

“Not as much as we would like,” Veronica said, taking the tiny computer from me. “The pavilion seems to be on higher ground, as well as what we believe is the laundry, and a few other buildings. But our information is sparse.”

“We have someone on the inside,” Edgar said. “In Edenton, giving us information.”

“Someone on the inside?” I asked, stunned. “You mean someone who lives in Edenton is working with you guys?”

“It’s not your brother,” said Gabriel.

“Not Eugene, no.”

I saw Gabriel swallow a laugh. So childish. It was only a name. A kind of hilarious-sounding name for someone as gruff as Grizz. I fought a smile.

“Who is it then?” I asked.

Edgar’s gaze shot to Veronica, then Ibbie. “We can’t say,” Edgar said. “Concern for that person’s safety. But we do have a network of people working with us on the outside. We received the screenshots of the human cata—the website from a politician in this country who’s dedicated to our cause. One of his staff has been assisting us, as well as Officer Santiago from the San Sebastian police. Unfortunately, because the Reverend’s money-making ventures outside of Edenton contribute so much to the local economy here, the politician is having difficulty convincing the government and law enforcement that the Reverend’s activities are illegal.”

“It’s astonishing, really,” Veronica said. “So much corruption at such a high level.”

“How lucrative are his businesses?” Gabriel asked.

Ibbie, who’d been quiet until now, finally spoke up. “We believe he has close to $15 million on site, and another forty-five in accounts all over the world.”

“Sixty million dollars?” I asked. “Sixty?”

“And that’s only what we know about,” Ibbie said.

Gabriel gazed at the image on the hand-held computer. He tapped his finger on the surface of the screen and the telescope buzzed.

“Give me that,” Edgar said.

Gabriel handed it over reluctantly. “So you have all this stuff, people helping you, what do you need from us? More information?”

Veronica and Edgar exchanged a look. Ibbie sunk into a white plastic chair a few feet away.

“The Reverend has made some very real threats,” Edgar said. “When he purchased the land from the government, both parties signed a contract that Edenton would be a municipality under totalitarian rule. Any invasion or show of force against the municipality could be met with equal force—”

“Self-defense,” Veronica said. “But the Reverend has his own definition of self-defense.”

“The guards are armed,” I said. I flashed a glance at Edgar, thinking of Grizz. “They’re the only ones who are armed in Edenton.”

“Yes, we know,” Veronica said. “And that’s one way he’s said he’d defend Edenton.”

I stepped toward her. “What are the other ways?”

“There’s only one other way,” Ibbie said. She slumped forward, elbows on her knees, hands folded in front of her. She cast a squinty glare out toward the lights of Edenton. In the long shadows of the fading sunset, her face was dusky colored. One dark eye caught the light as she looked back at us. “Before his Flock could be captured or released, he vowed to kill them all.”

“What do you mean, kill everyone in Edenton?” I asked with disbelief. Immediately, my thoughts went to the Bright Night and the poisoned cookies. Was that how he planned to do it? Poison everyone?

Veronica balanced on her cane and hung her head. “Ibbie,” she breathed. “There were loads of other ways to tell them about the Reverend’s plans.”

“They need to know the truth,” Ibbie said, standing, “without breaking it to them gently or tiptoeing around it. You keep saying they’re children, but you certainly don’t plan to treat them that way, do you?”

“Ibbie,” Veronica said in a warning tone.

“What does she mean?” Gabriel asked, addressing Veronica with a steely glare. “How exactly do you plan to treat us?”

“Now, now,” she said. “Why don’t we go back inside and discuss this?”

“What’s the difference, Veronica?” Edgar said, his tone sounding low and defeated. “Inside, out. The request is the same.”

“Just tell us,” I said.

Veronica let out a labored breath. “We need your help. As we said, we have someone on the inside, an informant who has been working with us to leak information, but reports are sporadic. This person can leave the compound occasionally, but not long enough for us to meet up.”

“We have new technology,” Edgar said. “Although we’re able to see into the compound, we can’t listen to conversations or understand what exactly is happening.”

“I don’t like the sound of this,” Gabriel said.

“The Reverend is getting sloppy, arrogant.” Edgar pocketed the small computer. “He’s beginning to change his offerings in the human catalog.”

Ice crackled over my bones. “What do you mean, change?”

“For years, he’d offered to sell teenagers and the state of their purity,” Veronica said.

“Virginity, you mean,” said Gabriel in a dull tone.

“Yes, right.” Veronica nodded quickly. “The subjects were always fifteen or older. But he’s finding there are people who will pay exorbitant amounts for encounters with much younger members of the Flock.”

I felt my jaw slacken. “How much younger?”

“We don’t know right now,” she said. “Our belief is if the customer can pay the asking price, the subject is given willingly, possibly regardless of age.”

“But it hasn’t happened yet,” I said.

“No, we believe they are still gauging interest,” she said. “The subject is taboo, and although selling the virginity of teenagers is—believe it or not—a more accepted practice, the selling of younger children may not be something they are willing to advertise yet.”

I thought of Max, only six. And the rest of the children in the schoolhouse–innocent and wondrous with a lifetime ahead of them to discover cruelty and depravity.

“What does this have to do with us?” Gabriel asked.

Edgar pulled a couple of chairs from a stack by the shed. “Why don’t you sit down?”

“No one ever asks you to sit down before delivering good news,” Gabriel mumbled, sliding into the chair.

I followed, sitting in the seat next to his.

The sun had finally slipped below the horizon. Evening descended upon us, the damp air carrying the cold from the recesses between the trees. Edgar folded up the telescope, placing it back into the shed. Ibbie threaded her fingers through each other nervously, over and over, as if finding the right position for her hands to deliver a prayer.

Veronica, however, still stood with the handle of her cane clutched in her fist, knuckles paling.

“We need to know what is happening inside the compound,” she said. “When the Reverend plans to begin offering the younger children for sale, and how he’s decided to kill the Flock in the event of an attack on the compound.”

Edgar leaned back against the shed, shoving his hands into the pockets of his shorts. “We had planned to attack Edenton and rescue the Flock a year and a half ago,” he said. “But we lost the support of the U.S. government because of lack of evidence.”

“Lack of evidence?” Gabriel said, disgusted. “Isn’t it obvious that what’s going on there is illegal?”

“Up until recently, no,” said Edgar. “With the leak of the website we now have undisputed evidence of sex trafficking. But we suspect that there’s so much more. Forms of bonded labor, child labor.”

“What do you want from us?” Gabriel asked with a hint of impatience. “We have information, but it sounds like you know a lot already. If you need maps of Edenton, or schedules, Mia has been there for over six years, she can provide that kind of information.”

“Yes, well, that information would be helpful, but we need to know what the Reverend will do if we invade Edenton. How will he react to an invasion, what fail-safes does he have in place to follow through on his threat to destroy the Flock?”

“I don’t understand,” I said. “Why kill everyone?”

“If there’s no one left alive in Edenton, there’s no one left to testify against him.”

“But he’d be guilty of murder!”

“He would,” Veronica said. “So he must have a means to absolve himself from any responsibility. Perhaps he’s planning on finding a scapegoat for his actions.” She took in a breath and let it out slowly. “We need to have more information in order to formulate a strategy.”

An awful, oily blackness sank into my chest. “You want us to go back. You want us to find out the Reverend’s plans so you can storm Edenton—”

“And save the Flock.”

Gabriel barked a disbelieving laugh. “You’re out of your minds. We just got out of that hellhole.”

Ignoring Gabriel, Veronica took a step toward me, her cane sinking in the soft turf. “Think of your relatives, Mia. Your friends. The people you’ve spent the last six years living with, taking meals with, praying with—”

“Stop!” I said, jumping to my feet. “Just stop.”

Everyone sank into silence. Edgar busied himself with his pockets. Ibbie, still hunched over in the chair, dropped her forehead in her hands. Veronica traced patterns on the top of her cane with her index finger. Gabriel, however, looked up at me, searing emotion in his blue-green eyes. I couldn’t tell if it was disgust, disbelief, or determination. My head swirled with words and phrases, blinding me with shocked horror.

Human trafficking.

Slave labor.

Prostitution.

Murder.

No, not simply murder. Mass murder.

“All of this can’t be true,” I said.

“It is, dear,” Veronica said.

“No. You don’t understand. Edenton may not be perfect, but it is a society of people who love and care for each other—”

“They’re not talking about the Flock,” Gabriel snapped. “They’re talking about the Reverend. He’s doing this to his own people.”

“But—”

“Mia,” said Edgar, “don’t let how you’ve spent the last few years keep you blind to what is going on in Edenton. We aren’t lying to you about this.”

“All those people,” I said. “How could this happen and no one knows it?”

I gazed at the lights of Edenton again–lights that could be extinguished in an instant, at the Reverend’s whim. I took off toward the house, bare feet slapping against the cold grass. I wanted to crawl back into that soft bed, curl up in the quilted blanket. Slip back into that long, dreamless sleep.

Back to Edenton.
I’d only barely escaped. And only by luck. It wasn’t part of a plan I’d cleverly put together. It wasn’t as if I’d snuck away in a delivery truck or broken my own arm so I could be air-lifted to San Sebastian. It was just dumb luck.

Now I was free but where would I go? How could I settle into a new life? Find a place to live and get a job cooking in a restaurant? But how could I move on with my life, be a citizen of a world I didn’t know, leaving behind a world I wished I didn’t, and all the while wonder about the people I’d left behind? I’d assumed if I left, Edenton would go on as usual: routines and rituals, prayers and provisioning.

But now I knew the truth. And any threat against the Reverend was a threat against the Flock.

Out of the corner of my vision, I saw Gabriel in the doorway. I hadn’t realized it, but I had come directly to the bathroom and slumped on the tiled floor, my back against the tub.

“They’re afraid to come in here,” Gabriel said. “They think they pushed you too far.”

I only nodded.

He squatted down across from me. “But they didn’t push you too far, did they? Because the only way you’d feel pushed is if you were actually considering going back to Edenton. Which you’re not.”

I examined a broken tile near my bare foot.

“Mia?”

“My brother Max is six years old.”

“I know.”

“What if they drug him up, like they did us, and send him to Las Casitas? What if someone like Lambert gets his hands on Max and … ” The rest was too horrifying to comprehend, let alone say.

Gabriel sunk down to the floor. “How do we even know what Veronica and Edgar are telling us is the truth? They may have their own reasons for wanting to send you back in there.” He paused. “What if they work for the Reverend?”

The idea caused my breath to catch. I shot to my feet and paced the floor, heart beating too fast. I thought of Officer Santiago chasing after us in the streets of San Sebastian. I thought of Ibbie’s instantaneous need to clean and bandage my legs, the concern and worry dragging through her features. Of Veronica’s excitement upon our arrival, of Edgar’s rough manner, so much like his brother’s.

“They don’t work for the Reverend, Gabriel. All they want to do is save the people they love. They don’t want them to die.”

“Of course not.”

“But I know how to stop him from killing them all. The cookies, from the Bright Night—I know where Agatha keeps the poison. In a locked provisions pantry in the kitchen.”

I stopped and placed my hands on the edge of the sink. I looked at my reflection in the cracked mirror, a sliver of silver bifurcating my drawn face. Who was that girl staring back at me? Green eyes dulled, skin sallow and scratched, brown hair lank and straggling? She appeared beaten and exhausted. But more than that, what happened to her spirit? Had it fizzled out, like a snuffed blaze that had once burned so brightly it lit the way forward, lit the way out?

I twisted around, my back against the sink.

Gabriel, still on the floor, gazed up at me, and shook his head. “You’re not going back in.”

* * *

I needed sleep. If I was going to return to Edenton, I needed a clear mind. But the more anxious I was to sleep, the more awake I became. I turned onto my back, tightening the covers around me. Tonight, I was alone in the bed. Gabriel decided to sleep in Edgar’s room, bear-like snores and all.