MirrorWorld

I sit down across from her. “Allenby.”

She doesn’t acknowledge me.

“Aunt Allenby.”

That gets her attention. She looks up with a hint of a smile. “Yes, Josef?”

“Crazy.”

“Still?”

I tilt my head. Half a nod. “It was more than a shadow, wasn’t it?”

“What you saw … however briefly, it’s the reason your son is dead, your wife is lost, and you elected to forget it all. They’re your enemy, Crazy. And they’re right outside the windows. You’re not here to be experimented on. You’re not here to find Simon. Or to save Maya. All of that is in the past.”

“Then why am I here?”

“Honestly? I’m not entirely sure, but I suspect it has a lot, if not everything, to do with vengeance.”

19

“Vengeance,” I say, without enthusiasm. The word feels hollow. Untrue. Vengeance is an act of passion, driven by emotion. It’s not even a desire. It’s a need.

“And there’s the real problem,” Allenby says. “When Lyons offered to remove your memory, it was an act of mercy, but also refinement. You were always his preferred coconspirator. I was never sure if that was because of your potential to be a living WMD used in humanity’s defense or genuine affection, but when Simon and your parents died and Maya … You lost focus. You nearly lost your mind. You—”

“My parents are dead, too?”

Allenby sucks in a breath. She’s horrible at keeping secrets.

“Tell me about them.”

“They were beautiful people.” Her eyes are downcast, unable to meet mine. “Joyful. Silly, really. Laughed a lot. You did, too, for a time.”

“What I meant,” I say, “is how did they die?”

“Oh,” she says, then a whisper. “Oh…”

“They were on vacation. A tropical resort. Had a suite on the top floor. Jumped off the balcony.”

“They killed themselves?”

“That’s the official report. Mutual suicide. But when you know how to look between the lines, you can make sense of the senseless. Your father, Daniel, hit the concrete walkway not far from the pool. Your mother, Lila, made it to the water but struck the bottom. When she was lifted out, she regained consciousness long enough to speak.” Tears well up in her eyes. She’s describing the brutal death of her best friend and sister-in-law. My mother. Lila. Though I have no memory of the woman, I find myself moved by the story. I take Allenby’s hands. The gesture elicits a sob, but it’s quickly crushed with an efficiency that only comes from practice. “Your mother’s final words revealed the truth about their deaths. ‘The darkness came for us,’ she said. A monster, like the one you glimpsed outside, drove them to jump.”

“Drove them?” I ask.

She nods, her fluffy hair sliding slowly forward and back, seaweed in a current. “They’ve turned fear into a weapon. Can push it into people. Steal their sanity. Force them to do things to themselves, to others, that … they can make us do horrible things.”

“So my mother knew about these fear-inducing shadows? About what’s outside?”

“We all did. And it made our family targets. That same night … that same damn night, they took Hugh, my husband — your uncle — and Simon.”

They … Who or what are they?

“But you survived,” I point out.

“I nearly didn’t. I was tackled before I could follow Hugh into traffic. I tried to warn you, but was too late. The phone was ringing when you found them, Maya and Simon. You never answered, but it was me on the other end.”

“This is what I ran from,” I say. “Why I erased my memory.” Losing an entire family in one night … It sounds like enough to break even the strongest of men. But not Allenby. I hid from it, but she’s been dealing with this pain for more than a year.

“While you retreated, Lyons became even more obsessed with his research,” Allenby says, lost in the past. “His theories about their intentions had been—” She stops. Looks me in the eyes. She’s revealed something she wasn’t supposed to. Knows what my next question will be.

Why did Lyons become obsessed over my family’s deaths?

“You’re not supposed to know,” she whispers.

“No more secrets,” I remind her.

“Except this one,” she says, keeping her voice low. Despite her assurances that our conversation is private, the secret she nearly revealed has her on edge. Nervous.

I continue my argument in a lower voice. “You made opposing promises.”

She shakes her head, disappointed. “Bollocks.” Eyes on mine again. “Not a word.”

I nod.