Chapter Forty- Five - Molly
The SkyEye Cathedral is dark when I pull up to the front. It’s silent and imposing as my eyes wander up to the top of the spire where the light that’s been shining from the tip every night since I got to town is off.
Lincoln is probably out back. So I give the bike some throttle and ease into the alley, looking for the delivery truck gates.
They’re open, and I breathe a sigh of relief. For a minute I thought he wasn’t here yet. I pull the bike through and park it in front of the back stairs leading up to the cathedral as I look around.
“Lincoln?” I call out. The maze is just as dark as it was the first time I was back here. But the center light that illuminates the statue in the middle is on. I can see the glow. “Lincoln?”
I can see tall shadows moving in the middle of the hedge.
“Jesus,” I mutter. “You’re gonna make me work for this, aren’t you?”
But I smile. I can find my way in. I think. That makes me laugh.
I kick the stand down, swing my leg over the bike, and take my helmet off and place it on the seat. OK then. Into the creepy hedge maze.
The lengths I will go to for this guy. Gah!
I consider cheating by walking around to the back of the hedge the way I came out last time. I think I can remember the way. But he’s probably expecting me from this end. And whatever he’s got planned, I know it will be good. I don’t want to ruin it.
So I walk in, buzzing with anticipation. I picture myself last weekend, floating through this maze in that ball gown. God, one week ago I knew nothing. My memories were still lost and Lincoln was just a glimmer of something I knew I was missing.
I never want to go back to those days. Ever.
And even though I learned a lot of disturbing things today—Old Man Montgomery is my father! Atticus is my brother!—Lincoln’s reassuring words on the phone are the only things that matter. It will take a lot longer than a few hours to make sense of all this. And tonight I just need what Lincoln wanted last night. To forget about the past and just be together.
I come to a dead end in the hedge and have to retrace my steps and start again on a new path. I’m about one quarter of the way in when a little laugh comes from the center.
“Lincoln?”
Then soft music starts. It’s a waltz, and I am reminded of the dance I had with his friend Case at the party. His sad story of that lost girl. Even though the temperature is mild tonight and I’m wearing a leather jacket, the memory sends a chill through my body.
I quicken my steps, find myself at another dead end, then turn back and take another path. I go right, then right again. Trying to find the place in the maze when Lincoln started telling me how to get to the center. I pass by a cutout in the hedge and glance over into the shadows. He was watching me that night. I know it. Is he watching me again?
I stop and peer into the darkness. “Lincoln?” I whisper.
No answer. Just that soft music.
My heart starts to beat faster. God, this maze is creepy. It was creepy when there were other people here for the party, but now, it’s eerily disturbing.
A memory flashes in my head.
“Alpha?”
“Keep walking, Omega,” he says from somewhere in the interior of the hedge.
“It scares me,” I say back. My voice sounds small.
“It’s not scary, Omega. It’s just a bunch of bushes. They want you to feel lost and afraid, but I’m here and that means nothing will ever happen to you. Now keep walking.”
I take a deep breath, trying my best to push that memory away. It wasn’t OK that night. I remember that much. Prodigy used the maze at the school to teach us how to fight. They ran us through that maze like rats. We weren’t children to them, we were experiments. And there were plenty of things inside that maze that could hurt me. They planted traps in the corners. If you found a dead end, there was always something nasty to teach you not to do that again.
Stop it, Molly. This isn’t Prodigy School. This is the headquarters for SkyEye and Thomas Brooks made this maze, not those mad people at Prodigy School.
Lincoln is in the center waiting for you, Molly. Just concentrate on seeing him and how safe you feel in his arms.
I swallow hard despite myself, and I have a moment of panic where my feet freeze and I cannot move.
I want to get the fuck out of this maze.
“Lincoln,” I yell. “Answer me or I’m going home!”
The music gets a little louder, but other than that, nothing. I’m almost to the center, I know it. Just keep going, Molly.
I come to the fork where I was at when Lincoln called out the solution to me last weekend and his words come back to me. Go left. Then take the first right, go past the second alcove, and then turn right again. I’ll meet you there.
I’m practically running now. I want nothing more than to be in the center where the light is. The stone path under my feet is getting brighter and brighter and I’m rushing forward faster and faster.
Just get me the fuck out of this maze!
The music is getting louder and when I take that final corner and see the center statue bathed in light, I have an immediate sense of relief. Lincoln has his back to me. He’s wearing a tux.
I laugh. “You told me not to dress up!”
But something about his body is wrong. He’s too thick, not tall enough, too—
“Molly,” Alastair Montgomery says as he slowly turns to face me. “I’m afraid you didn’t pass the test, darling. Your time in the maze was pathetically slow.”
My childhood flashes before my eyes. I see him. A younger, stronger, and even meaner version of the man standing in front of me now.
“Where’s Lincoln?”
“You mean Alpha, don’t you.” He smiles as he looks up at the statue.
What was a boring copper satellite dish last weekend is now a long-tusked boar standing on two legs, wearing a vest and trousers, pocket watch in a cloven hand, with a chain dangling from a slit in his waistcoat. The boar is holding the large satellite dish sculpture that really belongs there high above his head like a trophy.
“He thinks he’s taking me down tonight,” the Old Man says, pointing up at the dish.
The soft white spotlight shining up on the centerpiece changes to blue, and when I look back at the Old Man, I can almost see the resemblance.
He steps forward.
“Stay the fuck back, you crazy old man.”
“Tsk, tsk, tsk,” he says, clicking his tongue against his teeth. “You don’t talk to your daddy that way.”
“Daddy?” I shiver. That word is revolting in every way imaginable. I don’t care whose genes I have, this man is nothing to me. I might throw up, that’s how disgusting he is. “What the hell do you want?”
“I want what’s mine, Omega, dear. I want what’s mine. You were always special to me, Molly. Even after you ran away.”
“You’re a sick piece of work, you know that? And if you think I’m still that frightened little eight-year-old you can make cower, you’re mistaken.”
“Oh,” he says with a slight chuckle. “I know exactly who you are. Did you really think you got away?”
“What?” I reach for my gun, but I never put it back on when I changed. He starts coming towards me, and even though he’s in his late fifties, he’s still an imposing and formidable man.
I back away, stumble on the uneven stones under my feet, and recover without ever taking my eyes off him. “Lincoln’s coming,” I say, forcing myself to act brave. “He’ll be here any minute.”
“Lincoln left you running in the woods, Molly. He doesn’t even know who you are.”
“He does,” I growl back. “And if you come any closer, I will kill you with my bare hands.”
“Oh?” He laughs again, an evil fucking laugh. “I’d really like to see you try.”
“What?”
Just then a motorcycle whines near the entrance to the maze. Lincoln. I rush the Old Man, knock him down on the ground and immediately get sick. I double over, coughing and retching, as the pain floods through my body.
“Silly girl,” the Blue Boar says. “Did you really think I wouldn’t take precautions with my investments? You can’t fight me any more than Lincoln can fight you.”
I roll on the ground, the cramps in my stomach so severe, I feel like I’m dying.
The motorcycle is getting closer and closer as it winds through the maze. “Lincoln,” I call out. But my voice is weak with pain and suffering.
The Blue Boar kicks me in the stomach, and I double over again, clutching myself and trying to curl up into a little ball.
Lincoln roars into the center of the maze, the blue light casting the shadow of his bike across the tall green hedges. He has that dark, murderous look to him as he comes at us. His jaw is grinding, his hand gripping the throttle, revving the engine.
“Ah, the hero has arrived,” Montgomery says as he bends down to grab me by the hair and drag me closer to his disturbing alter-ego statue. “But he won’t save you, Molly,” he says, whispering as he leans into my ear. “He can’t save you. Because I’m his Omega too.”
Lincoln jumps off the bike and it goes skidding into the hedges, sparks flying as the metal grinds on the stones. “Let her go,” Lincoln growls. “This fight is between me and you, Old Man. You might’ve started it, but I’m gonna finish you off—”
“Lincoln, no!” I yell, trying to warn him of the inhibitor.
But it’s too late. Lincoln charges like a bull, hitting the Blue Boar in the stomach with his head. The Old Man goes flying backwards and lands in a heap on the stones. But Lincoln is already feeling the effects. He’s on the ground, doubled over, retching and coughing.
I watch in horror as the Blue Boar gets back up and slowly pulls a gun from under his jacket. “You were always weak, Alpha Three. So attached to your pretty little killer. So filled with love and compassion. Did you really think I didn’t plan it that way? Did you really think I made her by accident?”
And then he points the gun right at Lincoln’s chest and pulls the trigger.