CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR - SADIE
“Sadie?”
Someone is shaking me. Who? Where am I? What’s going on?
“Sadie, can you hear us?” A new voice. Female this time. But my mind is swimming with illusions and doubt.
Sadie…
They’re talking to me. They’re gonna wipe my mind again. They’re gonna wipe my mind and make me powerless. I will have to obey.
Who?
I don’t know, I just know that I can’t let it happen again.
“What the ever-loving fuck?” a third voice says.
“She’s tripping, you guys. Don’t pay any attention to her illusions, it’s fake. Uzi blasted her and she’s out of control. We need to get her to the lab. Get her arms, Case.”
I fight. I thrash in their grip. I won’t be taken back there. I refuse to be someone’s loyal puppet of death. I won’t do it…
Sadie, he calls. Sadie… help me…
A sharp prick in my arm and I’m swimming again. This is it. This is the end for me. I’m done.
I am in a dark place. Four walls, no light except for a thin strip leaking in from under a door. The room smells like the earth. Damp dirt and stale air. There are lots of voices outside and I recognize all of them. Uzi, Cyan, and the others.
I wait in the dark until I hear the locks disengage. Fear jolts me to my feet as he enters the room. “Time for some fun, Sadie.” Uzi walks towards me, one arm reaching. In my head, I fight him. I grab that outstretched arm and flip him over. Smash his face on the hard floor. Snap his neck and relish the sickening crack of bones breaking.
But in reality, I let him hold my hand. I let him lead me from my prison cell. I let him take me down the hall, feeling shame as everyone looks at me, grinning. Knowing what he’s about to do. Knowing that I will let him.
“Here you go, Samuel,” Uzi says, holding my hand out to the other man. “She’s all yours.”
“She doesn’t look like Azure,” the man called Samuel spits.
Uzi laughs. “Not yet. But she will. You just have to get used to it. Ask anyone. Right, Gordon?” Uzi nods his head towards another guy in the hallway with us, asking for his validation of my skills.
“She looks just like Jayleen when I fuck her.” Gordon shrugs. “She flips in and out. Her trips are short. But she’s pretty enough and you get used to it. Plus, Sadie here gives some first-rate blowjobs. And it’s as close as you’ll ever come to fucking your dead wife again, right?”
“Take it or leave it,” Uzi says. “I have dozens of people lined up, Samuel.”
“Just relax,” Samuel says. “I just needed a little clarification. How do I make her look like Azure then?”
“That’s the beauty.” Uzi laughs. “She just does it. You show the picture and hold the image of Azure in your mind and she just… becomes her.”
Samuel thinks about this for a few seconds. “How do you keep her so… docile? Will she wake up from this trance—or whatever you have her in—and try to kill me? She’s one of you, right?” Samuel shakes his head with doubt. “And everyone knows what you four are.”
“Hey,” Uzi says, getting angry now. “I’ve been doing this for two years. No one’s died yet. You’ve got five seconds to take your turn and then I’m moving on to the next client on the list.”
“Fine,” Samuel says, pulling out his wallet.
Uzi takes his money and places my hand in Samuel’s. He leads me to an open door and we enter, closing it behind us.
I walk to the bed and start getting undressed. When I’m naked I turn to look at the man who wants me to be his dead wife. He’s holding out a picture of a woman. Early twenties, blonde hair, green eyes, pretty face. I drag my eyes away from the picture and find it in his mind too.
He smiles at me. “Azure?”
I nod, but don’t speak. He’s got a few more seconds on this trip and I don’t want to end it early with speech.
He doesn’t care. He takes me over to the bed and I lie down. He slides in next to me, but doesn’t remove his clothes.
I flicker in and out between Azure and Sadie. But Gordon adapts as we lie in bed looking at each other. He closes his eyes when I become Sadie. He learns to wait a few seconds before opening them again so he can see his wife. And each time he opens his eyes, he smiles at me.
At Azure.
He talks. That’s it. He talks to Azure. He tells her all the things he’s been holding inside since she died years ago.
It’s a disjointed conversation with all the trips I have to throw to make it as believable as possible. But Gordon doesn’t care.
“I’m sorry,” he keeps saying. “I’m sorry I didn’t save you. I’m sorry I wasn’t enough to save you from them.”
He’s talking about Prodigy. Somewhere in my head I know this, but I’m not supposed to think about them. And Uzi always knows if I think too hard. He’s always in my head, poking around to steal all my thoughts and keep them for himself. So I try not to think at all. I just concentrate on being Azure. On making Samuel happy. On giving him his money’s worth.
Most of them want to fuck me, all the while pretending I’m someone else.
Uzi interrupts his quiet confessions of guilt, and unworthiness, and regret as a voice through a speaker. “Five-minute warning.”
Samuel stops talking and this time when I flick back into Sadie to restart the trip, he keeps his eyes open. “Why do you let them use you like this?”
I’m confused for a second. But I don’t respond.
“You’re strong, Sadie. The best illusionist this place has ever seen.” Samuel is whispering now, probably wondering if Uzi is watching. Or listening through some recording device. “You could get out,” he says. “You could trip them all and—”
The door flies open and the next thing I know, Samuel is being dragged out of the room by a whole gang of men.
“Fucking asshole,” Uzi says, watching as he disappears down the hall. He turns and tracks me with his eyes as I get up off the bed and start getting dressed. “I hope you don’t get any funny ideas, Sadie. You’re mine, honey. And I have big plans for you.”
“Sadie?”
I sit up, breathing hard, sweat running down my face. I look around wildly, expecting Uzi to be here. Expecting to be dragged back into that prison cell they keep me in.
But I’m not there. I’m in Lincoln Wade’s creepy dungeon, sitting on his supervillain operating table. I break out in tears from the relief. “I’m not there,” I say, to no one in particular. Lincoln, Case, Lulu, Molly, and Sheila are all looking at me with shocked faces.
“Are you OK?” Molly asks.
I just stare at them, the memory of what Uzi was doing to me all these years still way too fresh in my memory. How he used me.
I look down at my trembling hands and shake my head. “No,” I say. “I’m not OK.” And then I remember everything that happened. I’m at the Alpha lair. I came here with… “Thomas? Where’s Thomas?”
“Uzi has him,” Lincoln says. “And I know whatever that nightmare was you were having, it’s a pretty big deal. You were thrashing and screaming. But we need you now, Sadie. I cannot stress how badly we need your help right fucking now or everything we’re doing is gonna go to shit.”
“You tripped into hundreds of people,” Lulu says, ignoring Lincoln’s plea for help as she rubs my arm. “What was that?”
“It’s her superpower,” Case says. I don’t know him, I just know of him. And everything they told me—everything they made me believe about these Alphas—was wrong. They’re not the bad guys in this story. They’re the only good guys I’ve ever met.
“Sadie?” I turn my head to see Iziah standing on the other side of the room.
“He’s one of them,” I blurt. “Don’t let him near me! Please—”
“No, Sadie,” Iziah says, walking forward into the room. “I was with you. These past few years, I was with you. I was down in that cell too. Remember?”
My head hurts when I think about my missing years. So I shake my head. “No,” I say. “I don’t want to remember.”
“You don’t have to,” Lincoln says, grabbing my shoulder. “Not yet, anyway. But we need you, Sadie. But somehow Cyan… she took over his body.”
“The memories,” I whisper. “Sullivan told me that Thomas can collect memories from dead people. And Thomas is a mentalist, so he can form a link to Uzi. Shit,” I say, rubbing my aching forehead. “When Cyan was shattered she jumped into his head and formed a link with Uzi.” I look up at them, so much fear coursing through my veins, I suddenly feel cold. “She took control of him. She’s got them both now. Thomas and Sullivan. We’ll never get them back!”
“We’re not going to let that happen,” Sheila says. “But Lincoln’s right. We need your help, Sadie. We need you and Iziah. He’s already told us what he knows.”
“They had me too, Sade,” Iziah says, forcing his way into the tight circle of people who surround me. “Cyan was controlling me too. But when Lincoln scattered her and she… died, I guess—I don’t know, maybe she forgot she was controlling me. Or maybe they thought I was never going to recover. I took two hits, from two of the most powerful mentalists to ever come out of Prodigy.”
But he’s not dead.
No, he says in my head. I’m not dead. Neither are you.
He’s in my mind.
“We’re linked now, Sadie,” Iziah says. “If they can link two mentalists, well…” He smiles. “We can link two illusionists. It took me years to figure this out. I wanted to help you. While we were still at Prodigy… but….”
Iziah trails off. I feel his sadness. His regret.
“We need you, Sadie,” Lincoln says. “We can’t pull this off without you. We need Thomas back and we need to get him before those fucking satellites align and rain a shitstorm of chaos down on Cathedral City.”
“I don’t know what they’re planning to do with my SpyGlasses,” Case says. “Or Thomas’s satellite phones. But I can tell you this—it’s not what we had in mind. And now that we’ve unleashed this plan and can’t stop it, it’s our duty to make sure it’s carried out properly.”
“Will you help us?” Lulu asks, still holding onto my arm. “Will you help us get Thomas back and take down this totally fucked-up city, once and for all?”
I look at each of them, one at a time. “Who are you people?”
All of them laugh, even Iziah.
“We’re Alphas,” Case says, smiling.
“And illusionists,” Iziah adds.
“And a fucked-up Omega detective,” Molly says.
“I’m just a lawyer.” Lulu laughs. “But I got your back.”
“And don’t forget about me,” Sheila says. “I have control of every computer in that city. Every phone, every tablet used in the schools, every bus-stop map, every jail cell. I’m inside all of it. Every device with Spy or Sky in front of the name is me.”
“Cathedral City belongs to us, Sadie,” Case says. “It’s ours. And we want it back.”
“We can do this,” Lincoln says. “With your help, Sadie. So what you do ya say? Wanna join the team? Wanna be on Team Take Down the Assholes? Wanna get Thomas and Sullivan back? Wanna get your revenge and help us get ours at the same time?”
I picture it in my head. What would it be like to be in control again? What would the world look like with no Uzi controlling me?
Paradise, I decide. No matter what these supervillains have in mind, it’s got to be better than this. And there’s no fucking way in hell I’m gonna let Cyan have what’s mine. She will not take Thomas from me like she’s taken everything else.
“Yes,” I finally say. “Yes, I’d very much like to be a part of this team.”
“Good,” Lincoln says with an evil, crooked smile. “Now listen carefully, here’s the plan…”