Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 88119 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 352(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88119 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 352(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
We had almost 1000 miles ahead of us. Less than twenty-four hours before I’d see my mother again, after more than three years of her silence.
I wrapped my arms around myself and started to fall into a slumber.
Devon woke me three hours later. We were parking at another rest stop. “I need to stretch my legs.” After a moment, he added. “And I’m starving.”
I sat up, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. My legs and back were stiff. “Good idea. I’ll get us some snacks.”
I got out of the car and the blood rushed back into my calves. Sucking in a deep breath of fresh air, I jogged toward the small rest stop on the other side of the parking lot. A man was fueling up his minivan but I wasn’t worried about him; I could see three kids in the car. I doubted he was a spy. The bell above the glass door jingled shrilly as I stepped into the shop at the rest stop. The air inside was stale. With a small nod toward the cashier who’d looked up when I entered, I headed straight toward the snack display and picked up a few granola bars and two bags of chips.
I walked up to the counter and froze when a familiar face stared back at me from the front page of several newspapers. I put the snacks onto the counter, reached for a newspaper and quickly scanned the headline and the report. Senator Pollard had been found dead near tracks. It was still unclear if he’d killed himself.
I felt the cashier’s eyes on me, and gingerly put the newspaper back down, realizing he was waiting for me to pay. I put the money down and hurried out of the rest stop, snacks clutched against my chest. Devon was walking around our car, his arms lifted above his head. He glanced my way and froze.
“What’s up? You look as if you saw a ghost.”
I slipped into the car without a word, and Devon followed. “Someone killed Senator Pollard. It was in the newspapers,” I said the moment he closed his door.
“The guy you pretended to be?”
I nodded and handed Devon the snacks before I started the car and sped away from the rest stop. “The press thinks it might have been suicide but I’m sure it was Abel’s Army.”
“Why do you think they killed that guy?” Devon asked. He unwrapped one of the granola bars and took a bite, his blue eyes never leaving me.
“He was an expert for organized crime and Abel’s Army has strong ties to the mob if Major was telling the truth.” He definitely hadn’t told me everything, considering the secrets I’d unearthed so far. “He was also responsible for the leak of information regarding the FEA prison. He had to make sure that they followed federal rules or something like that. But Major said that he wasn’t actually the one who got people locked up, so revenge is out of the question.”
“There’s an FEA prison?”
“The FEA takes care of Variants, even the ones who are too crazy or too criminal to walk free,” I said bitterly. “Major said it’s for Variants who lost control of their Variation or who used it against others to harm them. But after everything I found out about the FEA, I’m not sure if only criminals end up there.”
“Are many members of Abel’s Army currently inmates of that prison?” Devon asked.
I thought back to my conversation with Major about the FEA’s high security prison. He hadn’t said much. “Stevens, definitely. And I’d guess he isn’t the first member of Abel’s Army that got caught. But I have no idea how many others there might be.”
“Probably not. Unless they let him get caught on purpose,” Devon said thoughtfully.
“Doesn’t make much sense. Why would they risk it? He could have given away important information.”
“Not if it’s true that Abel’s Army has a Variant who can alter memories. They could erase all those memories that would be dangerous for them, or maybe even alter people’s memories in a way that would lead FEA on a false trail.”
My head was spinning. The thought of someone capable of doing that with my memories seemed less and less enticing. What happened to a person who got their memories altered? If they thought their life had unfolded in a different way, did that change who they were?
“But Major has to know that he can’t trust Stevens. What would Abel gain by getting him captured? I just think Stevens was their least priority and that’s why he wasn’t rescued.”
“I guess we’ll never know,” Devon said. He sounded exhausted and I wondered if he’d started this discussion to distract himself from his parents.
“Unless my mother knows more.”
“She hasn’t seen your father in what, fourteen years?” Devon raised his eyebrows.