Page 78 of Ringer
There was only silence in response, and Lyra realized that Dr. O’Donnell was talking on the phone. Her skin tightened into a shiver. Dr. O’Donnell knew the Suits. How long would it be before they arrived?
“She hasn’t mentioned Gemma at all, but I can ask.” Another silence. “You think she ended up there by mistake?”
Lyra leaned so hard against the door, sweat gathered in the space behind her ear. For a long time, Dr. O’Donnell said nothing, and Lyra worried she might have hung up.
But then she spoke again. “I’m sure she’s okay, Geoff. I’m sure she made it out.” Then: “No, I understand that. But she’s a smart girl. You’ve said so yourself.”
Lyra put a hand on the door and pressed, imagining she could squeeze her rage out through her fingertips, harden it into blades that would slice them free. Geoff meant Geoffrey Ives. Though she didn’t understand much of the conversation, she understood that something bad had happened to Gemma.
Something had happened to her by mistake. She was in trouble. And Lyra knew, without question or doubt and without knowing how she knew, that it was because Gemma had come to warn her.
Had Gemma, like Rick, been taken away?
She thought of Jake Witz hanging by his belt, and the purple mottle of his face.
The memory brought back a roar of sound, a memory of Haven exploding into flame, and the char of burning skin carrying over the marshes. She nearly missed the next thing Dr. O’Donnell said.
“I see. So how many of them escaped?” Then: “We can still use them, you know. If we could spin it—” She broke off. After another minute, she spoke again, this time so close to the door that Lyra startled backward and could still hear her clearly. “Well, maybe it’s for the best. Public support will be the trickiest. If word gets out that they can be violent...”
The last thing she said was, “I’m praying for Gemma.”
Lyra couldn’t help but wonder whether anyone in the whole world was praying for her and for Caelum. She doubted it.
Then Lyra had to stumble out of the way, because Dr. O’Donnell turned the key in the lock and opened the door. For a half second, Lyra didn’t recognize her: the lines of her face had converged into a baffling question mark.
“Sit,” Dr. O’Donnell said. Neither Caelum nor Lyra moved. “Go on. Sit. Please. I won’t hurt you.”
“You’re a liar,” Caelum said. “Everything you say is a lie.”
Dr. O’Donnell sighed. She must have gone home at some point to change; she was wearing different clothing than she had been last night. Lyra hated her for this—that she would think to go home, that she would think to shower, that Lyra and Caelum were so small in the orbit of her life they hadn’t even caused a ripple in her routine.
“I wasn’t lying when I said I could help you,” Dr. O’Donnell said. “I’m sure I don’t need to tell you this, but you’re in a difficult position. You’re not supposed to exist.”
Although she said the words gently, Lyra knew them for what they were: sharp, weaponized things, knives designed to make her bleed. She wouldn’t argue, or cry, or show that they had landed.
“What happened to Gemma?” she said.
Dr. O’Donnell looked momentarily startled, and Lyra was glad: she had an advantage, however brief.
Dr. O’Donnell recovered quickly. “You’re very observant,” she said. “I’d forgotten that.”
“There wasn’t much to do but observe at Haven,” Lyra said. A wave of dizziness clouded her vision, and she wanted to sit down but didn’t want to give Dr. O’Donnell the satisfaction. “What happened to Gemma?”
“I don’t know,” Dr. O’Donnell said, after a short pause. “No one knows. It seems she disappeared on Sunday morning.”
So. ItwasLyra’s fault.
Dr. O’Donnell moved away from the door—slowly, as if Caelum and Lyra might startle, as if there was anywhere for them to go. “Can I ask you a question?” She held up both hands when Caelum started to protest. “Then you can ask me anything you want, and I’ll be honest. Ipromise to tell you everything you want to know.”
Caelum’s eyes locked briefly on Lyra’s. She shrugged.
“Go on,” Lyra said. Finally, she took a seat, hoping that Dr. O’Donnell hadn’t noticed her relief. Caelum, however, stayed where he was. “But then it’s our turn.”
Dr. O’Donnell called up a smile with obvious difficulty. “I promise,” she repeated. Since Caelum wasn’t sitting, she took the empty chair instead, and drew it across from Lyra, so they were almost knee to knee. She leaned forward, and Lyra was sure she would ask about Gemma.
But instead she said, “Do you know how many replicas escaped Haven after the explosion?”
Now Lyra was the one who was surprised.
