Page 53 of The Godhead Complex
“Podemos entrar?” Carlos asked again motioning to the door.
It had been years since Ximena had seen the inside of the Villa. Danita led them through the lower rooms to the main floor without a word. Ximena would have expected questions about the village and her family back home, but Danita seemed only focused on the task at hand—finding Morgan. Carlos held his bouquet of red clover as if he might see his wife at any moment, but Ximena wasn’t even looking at the faces of workers and scientists around her. She was too busy examining the machines and instruments that changed room by room. The Villa had grown in its capabilities, greatly, since she’d been here last.
They reached the main floor and Danita turned to them, “Wait here.”
Carlos nodded. Ximena’s memories of the Villa came to life when she looked over at the glass-cased room built within the lab floor. A room she knew well. It was the one they’d built for her after her mother insisted Ximena be on the same floor of the lab as she worked, not below with the rest of the subjects. She started to walk over to the glass box but Carlos grabbed her wrist again. He motioned with his eyes to the two men inside. Ximena hadn’t noticed them before.
Two men, one old and one young, sat with their knees folded into their chests. They looked tired, haggard. Or maybe it was defeat. She remembered well how the glass box they called a ‘safety pod’ made her feel the exact opposite.
The young man stood and made eye contact with Ximena.
She quickly looked away.
“Carlos, Ximena, what is this news about Kletter?” Professor Morgan walked in from the hallway, and just hearing her voice made Ximena shiver. Morgan’s hair was just as blonde as Ximena remembered and her hands just as boney.
“We found her body, about two miles from here, south. In the narrows.” Carlos put his backpack down but still clutched the red clover. “Can you let Mariana know I’m here?”
“Mariana was with Kletter.” Morgan said it without emotion, but Carlos acted like he hadn’t heard, still holding the bouquet of weeds as if his wife would be there soon. “She took a research group with her to find the descendants of the Immune. You should know this.”
Descendants of the Immune?No, her mother would have told her if that’s whereshewas going. “Where’s my mom?” She realized Annie’s knife was still in her hand and she gripped it tighter.
Morgan carefully approached Ximena and helped her put the blade back into its sheath. She hated that her mind and body still followed directions from Morgan so easily. It had been years, but just like that—Morgan had disarmed her. “Your mom was with Mariana and Kletter.”
“But wefoundAnnie. Mom and Mariana weren’t there.” Ximena realized they hadn’t checked inside the haunted house. They should have.Why didn’t she?She looked at Carlos, “We didn’t go inside that house.”
“They wouldn’t stay there.” But that wasn’t what Ximena meant. What she was trying to say was,they should have looked inside the house for more dead bodies.
“Well, they’ll turn up,” Morgan said, as if Ximena’s mom and Mariana were just a pair of lost dogs who wandered from the pack. “We have four of the group they found here, from the island.” She motioned with her eyes to the two men inside the glass room.
“Thoseare the immunes?” She looked back at the room. Both of the strangers were dirty, sickly. Something wasn’t right. “If my mom and Mariana went looking forthem, with Annie, then how aretheyhere and Annie’s dead? My mom wouldn’t have left a mission.” Professor Morgan didn’t respond. Ximena turned to ask the two men herself, but Carlos stopped her again.
“Ximena.” His sharp tone reminded her of Abuela letting her know when she was out of bounds.But why weren’t they as worried as she was?
Morgan finally spoke, quietly. “They told us that Kletter was coming, right behind them.” She stepped closer to Ximena and Carlos. “Was she dead long?”
Ximena nodded. She had never seen a body so decomposed. Being out in the open certainly hadn’t helped.
“How long do you estimate?” Morgan turned to Carlos as if he knew, but he hadn’t seen any more dead bodies in his life than Ximena—and he’d barely glanced at Annie’s. He wasn’t an elder who conducted burials, had no measure of decomposition. He was just a man looking for his wife, holding a bouquet of weeds and too much hope.
Ximena took it on herself to guess. “The flesh was liquified. Bones.” She was no longer a child to be set aside in a glass box.
Morgan nodded slowly, only once. An up-and-down motion that somehow made Ximena feel heard. Respected. “They know more than they’ve told us. We need to question them carefully.” She motioned to the lab techs in the background. Danita walked back over.
“I’ll help,” Ximena said before thinking. Morgan looked impressed, perhaps seeing potential. But it wasn’t about that—Ximena needed to know what these men who’d traveled with Annie knew. She needed to find her mom.
“Join us, then,” Professor Morgan said. “Danita, open the door.”
PARTFOUR
The Limits of Paradox
Are the thoughts that run through my head, again and again and again, the most important or the most meaningless? The less I think about something, the more thoughts and images seem to come along. Even in the darkness of my mind, I see them. I hear them. I feel them.
Where are they coming from?
—The Book of Newt
CHAPTERTWENTY
