Hidden In Plain Sight

Evelyn lowered her gun, tears rolling down her face, sweat beading her brow, running down her spine. She'd been here for hours, day darkening into night, ruthlessly bringing herself to the brink with bullets, firing round after round at the targets, ruining them beyond recognition. Apart from a misguided internship spent one summer at the CDC, working by her sister's side, Evelyn had wasted her holidays at Aaron and Sarah's house, alternately embarking on shopping and shooting sprees, Aaron taking it upon himself to teach her how to handle a gun, being a firm believer in firearms, having built his own private shooting range out back.

Now at twenty-two, Evelyn was a proficient shot, whilst being a proficient failure elsewhere. She'd dropped in and out of education more times than Rachel would care to remember, Aaron having pulled strings to get her into Cambridge, giving her a generous allowance, as well as paying for her flat and fees. But Evelyn didn't want to learn, only wanting to live, wasting her time getting wasted. Peculiarly pretty, with a strange turn of phrase, she'd captivated Cambridge, capturing her conquest online, documenting her dominion, existing through Instagram, a narrow prism that imprisoned.

She was spoilt but not spoiled, but it would only be a matter of time before the natural kink to her character became a parody of itself, forced and false. Rachel watched Evelyn from afar, worried but more concerned with her work to do much more than that, leaving Sarah to shoulder the burden of what Evelyn had become. Their father had died when Evelyn was too young to remember him, their mother passing away of malaria when Rachel was nine years old, leaving an aunt to act as loco parentis until Sarah had graduated from college.

Rachel remembered her own childhood all too well; a neurotic mother with nicotine stained fingers that shook as they lit up another cigarette; a father who was egalitarian and egotistic, only concerned with past glories and what should have been his due. He'd held some academic standing, possessing the pompous pride of coming from a privileged background, but somewhere along the way, he'd lost it all, spending the rest of his life trying to claw it back. He'd been coldly and deliberately cruel to his wife and daughters; never physically abusive, only inflicting the sharp edge of his tongue on them like a whip, wounding with words, scoring their psyche with scathing sentences.

Evelyn had largely escaped all that, spoiled and sheltered by Sarah, lavished with luxuries, nearly never knowing anything else. It had made her into what she was now, Evelyn accepting no will but her own, taking her gratuitous lifestyle for granted. But beneath the shallow surface was a shrewd brain, Evelyn as capable of finding the perfect blood red shade lipstick as taking a blood sample. She knew her way around a laboratory as well as a shopping mall, if not better. But life had never demanded anything of her, only giving, bestowing gift after gift upon Evelyn like a benevolent godmother.

But in reality, Evelyn had been running up huge debts, and now life had rectified the balance, taking Sarah to settle the score. Her sister was dead, and there was nothing Evelyn could do about it, bitter helplessness making her fire off several more rounds, the recoil rattling the teeth in her head. Nothing mattered anymore. Rachel had said the world was going to end, but for Evelyn, it already had.

There's a fear I have, a feeling real bad
I'm final if I find out that I'm not I'll be sad
I try to cry, to thoughts in the night
Oh, they got me thinking, I'd be happier just drinking…

Rachel paced the floor of her room, the cell-like simplicity of its style doing nothing to subdue the storm tearing through her, making her suddenly kick aside an antique console table, knocking it over. Sarah had loved scouring junk shops for one off pieces, sourcing much of the utilitarian furniture in Rachel's room, knowing her sister's taste ran in less extravagant lines than her own. Wherever Rachel looked, there was always something to remind her of Sarah, the sight stabbing her through the heart time and time again.

But if she wasn't being tortured by the thought of her sister dying alone and frightened, thinking her family had abandoned her, Rachel was being tormented by the niggling knowledge she was missing something that was staring her right in the face. But what it was, she couldn't put her finger on it. She had all the information she needed to know, using it as a starting point to begin her own search for a cure, Rachel confident in her own abilities to achieve this. Without arrogance, she knew she was one of the best, if not the best, in her field, and if anybody could create a vaccine, it would be her.

Yet still it persisted she was missing the bigger picture, Rachel unable to unravel the riddle, making her feel uncharacteristically helpless. She turned wildly on the spot, the walls beginning to close in on her, starting to suffocate, smother. Without thinking, Rachel fled the room, only to collide into Aaron, nearly knocking him over. Not stopping to see if he was alright, as if he really deserved such a consideration after what he'd done, she shoved him aside, before running down the hall, not knowing where she was going, her feet carrying her into Sarah's study, Rachel barely registering the book-lined walls.

"Rach?"

Her younger sister's voice snapped Rachel out of her stupor, caught as always by the distinctive burr of her accent, Mayfair meeting Manhattan, the clashing of cultures present within the way she rolled her R's. Despite having lived and worked in America for many years now, Rachel had retained her own clipped vowels, Quincy joking she was a veritable ambassador for Estuary English.

"What is it?" Rachel snapped, rounding on Evelyn, only to freeze at the sight of her ravaged face. Evelyn had changed out of her flowing maxi-dress, and into a vest top and sweat pants, her hair pulled back into a messy ponytail, the mascara staining her cheeks like warpaint. "Good God, Evy," Rachel said, reaching for her sister, drawing her into her embrace, "you look like hell."

"So do you," Evelyn retorted, her vanity momentarily stung, before suddenly collapsing against Rachel's shoulder, breaking down into bitter tears again.

"I know," Rachel whispered, smoothing back her hair, fighting her own grief, "I know."

"She says this is where the magic happens," Evelyn said, gesturing around the book-lined walls, her words making Rachel smile ruefully, the gesture oddly alien amidst her pain.

"She says her books are her children," Rachel remembered, running her fingers along the wooden patina of Sarah's desk.

"Sarah says a lot of things," Evelyn snorted, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, "and not all of them repeatable."

"Sarah had a screw or two missing," Rachel said, twirling her finger round the side of her head, indicating madness, only to freeze, Evelyn doing the same, both of them realizing Rachel had referred to Sarah in the past tense.

"We don't get to grieve like normal people, do we?" Evelyn asked bluntly, fighting the tears again.

"No, we don't," Rachel said tiredly, sitting down in Sarah's leather armchair. "We have to carry on without looking back."

"But I'll always be looking back," Evelyn argued, "always."

Rachel looked away, unwillingly recognizing the truth of Evelyn's words. They would always be looking back, never forwards, unable to ever find closure. Out in the Arctic, she would be haunted by the thought of what if. There had been no body to bury, no funeral to attend, no grave to visit. It was as if Sarah had never been born, erased out of existence. But her books lived on, her words echoing through eternity, stories spun from her fingers, tales that time couldn't take away.

"I can't believe this is happening," Evelyn muttered, pacing the polished floorboards, "I just can't."

"Who's James?" Rachel asked suddenly, remembering Evelyn's outburst from earlier.

"He's my boyfriend," Evelyn said reluctantly, "or he was. He chucked me. Said my hippy style was harming his image or some shit."

"An Honorable?" Rachel hazarded, also remembering Evelyn's preference for politically connected pretty boys.

"His dad's high up in Parliament," Evelyn snapped, pushing the hair out of her eyes. She thought she loved James, but the emotion was already fading, eclipsed by agony, the knowledge of Sarah's death sounding like a klaxon within the confines of her skull, anaesthetizing her to anything else.

"James is the name of the ship we'll be travelling on," Rachel said almost absentmindedly, picking up a paperweight.

"I thought it was the Nathan James?" Evelyn said, frowning.

"I know," Rachel lied, setting the paperweight down, "I was just testing you."

"What, don't think I can hack it as your research assistant?" Evelyn said dangerously, her fists unconsciously flexing by her sides. "Think I'll fuck it up" –

- "Everything is fucked up already," Rachel retorted, startling Evelyn, "I don't think you can fuck it up any further." But before Evelyn could frame an answer to that, Rachel's phone suddenly went off, the strains of Beethoven'sSymphony No. 9 (Scherzo) setting Evelyn's teeth on edge, grating on her ear. "Excuse me," Rachel said almost automatically, before going out into the hallway, Evelyn watching her go. As Rachel glanced down at the screen, she saw it was an unknown number, making her tense up. "Hello?" she said, brow furrowing, studying a rare Degas on the wall.

"Hidden in plain sight," a little girl said in a robotic monotone, her voice strangely distorted, the sound making Rachel straighten up.

"Who is this?"

"Hidden in plain sight."

Rachel cut the call off, staring at the screen, her hands sweating, shaking. As she stood there, the world rearranging itself into lines she no longer recognized, something suddenly became blindingly obviously clear.

"Are you alright, Rach?" Evelyn asked, coming out into the hall, face concerned.

"I know the origin of the virus," Rachel breathed, turning to face her, "where I can find a sample of the primordial strain."

"It's in the Arctic though, isn't it?" Evelyn said, frowning. "That's where the Russians are looking" -

- "But it would be like looking for a needle in a haystack," Rachel said, clutching her phone for dear life, "but I know exactly where to look."

Evelyn just looked blankly at her, not understanding.

"It's the Arctic terns," Rachel said, starting to lose patience, "hidden in plain sight."

"But that's just a cover story" -

- "Hidden in plain sight, Evy," Rachel said quietly, "just like you."