LII: The Capitol - Panem Central Courthouse.
Emmi Langlois, 17
Applicant #13
The courthouse almost seems more... somber. Funeral-like.
Someone did die last night, so maybe it's not terribly inaccurate. She doesn't think that should be affecting everyone though, especially the people milling around who are none the wiser to it. The splendid droves of innocents.
As if on cue, Soran gives her a look. She doesn't have the slightest clue what it means; he just looks exhausted. Not one of them slept last night after the incident save for Tarquin, who they eventually had to wake up anyway. She had tracked down Pandora and Evander, who were in the midst of dumping something suspiciously body-shaped into the creek behind the cabin. That did wonders to the atmosphere.
So he's fixed, pretty much, but exhausted doesn't cover it. Nearly half his face is black and blue, and she's pretty sure there's still a bit of blood caked into his hair that no one bothered getting rid of. They bandaged his head, but that almost makes it more glaringly obvious. She wouldn't put it past Soran for this type of thing to be normal, but it definitely isn't here. Everyone that isn't them is staring openly, unabashedly. She can see the questions they refuse to say aloud.
What happened? How did it happen? What's going on? Is it something bad? When is it not something bad these days?
Sometimes, though they're growing increasingly less frequent, Soran has the audacity to smile back at them. They look away quickly enough.
It's a lot of nerve for someone who can't stand without being held onto, is all. If Icarus isn't holding onto him any single step he takes is more of a generously sized wobble with no end in sight.
"Would you quit it?" she asks finally. "You're freaking everyone out."
"You're not freaking out."
"Unfortunately for me, I'm used to it." She sighs. He smiles again, but at least this time it's directed at her. No one particular stranger has to run screaming in the opposite direction.
"Alright, you guys can go in," Pandora says. "We'll be there in a minute."
Icarus navigates Soran through the door without an issue, looking slightly too much like a traffic controller. Ria sighs nearly as loud as she did previously and follows.
She grabs a hold of Tarquin's arm before he can leave. "Hey."
There was a time, and she saw it just a bit in the beginning, where he looked a little bit nervous any time she showed direct interest in him. Maybe nervous wasn't the right word... uneasy almost fits better.
He hasn't looked that way in a while, but right now it seems fitting.
"Promise me you're not gonna take off," she says. "We can't go through it again."
"I wasn't planning on it."
"And were you planning on it the first time?" she asks, and guilt flashes through his eyes. "That's what I thought. Just please, for our sake but most importantly your own - not again."
"I won't."
"Swear?"
"Well, it's not as if they're giving us a recess for me to do so..."
She switches the grip on her arm to pinch just under his elbow instead, and he twists away but smiles, too. It's good to see him smiling. She still doesn't think it's all the way genuine most of the time, but right now it could be. When things are as dire and terrible as they've been of late she's willing to take even the possibility of it being genuine.
She still has a hold on his arm when he goes ramrod straight and he practically jumps under her hand. His eyes haven't fallen out of his head yet, but whatever he's caught sight of behind her has brought them pretty damn close.
Eleine is coming down the hall towards them. Not towards them, really, just to the doors, but it feels like she is. Emmi turns back to Tarquin just as quick.
"Stop staring," she insists. "Don't make it obvious."
"He's not going to show," he says under his breath. "Even if she somehow doesn't know he's dead..."
"She's about to, yeah. Go inside, I'll be right behind you."
He slips free from her hand and after the others. Both Pandora and Evander are still here, and the brief pause in conversation that transpired when one or both of them had caught side of her is gone now. At least someone is attempting to be subtle about that. Emmi edges a bit closer to them regardless; a chill goes up her spine as Eleine breezes by without so much as giving them a look. Crynn's in the other room, so she's not going to him.
Emmi doesn't want to know where she's going.
The Mervaine's have appeared at the end of the hall too, all four of them this time, just in time to see her disappear. It appears they're treating their kids to a spectacle today.
"Does anyone know what they talked about?" she asks quietly. "If they agreed on something?"
"Not sure it matters now," Evander murmurs. "If she finds out about Andere, who knows what she'll say."
"So you're saying Soran shouldn't have killed him?"
"That's not what I'm saying at all. It just makes things more dangerous."
"Crynn can handle it," Pandora offers up, giving her a smile that doesn't look even the least bit reassuring. Soran didn't have a choice about killing Andere; it was that, or both him and Pandora ended up dead for it, and then the rest of them were next. She has no doubt about that. She probably would have never woken up from her sleep. Painless maybe, but not ideal.
It's hard when anyone could be on a side she doesn't expect. Pandora and Evander are trustworthy, sure, but who else? Crynn has to be whether she likes it or not. The Mervaine's have never given her reason not to trust them, but well they're... them. There's not much else to say on that front.
Just because those same members from the Federation are here back on their side of things today doesn't mean they're good. It doesn't mean they want the outcome she wants.
In truth, she just wants her Dad. She wants someone who would pick her without blinking.
"Hey, just go sit down," Evander says. "Take it as easy as you can. It's nothing you can change."
"Thanks for reminding me," she mutters, but heads for the door like a good, obedient little listener. It opens from the other side and nearly hits her square in the forehead before she can get there, but thankfully Icarus catches it before it can do just that. Even though it was him that did it in the first place. He leans all the way out and peers down the hall without ever stepping from the room.
"What are you doing?" she asks. "Move."
"I was informed your future boyfriend was out here."
"Excuse me?" she retorts. He puts a hand on her shoulder and literally pushes her a foot to the right to get a better look down the hall where she knows the Mervaine's must still be standing. Oh, for God's sake.
She sighs, and shoves him in the chest, but he doesn't budge. "Shut up for five minutes. Let me in."
"You should go introduce yourself."
"And say what? Hi, I'm Emmi, professional murderer and criminal, probably about to be sentenced to some prison time in about fifteen, give or take. Nice to meet you?"
"Well, that's not exactly what I was imagining, but sure." Icarus shrugs. "Who knows, maybe he's into that."
She looks up at him. "Not everyone's you and Soran."
"How unfortunate for them."
She shoves him again, harder, and this time he actually concedes to be pushed out of the way to allow her inside. It's for the best, because the longer she spent out there the closer she came close to dying on the spot. She doesn't often get embarrassed, almost never in fact, but this might get there. She'd sooner smite Icarus where he stood than let that happen.
Besides, they've got bigger fish to fry, and she's not sure the time is there. She's not sure it was around to begin with.
And who knows, maybe the only thing getting fried today will be them.
With one Sentinel dead, Eleine prowling around, and God knows what else out there, it certainly seems that way.
Isperia Martorell, 16
Applicant #17
She hasn't felt her heart beat this hard in a while.
She knows why. Everyone does, and not one of them would blame her for it. Besides, the feeling is mutual. Tarquin looks very ill. Soran looks half asleep even though Icarus is reaching back over to prop him up and make sure he isn't every half a minute. Emmi paces a few more times and then sits down at the bench's end with a tremendous thud that shakes the entire thing.
"So," Tarquin says slowly. "Predictions?"
"You're getting less than the rest of us," Soran says.
"Why do you think that?"
"You know why."
"But I killed more—"
"More people, I know," Soran mumbles. Back to half-asleep again, and Icarus nudges him right on time. "It doesn't matter."
It matters, she knows, to Tarquin. Thirteen is a scarily big number. And to think he hadn't killed anyone before that, that he walked into it so willingly knowing what was going to come of it.
More and more these days, though, she's with Soran on this issue. It's thirteen people, but no one that had any connections. They have no family here. They have nothing that's still tying them here save for the few guards left at the Witsonee station, what's left of them, and the person who killed them all. Tarquin can't do anything about that though.
What they did though, the four of them, that has consequences. She always knew it would even back when she thought winning was a possibility.
Tarquin doesn't look like he's having fun with that thought spinning around in his brain, but it's there and it's probably found a cozy little home the same way every bad thing she's done has. There's whole sections of her brain now dedicated and devoted to taking care of those things and nourishing them. Maybe it's bad to be taking care of them, but she can't let herself forget them. If she does than everything she did becomes distant, unimportant. The people she knew, the ones that are dead because of her... they don't deserve that.
Maybe they're the only ones who deserve what's coming to them.
One by one everybody else that matters even the slightest files in and sits down. It's a quiet affair, like a procession. It feels like everybody's bracing for a hit.
She's tucked too far down the bench, all the way at the very end, for it to be literal.
They're not even told to stand this time when the Judge walks in, for what reason she's not sure. It's a picturesque scene, the same as last time. The judge takes his seat, the translator to his left stands up. Only Andere is missing, a glaring and jagged hole torn in the middle of the room that could be replaced by the bruising all over Soran's face.
Eleine looks over once and settles on it. Ria blinks and her eyes are back on the front of the room once again.
"Will the defendants please rise?"
She doesn't want to, but she listens. It would be beyond awkward if she was the only one that chose to stay sitting after such a request. There are officers around here somewhere - she knows it. If she didn't listen who knows what they'd do to her.
Unlike before not everyone turns to look at them. Maybe because it's easier trying to face an individual. When all five of them are on their feet and facing it that's a lot to take on, even for the strongest people.
"As previously discussed we the people find the defendants on the count of all charges guilty as admitted."
She's still not happy about that, but who cares? No one. That's right. And that's probably how it should be.
"The decision in sentencing with the disqualification of a jury was left to both agreements between the parties and myself, however it appears today we have an important absence," he says. "Miss Tarigan, is there a reason we should be aware of for Mr. Vukovic's lack of attendance?"
Eleine straightens in her seat and then stands, silent as ever. Her face is almost impassive all the way through, but at the edge of it she almost looks confused. It's like she truly doesn't know where Andere's gone, or why he's chosen now of all times to go missing.
But she knows. Ria feels it without a doubt.
"Not that I'm aware of, Your Honor."
It's lies, all of it. This whole thing feels like a farce. Sometimes she still doubts that she's not imagining this, that whatever's going on in her brain now has twisted reality and spit it back out all sorts of messed up.
The Judge nods, flipping through something in front of him. He coughs a few times, almost uneasily. Each one makes her sit up straighter.
"As all parties must reach agreement and as there is no signature from nor any hide or hair of presence it is difficult, to say the least, to go forth with any sort of decision possibly made between the parties," he says slowly. There's a little murmur that goes up behind her and then practically swells over her head. Crynn blinks a few times and his eyes get wider each one, until he gets to his feet inch by inch.
Something awful sinks into her stomach, an entire rock or maybe just the contents of her abdomen. Everything feels out of place.
"Mr. Sylvaine says the documents were signed during their last meeting," the translator says. The Judge examines them again. She sees him peer down, adjust his glasses, scan a finger over numerous lines.
And she knows without properly knowing that there's nothing there.
She's never had much of a mouth on her, but fucking Sentinels. She hates them when she's never hated anything in her life before.
"I have no signature here, Mr. Sylvaine, besides yours and Miss Terigan's. If there is disagreement or turmoil in the agreement then with the government's permission and through the word of President Archeron in the matter of the case the sentencing decision falls on myself; in turn I have considered many possible punishments for these individual crimes."
"Is anyone else thinking what I'm thinking?" Icarus asks, but she barely hears him. There goes the roaring in her ears.
"Did he... did he let me kill him?" Soran asks. He finally looks awake.
And there are the options, or at least the other one they were missing. Andere kills them all - that was the first. But if he were to die, what's the back-up plan? How do they make sure they still win? They may not be prosecutors in truth but they know how this works, the ins and outs. They knew what this would do.
Maybe this was never the back-up plan.
Crynn has no say, now. None of them do. It's the word of the government and the Judge and the President, all of whom have probably wanted them gone since the beginning. And if that's the case...
"Oh, we're dead," Emmi says, before she can even think it.
And there, finally, is the truth.
"As I'm sure you're all aware there has been much publicity surrounding the outcome of this sentencing and the events that have surrounded it," he continues. "Tragic events, terrible events. Ones that were ultimately preventable. Nine years ago a few select people made the choice to end the most barbaric thing this state has ever known and since then the country has done its utmost to uphold that. To ensure that it would never happen again."
Preventable how? They're the only ones looking for the true culprit, and who knows if they'll ever even get that. They may be the monsters in this but someone still has to be held responsible for creating them.
Across the aisle, she thinks she sees the smallest flicker of a smile grace Eleine's otherwise cold face.
"Any loss of life, especially such young life, is a tragedy," he says. "And the evidence in which I have been presented with is something I had hoped to never see in y lifetime. We did not, as a country, lose nineteen lives - we lost twenty-four. Twenty-four minds, twenty-four futures. I have no doubt that the five of you had different paths before today, but it is this court's judgement and through your own admittance of guilt to these brutal crimes that there is only one fitting outcome. To keep this country safe, to keep our children safe, and to ensure it never happens again, the options have dwindled down to one. All five of you for your crimes shall be put to —"
Ria goes somewhere else to avoid hearing the word death, but it does nothing for everyone else. There the wave comes again. It's bigger, the crest more powerful, and someone's going to drown. It's probably going to be her.
There's noise around her, so much that it could be consuming, and once again she lets herself go into her own head. It's safer there, at least for her. There's yelling, shouting. More people on their feet than their should be.
Without knowing how, she's sitting back down on the beach. She can hear the feel death perfectly formed and shaped in his mouth but can't imagine how it sounded aloud. She doesn't want to.
She didn't even hear anything else. How? When? Is it happening right now? Long gone are the days where it took years - it could happen today, if they wanted. She tries to shove down the hysteria at the thought of it, but it's not going to happen.
She doesn't quite stand up as she grabs at the back of the bench in front of her and holds on for dear life. They can't kill her if they can't pry her off, right?
They probably can. They do whatever they want.
And this time, they're going to kill them.
Icarus Devereux, 17
Applicant #10
Well, at least they're not in handcuffs.
It's a low bar, alright. You don't have to tell him that.
Instead of handcuffs they're going to be allowed to spend their last few, precious days in the only place they've known since they got back. With more security, he reckons. They won't be leaving until it's execution time.
Execution time, right. Because that's going to happen. They're getting executed.
There's no appealing something they're guilty of by admittance, he thinks. Maybe that's wrong, but he doesn't know any better. It's more likely that no one would let them appeal anyway; it's been quickly proven that this isn't how it works here. He used to trust this place a whole hell of a lot. Thrive in it. And now he's going to die in it like every other Capitol citizen, like his parents.
He has never once envied Estella for dying in One, for dying at all before things got even worse, but he almost does now.
Somewhere along the way after Tarquin fuses to the courtroom bench and actively refuses to get up, after Ria locks herself in one of the bathrooms and Emmi threatens to crawl underneath the door to get her out, they let him outside. He doesn't remember asking, mostly just moving in a direction that led away from the source of the chaos. He had a voice, for a while, but anger at this point could only last so long. Most of the fight he had in him was long drained out by now. He couldn't fight the whole world when it was against them.
The grounds out the side door are blissfully quiet though he's followed by no less than three guards, and that's just what they can see. One each goes to each end of the fencing and hedges obscuring the road and another stays in the doorway, looming like a giant.
There's no way they're getting away now.
Especially not Soran, who probably couldn't run anyway, and who is definitely only out here with him because he dragged him. He should be sitting down like Tarquin. He shouldn't be here at all.
He lets go of him with a sigh, rubbing a hand over his forehead. "Sorry."
"For what?"
"Making you come out here. You could be sitting, you know. Resting."
Soran grabs a handful of the unfortunate shrubbery in order to keep from keeling over and then plops down in the grass with a thud. "I can sit right here. And I'm going to be getting plenty of rest once I'm dead."
He navigates a path around him, pacing down the narrow stretch of about five feet of grass. He doesn't want to get any closer to the guards than he has to.
Soran squints up at him. "Too soon?" he continues.
"Yeah."
"Got it."
He lets himself pace faster. He's going to wear a hole in this grass today, damn it, no matter how long it takes. He's got nothing better to do except die, apparently, and he doesn't really want to do that.
"This is fucked up," he says some time later. He hasn't hit dirt yet, but soon. "Can they do this? I know they can but like, what the fuck? And how does Tarquin get the same damn thing? They can go on and on about nineteen this and nineteen that but he didn't even kill any of them, for fuck's sake, so how does that work?"
"No idea."
"And sure, nobody wants any more dead kids! But let's quickly kill five more just in case."
"Solid plan. A-plus."
"Is it even legal to execute kids?"
"Is it legal to kill people at all?"
"Not my point," he says. This time he navigates too close and has to step over Soran's legs to avoid stepping on him at all. "This is just fucked up. All sorts of fucked up. I don't wanna die."
He turns around, and Soran's eyes are closed. He walks all the way up to him and pauses over top of his legs. "Are you seriously sleeping right now?"
"No," he answers, though he doesn't open his eyes. Icarus crouches down before him and leans in just over halfway to gauge some sort of reaction, but he doesn't even twitch. It's not his entire weight that's leaned back into the shrubbery, but it's infringing on pretty damn close. If he lets go anymore he's going to fall through the entire hedge.
"You know, you're astonishingly calm for just being told you're getting executed," he points out. "It's almost enough to make me angry."
"Too tired to care," he mumbles, but at least he moves this time, shoulders up-ticking into a small shrug. "Can't fucking do anything about it anyway."
He's felt bad since he dragged him out here but overwhelmingly so now. He's going to go to sleep in the grass if Icarus lets him, and he's almost tempted to do so. In that vein, what is anyone going to do about it? The guards are keeping an eye on them but if one even stretches a hand forward he's going to bite at it like a snappy little dog. He almost wishes one of them would try it.
He doesn't enjoy being the one that has to snap and get angry, but he feels like he has to be now. It's hard to feel any other way when Soran's about two minutes from comatose in the grass at his feet.
Icarus settles down beside him and tugs him forward so that he's leaning against his chest and not the bushes. The path he's wearing in the grass can wait a while.
Soran is tired, clearly, but he's passed that into exhaustion if he's surrendering to this and going completely boneless, face tucked into the side of his neck. He allows himself one squeeze around his back because he can do that without any painful repercussions finally. It's his face he has to watch out for now, and he can't even see a sign of it now.
"We could do something, I think," he supposes, though keeps the idea under his breath.
"Yeah. Maybe."
"If we could pull a name out of that big, dumb list—"
"It's not dumb."
He ignores him. It's definitely dumb. "If we find that one person, and Eleine is still alive, we can shift the blame. Take the heat off of us. They might re-open it."
"And then what?"
He sighs. "I don't know. We just need something."
"This is really my fault," Soran says. "I killed Andere, and him not showing up fucked us."
"And what were your other options in that scenario?"
"Someone else would have come up with one."
"You're not someone else. You saved your own life, and Pandora's, and possibly all of ours too. That was the option."
"I saved our lives for a few more days - what was the fucking point?"
He learned that he was spared, somehow, last night. Early this morning, really. It's Tuesday. They have until Friday morning to figure something out. The clock is ticking much too fast; four days might not be enough. Even if they find out it might not be. By then will anyone care beyond the people who already do? Their lives are getting thrown away lock and key. Nobody would care.
He just wants to know. If he's going to die he wants to know the reason behind it. He wants to know who put him here.
And he kinda, sort of, wants to slit their throat, but that's a problem for another time.
Soran readjusts with a soft exhale against the base of his neck, just enough for it to tickle. The longer he lets him stay like this the higher the chance gets that he's going to sleep, and he won't have a choice about moving then. One of the guards is already giving them a peculiar look as if he's spontaneously started sprouting more limbs. He'd give the guy the finger if he had a spare hand to do so.
"Do you think lethal injection hurts?" he asks. He's wondering, so he has to say it.
"God, and I thought what I said was dark," Soran mutters. "I'm delighted to say I don't currently know, and I'd get back to you on Friday afternoon, but I don't think I'll be able to."
It's got to hurt some. The sheer terror of it all probably hurts enough as is, the grip of a hand around your heart.
Through all of this, or at least most of it, he was just hoping to die painlessly. Quickly. That's all he was asking for.
He's not even going to get that.
"I don't wanna die," he says again. He'll say it many more times before this is over.
"You know, I'd let everyone in this city die if it meant we could live."
Icarus does know it. It doesn't scare him, because he knows Soran would do it for him - for the five of them. Once upon a time in some fucked up fairytale land that would have terrified him. There are fragile, innocent people here by the thousands, children who could've had the same fate had they been chosen instead, and he doesn't care about any of them. He cares about this and how he has less than four days left with it.
He never knew it years ago, when he was part of the problem, but this place is sick. No one's found a cure yet. He'd let everyone here burn to get rid of that. To make it better.
He's still part of the problem, and he knows it. He's as bad as the rest of them.
At least he can admit it.
He has no control over this city though, no say in what happens within it. There's only one practical thing that is still under his control. It's the one thing that's keeping him from screaming to the heavens, from burning something to the ground just before he himself goes on an otherwise commonplace Friday morning, a needle stuck in his arm.
He's going to find out who did this.
They've still got help. There are more people here, he knows, that are willing to step in. They have less than four days to do it. It's not going to take that long, though. He's not going to let it. He can't let it.
Whoever it was, whoever it is, they're going down with him.
And they're going down sooner rather than later.
Jordan Carvallo, 22
Member of the New Haven Federation
They've always trusted each other to a fault.
That's how it works in the Federation. They cross District and Capitol lines to get along, for the well-being of the people they represent, and for most of them that's it. Waylon's the exception, and he's it. She likes most of the others.
Key word being most.
It comes to a point though where shit like that doesn't matter. She knew kids that died in the Games. More than one reaped right out of her grade down the aisle from her in the pens. Her neighbor's oldest daughter back when Jordan was just a little girl with hardly any concept of the atrocity that was about to be brought down on her.
And nothing good has ever come from those atrocities.
She has her allegiances - to Ten, and to her family, and to Waylon. And that's it, normally.
This isn't normal.
It took her a long time to get over the grandiose appearance of Rose Point Estate - that's what growing up on a farm did to you when you eventually ended up here. It's the feeling of not belonging that still hits her the hardest sometimes even when people seem to want her here, even when they include her. The feeling that something's wrong will never go away, though.
There's all the signs that she still doesn't fit even though she appears that way. At the risk of sounding egotistical she knows people like her, respect her. In the very least the otherworldly facade at least makes them even if it's not genuine.
Pandora is not a normal, established human being. Jordan herself would never just let people into her home like this, not when she doesn't know the deepest parts of them, and especially not to help with something this important. They need all the help they can get, sure, but who's to say Jordan is actually here to help? It appears that Pandora may be the naive one here, so it's a good thing she's not about to take advantage of it.
She's not sure how more people haven't by this point in her life.
Waylon adjusts his legs where they're draped over her lap and slips an inch closer to going over the edge of the couch. His head is already dangling off and nearly his shoulders now too, the tablet he's clutching in his hands hanging precariously over his head as he holds it up to read. He's asking for it laying like this.
It's away from the clamoring that's going on in the office, though. There's too many people in there and not enough safe. They're all trying to figure out the same thing, here. You'd think everyone could be quieter about it.
It was an easy mutual agreement between the two of them to take their leave only a little bit deeper into the library. He had taken his tablet and her a stack of files that no one currently had their grubby little hands all over.
If someone needs them, they'll come looking.
Besides, Waylon seems to be set on a track whereas everyone else is spinning in circles. It's good to have a direction to head in.
"You really think it's one of us?" she asks.
"I mean it has to be, right? The chances of it being someone from the Capitol if it's a Sentinel are like, astronomical."
"But it could be."
"Oh, it could be," he agrees. "I just don't want to miss something because we think we know these people. We don't, really."
She doesn't like it, but it's true. Beyond Kestrel, Pandora, and he who is currently taking up most of the couch space, which of them does she really know? Wendell, maybe? Rocco passes through Ten a lot when they're all home, but they don't talk much. Certainly not enough to say she knows him and trusts him enough not to do this.
"So it's not me or you, obviously," she says. "It's not Pandora, it's not Kestrel."
"Can't be Wendell or Leopold, either. Wendell's had a fifty-year presence in Eleven and Leopold's been working with the government for too long."
That leaves just over half of them. She scribbles the seven remaining names in the margin of one of the files she's got over top of Waylon's legs. Ophira, Eriska, Nyle, Marza, Eilon, Scarlet and Rocco. If she had to hazard a guess she'd say Nyle is the biggest snake of them all, save for maybe Leopold, but that doesn't mean he's a bad person. It doesn't mean he got so many people killed.
She's a lot of help, here. She stares at the names and tries to make sense of it while Waylon keeps on whatever it is that he's doing. Cross-referencing, she thinks. They all went through background checks when they got into the Federation. Any false information, any lies, it's something they can find. Something they can use.
"You still have those files on Andere and Eleine?"
She nods and hands him the two pieces of paper complete with the photos of their much younger faces, their real names. It's no wonder they weren't recognized when someone went through all of the Sentinel files in the first place. Keir Hamilton and Nanami Scriven, District Six and Four, respectively. They were practically babies, fourteen and sixteen years old when they were collected and brought in. They were survivalists, not fighters. They didn't have enough time with the Sentinels to be trained otherwise.
"You think Nyle or Marza then, maybe? District connections?"
"That's what I'm looking at."
She's praying it's not either of them, but what's the alternative? It's one of the other five, then? That's not any better.
The two of them are attached to another, longer page. The rest of the kids they were grouped with - five more, seven in total, and the older woman who must have been responsible for training them. Not one of them was over eighteen. Clearly they were new recruits, fresh blood. Despite the possibility of names being changed she doesn't recognize anything from the other five, fresh-faced and too young. Probably all dead now, save for Eleine. Namani. Whatever her fucking name is.
"Hey," she says. "Waylon."
"It's not Nyle or Marza. Swear."
"Look up the name Leandra Priestly."
He does so, she can tell by the renewed tapping of his fingers, but gives her a curious look. "Who's that?"
"The one responsible for them, looks like."
Waylon goes tapping away, skimming over something that pops up. "Mostly just copies of a missing persons report from... jesus, over forty years ago. District Two, age sixteen the last time she was seen. Just another one they picked up."
She dislodges his legs and wiggles her way down onto the couch next to them until they're pressed together from shoulder to hip. He holds the tablet up above her head to give her a better look. The photo on the missing report isn't the same one in the Sentinel files; she looks even younger in this one, happier. Like nothing bad had ever happened to her. She clearly wasn't a Career judging by the size of her, the carefree gleam in her eyes. And Jordan doesn't recognize her either, there's no way she could with a young face from that long ago, but something is itching in the back of her mind and she doesn't like it one bit.
"What are you thinking?" Waylon asks.
She sits up and snatches the tablet out of his hands, nearly knocking him off the couch. He hauls himself up after her, fingers locked into the cushion's fringes, but lets her have it. He cocks an eyebrow up, giving her a curious look.
She doesn't want to be right. She's never wanted to be wrong about something more in her life.
"Forty-four years," she says slowly. "She'd be sixty now."
"Okay?"
There's only one person out of the five remaining that this photo could belong to. Forty-four years apart, a jump from sixteen to sixty. No one would recognize her. Jordan pulls up the second photo to hold alongside the file she has in her hand. There are obvious differences, almost all from age, but the itch won't go away. This is a face she saw just earlier today in the courtroom, one that's always been so kind and supportive. One that's always been on the right side.
"She was at the fucking hospital with them," she says. "Her, Eleine and Andere. They were all there this whole time."
Waylon blinks. "Are you talking about..."
She turns the tablet around along with the file in her left hand. It's shaking, now. She hadn't realized. Two photos forty-four years apart and somehow they're still undeniable.
"Eriska?" she breathes. "Yeah."
He blinks a few more seconds away. His eyes get wider with each one. His jaw works and then opens and closes a few times. She waits for him to tell her she's wrong, for something that will make this a mistake. Nothing comes.
Nothing comes, because she's right.
They've found their culprit.
They fucking found her, and Jordan almost wishes they hadn't.
Waylon stands up, slowly. His eyes never leave the photos she's presented him with; it's an awful juxtaposition to how she feels. She never wants to look at them again. She can't or she might be sick.
He takes a deep breath. "Pandora!"
*eye emoji*
All this way just for this? Guess you'll see, sooner rather than later. Not many chapters left at all, even including the epilogues!
Until next time.