Copper Veins(49)

“This way,” Aregonda called. Apparently we were using the “hide in plain sight” approach. As we all queued up behind Aregonda and Jerome, my curiosity got the better of me. I left Jerome jabbering away at Sadie and strode up to Aregonda.

“You did something to the guards,” I said.

“Excuse me, dearie?” she hedged.

“My name is Sara,” I corrected. “And you did something to the guards. That’s why you were driving, why no one searched the truck.” Aregonda pursed her lips, but nodded. “Is that the entire plan? To have you mojo the Peacekeepers into submission?”

Aregonda’s eyes darted about, then she hissed, “I do not make a habit of speaking about my abilities in public.”

“I don’t make a habit of accepting lies and half-truths,” I stated. “You want Corbeau assistance? You spill.”

I could almost hear her grinding her teeth. “I have a talent for persuasion,” she admitted. “But I do not wish to discuss it here. Assist us with this operation, and once we return to the base I will tell you everything you wish to know.”

“Fair enough,” I allowed.

We passed through the gates with no delays or awkward questions thanks to Aregonda’s persuasive “techniques”. Beyond the gates was a large field with a tented stage at the far end. Along the way were food vendors, souvenir stalls, and even games like ring toss where you could win stuffed animals.

“This is surreal,” Sadie murmured. “The only things missing are the swings and a roller coaster.”

“This is what they do,” Max murmured, glaring at a poster of Langston that had been hastily tacked to an electrical pole. The picture wasn’t even all that flattering, depicting Langston in all his bug-eyed, fish-belly-pale glory. “Lull unsuspecting folks into a false sense of security, then brainwash them.”

I nodded—before I’d met Micah, my life hadn’t been happy, but I’d felt safe. Well, safe-ish. I jerked my head to the side, and Sadie and Max followed me out of earshot of the others.

“I think you should tell us why you hate Langston so much,” I said. When Max stuffed his hands in his pockets and looked at the ground, I added, “C’mon. Sway us to your cause, and we’ll help you.”

“Yeah,” Sadie chirped. “We’ll hate him too—we just need some backstory.”

Max rubbed the back of his neck, refusing to meet our eyes. “I told you the story about how I made the girl at the Institute a flower?”

“Yeah,” I murmured. Max said that he’d ended up in the tube after he’d made a leftover scrap of iron into a flower and presented it to a girl he was crushing on. “A lily, was it?”

“It was.” Max raised his head, but still wouldn’t meet our eyes. “He took her from me.”

“He—” I let the question hang unfinished—obviously, Langston had gotten between Max and the object of his affection.

“If she was so easily swayed, why bother with a grudge?” Sadie asked gently.

“She loved me,” Max insisted. “Me, and only me. He…he did something to her, I know he did.”

Aregonda picked that moment to join us—she’d been eavesdropping, most likely. After we made our way back to the Otherworld, Max and I were going to have a serious conversation about two women—the one harassing us now, and the one who’d broken his heart. “It is time for us to move into position,” Aregonda said.

“You do what you need to do,” Max said. “I have my own ideas.”

Aregonda’s nostrils flared as she snapped, “We have planned this operation for weeks.”

“Yeah?” Max said, his head swiveling around until Aregonda was locked in his gaze. “I spent years being tortured by them. I get to mess with them however I want.”

Aregonda pursed her lips so tightly I wondered if she would burst a vein, then she nodded and walked away.

“You’re definitely Mom’s kid,” Sadie murmured.

“You know it,” Max said. “C’mon, let’s do some damage so we can get out of here.”

With that, Sadie and I followed our brother—a man of questionable sanity at best—toward the front of the crowd. I had expected this to be similar to the rally Max and I had attended for Mike Armstrong, with politicians in the crowd and people with signs. Instead, the audience here was downright cheerful, as if Mike—and Langston—had already been elected and this was a celebratory speech. It made me wonder if some Peacekeeper had distilled Aregonda’s power of persuasion and released it as a gas.