Twisted - Esme Devlin Page 0,98

contact lenses that make my vision blurry around the edges after every blink.

She said they were necessary.

I assume the disguise is so that if anyone catches us, they’ll simply assume I’m one of the girls who lives here taking Celeste for an evening stroll.

Not that we’ve passed anyone.

Yet.

We speed up as soon as we’re clear of the camera. The woman walks with a determination I didn’t know she was capable of, losing her balance every so often so I have to catch her.

We make it down a set of stairs and along a dimly lit passageway. I don’t think I recognize this one, but then again, they all look so similar.

When she gestures toward a door, I push the bar with my bare hip and a cold rush of air hits me as it swings open. The sky is a soft shade of pink, rays slashing across the clouds as the sun sets behind the building. For all my wandering, I’ve never been around the back, a high barbed wire fence running straight through the grounds always blocking entry.

Before us, on gravel littered with weeds, sits a fortified 4X4, black with tinted windows. The beast of a car dwarves the lone dark-haired young woman standing in front of it, who spins around when she sees us.

She’s wearing a thick coat, big enough that it could be wrapped around her body twice, which is exactly what she’s attempting to do. “You must be freezing,” she says, eyeing me up and down as she steps from foot to foot, rubbing her bare calves together.

“Here,” Celeste says, shrugging out of the coat and gesturing for me to take it. “Don’t fasten it. Not yet.”

“What is this?” I ask her, not that my confusion stops me from taking the garment out of her hands.

Celeste swallows before glancing toward the girl. “This is Kayleen. You two have met before.”

I turn toward the woman—Kayleen. I’ve never seen in her my life. At least… I don’t think.

As if seeing the confusion on my face, Kayleen presses her lips together and looks down at the ground before she says, “I’m sorry. For what I did. I shouldn’t have. I just didn’t know what else to do.”

It takes me a moment, but I remember where I heard that voice.

“You were the girl in the room beside mine?” I ask her, not waiting for a reply before spinning around to face Celeste. “Baron told me he was going to deal with her?”

Celeste makes a “one moment” gesture to Kayleen before tugging me into an alcove out of earshot some paces away. “She believes I am helping her escape, but that’s just what Baron wants her to believe. She has served her time here—all three-hundred and sixty-five days of it. She’s bound for the country formerly known as Iceland, one of the few places in the world still safe for a woman.”

I shake my head in confusion. “Baron told me with his own mouth that place doesn’t exist. He said he takes them to his basement and shoots them.”

Celeste raises a sparse eyebrow. “I highly doubt he lied to you. He’ll have found some trick with words to make you believe that’s what he said. The men, well, they do indeed go to the basement—he has to cull the vermin—but never the women. It is true, some stay longer than their allotted year, but that’s only because passage across the water is expensive and scarce.” She shrugs without letting go of my forearms. “I send every woman off myself.”

I back away from her, only making it a step before a wall stops me. “What will happen to her there?”

“She will live her life. Contribute toward research for the cure that Baron is partly funding if she chooses to. I told you I’d show you the truth behind all the layers, and here it is. Yes, he wants to rule the world, but unlike his father, he has no desire to rule amongst the ruins of it.”

I do nothing for a few moments, merely blink at her.

Is everything I thought I knew about him false?

My thoughts swirl together, and I can’t see the logic from the confusion. It’s like walking around in a maze full of smoke and mirrors.

“Why are you telling me this? Why now?” I shake my head, as if that will help me see clearly.

“Because you are going with her.”

My eyes narrow into slits.

“I don’t presume to know what you feel in here for my grandson,” she taps her