Page 136 of Rattle the Cage

But all she could do was crackle until her feet hit the ground.

Just as we took off running toward the car, the guard stuck his head out the window. “Hey! Get back here!” He called after us.

He was too late.

Cyrus already had the engine to the Vanquish running.

Peeling out of the lot, she zipped off Radford’s campus.

We were still catching our breaths in the car when Tess finally spoke. “We have to get into that fucking compound.”

65

TESS

I wasn’t sure what was loudest: Cyrus’ pacing, Blade’s tinkering, or the rush of water through the so-called lazy river. Out of everyone, Nash was the only one able to remain calm through the discomfort of our discovery.

I, on the other hand, couldn’t stop thinking about how silly it felt to discuss something so serious here. Rapid Rush was a clusterfuck of every waterpark attraction on god’s green earth: a wave pool, a diving cliff, and at least ten different water slides.

And despite being largely unused for the last decade, Blade had decided that it was of the utmost importance that she fix the section’s filtration system right now.

The rest of us, however, had different problems on our minds.

“Would a drone work?” Nash looked to Cyrus, who shook her head.

“They’ll shoot that down before we get anything usable. Flying a drone over private property is going to be too much of a spectacle.”

I cringed. “The last thing we need is to land Rubin a slot on the local news.”

I could already see the special: the lord’s homeliest servant crying about the infringement on his religious freedom to subjugate women.

Flopping back against one of the wooden huts lining the river, I groaned. “What if we got a reallyyyyy tall ladder?”

Cyrus rolled her eyes, but Nash let out a barking laugh. “How about an invisibility cloak?”

“A disguise?” Blade lifted her gaze, scanning for a reaction. I was surprised she was even listening, given how busy her hands were.

But Cyrus shot that one down too. “We’re not Mr. Fucking Bean, Blade.”

“I’m just trying to help,” Blade rolled her eyes. “You got anything better?”

Cyrus snarled, resuming her pacing without a word. We’d been spitballing for an hour, but nothing was sticking.

We knew more now than ever before, but an answer still felt so far from our reach.

Getting confirmation that DMT was going to Rubin’s compound was the first in a long line of dominoes. Now that we knew that, it validated quite a few of our long-held suspicions.

We were certain that Rubin was using the DMT to brainwash his followers. It explained why everyone in town was a zombie lately — they got high at Rubin’s sermons, then everything afterward felt walking underwater.

That was Cyrus’ theory, at least.

If Rubin was the only source of DMT in Valemont, it also made sense the Freaks’ competitors had been moving so many hallucinogens. Other dealers tried to skim off of the demand Rubin had created, but DMT was so highly controlled that the closest they could get was drugs like MDMA.

None of it hit as hard as the DMT, though. Which meant that the only way to truly recreate that high was to go back to the Messenger’s sermons. Especially if his naive little flock didn’t realize that they were being dosed within his compound gates.

I shuddered at the thought. Rubin had always been a little weird, but it still wasn’t easy to wrap my head around this level of atrocity. Or at least, it felt far-fetched until I remembered that he’d been telling his followers all sorts of shit about how I was destined to be his wife.

He doesn’t care who gets hurt. He’ll do anything to get what he wants.