Chapter Text
Tulip woke with a jolt. She gasped for breath as the harsh white light of the room forced her to clench her eyes shut again. The last thin threads of a long, harrowing dream severed from reality until the memory escaped her completely.
She could feel deep down that something was very wrong. She felt more hungover than she had in her life, aching like she’d been hit by a semi-truck, not quite feeling like she had a handle on her motor functions. She just couldn’t get her bearings, and no matter how tightly she closed her eyes, her surroundings were still blindingly bright. All she wanted was five more minutes of sleep. Maybe that would make her feel human again.
As she attempted to rest, she came to understand she hadn’t just overslept. The light, the air, and the scratchy sheets she'd kicked away from her body all felt unfamiliar. She gathered the courage to force her eyes open, despite the painful glare, blinking away the sharp sting. Still, she struggled to study her surroundings. She stared on in frustration, but the shapes refused to come into focus.
And then a sense of dread overtook her. She couldn’t clearly make out objects, but she could interpret color, and the sterile room was white from floor to ceiling, with the exception of bold red accents.
Shit, she thought. There was no doubt this was the Grail. They had her.
Suddenly, a dull throb in her left arm sharpened to a stabbing pain. She traced the sensation with her fingers until she found the needle, connected to an IV drip, and ripped it out as carefully as she could. How in the hell did I get here? she wondered, and she had to concentrate, retracing her steps, to rebuild a map of the events.
Then it hit her with astounding clarity, like a video reel playing in her mind's eye. Her mission to rescue Cassidy. Jamal's showdown against that Featherstone bitch and her daring bait and switch. Tulip knew she’d outsmarted her greatest rival and infiltrated Grail HQ in Masada, but couldn’t quite remember what had happened next. Something must’ve gone awry along the way. At least she’d had the foresight to be taken in wearing her Marnie Pomerantz getup, complete with a white Grail suit and blonde wig.
Was this some kind of hospital room? She grew impatient with her eyes and their refusal to focus. She eventually stood up, placing her feet against the chilly tile, and her legs nearly gave way underneath the weight of her body. Still, she collected her strength and forced herself upright, and though it was a struggle, she kept trying until she found her footing. As she paced sluggishly around the room, still using a hand to shield her eyes from the burning light pouring in from outside, the objects finally started to contort into recognizable shapes. On one wall, next to the door, was a tall mirror. Tulip saw herself in it for the first time dressed in a Grail hospital gown—white with red diamond outlines—and no longer wearing her wig. That wasn’t good. She prayed no one had recognized her.
And then she saw it: a clipboard secured to the foot of her bed. Under “Name,” it read Priscilla-Jean Henrietta O’Hare in clean, blocky handwriting. The rest of the info listed—her last physical address, her birthdate, her parents’ names—was also accurate. There was stuff there she couldn't have even listed herself without looking it up. Shit, shit, shit.
She knew she had to find her way out, and fast, for Cassidy's sake. He was still in here, facing untold suffering, and she'd be damned if she didn't do everything in her power to put a stop to that. Not after everything he'd done for her. After being her best and most trusted friend. Her heart raced at the thought, and she concentrated long and hard on her love for him, and how it would propel her to find her way out of this situation, however grave. It may not have been in the way he deserved, but she would always love him.
She got a weird feeling in the pit of her stomach thinking about seeing him again and saving his skinny ass. It wasn't right. Why couldn't she love love him?
Yes, he was an addict. A blood-sucker. And his fashion sense left a lot to be desired. In fact, sometimes—a lot of the time—he could be a bit of a train wreck. But after all, so could she. If she'd always done the right thing—well, she wouldn't have landed herself in this situation, that's for sure.
And then for the very first time, she remembered Jesse. Beautiful renegade Jesse with his swagger and his fists and his Genesis. He seemed like some far off dream, now, like the movie star crush she'd had as a teenager, the feelings transformed into but a fond remembrance from the past.
She hadn't forgotten that he'd abandoned her, like everyone always did, leaving her with nothing but a broken heart and a letter she couldn't bring herself to read. It had just happened, but already it felt like ancient history. Now, she felt numb to it.
She waited for that urgent voice in her head to tell her, for the millionth time, But you love Jesse and you can't live without him. You're betrothed, fated to be together until the end of the world. And she was a little relieved when it didn't come.
But lord, she must've hit her head hard this time. As her mind attempted to reach back toward childhood, to the past she'd built with Jesse, she couldn't find a thing. She felt desperate now. Had someone been screwing with her head, scraping and extracting to facilitate Armageddon? She didn't like it one bit, and the oldest memory she could vividly recall was the discovery that Jesse had gone back to Annville to take up his daddy's church and become a preacher like him. She clearly remembered the strange mix of scorn for his decision and desperate eagerness to see him again and get him back into her life.
Everything before that wasn't even a blur in her mind. It was simply gone. The only knowledge she had of her parents was a fuzzy afterimage, half-remembered from her stint between life and death. Their absence should have pained her, but she couldn't manage to feel any way about it except all right. She couldn't wrap her mind around the sense of peace she felt about it, and she hated that.
And while she knew she loved Jesse, she couldn't conjure up the feelings to go along with it. Whatever had made them them had all but evaporated. And the last year between the two of them—the only one she truly had—had been anything but perfect. Sure, it'd been thrilling at times. He'd always made her feel alive. But she'd also been ignored, and criticized, and victimized by a God-like power. She'd been lied to, and distrusted, and allowed to die. Now, Jesse had left. Maybe that wasn't the worst thing.
Cass, on the other hand—well, he was no knight in shining armor, but at least he'd never let her down. Not where it mattered. He always did everything he could to help, until they'd had to step in and stop him. He'd saved her life when Jess put her in harm's way. They'd had their little fights, and there were certainly times Tulip and Cass hadn't seen eye to eye, but if there was anyone in the world she could trust right now, it was him. She regretted ever playing with his feelings and letting harm come his way. He really did love her, and that mattered more today than it ever had.
So that was that. She was going to break out of this room, and rescue Cassidy, and then the world would be at their fingertips, as friends or otherwise. But first, to check this place for any security blindspots. Since she'd first spotted it, she'd been keeping a careful eye on the glass dome in the center of the ceiling that no doubt housed a spy camera. If she acted fast, she just might outsmart and outpace anyone who might be watching. First she jiggled the front doorknob, just to be certain, and was astounded when the door flew open. She peeked her head outside into the hall and there wasn't a soul in sight.
She got an eerie sense of deja vu, realizing it looked identical to the Grail headquarters she and Cass had visited in New Orleans: a sparse office building lit with unflattering florescent bulbs, the walls and floors sparkling white, with the occasional red door or desk ornament, so there was no mistaking where you were.
The place was deserted, and she quickly scoped out the floor, checking each room to find them all mysteriously accessible. Was this some kind of trap? Her intuition told her no, that for some bizarre reason, everyone here had just up and left in a hurry. But then where the hell could Cass be? In one room, a wall of monitors showcased empty rooms through a dozen security cameras and revealed that absolutely no one was on guard duty. No one was anywhere.
She found clothes that nearly resembled a normal outfit and changed out of the hospital gown into a red top and white slacks. Then, she hit the jackpot: a safe, as big as a room. She looked forward to cracking it, and was a little disappointed when the combination was plainly written across a sticky note on a nearby table. Some of these Grail folks weren't too bright at all, and when Tulip got in, the vault was stacked high with cash. It all seemed too easy—boring, even—but that didn't stop her from locating a scarlet duffle bag and loading up with a huge grin on her face. Something major had gone down here, and she couldn't help but wonder what it was.
Then, the kicker. At long last, her eyes had adjusted adequately to see out the blindingly glaring windows of the place, and this was no Masada. If her vision wasn't playing a trick on her, she was somehow back in New Orleans. After all the trouble she'd gone through to escape this place, it had dragged her back yet again, and she didn't have an inkling how. But she should have known. There should have been more stone, and dust. It was too clean, too open, and far too easy to leave.
As she stepped into the elevator to the ground floor, sharing it with a couple of unassuming telemarketers from another level, she plotted her next steps. And then just when she thought she knew exactly where she was, stepping outside threw her another curve ball, completely disorienting her yet again. This wasn't the same New Orleans Grail building. Had they really gone through the trouble to build an identical office in a different part of the city? She thought about it, and realized she didn't expect anything less from the organization.
But maybe being back here wasn't such a bad thing after all. In a way, this was home turf. She knew people. Had connections. This might actually work.
With her brain in a bit of a jumble, she was worried her abilities would be impaired. She felt lucky that most of her skills were finely honed, and the old ways came back to her like riding a bicycle. The city seemed to jog her memory, too. She knew precisely who to go to in order to secure a fake ID, a phone, guns and a new vehicle. It wasn't her beloved Chevelle, but she suspected it'd do the job just fine.
But most importantly, she needed folks who could track people down—someone with the skills to find a person, no matter how far they might be off the grid. Getting to Cassidy was all that mattered.
As she bided her time waiting for that critical information, she was in for a rude awakening. Tulip thought she'd been unconscious for two or three days, tops. But no. She was missing more than half a year. Either the end of the world had come and gone, and she'd missed it entirely, or she'd been there and had it taken away from her. Regardless, she was pissed, and suddenly, the search for Cass was all the more urgent.
She was thankful that, with the intel she'd gathered with the help of a friend of a friend, it took no time at all to pinpoint Cassidy's location: New York City. Knowing he was out of that hellhole in Masada made her breathe a huge sigh of relief. But even armed with the knowledge that Cass no longer needed rescuing, Tulip knew she had to see him as soon as possible. He would have answers, but more importantly, she needed him.