by B D Grant
Cassidy’s expression darkens. “Is that what you’ve heard?” she asks, keeping her eyes straight ahead. “I should have expected it. I heard people say some pretty brutal things even before all this.” Her brow creases as she glares into the space between us and Kian and Flea. “Did no one notice that I was completely surrounded by Rogues in that facility? What about the fact that my entire raid party had been gunned down in our effort to save innocent lives?” I don’t know what to say; immediately, I want to backpedal.
“I saw you being dragged away,” I admit. Cassidy had tried to warn me about the explosives after all
The creases fade from her brow. She squeezes my shoulder. The pants suit she’s wearing is tailored to a near perfect fit. She never wore anything that nice at The Southern Academy. “But, you aren’t being guarded and…” I look down at her feet, “you’re wearing heels.”
“Have you not noticed?” she asks, eyeing the back of Flea’s head and then giving me a soft smile. “There’s always at least one of them breathing down my neck.” I can’t bring myself to meet her smile. I can’t tell if she’s avoiding answering my question because of Kian and Flea’s close proximity or if she simply doesn’t want to answer. Cassidy exhales loudly. “When I got here I had to make a decision. There is so much you don’t know.”
“I’m all ears.”
Cassidy watches Kian as she ducks her head in my direction. “You’d have done the same.”
At that, I shake her arm off.
Who does she think she’s talking to? My family was ripped apart by these people; did she forget that?
“I. Will. Never. Be. a Rogue,” I say, not even trying to hide my contempt. “I don’t know what they did to you, or to Kelly, or anyone else, but my family was nearly destroyed because of these people.” Flea half glances back at the sound of my voice, but Kian says something about clearing floors that draws his attention.
She takes my hand in an attempt to draw me back to her. I try to pull it back, but she holds on to it tight. “My family is here, Taylor,” she says, sounding more like a plea more than a statement.
“Your family is dead, Cassidy. They’ve been dead.” She looks at me, unfazed by the cold reminder of her parent’s death. She’s the one who told me that Rogues killed them decades ago. As Flea takes us down yet another windowless corridor, I imagine a Sipe Christmas card, a family picture of Cassidy smiling sweetly and her zombie parents standing on either side of her, their gaunt faces snarling at the camera.
A door opens ahead of us, and we slow. As we pass it, I catch a glimpse of Dynamars, male and female, bustling around inside. The largest Dyna are loading guns. A few wear bulletproof vests. I turn to see Gradney, Mase, and Kelly all emerge from the room behind us. Kelly is the only one not wearing a vest.
“Speak of the devil,” Cassidy says to the three of them, although I’m not sure why. Kelly looks from us to Kian and Flea. I look forward to see Flea, without turning to see who’s behind us, is waving Kelly forward.
Kelly steps past us, falling into step in front of Kian.
This is ridiculous. Kelly and Cassidy don’t seem to think it’s a big deal to consort with the people I thought we all despised! In no universe should this be happening.
Gradney walks up next to Cassidy, opposite me, and gives her a wink. Mase takes up the rear.
“Taylor,” Cassidy says with a sweet smile I don’t know if I’ve seen on her before, “I’d like you to meet my little brother.
“We’ve met,” Gradney tells her, nonchalant.
I should be shocked, probably, but given everything that’s occurred in the last twenty-four hours, it’s barely a blip on my radar. Still, I find myself looking around Cassidy to better examine Gradney’s features. Their resemblance isn’t very prominent. Yeah, their coloring is about the same, but Cassidy’s facial features are much softer.
At least now I know what happened to Cassidy’s baby brother on the night of her parents’ murder; I don’t want to ask, but it makes sense. He’s been with the people who took him this whole time. Not only that, but he’s working for them, and now Cassidy is too. I swallow hard, trying to push down the burning sensation in my throat. The Cassidy I know wouldn’t work for anyone else unless she wanted to, and she sure wouldn’t work for the people that killed her parents.
“That’s great that you found your brother, but…,” I watch Kian in front of me who is quietly discussing the situation downstairs with Flea. “Just because he’s one of them doesn’t mean you should be.”
“I won’t leave him again,” she says, holding her head a little higher. She leans a little toward Gradney giving him a reassuring smile.
“You didn’t leave him,” I remind her as Gradney smiles back at her, getting a little louder before catching myself. “He was taken.”
Cassidy looks at me out of the corner of her eye. “If everyone back home thinks I’m a Rogue, then all I have is my brother and my uncle.”
“You didn’t say anything about having an uncle.”
Cassidy looks straight ahead again, a smile creeping back to her lips. “I’m surprised he didn’t tell you. That’s my father’s oldest brother.” She nods at Kian.
Kian doesn’t stop his conversation with Flea, but I can’t help but gawk at him.
“What?” I accidentally ask out loud. I compare Kian and Gradney’s profiles. Their resemblance is much clearer. Now that I know, I can’t believe I didn’t catch that earlier.
I slow down, taking it all in. Mase pushes me in the back, and I stumble forward. I don’t know what I had been expecting but this wasn’t it. Well, maybe I did sort of know—I would be brought to some sort of brainwashing factory where normal Seraphim went in and evil Rogues were spewed out. I wouldn’t have been surprised to find them belting out mantras about their superiority over nonSeraphim with every breakfast, lunch, and dinner, but not this.
My voice is low when I cautiously say to Cassidy, “So, your uncle killed your parents.”
Gradney chokes back a laugh. At the sound, Kian glances back at us. Cassidy watches him, unfazed.
Louder than I would like, Gradney says, “Justice was served years ago.” He cuts his eyes over at me. “Not that it’s any of your business.”
His confidence instantly annoys me. The back of Kelly’s head flashes into view from around Kian. At least I wasn’t totally wrong about this place spewing out Rogues.
I can’t forget about Sidney either. When it came to her health, Sidney has never let on that anything was wrong except for that one seizure, but she is in terrible shape. She’s been a captive for a while, so I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised—still, it hurts. Maybe she doesn’t know how serious it is. I wonder if anyone’s told her.
That brings me to Kian, another weird piece of a weird puzzle. How can the person running this place be…nice? Maybe he’s not exactly nice, but I would have imagined the person who was calling the shots at a place like this would be wicked at the very least. Kian comes off as nothing more than an inquisitive old scientist.
A stairwell door opens behind all of us, and a couple well-dressed Seraphim dash out of it. Mase moves so close to me that I can feel the heat coming off his body. Under normal circumstances I wouldn’t be too bothered by a good-looking guy getting in my personal space, but today I feel like turning around and kneeing him in the groin. I would, too, if I thought I could get away with it. Instead, I forcefully toss my long ponytail over my back, purposely hitting him in the face.
“Do you mind?” he growls, wiping his cheek where my hair made contact.
“Do you mind?”
Cassidy gives me a harsh look exactly like the ones during our lunches together at The Southern Academy when she and I were getting on each other’s nerves as she pushed me to improve my ability to read into lies. “Taylor, stop. He’s here to protect you.”
“What am I being protected from exactly?”
No one answers.
“Third floor has been compromised,” Flea
reports after a moment, I guess for those in the group not listening to comms. “Shots fired.” Flea and Kelly’s steps quicken putting distance between them and Kian as he continues walking at a normal pace.
“That was fast,” Gradney grumbles. Cassidy shoots Gradney a nervous glance.
“Cancel the barricades,” Kian instructs, his voice smooth. “Safe rooms are priority.”
Flea speaks quickly into his earpiece, repeating Kian’s instructions. Seraphim hurry into the hall ahead of us. Kelly directs them out of our path with little more than a flick of his wrist.
“Who’s on the third floor?” I ask, but again no one answers.
Could Sidney’s call for help have worked that fast? It takes time to form a plan and gather everyone. It’s doubtful that there are any decent Seraphim in the area who aren’t Rogues. Plus, there’s always travel time. Kelly stops at a stairwell and we all slow behind him. He swipes his badge to open the stairwell door. “No,” Kian tells him through pinched lips, “Too risky. Take us to the rear stairs.”
Kelly is redirecting us when a small group of Seraphim children emerge from a room led by a very friendly-looking woman. The kids, the oldest no more than ten, are all smiles until they lay eyes on Kelly and Flea. The smallest ones shrink back into the room until the woman with them says, “Hurry up if you’re wanting ice cream.”
“Third floor,” Kian instructs the woman who looks to him as we pass them.
I gape at the back of Kian’s head. He wants to send kids down to the floor that he knows is under some kind of siege? So much for him being a nice Rogue.
The woman leading the children stiffens. “Third?” she asks.
“Yes,” Kian answers briskly. With his pinky he pushes his earpiece deeper into his ear. He catches my scowl as he watches the woman turn the kids around. The tallest boy in the group, most likely a Dyna, is the last to turn around. He looks at me with longingly. I can’t tell if he’s wishing he could come with us or if he’s wishing I would speak up to Kian for sending him and the other kids down to the third floor somehow knowing that they aren’t actually going to get ice cream. Or, maybe I’m just imagining the longing in his eyes, because no sooner that our eyes meet he’s turning around to join the other kids. “Don’t worry. They’ll be okay,” Kian assures the woman who glances over her shoulder at him as she points the kids down the hall, but I can tell he’s saying it more for my benefit.
Cassidy’s noticed my ugly looks as well. “He’s biding time for us to get out safely,” she says quietly, although not appearing too sure herself.
“By sacrificing children?” I ask.
On the other side of Cassidy, Gradney chimes in, “We aren’t sacrificing anyone.”
I pick up on the lie before Gradney has finished the sentence. I push hard into it. Cassidy gives him a light tap with the side of her elbow. She glances back over at me, but I continue to stare straight ahead as if I hadn’t caught his slip-up.
I scroll into Gradney’s lie, ignoring the talk that continues around me. Gradney knows a good deal about the children. They aren’t the offspring of any Seraphim who work here. Some of them were taken off the same hospital bus as Kelly. In Gradney’s mind, this makes them expendable. He doesn’t actually think the children will be killed but that they will be enough of a distraction downstairs to help everyone up here bunker down.
I attempt to push further, wanting to know who is on the third floor; as far as I can tell, he doesn’t know. He had told Kian that it would be a good idea to utilize the children from the bus if other people were to infiltrate the building. It would also portray intruders in a very bad light if any of the children were injured. My stomach turns. “I don’t feel so good.”
Kelly and Flea are about to walk us past a set of glass doors when Kelly throws an arm up. I can see his profile around Kian’s frozen form. His face is emotionless as he exams the glass doors.
Flea pulls Kian behind him as Kelly mutters, “Someone’s coming.” He takes the handgun off of his hip.
Flea copies his movements. “Are they armed?” he asks. Cassidy pulls me closer to her side protectively placing her hand on my shoulder. Mase moves around the left side of me to get in front of Kian too.
Kelly doesn’t respond. He holds a finger in the air as a lab technician flings open a glass door and runs into the hallway. He nearly collides into Kelly before noticing him. “Intruder,” he huffs into Kelly’s chest, “in the lab, with a patient.” He looks around Kelly and Flea to Kian and says, “It’s the dreamer.”
Kelly carefully steps around the disheveled lab technician keeping an eye and the end of his gun pointed on the glass doors. “What are they doing?” Kelly asks him.
“Searching. For something.”
Kelly watches the glass doors for a second. “No movement,” he reports.
“We don’t have time for this,” Kian spits. He turns to Flea. “We’ll go through the observation deck in the rec room. We can access the helicopter pad from there.”
“What about the dreamer?” Flea asks.
Kian jaw tenses. “We’ve gotten what we needed from her. Let whoever it is have her.”
An intruder, the dream, could he mean Sidney? I want to ask but Kian’s mood has changed. He no longer looks calm. The hard set of his jaw makes me think that he’s less inclined to lose ‘the dream’ than he’s letting on.
“How did one of them get past our security?” Gradney asks.
“It doesn’t matter,” Kian says through gritted teeth. He looks from Gradney to Cassidy to Flea. “We just better not be here when the rest of them get through.”
Flea nods as Kian turns on his heels. Kelly stops the lab tech from following Kian. Cassidy doesn’t let go of me as she turns me around to double back. I have to crane my neck to see what Kelly is going to have him do.
“You aren’t coming with us.” Mase says sternly.
The tech’s shoulders slump under the hard gazes coming from Kelly and Mase. “And do what? I’m not going back in there,” he motions toward the lab.
“Take the elevator,” Kelly instructs, sliding his gun back in its holder. “I’ll let the control center know that you’re heading to a safe room.”
“Thank you,” the lab tech sputters, taking off in a sprint down the hall in the direction we had been heading.
Kelly nods at Mase as they both turn to follow us. Mase starts talking to his earpiece.
“They’re sending more Dynamar upstairs,” Mase tells us after a moment.
“Only Elites,” Kian calls back from the front of the group. “I only want the best.”
Mase frowns. “Yes sir,” he says, cutting eyes at Kelly who’s wider stride has him coming up to us quicker than Mase. Kelly steps around me without even seeming to notice me staring up at him as he makes his way back to Kian.
I stare down at the floor as we walk more quickly, disappointed. If whoever it is that got inside made a beeline to the labs, it’s probably not a rescue mission. But still, if they made it this high up with this much security, than no matter what they are actually here for, they’re still my best bet at getting free. I cannot allow myself to be flown out of here when help is so close.
My stomach tenses when we enter the recreation room where all the Dynamar had been wrestling earlier. The large room is completely empty now, aside from the mats still littering the floor. They’re no longer spread out neatly but rather are strewn around haphazardly.
I stop abruptly a few feet inside, queasiness overtaking me. I curl over and grab my stomach. Cassidy releases me form her grasp. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
Mase is right behind me. He grabs my arm. “You can get sick later,” he tells me. Kelly stomps past us without a glance in my direction.
My stomach begins to churn as my sight blurs. I turn away from him and try to pull my arm out of his grasp, but his hold is too tight. The rest of the group continues toward the stairs at the other end of the room.
A familiar voice whispers inside of
my head, Fight.
“Sidney?” I say out loud as the nausea spikes again.
Mase gives me a disgusted look, like he’s already grossed out by vomit he hasn’t even seen yet.
I’m not alone. You have to fight him.
Sidney has managed to connect with me for the first time while I’m wide awake. And there’s something else: I can feel my mom too. Sidney shows me her view of Mom, who is behind her, pushing Sidney’s wheelchair. Relief floods my body. Instantly I forget about the nausea. She looks fierce through Sidney’s eyes. She’s a woman on a mission. Her eyes are set dead ahead as she maneuvers Sidney’s wheelchair around what appears to be a hospital bed laying on its side, mattress and bed sheets on the floor. She is wearing a white lab coat that she must have stolen out of one of the labs. The faded gray shirt peeking out from under the lab coat is too big on her small frame. It looks like one of my dad’s old shirts that she used to sleep in.
Sidney turns to look ahead to where they’re going. There are pictures of wrestling teams on the walls of the hallway they’re in. Sidney and Mom are on this floor. I must have been right about Sidney being the dreamer the lab tech mentioned. Sidney’s voice echoes between my ears. We are coming for you.
I begin-dry heaving so that Mase would literally have to drag me if he wants me to move. “Come on,” Mase groans when my gagging doesn’t let up.
The sounds gross him out so much so that he steps back wrinkling his nose as he releases my arm. I shuffle away from him as if I’m unsteady on my feet, but he moves with me. I take a lengthy side step when his hand extends for my arm again. “No you don’t,” he says.
Cassidy calls out from the bottom of the stairs that she’s about to ascend. “Chop chop!” she calls, glancing back at us.
Mase looks over at her, and I use the distraction to take off in the opposite direction. I push off. The power in my first few strides make me proud, but my stride isn’t as controlled as I’d like it to be. It’s the stress I know it is. My body isn’t used to having to run for its life.
The connection between the three of us is strong. I can both see the double doors I’m running toward and hear my feet hitting the ground as Sidney talks to me. I run towards the gym doors where I can see through Sidney’s connection that Mom and her are heading for the same set of doors several yards ahead of them. Sidney is doing the same as me, using our connection to locate the other.
