“Why would you do that?” I manage, still stunned by his actions, by the ease with which he had wiped out months of debt.
“Call it a gesture of good faith.” His phone beeps: a text message. He picks it up and glances at the screen, his face unchanging, and then looks at me again.
“And here's another one. Police have just pulled up outside. I can get you past them, but you're out of time. You need to decide: are you coming, or staying?”
I hesitate for less than half a second.
“Coming.” It's not just the cops, or the money. I need answers, and so far, Scott is the only one who seems to have any idea what's going on. Even if it does sound crazy.
He nods and rises to his feet.
“Let's go, then.” He stoops to collect his jacket and pulls it on, then takes my arm. I tense at the contact, and he smiles reassuringly.
“We'd best make this look real.”
He opens the door and I allow him to steer me through it, just as two cops crest the stairs. They stop and look at us. At me, to be precise. I recognise one as the cop who chased me yesterday morning. The other I haven't seen before.
“PCs Drake and Russell,” the cop from yesterday identifies himself and his partner, holding out his warrant card. “Stay where you are.”
“Take it easy, boys,” Scott says smoothly, withdrawing his own ID card. “DS Yates, from Ryebridge station.”
“You're a little outside of your patch,” the second cop says, eyeing him coldly.
“That's 'You're a little outside of your patch, Sarge',” Scott corrects him. The cop's jaw clenches. “And that would be because we've had her under surveillance for the last week.”
“Then why weren't we told?”
“It's need to know, and I guess you didn't. Now, if you don't mind?”
The two cops reluctantly part, and Scott steers me through the gap. I walk beside him unresisting as we start to descend the stairs, processing everything he's said.
“You swore you weren't a cop,” I hiss.
“Relax,” he says, casting a glance over his shoulder to make sure we're out of earshot. “It's a fake.”
Nothing about that sentence particularly makes me want to relax but at this stage I'm committed. There's no going back – literally – so I let him escort me outside. The door has barely shut behind us when a car pulls up at the curb, coming to a halt behind the marked police car.
“He's with us,” Scott says. I recognise both the vehicle and its driver from this morning at the alleyway. The man is heavily built, all of it muscle. He’s wearing the same faded brown jacket he had on this morning, with the collar turned up, and under it a shirt and tie. I guess this ‘AbGen’ group don’t go for casual wear.
Scott opens one of the rear doors and I reluctantly slide inside. The door slams shut behind and I put my seatbelt on automatically. Scott walks round and gets into the passenger seat. He casts a glance at me over his shoulder.
“I gather you two have already met.”
The driver twists round and gives me a friendly smile. There’s a small scar just to one side of his brown eyes, and his nose has a bulge in the middle where it’s clearly been broken at least once. I get why they send Scott to meet people first. Even with the smile, it’s obvious this guy is no stranger to trouble.
“Nathan Webb,” he reminds me. “I hope you're feeling better.”
I give him a tight smile in return. I'm feeling a lot of things right now, but I'm pretty sure none of them are 'better'. The main one is vulnerable. Nathan saw me on the verge of a break down this morning. The only person who's seen me cry before is Janey, and we go back a long way. I would never normally drop my guard in front of someone I don't know. And if it's uncomfortably intimate for a stranger to see you cry, trust me when I say it's even more uncomfortable to see that person again, and sit in a confined space with them making awkward conversation.
The engine turns over and the car pulls away, and it doesn’t matter anymore. I'm trapped back here; I've got no choice other than to go with them, short of jumping out of a moving car. And I'm pretty sure in real life that doesn't end well. Of course, Scott says I can leave whenever I want, but if he changes his mind, there's not much I can do about it. He meets my eye in the rear-view mirror, then turns to look at me. He has that calming-a-wild-animal look again.
“You okay back there?”
I nod, although I'm not. I haven't been okay since this whole thing started. Who could possibly be okay with this? But one of them has already seen me cry, the other almost made me scream; I don't want to seem like any more of a coward than I already do.
“Stop the car,” he says quietly. Nathan looks at him, then indicates and pulls the car over to the side of the road. He switches off the engine.
“I don't want you to be afraid, Anna,” Scott tells me. “For one thing, if you get too scared you're going to shift again, and for another, I think you've spent enough of the last twenty-four hours afraid, am I right?”
I stare back at him mutely.
“I meant what I said,” he promises. “Any time you want to leave, I won't stop you. If you want to get out of the car right now, it's up to you.”
I'd be crazy not to – I'm sitting in a car with two guys I met for the first time this morning, who've already admitted to working for a shady government organisation and impersonating police officers, and I have no clue where they're taking me. Not to mention that they keep talking about me ‘shifting’ as if it's a perfectly normal thing.
“I want to keep going.”
I guess crazy is the order of the day. Scott nods, and the car starts up again and eases out into the traffic. Nathan turns a dial and warm air starts to pump into the vehicle. I realise that I'm shivering, but I doubt it's from the cold. I have to find out how to stop these black outs, and I can't deny that I'm curious about who Scott works for. This ‘AbGen’ group doesn't seem bothered about playing by the rules, and I can't help wondering what they get up to when they're not tracking down waitresses.
I have about a hundred questions but I can't figure out how to word any of them, so instead I settle back into my seat. We ride in silence for maybe half an hour, the scenery changing from houses and street lights to trees and fields lining motorways. It doesn’t take long to lose track of where we're going, but if I really wanted, I could use the maps feature on my phone to find out where we are. I don't. I've decided to trust Scott. I chose to stay in the car, so there's no point in trying to guess where we're headed. I'll know soon enough anyway.
Nathan is a conscientious driver – he is fast but careful, moving into the outer lanes to pass other drivers and then dropping back inside again. He checks his mirrors constantly, as does Scott, and I wonder if they're checking to see if we're being followed, or if it's just habit.
He signals onto a slip road and leaves the motorway. We must be getting close. My stomach starts to churn, and I wonder if this was really such a good idea. Maybe I should have just gone and seen the doctor tomorrow instead, and he could have diagnosed me with something nice and normal, or said I was under too much stress. The last thing I need is to be going into some secret government facility to meet some people who may or may not want to poke around inside my brain.
“Take a deep breath, Anna,” Scott says, and I look up from my feet to see him watching me. I realise I can hear rapid breathing – my own – and make an effort to slow it down. It's not happening.
“You're going to be fine.” He keeps saying that, but how do I know I can trust him, really? I know nothing about him other than his name, which may or may not be real. After all, he carries a fake police ID card, so it’s not like it bothers him to lie about his name. My mother never gave me much advice, but not getting into cars with strangers was at the top of the list. Of course, she also told me never to stay in the same place for too long, so maybe paranoia runs in the family.
“Do you want me to stop the car?”
It comes back to the same thing. Because
every time he asks me that, it reminds me I have nothing to go back to. This is the only way I can find out what's going on and get back some sort of control over my life. I shake my head in response and make another attempt to control my breathing. I focus on each breath as it enters my lungs, lingers a while and then leaves again, until my breathing is slow and steady. I always knew those meditation classes would come in handy one day. Deep down. Somewhere. Mrs Steadman would have been proud.
I spend the rest of the journey listening to my breathing and trying not to think too much about where we're going and what might happen when we get there. I don't know how much longer it is before the car comes to a stop. Scott turns in his seat to look at me.
“Are you ready?”
Chapter Five
I don’t think it’s necessarily a good idea to answer that question honestly, so I just nod and thrust my hands into my pockets so he can’t see them shaking. I might not be even close to ready, but I'll be glad for the waiting to be over. They get out of the car and I do the same, looking around me. We're on what looks like a normal road – there are several blocks of offices and a couple of shops. Beyond them, I can see houses. It's not what I was expecting, but I'm way past being surprised by now.
I follow Scott up several steps to an oak door with a speaker beside it. He pauses and meets my eye.
“What you're about to see, you can't tell anyone.”
“Or you’ll have to kill me?”
“I'm serious, Anna. This organisation doesn't officially exist; we don't exist. And neither will you if you choose to join us.”
The smile drops from my face and I nod. Bloody hell, Anna, what are you getting yourself into? He searches my eyes for a moment longer and seems content that I get it. His attention turns to the speaker, and he presses the buzzer beside it. Almost immediately a voice asks him to identify himself.
“Agents Logan and Webb. We have a guest.”
“Is the street secure?” the monotone voice asks.
“There's a party across the road,” Scott answers. I look over my shoulder but don't see any sign of the party.
“It's a code,” he explains, catching my glance. “If I say the street's clear they'll know I've been compromised.”
I want to ask what happens if he's been compromised, but before I get the chance there is a buzz and the door swings open. He steps through it and I follow cautiously, with Nathan behind me.
“Welcome to Langford House,” Scott say grandly, as I look around, awestruck. We're standing in a brightly lit, wide hallway with laminate flooring and exquisite wooden panelling. A counter takes up half the length of one wall, and behind it sits older woman, prim and proper in a pale grey suit, with pale hair styled short with loose curls, and wearing minimal make up. She's protected by what looks like some sort of bullet-proof glass – although truth be told it might just be perspex for all I would know. Somehow I don't think they're the perspex type, though. She nods a greeting to Scott, who returns it. She opens a hatch in the glass and passes through a small electronic pad. Scott crosses to her, his shoes clicking on the laminate flooring, and holds his hand on the pad, palm down. It beeps and he passes it back through. I guess it's some sort of identification scanner. There's a lot of security here, which is my experience is rarely a good thing.
The door slams shut with a bang and I jump, spinning around. Nathan raises his hands and offers an apologetic smile.
“Sorry.”
My eyes have already slid past him though, onto the stoic man standing silently beside the door. He is wearing black shoes and a suit which doesn't completely cover the tattoo rising up onto his neck, but that's not what I'm staring at. It's the ugly black pistol in his hands that has my attention. I've never seen a gun in real life, and I barely suppress a shudder. It's a vicious-looking weapon, designed for just one purpose.
Nathan coughs discreetly and a figure appears by my side. I gasp and spin around, but it's just Scott, and he's showing me his empty hands.
“It's okay,” he promises, and then shifts his gaze to the armed guard. “If Miss Mason here wants to leave at any time, you're to let her, understand?”
The man nods.
“And if I try to stop her,” he adds as an afterthought, “feel free to shoot me.”
“Yes sir,” the guard says, a smile twitching at the corners of his mouth.
I shake my head. I'm glad they think it's funny.
“Pay no attention, dear,” the woman behind the counter says with a kindly smile. “They're like overgrown boys sometimes.”
I smile back uncertainly and behind me Nathan chuckles quietly at the reprimand.
“Alright, let's go,” Scott says, and I'm feeling a little less tense as we approach another door out of the hallway. The woman presses another button behind the counter and the door slides to one side. I'm surprised to see it's a lift. The three of us step inside the confined space. The door slides shut and I look around the sterile box, acutely aware of the powerfully built men standing on either side of me. There's a panel set into the side of the lift with several buttons. Scott presses the one marked “basement” and the lift starts its descent. A few moments later it stops and the doors open again.
“I'll check in with Gardiner,” Nathan says, making no move to exit the lift. Scott nods, and steps through the door, motioning for me to follow. We're in a hallway that seems too vast to belong to just the building we entered, and I wonder if AbGen bought up the surrounding buildings to build below them.
We stop outside one of the doors, and Scott pulls out a card and swipes it through the reader. There’s a soft click as the lock disengages. I want to ask what's on the other side of the door but my throat is closing up. I'm starting to feel like a goldfish that's just been dumped in a fishing lake – I'm so far out of my depth that it would be laughable, if I wasn’t so terrified. I close my eyes for a moment and take a breath. I'm here by choice, I remind myself. I want this.
Scott is standing patiently, watching me. I'm amazed that he seems content to take things so slowly – to him this must be everyday stuff and I must look like I'm completely overreacting. Maybe I am. This is just like walking into any other office, anywhere in the world. I nod to him and we walk through the door.
And it's not like any other office. To start with, it's not actually an office, more like some sort of gym. The room is quite big and reminds me vaguely of a high school sports hall, with the high ceiling and wooden panels, but without any of the usual equipment. There’s some kind of padded matting lining the floor, and a number of markings running along it that mean nothing to me. There are a few punch bags and a couple of treadmills against one wall, but the rest of the room is empty. Bright lighting shines down from the ceiling, and it would be easy to forget that I’m underground, except for the lack of windows, which gives the whole room an eerie feel.
There are two people wearing loose-fitting workout clothes in the centre of the room, sparring. They seem to be equally matched, and it's not until we get closer that I notice one of them is a woman. Her sparring partner aims a punch at her throat, and she takes a quick half step to the side, then catches his arm as it reaches the space she had occupied moments before. A quick twist puts her behind her partner, and she pulls his arm up while pushing her foot into the back of his knee, sending him crashing to the floor. She keeps her hold on his arm, pinning him to the ground. Panting, she pauses a moment, a smile creeping onto her face, but before she has a chance to celebrate her victory, she is flying through the air and slamming into the mat. I wince in sympathy. Her partner has somehow reversed her grip on his arm, too quickly even for me to see, and drops onto his knees, straddling her. He throws a punch at her throat but stops short.
“Never relax until your target is completely disabled,” he tells her, getting to his feet. He offers her his hand and pulls her up. She covers the front of her right fist with the palm of her left hand and bows slightly, and he repeats the gesture back to her. She heads towards the door we
've just come in through, nodding to us on her way past. Her sparring partner approaches us and greets Scott with a wide smile.
“Scott, how're you doing? Don't suppose you've come to spar?”
Scott plucks at his suit lapel with one hand.
“Not today.”
“Excuses, excuses,” the man says, shaking his head in mock disappointment, whilst reaching for a sweat rag. Scott picks up a bottle of water and tosses it to him, and the man squirts some into his mouth.
“So, are you going to introduce us?” he asks, casting a glance in my direction.
“This is Anna. She's talented. Anna, meet Nick. He's one of our self-defence instructors.”
“Good to meet you,” Nick says, offering his hand. I shake it and repeat the sentiment.
“You must be looking for Paul then?” he asks Scott.
“Have you seen him?”
Nick shakes his head.
“Try the comms room,” he suggests.
Scott thanks him and we leave through the same door we came in.
“You're quiet,” Scott observes as we walk along the hallway.
“It's a lot to take in,” I say. He nods his understanding.
“It was much smaller when I signed up. Pretty much none of the subterranean rooms existed then.”
“How long ago was that?” I ask, my curiosity piqued. He pauses to think.
“Seven years, give or take. A lot's changed in that time. For the better.”
We've reached another unmarked door with a card reader beside it. Scott swipes his card and we walk through. The contrast between this room and the last couldn't be greater. Though small, the room is packed with desks and computers. The walls are covered in charts, and there are several whiteboards with information jotted on them in various colour inks. At three of the computers, people are sitting, tapping away at the keyboards. Each is wearing a headset, and one person is speaking into his in muted tones.
Two more people are standing in front of one of the charts, and Scott strides across the carpet towards them with me trailing in his wake. One is a man, perhaps late thirties, wearing the obligatory suit and sharp tie, with slightly thinning hair that he makes up for with stubble on his chin. His face is creased with lines that deepen when he frowns.
Awakening (TalentBorn Book 1) Page 4
