Initus (Walking Shadows Book 5)

by Talis Jones

  “Liz killed her,” Tori whispers horrified. “Leapt around the desk and bashed the woman’s head against it repeatedly until a guard could hold her still enough to inject her with a sedative. I’d snatched the journal and I still have faint scars from where Liz’s nails raked against my hands trying to tear it away from me.” Taking a steadying breath, she continues. “I thought the woman an angel with all the answers, but now the journal mocks me like a cruel joke because no one has been able to decipher it. Liz might have been able to, but she was too far gone to try. All she wanted to do was destroy anything linked to Xi and I wasn’t about to let her.”

  “Thus began Project Janus,” I murmur.

  My skin chills with the sudden icy memory filling the silence as my mind can’t help but visualize the violence and play it on a loop.

  “So you see,” Tori sighs defeated. “If you help me, you’ll be helping a psychotic murderer who once happily destroyed the world just to try, and fail, to destroy her greatest opponent.”

  I’m not sure exactly when Tori left raw emotions and truth behind to retreat back to her comfort of manipulation and control, but it was not lost on me. I’d considered bringing up both vaccines, but it died the moment she lied. There remained a chance she really didn’t know about Project Poppy…but it isn’t one I’m inclined to take. The bonds of sisterhood run deep with the Convici twins and I’m not about to test it yet.

  “I believe your story,” I tell her slowly, “but I don’t believe you care about your sister’s crimes.” Well-honed paranoia sets in and I lay down my terms. “I will help formulate the suppressant if I maintain full control of its formula and distribution. The only people who will be subjected to having their abilities taken away are extreme cases such as your sister and that woman’s nephew. Do I make myself clear?”

  “You drive a hard bargain,” Tori admires.

  Resolve turns my eyes to ice. “It is not a bargain. It is an ultimatum.”

  Taking a deep breath, Tori releases it in a rush before standing to shake my hand. “I agree to your terms.”

  I turn to leave but my hand pauses on the door handle. “What was the woman’s name?”

  Her hesitation sends another rush of anger through my veins. “I don’t remember,” she admits quietly.

  She doesn’t remember because it wasn’t important to her and that solidifies the line between us.

  Win snaps the rubber band at his wrist while Remi paces by a window when I find them and I can’t stand it anymore.

  “You two need to leave,” I say gently, firmly.

  They turn towards me with surprise and stubbornness on their faces.

  “We’ve been over this a hundred times,” Remi sighs.

  “And this time it ends,” I snap. “You’re like caged animals here and it’s hurting me to see you this way.”

  Win rolls his eyes. “We’re fine.”

  “You’re not.” Giving a pointed glare towards the bruise at his wrist. “You’ve overstayed our deal and now it’s time for you to go.”

  “It hasn’t been five years. You can’t kick us out.”

  “We are not leaving you,” Remi grits out darkly, stepping closer to loom over me.

  “You can’t intimidate me, Remi,” I smile sadly. “We’ve pooped in the woods together and there’s no undoing those bonds.”

  “We aren’t leaving you,” he repeats, refusing to yield to my teasing.

  “I’ll be fine here,” I insist. “Asking you to stay as bodyguards was just me being afraid to be alone, but I’m not alone here anymore. I am making friends with some of the other scientists, I have the Rolling Bones, I have Van, I think, and I have leverage. They need me here and they can’t hurt me or they risk losing what they want most.”

  “They could hurt you,” Win argues.

  “No, they can’t and they won’t. When have I ever actually needed bodyguards here?”

  “People were pretty mean to you for a while,” Win points out. Remi’s eyes dart towards the scar on my face.

  “Yeah, when we first arrived, but they got over it. I fit in here, but you two don’t and it’s torturing you.”

  Win snorts. “Torture is a strong word.”

  “What about when you’re done?” Remi asks darkly. “You claim they can’t hurt you because they need you, but what about when you’re done and they have what they want? What then? Who will protect you then?”

  I give him a tired smile. “When I’m done here, either I walk out those doors and find you or they kill me, but either way I’ll be free so don’t you worry about me.”

  “No,” he shakes his head angrily.

  “Remi, Win,” I say their names, looking them each in the eye in turn, “please do this for me. I am not alone and I am not unprotected. What I do need is something to look forward to. Go to the Cai Clan like I promised Bones I’d do. I’m sure we can communicate through him and his connection to Maddy. Then, when I’m done here, I will come find you.”

  “No,” Remi decides. “We’ll be right here the moment you step foot outside of this place to make sure you reach the Cai and we’ll know exactly when that is so don’t try and ditch us.”

  Relief pours over me as I smile at them. “So you’ll go?”

  “We’ll be back,” Win promises.

  “To take you home,” Remi adds.

  I throw my arms out and pull them both in for a hug. “I’ll have Van make arrangements and get you supplies. Time to unleash the Wild Cousins upon the world again!” Looking at them sternly, I add, “But not too wild. I don’t want either of you locked up again.”

  Win laughs. “Oh we don’t like to make promises.”

  “But that one we’ll keep,” Remi smiles solemnly.

  “Admit it,” I grin, punching Win lightly in the arm. “You’re dancing inside at the thought of the open road.”

  “Maybe a bit,” he admits with a twist of his lips trying to hide his excitement.

  We head towards my office and it’s impossible not to notice the spring in their step, the weight off of their shoulders, the life in their eyes. The selfish part of my heart yearns to keep them bound to my side, knowing I could easily guilt them into staying, but I love them too dearly. While they’re gone, imagining what mischief they might be up to will keep me smiling day to day and that puts a new spark of life in my own eyes.

  Twenty-Six

  A lightness is in both my heart and step as I carefully fill a pipette and transfer its contents into a waiting vial, bent carefully to measure at eye-level. Van hadn’t been surprised when I told him that Win and Remi were ready to leave, in fact he was surprised they’d stayed for so long. He promised to have some supplies assembled by the end of the week along with transportation to town where they’d be dropped off and free to roam. They leave tomorrow morning.

  Today, however, I decided to take a break from the journal and focus on simpler tasks to help clear my mind in an attempt to help loosen the knot that had formed in my brain. Dr. Xi’s journal thus far was clinical, scientific, to the point, and his codes were paranoid as hell. His earlier entries were fairly simple – I was, after all, a lover of puzzles and that had been one form of entertainment they’d not thought of to deny me in prison – and in his last entries I recognized a variant of the code I knew he used in his notes when I worked for him, but it was the middle that I needed.

  The journal had been stolen after I’d been sent away, after the explosion, and so his work continued on to new explorations. But what I needed for Project Janus were his notes from that moment. The notes that contained exactly what had been unleashed upon the world. They were also the notes most closely guarded with gibberish no matter what I tried and I’m so frustrated that I’m no use, hence the pipette work.

  “Another tray for you,” I call to Brink. He gives me a thumbs up and Tria comes over to fetch it.

  “This helping?”

  “Simple, mindless, familiar…yeah I think so,” I tell her. “I don’t feel like my head is
in a pressure chamber and my shoulders are carved from marble anymore at least.”

  “Progress,” she smiles.

  “Progress.”

  I watch her walk away with the vials and absently fiddle with the wrist of my nitrile glove. No, no thinking. Forcing my brain to leave the journal alone, I grab a tablet to start typing in the log identification numbers for the next batch of samples. No thinking, just doing.

  “Tria,” I call, not looking to see if she’d appear. “What’s this?”

  Sure enough her shoes tap lightly until they stand beside me, looking to where I point.

  “A logo?” she answers unsure why I’m excited by a mere etching in the tablet’s metal backing.

  “None of the other tablets I’ve used have one.”

  “They’re newer models,” she shrugs. “You came in during work time instead of lunch today so you ended up with that old brick. Should still work though. Contour built things to last.”

  “Harold Xi worked at Contour,” I murmur to myself, my mind spinning.

  Tria frowns surprised. “He worked at a tech development company? I thought he did medical?”

  “Yes, but when he was in school he needed scholarships to cover tuition and a job to cover anything else.” My words come faster with that growing wild high of unravelling a riddle. “He worked at Contour which at that time was nothing more than a hopeful startup company barely out of the garage. It might not be his area of expertise, but he did tell me once that he always enjoyed tinkering, designing, and seeing those designs come to life. It was just a hobby, but one he excelled at enough to move from paper pusher to minor team member before leaving for an internship in his actual field of study.” My breath leaves my lungs in a sudden whoosh. “How could I have forgotten that?”

  Tria’s eyes are wide as she struggles to follow my own mind’s path. “This has something to do with the journal?”

  I stare at her with gleeful triumph in my eyes. “Yes.” His most guarded formulas contain symbols I haven’t been able to recognize, never mind decipher, but that’s because I was only thinking in terms of genetics, medicine, common science. I needed to look up a different vocabulary and research the humble beginnings of Contour. His time there was an ignored footnote in his bio, but I still can’t believe I hadn’t recognized the symbol. Sure their official logo is different, but the version in Xi’s notes were its roots and I have a hunch it contains the key.

  “I have to go,” I apologize hurriedly.

  “I’ll enter the sample numbers,” she shoos me. “That’s what we mere peons are for. Go finish solving the journal.”

  Scrambling from my stool I dart out of the lab and think of nothing but returning to my office to work on this last standing lock on the riddle. It’s this single-minded determination that gets me through almost anything. It’s also the reason why I didn’t notice my shadow and find Tori suddenly pinning me against my office wall.

  Instinct kicks in and I manage to break her hold. Moving to keep my desk between us, I glare furiously. “What was that, Tori?”

  “You know,” she states in a deadly promise.

  “I know what?” I spit.

  “You know about Project Janus and Project Poppy. You know what their aims truly are.”

  Any residual triumph from earlier bleeds out of me leaving my body pale and frozen. How could she know that? Who told her?

  “Don’t bother trying to figure out a lie to spin me,” she sneers. “All it took was one touch on Mr. Winchester’s arm and he was happy to share.”

  “How could you?” My stomach twists in revulsion at the abuse of her gift.

  “Easily,” she snaps. “I don’t use my gift lightly or without permission except in emergency or extreme situations.”

  “And Win was an extreme situation, was he?”

  “No,” she admits. “You are.”

  My confusion must be evident because she scowls.

  “You, Ms. Travers, are what’s important and you were just about to let Plan B walk out the front door.”

  “Dr. Mehen said they could leave,” I insist angrily. She says nothing and a flicker of relief helps bring a tendril of calm back into my grasp. “He doesn’t know,” I guess. “Not about the vaccines, not about ‘Plan B’, not anything but what’s above board.”

  “Secrets are best kept in small numbers,” she teaches. “I needed someone to help run Python, not someone who might figure out too much or get in the way.”

  “Like me,” I grin coldly.

  “Like you,” she nods.

  “What is Plan B, Tori?” I ask though I’ve a feeling I know.

  She thinks a moment then decides to loosen her tongue. What could I do with the information anyway? Suffer, that’s what. “Should you ever become recalcitrant, I have two boys to use as leverage to ensure you complete your assigned task.”

  “They weren’t even supposed to be here in the first place,” I curse inwardly.

  “Lucky for me they decided to tag along.”

  I can’t seem to stop shaking my head as if denying this reality can change it. “Why though? Why are you doing this?”

  “I told you,” she answers righteously. “To save my sister.”

  “No,” I shake my head harder. “No. We’ve already talked about Project Janus and I understand how that helps your sister. We have an understanding on that front. What I want to know is why are you funding the creation of Poppy?”

  She frowns. “A drug that will save anyone from turning into an incurable Aggressive?”

  “DON’T LIE TO ME.” Rage I haven’t felt in decades floods my veins and it shocks us both. Taking a shaky breath, I continue. “You accused me of knowing the truth about both projects. You’ve taken Win and Remi hostage to use against me, to force me to see both projects through. I will sacrifice those boys and my own life to stop this evil madness, do not test me. Now tell me why.”

  “I would have stopped them from leaving regardless,” she explains softly. “But now you have these wild notions in your head and I can’t risk you doing anything that might doom my sister.”

  Gan surfaces and an eerie calm overtakes me. “You are not the scientist. I am. Project Poppy was started by your sister long before she lost control. I’ve done a little digging, a little forbidden hacking, and I know about your sister’s obedience experiments. She’s been using the gifted as subjects to convert them into willing agents for Sanctuary. For you. And now this drug she wants to pose as a vaccine will be her pièce de résistance. She wants to turn the entire population into docile, obedient, puppets to lead as she pleases.”

  “You’re wrong,” she barks viciously. “Liz helps people. She sends me people with abilities who need to be protected or who want to serve the cause. Even if that drug does what you say, there is a good reason for it. Maybe everyone is tainted by Xi’s explosion and we’re all a bit Aggressive and this is her cure. This could be what we need to be able to converse and compromise and restore the Union.”

  I can see the hope fueling the delusions she spins for herself right before my eyes and I know without a doubt that even if Liz herself confessed to Tori’s face, Tori wouldn’t believe her or at least she would never leave her side believing she could save her.

  “Two birds, one stone,” I tell her sadly. “She helps you and your pet project Sanctuary while simultaneously getting to defeat her archrival, elevate her power, and better yet perhaps you’re right. Maybe she’ll also use Poppy to restore the Union just like you both want. I don’t know her why and yours is nothing but blind loyalty, but I do know what that drug is being designed to do and I won’t let it.”

  Tori is quiet for a moment before meeting my gaze. “I don’t care if you’re wrong and I don’t care if you’re right. You are going to help save my sister and finish what she started.”

  “I will not,” Gan vows.

  Quicker than I believed she could move, Tori lunges over the desk and grasps hold of my exposed wrist. I barely have time to react
before she sends in a powerful wave that at first shudders through my body like a boulder dropped into a lake before the waves slowly settle and in its place I feel my body warm from the center out with devotion and determination to serve Tori and Dr. Convici until it ices over and shatters sending out a fear of failure that cuts my breath and weakens my knees.

  I don’t even notice Tori leave my office.

  I don’t know when I slid to the floor, when I started hugging my knees.

  I’m not sure how my knees, my sleeves, my face became so wet from tears and snot and pure paralyzing panic.

  Vaguely I feel warm hands trying to pry my arms from their vice around my legs. Warm hands on my face. Warm arms wrapped tightly around my body, hugging me until I ride things out.

  The comfort is vague because all I feel is a desperation to complete my mission. A yearning to please my superiors. I want to make them proud. I want them to praise me. But stronger is the thought of failing…all my mind can conjure up at that horribly, potent thought is a knife at my throat, or perhaps my wrists, or even a vial of poison I know will be swift. Should it be swift? No, such failure should have a slow punishment. It’s what I’d deserve.

  “Morgan,” someone chants softly. “Morgan, snap out of it, please.”

  Van? I wonder.

  I don’t know how much time passes before a nurse arrives and injects me with a sedative that sends me into a blessedly silent sleep. I don’t know how long I’m out before my fingers twitch and I slowly awaken.

  “Van?” I mumble surprised to see him seated beside my bed. My mind takes its time reminding me of what came before the sleep, what caused the sleep, and what will come after.

  “Morgan?” Relief is sharp in his tone as he stands to hold my hand. “Morgan, what happened?”

  “Remi? Win?” I ask, fear a knot in my stomach.

  “They were performing a required emergency drill with the other guards,” he tells me. “You’ve only been out for an hour and I sent an order for them to come here once their commander releases them. Morgan, what happened? Tria mentioned you thought you’d cracked Dr. Xi’s code, but when I came by your office you were…”