Across The Divide

by Stacey Marie Brown

  “Sprig?”

  “Yes?”

  “Zip it,” I growled.

  “Uh-oh, Bhean is grumpy, and there is no food or sex available here.” He sucked in a breath and whispered, “I’m scared.”

  “You should be.” I sighed. “Now go to sleep.”

  Tonight I wanted to sneak into the bottom level. Croygen’s visit would have to wait. The plastic rectangle pressing against my hip called to me. My goal was to find everything I could on Rapava’s plans. Knowledge was power, and I would destroy him with it. What would the higher-ups do if they knew the truth about this government faction and what it was really up to? Proof was the only way for them to believe. Whatever Rapava was doing down there had to be bad. I felt once I saw what was happening, the knowledge would only lead me deeper into Rapava’s world, and to the truth.

  I waited for Sprig to fall asleep. He would be upset, but I didn’t want him to get caught with me. Of course, I was hoping it wouldn’t get to that, but this venture was extremely risky.

  He was restless, almost like he knew I was planning something. Exhaustion and his warm body next to mine were making it hard to keep my eyes open. I felt myself drifting…

  Thunk! The sound of material hitting the tile floor sounded through the room.

  “Ahhh!” Sprig vaulted up, tripping over my arm. “The gnomes found me. Hide the cake.”

  I grabbed him, covering his mouth.

  It was pitch black, but my senses worked around the room, knocking against objects, trying to find the source of the noise.

  Feet landed on the table. Boots. A grunt.

  “Well, that was a pain in the ass.”

  Air catapulted out of my lungs. “C-Croygen?” I sputtered, letting my hand drop from Sprig, my eyes adjusting to the outline of a dark figure on the table.

  “Like there is any other.” He flicked on the tiny flashlight in his hand, pointing at his face.

  “I wish there was no other,” Sprig grumbled.

  “What the hell are you doing?” I whispered, slipping off my cot and standing up. My gaze darted for the door, ready for a stream of hunters to come barreling through and seizing Croygen. The idea of him being taken away from me, now that I felt I had a thread of hope, generated a frantic, terrified feeling like a squirrel racing around in my stomach.

  “You didn’t show up.” Croygen’s form climbed down from the table.

  “So you risked coming here? To see if I was all right?”

  “Uh. Yeah.” He sighed with exasperation. “That’s why I’m here, Zoey. You think I like being in this hole in the ground, surrounded by human test subjects and forced to wearing this crap outfit?”

  My lips bowed in a smile.

  “I mean, come on, a pirat… tradesman…has a reputation to uphold. Sexy, smoldering, dangerous. This gray scratchy fabric is chafing my crotch and downgrading my threatening demeanor. Not sexy.”

  “Awww…is the delicate wee-li’l pirate’s private parts inflamed and itchy? Might need to see someone for that. Besides your hand.” Sprig leaped onto the end of the bed frame then to the table.

  “But my hand is the only one who understands.”

  “Your hand is the only one who won’t laugh at the size,” Sprig snapped.

  “Funny, most women—”

  “All right,” I said in a hushed whisper, moving between them. Their faces became more distinct through the shadows. “Think I’ve got enough visuals to keep me in therapy for a while. You two can bicker later. I was hoping to do this without involving you guys, but you’re here and I can’t put this off.”

  “Put what off?” Croygen tilted his head with apprehension.

  “It seems we might have one person here on our side and willing to help us.” I told them about my encounter with Kate earlier in the day.

  “And you trust her?” Croygen’s voice was full of doubt. “How do you know she’s not playing you?”

  “I have to agree with the butt-bandit, Bhean. She’s one of them. She could be tricking you.”

  “Because I know,” I replied, still eyeing the door. If they were or could be watching me, someone would be here by now. “I can’t tell you how or why, but I do. I think Rapava is threatening her family. She has to do what he wants. Even coming to me today was a risk for her.”

  “It could all be a setup.” Croygen crossed his arms.

  “It could.” I shrugged. “But I’m willing to take this chance. I need to go there. I need to see firsthand what he is doing with Dr. Holt’s formula and my DNA. I can imagine, but I need proof. Documented proof.”

  “Wait.” Croygen raised his hand. “You want to go down there? Are you nuts?”

  “Ohhhh, nuuuutttsss…” Sprig exhaled dreamily. “Like the honey-dipped ones. Or even the cinnamon-sugar type. Choco-late! Diggle berries, I would even take the salty kind right now.”

  “I’ll give you salty nu—”

  “Stop right there.” I pointed at Croygen, cutting him off. “Look, I’m going. That’s final. You can stay or go; it’s up to you. Though right now, I really want to leave both your asses behind.”

  “Zoey, do you get how dangerous this is? What if you’re caught?”

  “I will deal with it then. I’m not going to sit on my ass anymore and wait. I completely understand if you want to stay back. This is my undertaking, not yours.”

  Croygen groaned, rubbing his face. “Seriously, how did Ryker deal with you?”

  “Salty nuts,” Sprig responded.

  It was my turn to groan. I turned, walking back over to the bed and sat, lacing my boots tighter. I never even took them off to sleep. I didn’t know if it was because I wanted to be ready at a moment’s notice or if it was more of a psychological connection to them. They had been with me since day one and were the only thing I had left which was really mine.

  Standing, I wrapped my hair into a loose bun as I moved toward the table. Since my room was locked at night, I still had to use the vents to get to the elevators. I climbed on the table, and Sprig swung himself onto my shoulder. The key card Kate left me was still hooked in my underwear.

  “You’re not going without me, Bhean.”

  I heard Croygen exhale deeply. “Yeah, I’m going too. Who knows what trouble you’ll get into without me?”

  “Bhean, can we leave him down there?” Sprig whispered loud enough for Croygen to hear. “Please? Come on. It would make things much better here.”

  I glanced over my shoulder at Croygen’s snarling face.

  “We’ll see.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  I landed on the tile, dropping from the air vent closest to the elevator. The lights were off in the hallway through this section. There was nothing but me, some unused labs, and fae-holding rooms. It was a perfect representation for me: not fae, but not safe enough to put among humans. I was in Siberia. Isolated and sequestered because I didn’t fit anywhere.

  The exits along the corridor illuminated our path. It was still a huge risk, especially because it was so quiet in the hall. At any moment we could be caught.

  Croygen and I slipped down the hall to the elevator with Sprig snuggled close to my neck. I slid the card from its elastic hold and hit the elevator button. The ding echoed like a siren down the vacated passage.

  My breath hiccupped in my lungs. I bit my lip, scanning for any movement. The doors clanked and slid open, a welcoming entry to our doom.

  “Last chance,” Croygen muttered.

  I paused but quickly shook my head and stepped in. “No. Without this proof, we have no chance.”

  “Not dramatic or anything,” Croygen grumbled.

  We slunk inside and pressed our backs to the wall, hiding on one side. The card stuck to my sweaty fingers. I took a breath and then glided it into the slot and pushed the last button.

  Every second felt like thirty. Fear ticked time slower.

  Close. Now.

  The elevator took another moment, taunting me, and then finally obliged my wishes. The reflective
metal of the doors outlined two figures as both doors clicked into one. Then the box released its hold and plunged us farther into the building. The elevator came to a halt and I reached back, grabbing Croygen’s hand. If the doors opened and someone stood on the other side, we were dead.

  The bells dinged, and my fingers crunched down on his hand. I could feel him stand taller, his muscles tensing, readying himself for what may be on the other side.

  It was strange, but in that moment I had no doubt he would throw himself in front of any threat and protect me. It was an odd adjustment to realize Croygen had my back. Or my front. He would die for me. Not that he would be happy about it. He’d bitch the whole time, but he’d do it. It placed him into the group I would defend with my own life. Croygen…who would have thunk it?

  The metal gates opened. My heart leaped into my throat.

  We were greeted with empty darkness and only lit exit signs, computers, and equipment showed the entrance. I felt my heart crawl back down my throat, struggling over the patchy dry spot. I swallowed and stepped out of the elevator. The sounds of machines rumbled softly in the background.

  “Okay, I can’t say my pulse didn’t just max out,” Croygen whispered close to my ear as he stepped around me. “I feel naked without my sword.”

  My fists were usually the only weapon I needed, but this was a different kind of fight. I would have loved a blade or gun.

  A short way down the path the hall came to an intersection, dividing the area into three more directions. “Right, left, or straight?” Croygen asked.

  I needed to check out every way, but an animal chirp came from the right.

  “This way.” I followed the rustling noises. Sprig stayed uncharacteristically quiet on my shoulder—until we crept into the room making the noises.

  “What the…?” Sprig pushed away strands of my hair that had fallen down.

  My eyes scoured the room, taking in the inventory of animals locked behind cages. Mice, rats, hamsters, rabbits, birds, and a few cats and dogs lined every inch of free space in the room, covering walls with cages stacked on each other like a game of Jenga.

  “Jesus.” Croygen stepped farther in the room. “It’s like I’m back in the oriental trade a hundred years ago.”

  “It’s disgusting.” Each cage was packed full, especially the rodents. The smell of the animals and their feces was so pungent I crammed my hand over my face and nose, the strong odor attaching to my tongue, building the taste in my mouth. “Ugh.” I gagged. There had to be at least two hundred or more of mice, rats, and hamsters. At least fifty rabbits, ten cats and exotic parrot-type birds, and five small to medium-size dogs.

  I wanted to vomit. As revolting as it was, I hadn’t come here to rescue animals. Anger rose and I had to turn around, stomping out. Croygen followed close behind.

  “You okay?”

  “Far from it.” I gripped my hands into fists. I never had a pet growing up and never thought much of it. Since Sprig had come into my life, not that he was a pet, he made me see what it might be like to love and protect something small and not human. He changed my views on a lot of things.

  “Let’s keep going, before I lose it and let them all loose.” I marched down the way. When we came to the intersection, I took another right, heading for the first door. The handle pulled down, creaking the door open. I stepped in and stopped. Tingles of fear washed over my skin and covered me in goosebumps.

  Jars of various sizes and widths lined the wall. Each held fleshy-looking items. I took a step closer, trying to decipher what I was looking at. My hand went to my mouth. Clumps of chopped body parts floated in translucent thick gel: eyeballs with strands of veins dangled after them like jellyfish; a small brain bobbed in another looking like a pink cauliflower; a lung; a liver; a clawed foot. The list of body parts filled the wall. By the shape and size I could tell they weren’t all from animals. A faint glow from some of the jars let me know many parts came from fae. My seer sight wasn’t as strong since getting Ryker’s powers, but it was still there.

  “Holy…shit,” Croygen uttered next to me. Sprig whimpered, clawing in deeper around my neck.

  Croygen stepped past me, examining the labels on the containers. “Snake-shifter fangs, domestic rat’s body, fae-raven’s feet.” He went down the row reading the objects in the jars. “What the hell is he doing?”

  Through the horror, I knew I had suspected something like this, but seeing it in person felt different. To realize this wasn’t some movie set, but a true Frankenstein lab, whirled bile in my stomach and up into my mouth. My body curled forward, responding physically to the scene. I turned away, needing distance from the carnage. Maybe if I saw this a few months ago, I would have chalked it up to what Rapava had to do to save cancer victims or disabled children. For me this notion had been thrown out a while back. I was also a different person. Even if I never received Ryker’s powers and was still fully human, I would no longer be able to tolerate this kind of experimenting.

  Rapava was not curing disease; he was destroying fae. I felt a sudden, visceral disgust at myself. If the night of the storm never transpired and Ryker was never forced into my life, I might still be all right with them experimenting on fae. Back then I thought of fae as the enemy and that their lives were nothing compared to the humans we were saving. At the time, I’d felt greater sympathy and anger for how the animals were treated than for any of the fae.

  Now I wanted to punch the shit out of my old self.

  How could I have been so narrow-minded and absolute in believing what I was told about another race? If Ryker and I could come together, hope existed for others. Even Croygen had warmed to me. Sprig and I were the poster children for human-fae relations.

  “Hey.” Croygen nudged my arm. “Let’s keep moving.” He glanced around nervously. My feet moved as though of their own accord away from the display and into the next room.

  A gasp fled my lungs at what I saw next.

  Oh. My. God.

  A horrendous wail came from Sprig, icing my veins. I couldn’t breathe. Or move. All I could do was stare, my brain trying to catch up with what it was seeing.

  Croygen ceased his tracks.

  “I think we just went past creepy and entered sadistic.”

  Sprig hugged my neck, burying his head into my hair. I didn’t blame him. This had to be too much for him. “Don’t look, buddy. Okay? You stay right there.” I tugged the band around my bun, letting my hair fall around him like a protective wall. I couldn’t imagine what it was like for him to witness this sight, to experience this pain over again.

  In the room stood eight five-foot cylinders lining the wall. In each floated a different type of monkey in a gel liquid. They were hooked to breathing tubes and monitors recorded their vitals. The primates in the tubes were made of different monkey parts. One had the head of an orangutan and hands, body, and feet of a gorilla. Others varied in size and type. The other side of the room was a mass of dissected monkey parts, like some twisted horror movie.

  “This doctor of yours is a sick fuck.”

  “Don’t you dare associate him with me,” I growled, bile coating my mouth, my eyes still locked on the animals. Rapava had been “experimenting” on monkeys for a while. It was how he created Sprig, but my gut told me he had rededicated himself to the venture since my return. The conversation the day Rapava first showed me Sprig came back to me.

  “I never thought of that before.”

  “Of what, sir?” I gulped.

  “Both animal and sub fae seek a master. Someone to command them…” He drifted off, lost in his own thoughts. “I will allow you to supervise him. It will be an interesting case study.”

  This was part of Rapava’s plan. Not only to create his tweaked human army, but to Frankenstein an animal horde alongside it. These monkeys were trials.

  Sprig’s little body quivered against my neck.

  “It’s okay.” I nuzzled my face into his fur. “I won’t ever let anyone hurt you again.”

/>   He only gripped me harder.

  I wanted to go. To get him away from this, but I needed more proof. I needed to investigate the other rooms where the testing and experimenting of animals still occurred but was vastly ignored by the public. Again under the philosophy of “if I don’t see it or acknowledge it, then I don’t have to do anything about it.”

  I could no longer look the other way.

  But this wasn’t the thing to shut DMG down. Neither were the grotesquely severed parts of fae in the other room. I needed to get my hands on the files I’d lost, which showed they were producing and experimenting with human babies. This might get some notice. I would need as much data as possible. Right now I didn’t even have what Daniel left me.

  “Come on. I need to keep searching.” I grabbed Croygen’s arm and led him to the door so I could look out before we fled.

  “What do you plan on doing when you find something?” Croygen whispered in my ear.

  “You don’t have a camera or anything, do you?”

  “What do you think? I come loaded with technology?”

  “And here you brag about being fully equipped.”

  Croygen snorted. “My gear is only used in the moment, not to capture a moment.”

  I smiled, but it felt forced. Too much heaviness sat on my heart. I used to be a lot tougher and could block out my emotions. I needed to become that girl again. There was more ahead; there was no doubt of that. And whatever I discovered I would have to face Rapava and act like everything was fine, and I was still going with the program. It was going to get extremely difficult, and I needed to be even tougher.

  I peeked my head around the door. “Clear,” I muttered.

  Sprig jumped from my shoulder and clambered down the hall toward the elevator.

  “Sprig?” I whispered hoarsely after him. He ignored me, slipping into the shadows. “Sprig.”

  “He’ll be fine.” Croygen came behind me. “He can hide anywhere.”

  “I know, but—”