by H. D. Gordon
With one last look at where Thomas was still concealed in the high grass, and another glance up at the accusing moon, I slipped into the hayloft, moving forward on my hands and knees. When I came to the edge, I saw that Caleb and Chris were indeed inside, and like the terrible friend that I was, I held my breath so that I could eavesdrop on their private conversation.
CHAPTER 30
“I don’t understand why you brought me here,” said Caleb, and I could tell by his tone that the two had been arguing.
Chris let out a sigh, straightening his expensive shirt and placing a hand on his brother’s shoulder, gripping it and meeting his eyes. When Chris interacted with Caleb, his aura took on a different state than the one it usually maintained, a certain protective love that I hadn’t seen him exhibit with anyone else.
“I know you don’t trust me,” Chris said at last. “I know you don’t trust our father.”
Carefully, I scooted closer to the edge of the hayloft, wanting to get a better view, but aware that if I shifted wrong I could draw seriously unwanted attention to myself. If Caleb found out I was here spying on him, I doubt he’d ever forgive me.
Caleb pulled out of his brother’s grasp, jerking his shoulder away from his touch. “I’m pretty sure it’s the two of you that don’t trust me. What other reason could you have for excluding me from everything? You think I haven’t noticed the way you and dad get quiet all of a sudden as soon as I enter a room? Or how I’m always the last to know about everything? Because I have. I have noticed.”
Chris was silent a moment. Then, he said, “I’m just trying to protect you, little brother, and as usual, you aren’t making it easy. Do you know what dad would’ve done had he been the one who caught you snooping around in his office rather than me?”
Caleb threw up his hands, stuffed them in his pockets, and squared his shoulders. “Protect me from what?” he said. “And I wouldn’t have to ‘snoop around’ if you guys included me in things. I...” He paused, not sure if he should speak his next words. “I think dad is up to something. I think the whole company is involved, and I think it’s something bad.”
“What makes you think that?”
Again, I could see from Caleb’s aura that he didn’t know how much of his hand to let show, that he wanted very much to be able to trust Chris, but that he just wasn’t sure if he could. In the hayloft above them, I held my breath, hoping that Caleb wouldn’t betray my secrets and me while I sat here betraying him.
“I may have found some files,” Caleb said cautiously.
“What kind of files?”
When Caleb didn’t respond to this, Chris repeated, “What kind of files, Caleb?”
“The kind that look like dad is using Cross Corp technology to modify genetic sequences,” he said at last. “And then this Blue Beast just shows up in Grant City, a creature unlike anything anyone has ever seen. It doesn’t take a genius to put two and two together.”
Chris took his time absorbing this as Caleb and I both waited with bated breath for his response.
“Look,” Chris said at last, “not everything is black and white, okay?
Caleb scoffed. “That’s exactly the kind of answer I would expect you to give. Is this why you dragged me all the way out here to the old farm, to lie to me some more and evade my questions?”
“I brought you out here to show you that I’m not your enemy. Come on, I want to show you something.”
I inched closer to the edge, putting my head into view should Caleb or Chris look up, but unable to help myself. Chris walked over to one of the horse stalls—all the stalls were empty of horses—and held the door open for Caleb to follow. I lifted off my belly in a half pushup, trying to get a better view, and watched as Chris lifted a little square carpet that was on the floor of the stall. Beneath this carpet was a trapdoor, and he pulled this open as well.
“Where the hell does that lead?” Caleb asked, his aura spiking with mistrust.
Chris pulled out his cellphone and turned on its flashlight, and I saw that beneath that trapdoor, there was a staircase leading down into darkness.
“Do you trust me, little brother?” Chris asked.
I’d never heard Caleb’s voice be more vulnerable than when he replied, “I want to.”
A moment later, the two disappeared out of sight.
***
I cursed under my breath and hesitated a moment before returning to the window and leaping down to the ground. Thomas was waiting right where I’d left him behind the tall grasses that edged the back of the red barn.
“What happened?” he asked.
I told him about the secret passageway, and we both agreed that we would wait until Caleb and Chris left in the Range Rover, and then make our way inside the barn and see what secrets waited beneath the trapdoor. With this decided, we settled down in the field, the countless stars in the black sky witness to our endeavor.
Twenty minutes passed before I heard the front door to the barn open. I lifted my head from where I’d been resting it against the earth, listening to the sound of duel footsteps and picking up the tone of Caleb’s voice.
“I’m sorry I doubted you,” Caleb was saying. “I guess… I guess I’ve always just been jealous of the relationship between you and dad.”
Thomas perked up along with me. He opened his mouth to say something, but I held a finger to my lips, hushing him so that I could listen in on Caleb and Chris.
“Don’t worry about it, bro,” Chris said. “And don’t be jealous of my relationship with dad.” A pause. “Be grateful it’s me he focuses on and not you.”
The doors to what I had to assume was the Range Rover opened and shut shortly after. Following that, the quiet engine hummed to life and the sound of tires on gravel receded until I could no longer pick it up with my sensitive ears.
Slowly, I stood from my position on the ground. After glancing around and confirming that we were alone, I motioned that Thomas could rise as well, and he followed suit. We crept around the side of the barn and I peered around the corner and saw that the Range Rover was indeed gone.
Thomas pulled up close behind me, his large body not touching mine, but near enough that if I leaned back on my heels, I would be flush against him.
“Are we going in?” he whispered.
I let out a small puff of air, pushing some of the hair out of my eyes. Then, I nodded and moved around to the front of the barn. Thomas followed me inside, over to the stall where I knew the trapdoor waited.
When I just stood staring down at the small square rug covering it, Thomas bent down and pushed the rug aside, opening the trapdoor. Sure enough, there was the staircase that led down into darkness.
I pulled out my cellphone and flipped on the flashlight as Chris had done, taking the steps slowly, as if I was afraid the mouth of the hidden tunnel would collapse behind me, swallowing me up. Thomas followed my lead, and I stepped deeper into the unknown, holding my phone out before me like a ward against evil.
The tunnel we entered into was narrow and made of earth, dug right into the ground and braced on both sides at intervals with questionable-looking wooden planks. We hadn’t gone twenty feet in before I began to feel claustrophobic, and if not for Thomas somehow sensing this and taking the lead, I likely would have turned back and fled out of there like the little trespasser that I was.
With Thomas offering me courage, we burrowed deeper and deeper still, the tunnel growing wider and taller, until eventually Thomas no longer had to stoop and hunch forward, but instead could stand at his full six feet.
We were just getting ready to round the first bend in the tunnel when we heard voices approaching from ahead. Thomas’s shoulders went rigid and he pulled me to a stop, flattening against the wall of the tunnel and motioning for me to do the same.
The voices were both male, and not ones that I recognized. We listened as they moved along in their conversation.
“I’m just saying, we haven’t had enough time to test it,” said the fi
rst voice. “There’s no way we can predict the long-term side effects. That doesn’t concern you?”
“Of course it concerns me,” snapped the second man. “I took the goddamn oath when they made me a doctor, too, and yes, I’ve thought about the long-term, and the possible drawbacks. But what do you expect me to do, tell Dr. Cross no?”
The footsteps stopped, the voices lowering. I tilted my head and closed my eyes, listening intently.
“This is getting out of hand,” said the first. “I’m losing sleep at night. I didn’t go to med school for this. And now we’re using the MJ8 on teenagers? Where does it stop?”
There was the sharp sound of skin striking skin, and from the noise that came immediately after, it was obvious one man had just slapped the other.
“Get it together, Pedman. If we were going to back out, we should’ve done it a year ago when we found out what Blue Magic was capable of. We’re stuck now whether we like it or not. They’d kill us if we tried to jump ship. You know it. I know it. There’s nothing else to say about it.”
“Caleb’s a nice boy,” came the reply, and then a sound like someone backpedaling quickly. The same voice said, “I’m just saying that if they’ll use the serum on their own family, there’s nothing they won’t do, and I don’t care if it makes me a coward, but that scares the crap out of me.”
“Chris said he was getting too close, too nosy. We gave him the MJ8 for his own safety.” A couple of receding footsteps. “Just look at it that way.”
“How do you know we haven’t been injected with it? Hasn’t that crossed through that big head of yours?”
“Because if we had, then you wouldn’t even be asking these questions or having these doubts, now would you?”
A sigh. Silence.
“Pull yourself together, Pedman. It’s too late for doubts now. You’re in, whether you want to be or not. Just be glad Chris didn’t ask us to give Caleb the Blue Magic… Now that would’ve been something.”
“Yeah, just take away his free will and alter his short term memory. You’re right. That’s much better.”
A small shuffle, as if one man were yanking the other up by his shirtfront. “Keep those thoughts to yourself. They’re more dangerous to you than anything we’ve created in that lab. Have you forgotten who it is we’re really working for?”
“I haven’t forgotten.”
“Then act like it.”
“Take your hands off me.”
A snort and a thud, like a body being shoved back against the tunnel wall. One set of withdrawing footsteps. A heavy sigh, followed by more retreating steps.
I met Thomas’s eyes for the first time since overhearing this conversation, and I could see that he was as tense as I was about this whole situation. We stood in silence for a handful of heartbeats, as if we were having a hard time absorbing what’d we’d just heard.
Making up my mind to figure this thing out, I nodded my head and rounded the corner. Over my shoulder, I asked Thomas if he was cool with knocking some people out should the need arise.
He responded in the affirmative. We continued on down the tunnel.
***
We did end up having to take out two guards, both of which were holding assault rifles. Due to my superior hearing, I picked up their heartbeats before they even knew we were there, and then it was only a matter of punching them hard enough to knock them unconscious before they could fire their weapons or raise the alarm.
Thomas moved with an efficiency that spoke of his training, and we pulled the unconscious bodies of the armed guards away from the door they’d been blocking and searched them for the key to it, but didn’t find one.
“Figures,” Thomas said, his voice low. “They wouldn’t give the guards the key. In case of a situation just like this.”
I let out a curse and bit my lip, trying to decide what to do, knowing that time was of the essence. We’d gotten lucky with the two guards, as we’d taken them by surprise and knocked them out before they could really get eyes on us, but it was not a fortune I would count on a second time.
“Screw it,” I said, and took a couple steps back from the door, motioning for Thomas to get out of the way.
“What are you go—?” Thomas began, but snapped his mouth shut as I kicked the metal door open with crushing force.
Thomas moved into the room it let in on quickly, but I could see a bit of gold edging his aura at my action, his lips pulled up in the smallest fraction.
Once we got a look at what we had walked into, however, any trace of a smile was gone from his face, and I’m pretty sure horror had taken over mine.
The door had let into a low-ceilinged chamber that was wide and cavernous considering its underground location. The slight hum of electricity hung in the earth-scented air, and lights were strung along the walls, illuminating the room in a way that was nearly blinding after being in the dim tunnel.
Along the perimeter of the room were steel tables with different types of scientific equipment, the sharp tang of iron detectable to my senses. Fae don’t like iron, and there was a good amount of it down here.
But that wasn’t what made my mouth hang open, what had my pulse beating in my neck and sweat rolling down the center of my back. Lined up in rows across the entire space were gurneys, and atop these gurneys were unconscious children. Attached to these sleeping children were tubes and wires that were connected to monitors at their sides. These monitors beeped and blipped quietly, measuring heart rates and other data I couldn’t guess at.
The sight of all their auras had me reeling, swaying on my feet. I moved like an automaton over to the nearest gurney, and lifted the clipboard that hung by the child’s head. There was no name, only a tag that contained the inscription S223, and below that, a date of birth and another piece of information that I had gained from the auras, but could not process in all the shock.
I stared at the ink on the clipboard. My hand came up and covered my mouth.
“Aria,” Thomas said, “we need to go. I think someone is coming.”
I scarcely heard him, could hardly see through the tears that were burning in my eyes. When he touched my arm and repeated that we needed to go, I nearly jumped ten feet in the air.
“They…” I began, and had to clear my throat twice before I could get the words out. “Thomas, they’re all Halflings.”
Thomas met my eyes, cupping my face in his large, warm hands and forcing me to look at him, to look away from the terrible scene we’d stumbled in on. “Aria, we have to go,” he said. “But we’ll come back.”
The first of the hot tears broke free and tracked down my cheek, and Thomas swiped it away with his thumb.
“Promise?” I asked, and my voice came out scared and small.
Thomas gave a single, firm nod. “I promise. We will come back. You have my word.”
With this, I allowed him to pull me away.
CHAPTER 31
I stared at the number on my cellphone, my heart beating so fast I could feel it thumping in my throat. I rolled my neck and wet my lips. My thumb hovered over the green call button, but didn’t press. I wished it weren’t so difficult. I’d never wanted it to be this difficult between us.
Summoning what courage I had, I went over to my apartment window and climbed up onto the sill, perching there the way I often did when I had too much on my mind. At last, I swallowed, rolled my neck, and hit the call button. Placing the phone to my ear, I reminded myself to just breathe.
Nick answered on the second ring. He must’ve recognized the number, because he managed to sound both guarded and jaded with a two-syllable word.
“Hello?”
“Hey,” I said. “It’s Aria.”
Silence.
I cleared my throat. “I, uh, I’ve discovered some things I think the Brokers should know about.”
Still, no response.
“Nick, are you there?”
A sigh. “I’m here.”
“I have some information I want to pass
on.”
“Then pass it on already.”
I cringed at the deadpan way he said this. It made an ache spread through my chest that I thought I’d healed from. It seemed I’d thought wrong.
“It’s too much for the phone,” I said. “Can you meet me?”
More silence. It went on so long I was sure he’d hung up. I said his name again.
“I’m here,” came his response.
“Will you do it? Will you meet me?” I sighed. “Look, I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.”
“I’m on assignment, Aria,” Nick snapped. “Believe it or not, there are other things in this world besides you and the trouble you always seem to get into. I can’t just come running at your beck and call.”
My jaw tightened and my eyes burned. I refused to admit how bad these harshly spoken words hurt me. “Well, you should send someone else, then,” I said, proud when my voice came out steady and unaffected. “This is something the superiors will definitely want to know about.”
Another sigh breathed into the receiver. My eyes continued to burn and a couple tears found their way out, trailing down my cheeks. I brushed them away with quick swipes, wishing I could do the same with the ache in my chest.
“Fine,” Nick said at last. “I’ll put forth the request, but no guarantees. You’re not exactly the superiors’ favorite person.”
“Thank—”
The line clicked. He’d hung up before I could finish. I groaned and tossed the phone on my bed, pulling my knees up and staring out at the brick wall view my apartment offered. Not for the first time since I’d allowed Nick Ramhart to get on that train out of town without me, I wondered if I’d made the right decision by staying in Grant City. I missed him. I missed the familiarity and routine of life with the Brokers. I missed not having to worry about money or betraying friends. It was slightly pathetic, but I guess I kind of missed not having to think for myself. It sure as heck made things easier.
I pushed up the window, going to check if a certain neighbor was on the rooftop, but then I heard footsteps approaching from outside my apartment door, coming up the staircase. My head tilted, my brows pulling together. The gait was off. Almost a stumble.
