Nine

by Rachelle Dekker

  Zoe was deeply regretting ever calling him to begin with.

  NINE

  SEELEY WASN’T SURE what time it was. He’d been in the box with Krum for some time now, but time couldn’t be measured down here, under the floor of Xerox, where its darkest secrets were hidden away. The box required top-level security clearance, for good reason.

  The room was square, made up of four concrete walls stained with punishment, the floor holding a large grate in the center for easy cleanup, the overhead lighting dull and cold, the room void of anything except the steel chair that Krum was strapped to. But that would soon be removed. Then the cold, hard floor would hold him as the persuasion to talk continued.

  Seeley had turned off his humanity the moment he’d walked into the room. He couldn’t see Krum’s face and have access to any goodness, otherwise he wouldn’t be capable of what was required. That’s why they’d called him: Seeley had mastered shutting out his soul and accessing the darkness needed to get the job done.

  He couldn’t recall a time when he wasn’t this way. Maybe he’d been born with the ability to go dark. Maybe life had beaten it into him. Steph would say she’d seen it from time to time, and it scared her. Only when the work followed him home, when it was the worst. But she saw past it, brought the goodness back out. This was her gift to him and a way to offer protection for their daughter, Cami.

  Then another man took Steph from him, able to give her what Seeley couldn’t. And then the world saw him as unfit to father alone, and in one moment he’d lost everything. Which had been a gift for Cami.

  Did she know that? Did she realize she was better off without her father?

  Seeley twisted his neck to the side and cracked the bones. His mind was drifting, but the memories let him access his pain, and that allowed him to see Krum as a job.

  Krum had been stripped down to his underwear. He was strapped to the cold metal chair, his ankles secured to its legs and his arms tied behind his spine. The room’s temperature was near freezing, and the man was soaking wet, his black hair dangling in his eyes, his chin sunk low against his chest. Sopping wet, Krum couldn’t weigh more than 180 pounds, tall and thin with awkwardly large feet and hands, knobby knees, and a goofy grin.

  He’d been shivering violently, but now he was still. Seeley crossed the room and yanked Krum’s chin upward. The man was losing consciousness, his body slipping into darkness as a way to protect itself from the cold and pain. They couldn’t have that.

  Seeley reached for the steel rod that dangled to the right of the prisoner. Thick wire ran from its base up and over a massive hook that hung from the ceiling directly above them. The wire then worked its way to the concrete wall and down the surface to a fuse box with a small panel and two dials. One powered the device, the other controlled its intensity. A simple invention to use electricity as a means of persuasion.

  He’d adjusted the power to do harm without killing the man, and he pressed the rod’s end to Krum’s left tricep. The shock pulsed through the man’s arm and into his chest, causing him to jolt to life with several painful screams. Seeley retracted the rod as Krum huffed and whimpered.

  Seeley had started with asking the man to cooperate. He hadn’t wanted to end up here, but Krum admitted he had helped Olivia and Lucy get out through security, and they needed to know what else he knew about Olivia’s plan. His ability to resist was surprising. Seeley would have put money on being able to break him with threats, but here they were.

  “Please, Seeley,” Krum whimpered. “I have kids.”

  “Tell me what we need to know, and this will be over,” Seeley said.

  “And then you’ll kill me.”

  Seeley didn’t insult the man by trying to convince him otherwise. Everyone knew what they were signing up for when they joined Grantham. Krum was too smart for mind games and false promises.

  “Tell me why you helped her.” Seeley said.

  “I helped her because it was the right thing to do. The project has gone too far,” Krum replied.

  “The orders were clear.”

  “The orders were wrong.”

  “But they were orders. They came from the top.” Seeley dropped to one knee so he could look Krum in the eye. “What did you think would happen?”

  Krum spat saliva mixed with dark blood to the side and returned his gaze to Seeley. “If there was a chance to save her, I had to help.” His eyes were resolved. He really believed he was doing right. “They were just kids, Seeley, kids the same age as my own.”

  “No, they were never just kids.”

  A moment of silence passed between them.

  “Where was Olivia taking Lucy?”

  “You’re just going to kill me,” Krum said. “I gain nothing by talking to you.”

  This man was full of virtue. He’d die for the cause he’d strapped himself to. This approach wasn’t working.

  “How old is Dana this year?” Seeley asked.

  Fear and anger washed over Krum’s face. “You stay away from my kids, you son of—”

  “She driving yet? I bet you worry every time she leaves the house.”

  “I swear, if you go near her—”

  “It’s fine to worry. The roads are dangerous. Bad things happen to even the smartest of drivers.”

  “You wouldn’t,” Krum said, his anger shifting to disbelief. “You’re bluffing.”

  Seeley stood and crossed his arms over his chest.

  Krum just stared up at him, a meld of emotions flashing through his eyes. His mouth slightly ajar, his face pale.

  “Tell me and I make sure no one gets hurt,” Seeley said.

  “And if I don’t, you go after my family?” Krum asked, his words losing their bite as reality started to sink in.

  Seeley didn’t respond. He didn’t need to.

  Krum shook his head. “No, touch them and I’ll never talk.”

  Seeley leaned forward and placed his hand on the chair’s back, his face only inches from Krum’s. “How long would it take for you to break if I put Dana in this chair?”

  Tears filled Krum’s eyes. His nose crumpled as he shook his head. He was fighting the fear, trying to be brave, to call Seeley’s bluff. But Seeley didn’t bluff, and knowing what was at stake, he was certain the powers that be would stop at nothing to get Lucy.

  “Is Lucy really worth your daughter’s safety?” he pushed. “Her life?”

  Krum clamped his eyes shut, tears running down his cheeks.

  “Does Dana deserve to pay for your treachery?”

  Again silence filled the box as Seeley let Krum come fully to grips with the only choice he had.

  “Tell me what you know,” Seeley said.

  “Less than you want, only what I needed to know,” Krum said. “Olivia was careful.”

  “What was the plan?”

  “To get Lucy out, alive.”

  “Why?”

  “You know why!”

  Because Olivia had loved Lucy like a daughter, and a parent would do anything for her child. Like Krum was offering up his own life to save his daughter.

  “Walk me through it, from the beginning,” Seeley said.

  “Olivia came to me two weeks ago. She knew I had access to the security database, and she needed access.”

  “What did she take?”

  “Everything. Documents, videos, signed affidavits, all dating back to the beginning, and the final orders that came through after the project failed.”

  Enough to blow up Washington and everyone associated with Grantham. Seeley knew exactly what the world would do to them, to him, if it ever saw what they’d been doing here.

  “And what was the plan?” Seeley asked again.

  “I don’t know. I just helped get her what she needed, and then I cleared a way so she and Lucy could get out before the army descended.”

  Seeley grabbed Krum by the throat and pressed hard. He was losing his patience. “Give me something useful, Krum. For Dana’s sake.”

  Krum yanked
against Seeley’s hold. “I don’t know anything else.”

  “You spent time with her, knew what she was going to do. You had to have overheard something.”

  “I work in security. I just wanted to give them a chance.”

  “Not good enough!” Seeley released Krum’s neck and grabbed the rod. He rammed it into Krum’s chest cavity. A powerful electric wave raced through the device and into Krum’s weathered body. He lurched and cried out, his voice filling the box with piercing agony.

  “If Olivia had the information, why not just release it herself?” Seeley asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Why give it to Lucy? That makes her a target.”

  “I don’t know!”

  Seeley struck him again, shaking the man’s figure like a rag doll. “I can’t help your family if you don’t help me. You give, I give.”

  Krum coughed up blood. It trickled down his chin and splattered on his knee. Seeley was frying his insides. He wailed, cursed, and spat through his coughing. “I don’t—”

  Seeley didn’t wait for him to finish. He administered a final pulse with the rod, long and drawn out. Krum screamed and trembled in his chair. Seeley pulled the rod back and let it hang. Krum hunched over and cried like a scared little boy. Blood, snot, and tears mingled on his face.

  “We can go again,” Seeley said, reaching back for the rod.

  “Wait, wait, wait!” Krum cried out.

  Seeley paused as the man whimpered.

  “God forgive me,” Krum whispered. “I’m not strong enough.”

  “Tell me what you know and this will end.”

  Krum huffed through his tears and pain. “Lucy is the only one that can find the location where the information is hidden.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Olivia implanted the details in one of her old memories. Like a code that tells her where she needs to go to recover the data. She can’t access it unless she regains her memories.”

  Olivia wouldn’t have been so stupid, Seeley thought. All Grantham would have to do was kill the girl to destroy the information.

  “There’s a fail-safe,” Krum said, as if reading his mind.

  Seeley swore under his breath.

  “If Lucy doesn’t recover the information, or if she dies, another source will release it nationally.”

  “What source?” Seeley hissed.

  “I don’t know,” he said through tears. “I swear, she wouldn’t tell me more.”

  Seeley reached backward for the rod.

  “I swear!” Krum cried. “She would never risk giving me that information. It’s the only thing keeping Lucy alive!”

  Seeley inhaled slowly. This made things more complicated. “How long do we have?”

  “I don’t know that either, but my guess, not long.”

  Seeley tossed the metal rod away, and it clanged against the floor. “What did you get for betraying your country?”

  Krum screamed up at him, “I got to be human! To sleep at night. But then, you probably don’t understand that.”

  Seeley already didn’t sleep, and being human was overrated. Humanity made you vulnerable. His humanity had nearly destroyed him, and now humanity would destroy Krum.

  “I don’t know anything else.” Krum sniffed. “I don’t know anything else.” Defeated, the man crumpled. His shoulders shook with sobs, his cries silent but suffocating.

  All Seeley could feel was his own darkness, so he turned and left the sobbing man behind him. He unlocked the box’s door, then shut Krum inside, still achingly mournful in his chair.

  The hallway was silent, nothing but the overhead ventilation system turning the air in and out. Two guards stood on either side of the steel door, staring forward, armed to the hilt. Seeley took a deep breath as he started to release his darkness, a process that was always painful, and turned to the guard on the left. “Kill him.”

  The agent nodded, and the two standing watch entered the box as Seeley started down the hall. A few feet away, he heard two pops echo across the stillness. Seeley didn’t pause. He couldn’t afford to. He pressed on, keeping his mind anchored on Lucy. It all had to be about finding Lucy.

  TEN

  ZOE STOOD INSIDE the bathroom at the end of the upstairs hallway. Shared by the row of simple bedrooms that lined the hall, the bathroom had a shower/bath combo, two sinks, two mirrors, and a single toilet. A good size, but probably chaos in the morning, depending on how many beds were filled.

  She splashed her face with water and stared at her reflection in the mirror. The world would see a grown woman, but Zoe could still see the terrified little girl she was trying to forget. This house was different, but the feelings were the same. She’d been here before. Under the care of Heath, in a past life, doing whatever she needed to survive. Heath had found her when she was trying to rebuild her life, trying to become someone else. He’d helped her create a world where she could live without the stain of her own failures. The failures of her parents. Her mother.

  Lucy had a dozen questions. How did Zoe meet Tomac? What was a runner? Was Tomac a bad guy or a good guy? Were they safe here? All questions that required Zoe to open up and risk letting that terrified little girl out of hiding. What if she couldn’t get her back in? But Lucy was a puppy with a bone, and she couldn’t let it go. So Zoe had given simple answers.

  Tomac and I met when we were kids.

  A runner is a job where you deliver and retrieve things. The kinds of things you don’t want to get caught retrieving or delivering.

  Tomac is both a bad guy and a good guy. It all depends on who you are.

  Safer here than out there, but don’t trust anyone here.

  When you remember your past, I’ll tell you more about mine.

  That last statement had come out with too much anger, and she could see she’d hurt Lucy’s feelings. Zoe had excused herself to the bathroom, where she was practicing calming breaths that were supposed to help her re-center, according to Jessie. It wasn’t working though. She dried her face on a hand towel and sat on the closed toilet.

  She knew she should make amends. Lucy was too innocent to be blamed for her curiosity, but Zoe was too stubborn for her own good. Lucy had awakened the constant whispering of her past, and that made Zoe angry. Being here, in this house with Tomac, had amplified the whispers to screams.

  Zoe tried another deep breath, then huffed and dropped her head into her hands. She pressed against her closed eyes with the palms of her hands, the pressure blotting out the noise. Zoe missed her past-less life. Lucy wasn’t even aware of what a gift she had, not being able to remember.

  A painful cry echoed outside. Zoe jumped up and yanked the bathroom door open. The cry sounded again. A voice pleading, “Stop! Stop!” It was coming from their bedroom.

  Zoe rushed out, joined by others poking their heads out from the surrounding rooms. She moved down the hall with wide strides and stepped into the scene playing out in the bedroom: Lucy standing over a boy, twisting his wrist. Him kneeling on the ground, crying out in pain, begging her to let him go. Her face stone-cold, eyes fixed on her prey.

  Before Zoe could intervene, Lucy gave a final twist and Zoe heard the boy’s bone snap.

  His cry echoed off the ceiling and filled the whole house. More footsteps pounded up the stairs as Zoe stood there, stunned.

  “What is going on?” Tomac’s voice broke Zoe from her trance, and she turned to see a crowd had gathered. Tomac stepped through.

  Zoe reacted then. She rushed into the bedroom and grabbed Lucy’s shoulder. The girl moved with insane speed. She snapped her head toward Zoe, freed herself, and spun so she had control of Zoe’s arm. Fear filled Zoe as the image of Lucy breaking the boy’s wrist flashed through her brain. He was still curled on the floor at their feet, whimpering like a baby.

  “Lucy, don’t!” Zoe cried.

  Lucy made eye contact with her, and the coldness that had hardened her face softened, like someone had walked into the darkness of her
mind and flipped on a light. She looked from Zoe to her own hold of Zoe’s arm, then to the crying boy. Then back to Zoe, terror replacing whatever had been there before.

  Lucy released her and took a step back. A deer in headlights, confused and mortified. Zoe took several quick breaths.

  “What happened here?” Tomac boomed. He was angry. Never a good sign.

  Several others had rushed in to tend to the boy, who was still crying, but softer now.

  “His wrist is broken,” someone said.

  “She broke it, I saw her do it,” another cried, pointing a finger at Lucy.

  “I invite you into my home, and your new friend breaks a boy’s wrist?” Tomac continued.

  “Lucy, what happened?” Zoe asked, trying to keep her voice low and calm. The girl was trembling.

  Lucy looked down at the boy. “He tried to take our stuff,” she said softly.

  “She’s crazy!” the boy cried.

  “No,” Lucy said. “He came in here and told me he needed your backpack. That Tomac asked for it.” She looked back up at Zoe. “But you told me not to trust anyone. So I told him he couldn’t have it, and he tried to take it anyway.”

  “Is that true, Scooter?” Tomac asked, moving his eyes to the boy.

  “No, she’s lying,” Scooter said through whimpers.

  “I wouldn’t lie,” Lucy said.

  Tomac dropped to his knees beside Scooter, and the others who had come to his aid scattered. He grabbed the boy by the collar and pulled him close. “Don’t lie to me.”

  “I wouldn’t lie to you, Boss,” Scooter said. “I wouldn’t. She’s crazy!”

  “Like you weren’t lying to me about Brownstone?” Tomac hissed.

  Scooter’s eyes widened and he shook his head. Even from where Zoe was standing, she could see his mind scrambling.

  “If I find out you aren’t being truthful with me . . .” Tomac threatened. “And I will find out.”

  A different kind of fear flickered in Scooter’s eyes. The kind children his age shouldn’t know. “I didn’t realize it was hers. It was a mistake.” He stumbled over his words, trying to find an escape from the mess he’d made for himself. Zoe’s heart ached for him.