Drew’s eyes widened as he watched Cameron walk out of the room. “Say you didn’t,” he said to Kara in disbelief.
“I didn’t what—oh, good lord! No, Drew, I didn’t sleep with him,” she said, irritated as she stood up from the couch. “You really must think I have no respect for either myself or my integrity.” She walked in the direction Cameron had gone and looked back at him. “Come on,” she said, motioning for him to follow her. “I have a feeling this may be the opportunity we’ve been waiting for.”
*****
Little by little and at all hours of the day, they came. Some arrived in groups of fifteen or more, others arrived in pairs. But regardless of how many came, when, and from where they had come, the important thing was that our numbers were growing, and within three days, we had amassed an additional four hundred rebels in the warehouse. Through Nicholas, we learned that a message had been sent, passed around by several messengers throughout the country from a single encrypted email sent between Marshall and the leader of a unit based near Houston. Word spread like wild fire from there, igniting a fury among our sympathizers and fellow rebels alike. With any luck, we’d double our numbers at the warehouse, giving us over one thousand, plus any others who joined us from around the city at the moment of our attack.
In just days we would all embark together on what would most likely be the fight of our lives.
Our makeshift sleeping quarters became increasingly cramped as the hours passed by, forcing most of the rebels to share their pallets with strangers. Some hung clothing or blankets to divide the small space in half, allowing them some semblance of privacy. Ian and I had selected a pallet higher up on the shelving unit, which we had to climb to reach. We had no blankets or extra clothing outside of what had been in our backpacks, so we improvised. In a nearby alleyway, we found a tattered, but mostly still intact, tarp and hung it around our section of the shelf as far as it would cover. With its grimy blue exterior, faded to patches of white in some areas from sun exposure, it wasn’t pretty, but it provided us with at least the illusion of privacy.
I sat at the edge of our pallet three stories above the floor, my feet dangling over the edge. Below, an arena had been constructed using the overabundance of pallets available around the warehouse. In the middle of the arena stood Nicholas and Tucker, teaching Hand-to-Hand Combat 101 to some of the more eager rebels. Amused, I watched Jill enter the arena with both hands balled up into fists. She circled Nicholas, who shouted instructions at her as she swung and missed him by more than a mile. Unable to pass up the opportunity, Nicholas took advantage of Jill’s miscalculation, grabbed her arm, and twisted it around her back. Jill dropped to her knees in pain and frustration.
“I really hope she packs an extra gun,” I said, “or that either Nicholas or one of us is right behind her to back her up.” My thoughts turned to our planned demonstration, which would inevitably lead to another violent confrontation. We’d be outnumbered. No one doubted that. And our firepower would be far inferior. That wasn’t contested by anyone either. We all knew it likely was a suicide mission that few, if any of us, would get through alive. Jill, though good with a gun, had few other strengths to fall back on and would make an easy target. I shuddered at the thought of her lying in the street in a pool of her own blood as lines of soldiers parted to march around her.
Ian scooted over next to me and rubbed my back. With no blankets, all we had to cushion our bodies against the pallets during the nights had been our clothing. Although it was better than the alternative of sleeping on the concrete floor, my body still didn’t agree with the inadequate accommodations. Every muscle in my back ached, causing periodic spasms to radiate down my spine and my face to contort into a grimace.
“You look like you’ve checked out of here and are halfway across the country right now,” Ian said, resting his hand against my shoulder. “They aren’t all that bad. Actually, we may have a chance if we can figure out how to disarm the soldiers and de-zombify them.”
“Even you and your inner eternal optimist can’t truly believe that.”
“It’s a longshot, but it’s better than believing there’s no hope for us at all. Without hope, we have nothing. No reason to fight. No reason to breathe. No reason to love.”
“Watching them fight, I can’t help but think of my dad and the self-defense classes he made me take when I turned thirteen.”
“I would have paid to have seen that,” Ian said, laughing, prompting me to punch him in the arm. “Did they teach you to hit like that in self-defense class?” He playfully rubbed his arm. “Because if so, I would have asked for my money back if I had been your dad.”
“I’ll have you know I was just as horrible as you think I was,” I said, allowing myself to laugh for the first time since we’d been forced to flee the bed and breakfast. “At the time, I wasn’t sure what he was thinking, other than he wanted his teenaged daughter to have some iota of an idea of what to do in the event of an emergency. But in hindsight, I think he knew what was coming, or that something was coming for him, and he wanted to make sure we were protected somehow.”
“You think he knew he was going to die?” Ian asked, perplexed.
“He always seemed on edge. When I was younger, I didn’t notice it as much because I’m sure he did what he could to hide it from us. Through the years, though, certain memories have come back to me, providing me with a certain amount of clarity. The pill bottles I saw by accident in my parents’ medicine cabinet, my father’s demeanor whenever we went out. George always seemed to be in a hurry to get back home no matter where we went. Even when we were home, safe in our living room, he still couldn’t relax. I remember waking up several times in the middle of the night and walking downstairs to get a glass of water. Most of the time, he would still be awake, either pacing around his study or staring out the window as though he expected to see someone. At the time, I just thought his work was keeping him awake, that he was pushing himself too hard, but I know that wasn’t the case.”
“What do you think he knew?”
“I don’t know. Something important, life-changing, perhaps. Something serious enough to keep the man a prisoner in his own home most of the time, yet not powerful enough to make him run away from it. Like maybe he accepted his fate for what it was, but still held on to the hope that he could change it somehow.”
Below us, cheers, coupled with a fair amount of heckles, erupted from the crowd as Drake entered the arena. His scrawny body appeared that much more insignificant next to Nicholas’ hulking form. A true to form David and Goliath.
“Nicholas is going to eat him alive,” Ian said, echoing my thoughts.
The pair circled the arena, Nicholas being the obvious aggressor of the two, but where his size was an advantage to him in the strength department, it was a clear detriment in the speed department, and Drake was well aware of that fact. Whenever Nicholas made a lunge for Drake, he would make a swift dive out of the way, running to the opposite side of the arena before Nicholas could regain his bearings.
“Drake’s strategy may work out well enough for him at the moment, but he’s going to tire long before Nicholas, and when he does, he’ll wish he’d just gotten everything over with right off the bat and hadn’t wasted his energy,” I said, cringing when Nicholas’ fist missed the side of Drake’s face by mere inches. “Do you want to go in there and show him how it’s done, maybe provide backup for the little guy?”
Ian smiled. “I thought you would never ask.”
*****
Cameron rounded a corner and entered the hallway that led to Victor’s office. Behind him, Kara kept her distance. Three quarters of the way down the hall, Cameron stopped at the doorway, spotting Kara before he had a chance to place his thumb against the plate. “Why did you follow me down here?” he asked. “I told you I would be right back.”
“I know, but that phone call you received sounded serious, so I figured I would just come with you to see whether I could help.”
&nb
sp; “That’s really nice of you, Kara, but you can’t be here. Victor’s already pissed at me about Celaine and Ian, and, well, I need to make it up to him somehow, even if it’s just through baby steps.”
“Why, Cameron?”
“Why what?”
“Why do you care about what Victor thinks so much? I understand that you think he saved your life as a teenager, but open your eyes. Cameron, he’s been using you for years.”
“Stop it,” he said, scowling. “He rescued me. He gave me a home, a job, a family.”
“A family? How skewed must your beliefs about families be to even remotely believe that Victor is anything familial to you?” She reached her hand out for him to take it, which made him draw back and recoil into himself. “Real families don’t just cast members aside when they feel like they aren’t useful anymore. They don’t make them feel like shit when things happen that are out of their hands. Cameron, you’re brilliant, and Victor saw that and only that. He never cared about you as a person. All he cared about was what he could get from you. He’s been using you to further his own interests. You’re nothing more than a means to an end.”
“You’re lying,” he said, trembling, his eyes watering.
“No, sweetie, I’m not. He used you; he used me; he used all of us.” She stepped forward and placed an arm around his back, rubbing it in a circular motion. “And I have a feeling something big is about to happen. Perhaps you do, too. Whatever it is, it’s imperative for us all to find out if we are to stop the madness before it has a chance to do any damage. Please, Cameron, let me go in there with you. If we find nothing, then great, but I think you know that won’t be the case.”
He stood staring blankly down the hallway, the wheels turning in his head. His body shook and his forehead glistened with sweat. “No,” he said after contemplating the possibilities. “I’m sorry, but I can’t, Kara. He’s like a father to me.”
“Open the door, Cameron,” Drew said, appearing from behind him.
“You, too, Drew?” he asked, turning around. “Come on, man. I—” he paused, his eyes widening in shock at the sight of the revolver in Drew’s hand.
“Open the door,” Drew repeated, almost in as much shock as Cameron.
Cameron turned around to look at Kara, who seemed unaffected by the scenario unfolding. “You—you tricked me. All this time I thought you wanted to be my friend. I—I thought you actually cared about me, but you were lying to me the entire time.”
“I do care, Cameron,” she said softly. “I feel badly for you and everything you’ve been through, but I care more about what Victor is up to and what that may mean for everyone.”
“You feel sorry for me?” he asked, shaking. “Well, I don’t need your pity.” He turned around to face Drew. “I don’t need any of your pity. I’m brilliant; my work has meant something. Victor—”
“Couldn’t give two shits less about you,” Drew said. “You’re nothing but a tool for him to use when it’s convenient.”
“Liars!” Cameron yelled. “Both of you.”
Kara grabbed him and pushed him against the door, reaching for his hand to grasp his index finger. He struggled, elbowing her in the stomach. “A little help here would be nice,” she called out to Drew as Cameron continued to try to break free. Drew joined them and placed the revolver against the back of Cameron’s head. Upon feeling the steel firmly against his scalp, Cameron froze. Any trace of a fight left him just as instantly as it had appeared, leaving him empty. “I meant a little help with restraining him,” Kara said. “But this works too. Now, Cameron, we can do this the hard way or the easy way. The door will open for you whether you’re alive or not.”
A sound escaped Cameron’s throat that resembled something of a sob mixed with a sigh as he raised his hand to the plate next to Victor’s door and pressed his index finger squarely in the middle of its smooth glass.
“No funny business,” Drew said, drawing a confused glance from Kara.
“What? I’ve always wanted to say that, but just never found myself in the appropriate situation.”
Kara shook her head while the light under the plate changed to green once the scan of Cameron’s index finger was completed. With the internal security system granting Cameron approval to gain access to the office, the door slid open and Kara and Drew ushered him inside. They allowed the door to slide to a close behind them before they spoke again.
“This is it?” Drew asked, disappointed. “I was expecting some secret lair with pickled heads in jars and beakers of chemicals sitting in the corner next to a book containing the answers to all our questions. We’d open the book to Victor Price’s disembodied narration, and everything would begin to make sense again.”
“You watch entirely too much television,” Kara said, smacking him in the arm. “Besides, you have to dig to find treasure. It’s not just scattered along the shoreline.” Kara walked around the immaculate office and inspected the bookshelves and filing cabinets as she made a circle around Victor’s desk.
“See, absolutely nothing,” Cameron said. “I bet you feel stupid.”
“Not so fast,” Kara said. Undaunted, she circled back around the desk and stopped in front of the filing cabinet where she attempted to open it, finding it resistant to her efforts. “Key.” She held her hand out to Cameron.
“What makes you think I have a key?” he asked with a sneer.
Drew shoved the cold barrel of the revolver into the skin on the back of Cameron’s neck. “You heard the lady. Where’s the key, Cameron?”
Shaking more from anger than fear, Cameron reached into his pocket and pulled out a carabiner that held numerous keys of various shapes and sizes. He moved several keys to single out a small, gold one close to the center of the cluster.
“Open the filing cabinet,” Kara said. Cameron opened his mouth to say something, but a stern look from Drew quashed any thought he intended to vocalize at that moment. With a shaky hand, he inserted the key into the lock on the side of the cabinet and turned it. A loud grinding noise from inside the cabinet indicated its locking mechanism giving way, and the first drawer popped open a couple of inches. Kara grabbed the drawer and pulled it open the rest of the way. Inside, a slew of manila filing folders were arranged neatly in a row that ran the entire length of the drawer. Some were thin, containing nothing more than a handful of documents; others were filled to capacity and then some. Kara eyed the larger files near the far end of the drawer. She guided her fingers down each of the folders until she arrived at the last three, the bulkiest ones, and moved the other folders down with her hands to allow her enough room to inspect the labels on the ones she’d singled out.
Blake Cohen. Ian Grant. Celaine Stevens. Curious, Kara lifted each of the three folders from the drawer and took them over to Victor’s desk, where she set them down. “You. Sit,” she instructed Cameron, who complied only after receiving yet another hardened look from Drew. Kara opened Blake’s file first. At the top of the stack of documents in the file, she saw black and white photographs of Blake sitting at a bar in a pub setting, of him standing outside the same establishment smoking a cigarette, and of him getting into a car parked in the parking lot located in the back of the pub. “Surveillance photographs,” Kara said to no one in particular. She lifted the photographs and gasped at the images underneath them.
“What is it?” Drew asked, concerned.
Kara’s eyes watered, the tears catching in her eyes as though refusing to fall. “Autopsy photographs,” she said in a voice so soft Drew had to strain to hear her. Below those photographs were nothing but printed documents, which drew a sigh of relief from her. Records, including Blake’s medical records after coming to The Epicenter, a criminal background check, driving records, and information about his life before coming to The Epicenter presented themselves within the documents she thumbed through. Toward the back of the stack, Kara paused at newspaper clippings detailing an explosion on a bridge caused by The Man in Black. As she skimmed the article, memo
ries flooded back to her of her sister who had died in another explosion on a busy bridge during the same year the article had been printed. “This is odd,” she said.
“What?” Drew asked.
“This article. It’s about the attack on the Washington Bridge, the one where Blake’s brother Hank was killed.”
“Yeah, he was Blake’s brother. Why is that so odd?”
“Because this article was cut out of a newspaper, and the attack occurred two years before Blake was recruited to join The Epicenter. How would Victor even know to save it two years before Blake arrived?” She looked up at Cameron, noticing that he had begun to wring his hands together, a nervous tic she also had herself.
“Maybe it was Blake’s,” Drew said, offering an explanation. “He could have brought it with him when he came here.”
“It’s possible, but I find it doubtful that he would have saved something like this,” Kara said. She frowned at the article as though it were a piece to an entirely different puzzle, tucked it back inside the folder, and set the folder aside. Underneath Blake’s folder was Ian’s file, the thinnest one of the three. Upon opening it, Kara found records of Ian’s surgery at The Epicenter and, much like Blake, records containing personal information. Quickly, she skimmed through those records until she reached the end of the file, where she found photographs and news articles. “I think this was Ian’s dad,” she said, scanning an article, even more perplexed than before. “I remember him saying he died in a bombing at the Flamingo Casino. But that happened ten years before Ian ever came here.”
Redemption (Enigma Black Trilogy Book #3) Page 22
