Forged Absolution (Fates of the Bound Book 4)

by Wren Weston

  “You don’t like it.”

  “If it were up to me, they’d have been tried, shot, and buried already. Mòr wishes to keep them around, though. She claims they’ll be useful. I guess she’s already proven me right.”

  A female purplecoat approached, her dark hair swept back into a ponytail. “Chief, I took the prisoner in cell eight to the interrogation room. He’s been under the serum for approximately half an hour.”

  “Did he tell you anything interesting?”

  “He’s fond of my breasts, sir. My ass too, but he’s mostly a breast man. He also hasn’t gotten laid in a year. His last time sucked. He couldn’t keep it up.”

  “You do ask the important questions, don’t you, captain?”

  The rest of his people averted their eyes, stifling chuckles.

  “He also told me that he’s been planning to make a noose out of his bedsheets. After you question him, Dr. Patterson should take a turn.”

  “Send a volunteer to fetch her.”

  The woman nodded.

  Lila noticed a sudden interest in most of the people around them. They all wanted a break from the drudgery of the basement. Even brightly painted concrete was still concrete.

  Lila and Dixon followed Connell toward a door at the end of the hall. “We have room for thirty prisoners, not that we thought we’d get close to using every cell. These Italians have taxed our capacity. It’s a good thing you killed so many.”

  Lila bit the sides of her cheeks. That was the last thing she wanted to think about.

  They entered a room, trudging past two purplecoats who guarded the door. In the center, a lanky man had been restrained to a metal chair, bound by chains. He wore no shirt, and a deep scar ran from his right shoulder to his left hip. Bright tattoos covered his arms and his chest, mostly sprites and naked women.

  Dr. McCrae sat before him in purple scrubs and a purple medical coat. She pressed her fingers into the prisoner’s wrist and typed a number into her palm. “Today is a good day,” she said to Connell. “Your lover has not called for me.”

  “Let’s hope the trend continues. I’d like for you to take a look at our guest when we’re done.”

  The doctor’s eyes strayed to Lila’s face. “She looks like she needs it. So does the prisoner. Did Fiona tell you to fetch Dr. Patterson?”

  “They’re fetching her. She’ll see him when we’re done.”

  “She should probably schedule a chat with the others too, just to be safe.” Dr. McCrae jutted her chin toward the prisoner. “His vitals are okay. He’s lost twelve pounds since his arrival. Mostly muscle.”

  “That’s a lot,” Lila said.

  “That’s on purpose,” the doctor explained. “We feed them enough so they won’t starve, but keep the protein low. We don’t want to fight against bears if they try to escape.”

  “Badgers can be pretty nasty too. Especially if they’re hungry.”

  “True. I suggest we up their calories a touch, chief. We want them to burn through muscle, not commit suicide. Some of them are too low, like this one here. I’d like to do some blood work as well.”

  “As you wish,” Connell said. “I’ll leave it to your professional discretion. In the meantime, take a break. You’ve earned it.”

  “I’d feel better if I monitored the prisoner.”

  “I’d feel better if I could take him out back and shoot him. It looks like neither of us will get our wish today.”

  The doctor gathered up her tools in a black leather bag and left the room. The purplecoats frowned when Connell asked them to do the same.

  Once they were alone, Lila called up the first file on her tablet and sat on Dr. McCrae’s rolling stool. Dixon pulled another from the near the wall and sat beside her. He opened a laptop, opening a transcription program that would transcribe every word the Italian said. Dixon’s fingers hovered over the keys, ready to make corrections if needed.

  Lila hoped he wouldn’t need to do much. She’d asked for a translator with no accent for that very reason.

  “What is your name?” she asked.

  “Anastasio.”

  “Okay, Anastasio. You’re going to take an English test. I’m going to hold up a tablet with some Italian text, and you’re going to tell me what it means in English. Do you understand the task?”

  “Yes. I’m good at translation.” Anastasio’s gaze traveled southward. “You have nice breasts. Can I touch them?”

  “No.” Lila peeked back at Dixon. She held up her tablet after his slight nod. “This sentence says something about nursing a snake. Is that code?”

  The merc squinted at the screen. “No.”

  “Translate it.”

  “It wouldn’t make sense to you. Can I grab your ass, just for—”

  “I’m going to grab my tranq gun if you don’t shut up about my body,” Lila grunted. “Why?”

  “Because you’re a bitch?”

  “I meant the sentence. Why wouldn’t it make sense to me?”

  “Because you don’t speak Italian. It’s an idiom.”

  “Explain it, then.”

  “The sentence means that someone has begun to trust the writer. The writer is saying they will betray them in the end.”

  Lila eyed Connell. “This is the first message sent. It was dated over two years ago.”

  “Someone’s been inside our compound for two years?”

  “At least.”

  “Do you know how much information could have been sent in that time? I thought you were crazy when you went back more than six months.”

  “These people are proof of how much was passed along.” Lila turned back to the prisoner. “What about this message?”

  She brought up the second file.

  The prisoner squinted once more. “Not stepping longer than your leg… The writer is saying that he isn’t going to bite off more than he can chew. That’s how you say it, yes?”

  “He?”

  “He? She? Who cares?” The prisoner shrugged. His chains rattled.

  “He mentions entering a citadel. What does that mean?”

  “He’s settled in somewhere and isn’t prepared to do anything more for a while. He’s boasting that he’s inside.”

  Lila flipped to the next message. “This one is pure nonsense. It says something about boiling in a pot. I don’t even know what the rest means.”

  “Yes, boiling in a pot. It means he’s up to something.” The man scanned through the rest of the message. “The gibberish that follows is just a list of novels.”

  “What sort of novels?”

  “I don’t know. The sort of boring crap teachers make you read in school.”

  “So, it’s just junk to confuse my programs?” Lila snorted. “Luckily mine don’t work like that. What about the next file?”

  “Same idiom. Different books.”

  The mole has nothing new to report. He’s merely checking in, Dixon wrote.

  “Seems like it.”

  Several more messages possessed similar content.

  Anastasio laughed suddenly at the next one, dated several months after the first message. “No idioms this time. This isn’t a test at all. Someone got inside your little compound, purple man. I might have been blindfolded when I came through, but I’ve seen the plans.”

  “‘A hundred log houses mixed with communal buildings,’” Lila read aloud. “‘The oracle’s cabin is the biggest and oldest structure. It has a green roof. The oracle sleeps in the’—”

  Connell lifted his gun at the prisoner’s head.

  “That won’t help,” Lila said gently.

  “I don’t care,” he replied through clenched teeth. “They know where she sleeps.”

  “They know where you both sleep. I doubt they’ll get past you easily.”

  Connell lowered his gun an
d stood up straighter. “You’re damn right they won’t. I’ll tear them to bits and eat their heart, none of this putting the bastards in cages. I’m moving her tonight. I don’t like them knowing where she is.”

  “I think I know what she’ll say to that.”

  “You and me both.”

  Lila moved to the next file.

  “Novels. Nothing of consequence,” Anastasio said, squinting at the next message. “He’s gone back to information. This one details the Star Gazer.”

  “It says she might be turned like a glove,” Lila said.

  “He thinks she might be easily manipulated.”

  Connell snorted. “Blair would have to look up from her telescope for that.”

  Dixon smiled slowly.

  The group kept going through the files, with Dixon taking notes on Anastasio’s translations. Soon a pattern emerged. Some messages resorted to idioms. Others spoke in plain terms. Sometimes the writer had no problem giving out concrete information, like the militia’s patrol routes and the names of future oracles who had visited from compounds nearby. Other times, the writer clammed up, calling the oracles “the prophets of the stars.” The oracles were real, the writer claimed. The mission should be abandoned.

  After several hours, they finished up the last message.

  When Dr. McCrae arrived to check on the patient and Lila’s wounds, Dixon saved Anastasio’s translations and the audio file from their meeting. Lila winced as the doctor pressed too hard on her cheek.

  “She’s going to be fine,” Dr. McCrae assured Connell.

  The little group passed Dr. Patterson as they returned to the rotunda.

  Nico stopped when he spied them in the corridor. He’d shaved again, and ironed his uniform. “I invited myself to dinner tonight, chief. I’m making something special.”

  “We’ll be spoiled if you keep it up.”

  “I live to serve the oracles.” Nico’s gaze flicked to Lila’s wounds. “Are those new?”

  “Yes, but I’m fine.”

  Lila wondered if he’d put them on her face.

  “I heard you’d come back to the compound this morning,” Nico said. “I’m making plenty of food. Will you be at dinner?”

  “She’ll attend if the food is worth it,” Connell answered for her.

  “Oh, it’ll be worth it. You’ll knock on cabin twenty-four tonight.”

  After Nico left the rotunda, Connell led Lila and Dixon from the security building, not stopping until he’d reached their porch.

  “It’s funny how Nico keeps showing up exactly where we are,” Lila said.

  “He probably paid someone at the gate to call him the moment you returned,” Connell replied. “Listen, I’ll be back for lunch if you need me. I need to head over to the temple and give Mòr an update.”

  “Are you going to tell her what I think you’re going to tell her?”

  Connell nodded. “We don’t have a mole. We have two.”

  “And both seem to have different agendas.”

  Chapter 17

  Lila dried her damp hair and stepped from the bathroom, the frigid air chilling her skin. Her wrist ached as she tightened the knot in her robe and padded across the cold hardwood floor. Dixon handed her another ice pack from the freezer.

  Sorry, he mouthed.

  “It’s not your fault.” She wrapped a towel around the ice pack and held it to her wrist, still sore from the zip ties and the latest training session. She’d had to see Dr. McCrae for the second time in one day. The third doctor’s visit she’d had in twelve hours.

  Gods, she was falling apart.

  “I regressed so much at hand-to-hand that I’m worse than when I started. I think I impressed Connell with the depths of my failing.”

  She plopped on the couch and snatched up her laptop.

  “Impressed” didn’t describe Connell. “Frustrated” did. When Dixon had accidently bent her wrist a little too far during a failed defense, Connell had sent her away in a huff. He’d pointed out the bags under her eyes and her injured wrist, blaming it all on a lack of sleep. “Lessons are a waste of time if you refuse to take care of yourself.”

  Lila wished she could excuse her regression so easily. Perhaps a lack of sleep had affected her recall of what she’d relearned two days ago, but she had slept well enough during her militia training.

  At least Mòr had not witnessed the session.

  Lila had too much work on her plate to waste an hour in the gym, anyway. She’d train after she solved the oracle’s mole problem, after she found the identities of everyone La Roux trapped for Bullstow, and after she resolved the situation with her mother.

  The chairwoman had not yet returned her money.

  Elizabeth Victoria Lemaire-Randolph was still broke.

  Lila turned on her laptop and reached for her star drives, confused when she did not find one of them on the coffee table. Holding her ice bag on her wrist, she knelt on the rug and peered under the sofa, snatching it up from where it had fallen.

  She sank back on her knees, judging the distance from the table to the sofa.

  What’s wrong?

  “I could have sworn…” Lila opened up her snoop programs, letting them run upon her computer.

  A window flashed red upon her screen.

  She turned quickly to Dixon, snapping her fingers in the quiet for his notepad. Someone was in here, she wrote. Someone tried to break into my files.

  Successfully?

  Lila shook her head. She took her new palm, freshly downloaded with her snoop programs, and walked around the room, searching for bugs. She found one in her room, one in Dixon’s, and two in the living room.

  Lila left them in place and snapped again for Dixon’s notepad. I should have checked for bugs every time we entered. I got sloppy at the cottage.

  The mole hit our cabin twice?

  Lila nodded. Nico wasn’t with us at training.

  Half the compound wasn’t with us during training. Do you really think he’s a mole, or do you just suspect him because he has a thing for you?

  Fuck you, she mouthed.

  Dixon held up hands in surrender. Shouldn’t we do something about the bugs?

  No, we can use them. Let me think about how.

  Lila returned to her laptop and opened the oracle’s list. Everyone who had visited or lived on the compound had been included, even the mole. Or moles. All she had to do was connect one of the people on the list to the sender of the kitten pictures.

  Unfortunately, the mole had used a fake ID.

  Even worse, it was a good one.

  She’d have to dig deeper.

  After ensuring that the mole had not installed any snoop software on her computer, Lila wrote a few lines of code. The short program would filter Connell’s list for everyone who had first accessed the compound between two and three years ago, instructing the computer to pull biographical data for each hit from state databases. While it worked, she finished reviewing the logs she’d worked on the night before, skimming through the last suspicious files she’d found in the system and tagging a few for further study.

  After that, she combined her flagged data with everyone else’s from the night before, filtering for the last three years. Then she transferred a copy to Dixon’s tablet. He could review them. Perhaps he’d find something useful.

  In the meantime, she opened Kenna’s list next and filtered it for those who’d arrived at the compound two to three years ago. The final list totaled twenty names.

  Lila snapped for Dixon’s attention, then led him outside the cabin and onto the porch. The pair sat on the bench, heads bowed over her laptop. “Look at who Kenna’s been suspicious about,” she said quietly, the sound not traveling to the oracle children who wandered nearby.

  Dixon skimmed the list. He pointed at Kara’s name.

/>   “Gambling addict. I saw it in her messages. Kenna’s perceptive.”

  Kara could be more than a gambler. If she owes enough, she might have been bought.

  Lila leaned back against the cabin wall. “I suppose I can dig into her financials,” she grumbled.

  What’s wrong? You’ve done it before.

  “Yeah, but I knew where and how those people banked.”

  Ask the oracle. Maybe they have their own banking system?

  “Wouldn’t that be hilarious? A whole banking system that the matrons know nothing about.”

  But the more she thought about it, the less strange it sounded. The oracle children dressed differently, lived differently, sentenced their criminals differently. It made sense they wouldn’t trust their money to the highborn families.

  Dixon pointed at her screen. Camille.

  “Yeah. She put down her daughter’s best friend.”

  The dates line up. She and Cecily met at school a few years ago. They became best friends.

  “Immediately. That’s what Kenna said.”

  Dixon shifted on his perch. Are we going to interview the people on this list?

  “Eventually. The problem with interviewing people is that we’ll tip our hand the second we start. The oracle children are far too intertwined with one another not to spread gossip.”

  Then everyone already knows we visited the basement. We’re not just outsiders anymore. We’re here for a purpose.

  “True. Even Connell’s militia can’t be trusted to keep quiet.”

  How did you keep the highborn in the dark when you worked jobs for your father?

  “You remember how it was, Dixon. The highborn don’t trust one another, and they certainly don’t speak with one another freely. A great deal of intel is passed through spies. I merely took command of a few key spies and bribed them into working for me.”

  Money?

  “Secrets, Dixon. Controlling secrets is far more powerful than coin.”

  I forget sometimes how lonely a highborn compound can be. How dangerous.

  Lila’s gaze flicked to Dixon. “Some families are more dangerous than others.”

  He shrugged.