At the far end of the room, his eyes landed on a small canoe, mounted from the ceiling via a set of rope pulleys.
In plain sight, maybe?
In early afternoon, Morgan walked out of the hidden basement and stopped in place.
Across the Common Room one of her residents—the teenage boy, Thomas, who had been held at gunpoint by Drexel—was in one corner, waving a sword through the air. A crowd was gathered around him, watching with interest.
‘‘Better, but there’s more power in your wrist than you realize,’’ a familiar voice was saying. ‘‘Less elbow, more wrist. No, don’t lead with your shoulder.’’
Morgan marched straight into the gathering.
‘‘What are you doing!’’ she shouted. ‘‘We have no use for such things here.’’ She snatched the sword out of Thomas’ hand and tossed the sword at Payton’s feet.
‘‘You’d prefer a blanket to cower under? Your little fort here has already been invaded once. Drexel knows where you are. You really think he won’t try again? If the others choose to fight, you won’t be able to stand in the way.’’
‘‘You have no authority in this place,’’ she said with a forced calm, staring him down, unblinking.
‘‘I knew you were a control freak, love,’’ Payton replied, polishing the sword between folds of his shirt, ‘‘but I had no idea you considered yourself so lofty. If these people really are your ‘friends,’ then you owe them the right to choose their own fate.’’
‘‘Get out,’’ she said.
No one moved.
She turned to the others. ‘‘Not him! The rest of you! OUT!’’
Everyone filed out except Payton and Morgan, who never took their eyes off of one another.
When the room was empty and the door closed, Morgan spoke again. ‘‘Let’s get one thing straight. You said you’ve changed over the last nine years. Well, guess what? You’re not the only one. So you’ve faced danger. So you’ve been brought back from the edge of death. So you’ve learned how to poke at things with a big piece of steel. You think that makes you special?
‘‘You have no idea what most of these people have been through before they came here. I do. I know them. I know their stories, their fears, what makes them laugh, what makes them hurt. Because that’s what I do. I take care of them.’’ She stepped closer until she was inches from his face. ‘‘Don’t you ever come in here and tell these people how to live their lives!’’
Payton stared at her for a long moment, unperturbed. She was almost red in the face now. He still appeared unmoved.
‘‘You’re right, you have changed,’’ he said slowly, not breaking eye contact.
Morgan let out a breath. She looked as though she wanted to slug him, but she merely clenched her fists.
‘‘But not nearly enough.’’
If it was possible, her face became even redder.
‘‘Your ‘friends’ were just telling me,’’ he went on, ‘‘about how much they respect you. How they look up to you and rely on you. They seem to see you as some noble figure who’s always collected and in control.
That persona you project—it’s so practiced and measured. But I see the truth below.’’
He walked around her as she stood unmoving. ‘‘You’re holding it in,’’ he said. ‘‘You keep it buried all neat and tidy, and you’d be mortified if they ever saw the real you. But it’s making its way to the surface now. After all these years.’’
Her features remained red and angry, but took on the slightest hint of uncertainty.
‘‘Feed that rage, love,’’ Payton said, deadly serious. ‘‘You’re going to need it. We all are.’’
He turned and began walking away, but Morgan remained rooted to her spot, breathing hard and fast.
‘‘I won’t become an animal. Violence solves nothing,’’ Morgan said quietly.
He cast a glance over his shoulder. ‘‘You’d be surprised how many things it will solve.’’
The pulleys holding the canoe in place were rusted and didn’t want to turn. Grant finally gave up and made it break loose with his mind.
The old wooden boat shattered on the floor.
In the remains of what used to be the front section of the canoe lay a small, hard plastic, store-bought safe on its side, no more than a foot wide and tall. Grant hoisted it from the debris, found a secure place to sit and opened it.
He didn’t toy with guessing the safe’s combination. He merely focused his thoughts on the small front door and lifted it from its hinges. Inside were five Army file folders marked ‘‘Classified.’’ Each had its own label. The first four, in turn, were ‘‘Frank Boyd,’’ ‘‘Cynthia Boyd,’’ ‘‘Julie Boyd,’’ and ‘‘Collin Boyd.’’
His entire family.
Why would the Army keep top secret files on my family?
He flipped to the last file.
‘‘The Secretum of Six.’’
Grant’s heart fluttered. His father had known about the Secretum?
He began by opening his father’s file. The first paper was an official commendation on his service record, signed by ‘‘Gen. Harlan Bernard Evers.’’ Grant scanned the page. One paragraph jumped out at him:
Frank is the finest officer to ever serve under my command, representing the best of what the United States Army has to offer. He has earned my full confidence and absolute trust. Major Boyd has become the leading intelligence gatherer in our entire department. His experience has proven vital to unraveling the mysteries of the Secretum.
So. Payton was wrong. The U.S. government did know of the Secretum, after all.
But what did Evers mean by ‘‘his experience’’?
The next page was a photocopy of a large black-and-white photograph of his parents. Smiling both, his mother was sitting at a desk which his father was leaning over from the opposite side. It looked like the photographer had caught them in a candid moment, but they both turned to look into the lens and smile before the shutter was triggered.
Grant saw the indentations of handwriting through the paper; he turned it over to read what it said.
A scribbled note read, ‘‘Frank and Cynthia. X marks the spot.’’
X?
He flipped the page again and examined it closer. He gasped when he spotted it: a tiny ‘‘x’’ had been marked on the photo with a black pen; just above it, a miniature tattoo was visible on his father’s left wrist. And . . . There! His mother had one too, in the same spot.
The tattoos looked remarkably like one of the symbols found on Grant’s ring.
‘‘Mom and Dad . . .’’ he breathed, unbelieving. ‘‘They knew all about the Secretum.’’
Grant leaned back, putting an arm behind him for support.
It couldn’t be true.
He discarded the other folders for now and skipped to the one with ‘‘Collin Boyd’’ written on it.
The first document he came upon inside was a birth certificate.
A birth certificate for . . .
He shuddered.
The certificate was for ‘‘Grant Borrows.’’
There’s a real Grant Borrows? I thought that name was just made up and given to me!
But this paper he held was no copy. It was an original; he could see the pen’s indentations, though it bore no notary watermark.
He thumbed through the remainder of his file, the contents of which included photos from his early childhood, the results of his father’s test on his mental acuity, and little else. No other birth certificate was enclosed.
Grant couldn’t figure out what this meant. Why would his father have a birth certificate with ‘‘Grant Borrows’’ on it?
His thoughts started coming faster and faster, reeling back to past conversations, remembering things he had been told.
‘‘So you’re me, now,’’ he heard his own voice saying to Collin that first day. ‘‘Does that mean I’m you?’’
‘‘It doesn’t work that way,’’ Collin had replied. ‘�
��I’m just a volunteer.
I’m no one important. You’re different.’’
Then the moment between moments where the hazy outline of his mother had spoken to him.
‘‘Stay true to yourself. Nothing is as it seems,’’ she said in that silky, dreamy voice.
And Harlan Evers had said before his death, ‘‘If you go and find your father’s files, you’re going to learn things that will be hard to accept. Things about your parents and about yourself . . . Once this corner is turned, once you know this truth, there will be no going back.’’
Finally, he thought of Morgan, quoting something that the old woman Marta had told her . . .
‘‘She said you’ve always been who you are now.’’
And the truth dawned on him.
He didn’t know how it was true, but he could feel in his bones that it was.
This couldn’t be.
It just couldn’t.
It was madness.
Grant could only shake his head.
‘‘I wasn’t changed into this person,’’ he whispered. ‘‘Grant Borrows is the real name I was given at birth . . .’’
51
‘‘Bike won’t start,’’ Payton said to someone from the front hall. ‘‘Been knacked since I crashed it into Grant’s car.’’
Terrific, Morgan thought from the Common Room. He’s stuck here.
With us.
A tremendous commotion came from the hall, where numerous residents seemed to be gathering near the front door. ‘‘Oh, lovely,’’ came Payton’s voice above the din.
Morgan followed his voice to find the front door open. Payton stood at the front of them, looking out over the threshold. Fletcher was next to him.
‘‘What’s going on?’’ she asked, forcing her way through the men and women who were already elbow-to-elbow, looking outside the door.
‘‘You have a visitor,’’ Payton said, not turning around. ‘‘The snitch.’’
Morgan’s eyes drew into narrow slits when she finally made it to the front door.
Hannah stood just outside the door, leaning against the door post. She looked as if she barely had the energy to stand. She was filthy, her eyes were bloodshot, and—covered in sweat but not out of breath—she was probably running a fever.
Morgan had never seen the southern belle like this before.
‘‘What do you want, Hannah?’’ asked Morgan.
‘‘To warn you,’’ Hannah said wearily, struggling to get the words out.
‘‘About what?’’ Morgan replied, unimpressed.
‘‘I’m not . . .’’ Hannah mumbled, trying to remain upright, ‘‘I . . . I don’t know, exactly! Somethin’s going to . . . I don’t know what, but I overheard . . .’’
‘‘She’s lying,’’ Fletcher started to say, but broke off when Hannah’s eyes rolled up into her head. She began to collapse . . .
In a flash, Payton had dropped his sword and she was resting in his arms. He was already holding her long before the sword ever hit the ground.
‘‘Brilliant,’’ he said, frowning, as he gazed down with disdain at Hannah, unconscious in his arms. He turned to face Morgan. ‘‘What am I supposed to do with this?’’
‘‘You’ll think of something,’’ Morgan replied. ‘‘But don’t kill her. Well . . . wouldn’t be the end of the world, but try not to kill her.’’
The Corvette pointed south, Grant sped toward L.A. on 395, letting the car almost drive itself. Traffic was light and so Grant’s distracted thoughts didn’t matter much. He was breathing fast, his blood pressure rising.
This . . . none of this . . .
His parents, members of the Secretum? The identity he’d known his entire life, a fabrication?
It couldn’t be true.
He’d always assumed that those two words—grant and borrow— were someone’s idea of a joke, given his current situation.
But no.
Rooting through some papers on the passenger seat, he found military discharge papers dated roughly one month before Julie’s birthday.
Grant began piecing it together . . .
Julie has no idea that the name she uses is not her real name, either, because she’s never been told differently. Once we were living at the orphanage, all of our official documents had our assumed names on them, so no one had reason to believe they weren’t real.
He turned to the file marked ‘‘The Secretum of Six’’ and opened it.
This was the thickest file of all, full of handwritten notes, memos, and official Army documents.
One page was labeled ‘‘Official Enlistment Request Form.’’ It had never been fully completed, but the names ‘‘Frank Boyd’’ and ‘‘Cynthia Boyd’’ were scribbled hastily on top, followed by a brief, handwritten paragraph below:
That was it, then. His parents had been operatives for the Secretum but fled and joined the U.S. military. In exchange for giving the government every piece of information they knew about the Secretum, the Army made them officers.
There never was a Collin Boyd. It was only a pseudonym used to protect him from being found by the Secretum. He had perhaps three hours left before he reached the asylum and he knew one thought would dog him that whole time.
My whole life has been one lie built upon another . . .
And what if his father had never left? What if he was a double-agent? Grant couldn’t bend his mind around the reasons the man would disappear. It made no sense.
Nothing made sense anymore.
Another hour and a half in the car only cleared up a few points. He had managed to read through a few more of correspondence and the pieces began slipping together. Grant’s father must have learned of the Secretum’s plans for the Bringer, joined Army Intelligence after defecting, earned their trust—no doubt along with plenty of enemies within the secret order—and spent his time researching the Bringer and how he would be identified.
What a cruel twist of fate that it turned out to be his own son.
Or was it really a twist? Daniel was always saying that there are no coincidences . . .
Grant turned back to the ‘‘Secretum of Six’’ file and rifled through it some more.
A detailed report written by his father stated:
The Secretum of Six is an ancient religious order, dating back several millennia. Shrouded in the utmost secrecy, their beliefs are built upon a stone tablet they call the Dominion Stone. There are conflicting theories on where the Stone came from, but the Secretum claims it is the oldest existing object on earth. The predominant theory is that it was a marker, placed upon some kind of enclave built to protect the Rings of Dominion—a seal meant to lock the away the Rings until the time was right.
It contains a prophecy, regarding an important figure who leverages an event that has not yet come to pass. We have been unable to determine what this future event is, but we know that all of the Secretum’s activities are centered around it. Approximately six hundred years ago, enemies of the Secretum found a way to break the Stone into smaller fragments, and scattered the pieces around the globe. The Secretum seems to have been largely unaffected by losing it, as their scholars had studied and deciphered the writing on it several thousand years ago. Having the Dominion Stone back now would be merely an act of devotion.
A hand-written memo also in the file said,
And Inveo Technologies, Grant guessed.
Secrets and lies. Speeding toward L.A., Grant felt his pulse hammer in his palms as he gripped the steering wheel. He knew answers to his questions were closeer than ever, but like a mirage shimmering in the mid-day sun on the highway, still of reach. Somebody, soon, would need to answer to him.
When Hannah finally awakened, Payton, joined by the uninvited Fletcher, began trying to pull more information from her. Even Pay-ton’s sword, however, failed to uncover little more than what she’d already offered.
‘‘Something big is in the works,’’ Payton said slowly, never taking his eyes off Hannah. ‘‘You do
n’t know what it is, but you ‘overheard’ mention of it. That sum it up?’’
Hannah nodded, and took another sip out of the glass she held with both hands. She looked like a caged animal, hoping to be rescued.
‘‘Then tell me who you heard it from,’’ Payton said slowly.
She looked down.
‘‘Listen, young lady—’’ Fletcher began sternly, then stopped, as if realizing something. ‘‘It’s obvious who she heard it from. Matthew Drexel.’’
‘‘Drexel . . .’’ Payton uttered, a deadly gleam settling into his eyes. ‘‘I need to borrow a car.’’
‘‘All right,’’ Fletcher replied, suddenly curious. ‘‘Your motorcycle won’t start at all?’’
‘‘No,’’ Payton said absently. ‘‘It was making an odd sound.’’
Fletcher looked far away, the gears in his mind spinning rapidly.
‘‘What kind of sound?’’
‘‘Clacking of a loose screw, maybe.’’
Fletcher paused, then his eyes swiveled to Payton’s. ‘‘Could you wait here just one moment?’’ He walked at a brisk pace out of the Common Room and toward the front door.
Morgan stood, alarmed by Fletcher’s sudden exit.
‘‘How much does he know about motorcycles?’’ Payton asked.
‘‘Nothing I’m aware of,’’ Morgan replied.
Fletcher ran back in at a dead sprint and pulled down on an old fire alarm attached to the wall.
‘‘Everybody out of the building! Go out the back! Quickly!’’ he yelled.
For a moment, no one moved. They merely stared at him, startled.
‘‘RUN!’’ he bellowed at the top of his lungs. ‘‘NOW!! ’’
In the Corvette, Grant abruptly gulped in a full breath of air and slammed back into his seat, as if he’d been punched in the stomach. All thoughts of his investigation were gone, replaced by an image that had intruded upon his mind. His eyes squeezed shut so tight, for a long second, the Corvette blasting ahead regardless.
When he opened his eyes again, he was pasty white, clammy, and an unchecked panic radiated from every pore of his body.
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