by Kyle West
He usually ate breakfast with his cronies. Makara never dared sit close enough to him at the food court to hear what was being said.
If Ohlan was not out on patrol, he spent most of his day in various meetings. Most of them were boring, and Makara couldn’t even listen in on most of them since she had to go to school. She skipped school one time just to see what he did during the day. He tended to make rounds, doing various errands for Raine.
Makara learned that Ohlan was very essential to the Angels’ operations. If Raine needed something done, or someone wasn’t cooperating, Ohlan usually was his guy. Usually the ways Ohlan got the job done weren’t very nice. Makara wasn’t sure whether to blame Ohlan or Raine for that, though Raine was surely aware of Ohlan’s methods. One time, Makara had to listen as Ohlan roughed up a guy for not paying the market tax on time.
The more Makara watched Ohlan going around, doing his work, the more unsettled she became. She could barely stand to listen from the rafters above when he went to visit a lady, who let him do disturbing things to her in exchange for a handful of batts.
Worse, Makara had learned nothing that proved his guilt. It’d been weeks, and while she learned about the Angels’ operations and Ohlan’s role in them, she still didn’t know anything about how Ohlan planned to betray Raine. She was starting to even doubt herself.
“HE’S SQUEAKY CLEAN, Sam. I feel like I’m just wasting my time.”
“He’s being careful, Makara,” Sam said, in his quiet, considering way. They were sitting in their own kitchen, but after Makara’s shenanigans, both siblings realized just how easy it was to be eavesdropped on. For all they knew, Ohlan was also aware of the partitions between the floors, and had ways of listening in.
“We need him to slip up,” Makara said.
“We just have to wait him out, Makara,” Samuel said.
“I’ll be honest,” Makara said, “I don’t know how much longer I can do this. Following him around, seeing what he does. It’s really depressing.”
“I’d take your place if I could.”
Makara smiled at the idea of him tromping around in ceiling. That’d blow their cover quick.
“Maybe it’s time to consider the nuclear option,” Samuel said.
Makara had been afraid he’d say that. “Yeah. Maybe.”
“I mean, we know his schedule pretty well now,” Samuel said. “He’s never in his room unless he’s sleeping.”
“Or with one of those ladies,” Makara said.
Samuel nodded, to concede that point. “I hate that you have to see that kind of stuff.”
“It’s for Raine, right?” Makara asked. “He needs to be protected.”
“Raine can protect himself, Makara. You don’t have to risk yourself for him.”
She felt herself stiffen. “I’m doing it, Samuel. That’s that.”
Samuel watched her, knowing that he could end all of this right now by going to Raine. Makara would hate that. And it probably wouldn’t do any good unless his sister was under 24/7 surveillance.
No, Samuel could not betray her like that. He would lose trust with her for a long time.
“You will have to be very careful, Makara. More so than you’ve ever been.”
She nodded. “I will.”
“The question is, what time will be best to go in?”
“During school,” Makara said. “The bathroom is on the way, so it’ll be easy. It’s out of sight of the concourse. If no one’s in the corridor, I should be good.”
And no one should enter the bathroom, either. A pre-collapse bathroom probably hadn’t been working in well over a decade. Now, they mostly just served as storage space. The bathroom by Ohlan’s apartment had plenty of crates and boxes, piled high enough to make entering the ceiling a breeze. Makara had already mapped everything out and knew which way to go.
The only thing she hadn’t done was the final step: lowering herself into Ohlan’s room.
“Let’s do it tomorrow,” Makara said. “If I can’t find anything shady, I’ll give it up.”
“I don’t want you taking longer than thirty minutes,” Samuel said. “Don’t leave anything out of place, either. It’ll be bad enough that one of your hairs could be left behind.”
“He won’t notice that,” Makara said.
Samuel had his doubts. “Maybe I should keep watch, just in case . . .”
“They’ll notice, Samuel. You can’t.”
He knew his sister was probably right. He just couldn’t stomach the idea of her doing this on her own. Staying above the rafters was one thing. Going down and poking around someone else’s things was entirely another.
“He’s never come home early in all the times we’ve watched him,” Samuel said.
“That’s right,” Makara said. “At worst, he’ll suspect someone’s been in his room, but he’ll have no way of knowing who.”
“He might have a camera.”
“Waste of batts,” Makara said. “I doubt it.”
“Batts might be currency, Makara, but remember why they were original designed. The ones made in the Dark Decade are good up to a century. Batts power things, and Ohlan has plenty of them from his position in the Angels. He might consider a camera in his room worth the cost of using them.”
“I’m still going,” she said.
Samuel nodded. “I guess I can’t stop you.”
“No,” Makara said. “You can’t.” She reached across the table, placing her hand on top of his. “Don’t worry about me, Sam. I survived alone for three years before you showed up. I know how to take care of myself.”
Samuel supposed she did, at that. “Good luck, then. You can find me after at the food court. I can pick something from the market for us to eat, and you can tell me what you find.”
She nodded. “Sounds good.”
Chapter 32
THE NEXT DAY DAWNED, and for the first time, Makara felt her resolve waver. She went to school, as normal, and as previously planned, she excused herself at 9:30 to use the restroom. Instead of walking to the latrine built into what used to be a garden, she turned right instead. Her heart started to pound when the bathroom came into sight. She heard no one nearby. Everything was going as planned.
She quickly turned inside, making sure she was alone among the piles of supplies that hadn’t been sorted yet. She started to climb, wasting no time in pushing the ceiling tile upward, lifting herself up onto the rafter. She closed the tile behind her and proceeded forward.
Eighteen rafters, she thought to herself, although she didn’t really need the reminder. She just wanted to steady her nerves.
Those eighteen rafters passed as quickly as they did soundlessly. She heard a couple having conversation below, and then silence. A few rafters later, and Ohlan’s room was directly below her.
The first thing Makara did was listen for a good five minutes, just to be sure. There was nothing. After those five minutes had passed, she pushed down on a tile just a bit, and peeked in the two inches or so of space she’d created. She had a view of Ohlan’s bedroom below. It contained nothing more than a bed, immaculately made, a chest of drawers, with several guns mounted to the wall, each gleaming as if recently polished.
Samuel was right. He probably would notice a hair out of place.
Nonetheless, she was here, so she was going to make use of it. She dropped in on the drawers while stucco fell from the ceiling like snow. She’d have to clean that up.
But first, she nosed around. She started with the top drawer, finding lots of clean, perfectly folded clothes. She rifled through them carefully but found nothing of interest. The second drawer had various tools; wrenches, several screwdrivers, a hammer, while nails and screws were sorted according to their sizes and purpose. There was nothing in there, either. She pushed it back.
She opened the bottom drawer, finding it filled with papers, each organized into clean, manila folders. Most of them were labeled by year.
Makara reached for the current year, 2052.
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br /> What she found were copious notes, scrawled in Ohlan’s neat, precise handwriting. Everything was dated. There were charts, hand-drawn with perfectly straight lines. Some were inventory lists, accompanied by Ohlan’s notes.
Food production down since the move, clear conclusion from this graph. Will recommend Raine to upend more of the asphalt on the east side and plant potatoes. We need a couple more acres of them, probably. Will take a while for the compost to season, nine months at a guess. Will have to take to Harvey about that.
Harvey was the head of Agriculture.
“Poop and potatoes,” Makara said, shaking her head. “Where’s the good stuff?”
She scanned down the notes, with Ohlan talking about trying to trade for goats with the Vultures.
We desperately need people with expertise in herding. We need more protein in our diets. Leadership does well enough, but people won’t stay happy long eating stuff that grows out of the dirt. Krakens not really cooperating in letting us lease some fishing boats.
Makara skipped that page entirely. She needed to find something detailing his meetings with the Reapers.
She flipped through absolutely everything, until she saw one folder, colored red rather than manila. She picked it up. It was labeled Diplomatic Dossier.
“That sounds official,” she whispered, as she flipped it open.
She found the stuff she was looking for almost immediately.
Met with Cyrus again. That man says a lot without saying anything at all. Still, some useful nuggets I can take to Raine. Makes me a bit nervous, though. We’re feeding them more than they’re feeding us right now. I’m having trouble allaying his fears, which could make things complicated. It’s hard to convince him I’m not crossing him, but he wants information that I just can’t give him. Not unless I want to tip my hand to Raine, anyway. It’s difficult. Cyrus has given useful information, so he’s worth keeping in my contacts. I’m wondering if it was a mistake to let him go. Maybe I really should have ended things with him for good, but of course that would be stupid. That would cut off all my abilities to gain information from the Reapers in the future.
“That lying . . .”
The front door to Ohlan’s apartment opened.
Makara felt a moment of panic, and dropped the files on the floor, spreading paper everywhere. She jumped on the chest and gave a mighty leap, pulling herself up toward the rafter. Ohlan entered the room below her. She heard him chuckle.
She was in the process of pulling her legs up when he felt his grip firmly clench her shin. She kicked with everything she had, but Ohlan was securing her legs between his other arm and torso.
From there, it was a simple matter of pulling her from the rafters.
Makara felt her fingers slip from the beam above, one by one.
“Shouldn’t you be in school, Nancy Drew?”
“Get off me!” she cried.
Ohlan did no such thing. Now on the floor, Makara felt his arm wrap around her neck. Within seconds, she felt the world going dark.
“We’re gonna go on a little trip, Mak,” he said to her, his voice fading in and out. “Maybe it’ll teach you to leave the spying to me.”
Chapter 33
WHEN MAKARA WOKE UP, she heard voices. She blinked a few times and her vision didn’t seem to come back.
She was blind.
But the air was stuffy. She felt something around her head.
She tried to scream, but there was also something stuffed in her mouth and wrapped around her eyes.
She shook, realizing her hands were bound behind her back, too. She tried to kick, but her legs were bound, too. All she could feel was the gravel beneath her and the cold air of outside.
Some of the men those voices belonged to laughed, and Makara’s heart pounded. She’d never been so scared in her life.
“All y’all, shut up,” Ohlan barked. “We don’t have much time to make a deal before Raine comes after us. Like I just said, I’ll give you the girl. You give me the information and parts I’m after.
The men quickly settled down to business. Makara whimpered, but the sound was stifled by the rag. Makara recognized Cyrus’s voice speak.
“She’s just a girl,” he said. “What use is she to us?”
“Are you daft, Cyrus? This is Makara, Raine’s adopted daughter. You have her, then you have my brother by the balls.”
Cyrus chuckled. “What happens to you when your dear brother finds out you’ve turned traitor? Perhaps it’s time you returned with us, Ohlan. If this is Makara, then she’s all we need to force a deal with the Angels.”
Ohlan was quiet, as if considering those words. “I have things set up the way I want, Cyrus. My game isn’t with the Angels and it’s not with the Reapers, either. I know you have what I need there in the truck. Just hand it all over and we can consider this concluded. You can speed off and the boys and I will give the illusion of a chase.”
“The girl first,” Cyrus said.
“No,” Ohlan said. “The girl after. If you play dirty, Black will know you let this one slip out of your hands.”
Makara heard the click of a pistol and felt the hard pressure of a gun barrel through her head cover. She squirmed to get out of the way, but two pairs of hands held her in place. She stopped struggling.
“You’d kill her?” Cyrus asked, amused.
“Don’t play me false,” Ohlan said. “Angels will recognize she’s gone any minute, now. You realize the mall’s just half a mile back that way?”
Cyrus let out a sigh. “Fine, have it your way. It doesn’t matter to me.”
Makara heard a car door opening, and then closing.
“Up on your feet, girl,” Ohlan growled.
Makara squirmed again, and cried out, but she was forced up all the same. She tried to relax her muscles and become dead weight, but two men could still easily lift her. She stood.
The crunch of footsteps approached.
“Here,” Cyrus said. “Now, hand her over.”
Makara felt herself pushed. She nearly fell, but she ran into somebody. Not Cyrus. Those hands grappled her roughly. She fought madly, but all to no avail. Her tears were staining the band covering her eyes. She felt herself led away.
I’m so stupid, she thought. So, so stupid. I’ll never see Sam again. Raine. Dan. Nobody. I’m all alone, now.
She should have died four years ago.
It was quiet one moment, and in the next, the sound of gunshots rang out. Makara fell to the ground instinctively, crawling forward and keeping her head down. The storm of bullets seemed to never end. Men screamed and died around her; a body thudded to her right. She stayed put, pretending to be dead in the crossfire.
She didn’t know how long that madness lasted. Two minutes? Ten? How many bullets had been fired?
Once it was all over, she heard footsteps approach her.
“Get up, Makara,” Ohlan said.
Makara stood. Her legs were shaking. She felt her hands untied first, then the sack was lifted from her head. The gag was removed and she sucked in a deep breath, and then sobbed. She removed the band herself, to see that it was late evening, almost full on night. Four of Ohlan’s men stood in front of her, with Ohlan himself at the fore. His pale skin made him look ghostly in the darkness.
Makara bunched her fists and screamed. She ran forward and started throwing punches. Ohlan let her, while his men watched. After half a minute of this, Ohlan nodded to his men, who restrained her.
He watched her for the next few minutes, waiting for her to calm down. Makara only calmed down on the surface. Beneath, she was volcano still in the process of erupting.
“Cyrus is dead, Makara,” Ohlan said. “We’re about to head back.”
“You’re a traitor,” she spat. “I don’t care if you killed him, I read your files, I know what you are, Ohlan.”
He gave the ghost of his smile. His teeth, unnaturally white, gleamed in the night.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,
Makara. You’re just a little girl who got yourself caught up in the adults’ world.” He brushed himself off, exactly where she had been wailing on him. “Not to say you don’t have your uses. Have to say, the boss’s adopted daughter makes a pretty good bargaining chip.” He chuckled darkly. “Well, I think it’s safe to say my bridge with the Reapers is burned for good.”
She bottled up all her emotions. All she wanted to do was cry. And scream. And punch Ohlan some more. None of those actions were practical right now.
“When we get back to base,” Ohlan said, “you’re going tell Raine you were exploring outside and got kidnapped. You’re going to tell him that I saw it and came after you.”
“I’ll never say that,” Makara spat. “Why would I help you?”
Ohlan smiled. “Simple. You like your brother, right?”
Her eyes narrowed. “You leave him out of this.”
“Afraid I can’t,” Ohlan said. “You have a simple choice, Makara.”
“What’s to stop me from saying all this to Raine when I get back?”
Ohlan shrugged. “First, you’ll have to admit you’ve been sneaking around, something Raine told you not to do. Second, I will hurt Samuel. Badly. Don’t test me on that. You saw what I just did to you. How much more will I do to someone who Raine doesn’t care all that much about?”
“Raine cares about Sam, too,” Makara protested.
Ohlan shrugged in a way to show he didn’t give much credence to that. “Make your choice.”
Makara stared at him angrily, but she neither wanted to tell Raine the truth about her extracurricular activities, nor place her brother at risk.
She nodded. “Fine.”
Ohlan turned to one of his cronies. “Let’s pack up and head back.”
Makara got into the back of the truck with the rest of the men. The ride back was silent.
Chapter 34
