Merging Darkness

by Marissa Farrar

  Why hadn’t we done that to start with? Yeah, maybe we thought it was safe, but it wasn’t. We should have shipped all the children out of there the moment we knew the locations had been compromised.

  I hung up and glanced over to see the others watching me. I shrugged. “No answer, just as we expected.”

  “I’m sure your aunt is fine,” Clay offered, but I knew he was only saying it to make me feel better. He had no way of knowing that, and we both knew they were empty words. If Hollan was already at the base, there was a good chance no one was fine.

  Feeling like a third wheel, I wanted to do something useful. “I’ll go down and bring up the boys,” I offered. I felt bad that they’d been down there at all, but at least now we were getting them away from this place. I just hoped wherever they ended up would be safer.

  “I’ll come with you,” Clay said.

  I gave him a grateful smile. “Thanks.”

  We moved quickly down to the cellar. The kids were much as I left them the first time. Sensing my need to hurry, their eyes widened in fear.

  “Is it happening?” Hudson asked. “Are they here?”

  “No, but we’re going to get everyone out of here. We don’t think they’re coming, but we still need to move fast, okay?”

  “Where are we going?” the boy asked as they all got to their feet and started to file out.

  “Andrea knows somewhere safe for you all,” I replied, knowing that was pretty vague, but unable to give them any more detail. It wasn’t as though I knew for myself.

  I pressed my hand to each of their shoulders as they passed by, trying to urge them to hurry. We traipsed in a line back down the low-ceilinged corridor and toward the stairwell. The boys knew where they were going, and Clay and I moved along with them, keeping them together. I didn’t want one of them running off and losing them in this building now.

  We reached the top of the stairs, and Clay pushed the door open, allowing them to pile out.

  Hudson paused before exiting, looking between me and Clay. “When are we coming back?” he asked.

  I pressed my lips together and shook my head. “I’m not sure.”

  One of the younger ones I thought was called Charlie, who looked to be about six years old, adorable with blond hair and brown eyes, looked up at us. “Can I get my toy?”

  I pulled a face, feeling awkward. “No, I’m sorry, but there’s no time for that. I think they’re packing you some clothes, but I’m not sure about toys.”

  Charlie’s face crumpled and he started to cry. My heart just about broke.

  Clay put his hand out to the child. “Come on, let’s get you out of here. We can get you a new toy as soon as you’re safe.”

  “I don’t want a new toy,” Charlie managed between little hitching breaths. “I want that one.”

  “Stop being such a baby,” Hudson snapped.

  “He’s not a baby!” one of the other boys yelled.

  I didn’t know how to handle this. I’d never been around kids. I tried to remember my reason for volunteering to do this part of the job. Had it been because I felt responsible for the boys now in Hollan’s possession? Yes, it must have been. That didn’t mean I was any better equipped to handle them, though.

  Clay stopped and dropped to a crouch, his hand on the arm of the boy who was crying. “Hey, what does your toy look like?”

  The boy sniffed and ran his hand across his nose, leaving a shiny trail across his skin. “He’s a dinosaur.”

  “Okay, I’ll run and get him. You do what Darcy here tells you, and I’ll be back with it before you’ve even noticed I’ve gone.”

  Charlie’s tears stopped almost miraculously. I gave Clay a grateful smile, and he threw me a wink before vanishing off in the opposite direction, heading toward the dorm rooms.

  I got the boys up the rest of the stairs and into the main part of the building.

  People had begun to gather at the entrance, and, to my relief, I spotted Lorcan and Alex among them. Kingsley must have found them and let them know what was going on.

  “Jonathan’s getting the helicopter warmed up,” Isaac said, spotting me. “We’ll be out of here in no time.”

  They pushed the front doors open and stepped outside. I tried not to feel exposed at the sudden space. There was still no sign of Hollan, and, as each minute passed, I became more and more certain my hunch he wasn’t coming had been correct.

  To my surprise, across the field where the farm was positioned, now several expensive looking vehicles drove out of the barns. The windows were blacked out, and even though they’d been kept in not so luxurious surroundings, driving in these cars would get them noticed.

  “You’d think they’d have more inconspicuous vehicles,” Lorcan said to me from the corner of his mouth.

  I pulled a face. I would have thought so, too, but that was what they had, and there was nothing we could do about it. Besides, I didn’t think the helicopter was exactly subtle.

  Thinking of the chopper, I looked to where Jonathan was walking toward us, George at his side. The pilot’s hand was on the boy’s shoulder. George appeared both curious about all the new people and worried about what might happen next.

  Kingsley stepped forward to meet them and ducked his head to bring himself more on George’s level. “You need to go with the woman who heads up this base, okay? Her name is Andrea, and you can trust her. It’s safer for you. We’re going to go and get your friends back.”

  “I want to come with you!” he cried.

  Kingsley shook his head. “Sorry, kiddo, but we have to make the choice for what is best for you. There are no negotiations. It’s happening, okay?”

  They’d been raised to look up to authority, and to take orders. I could see in the boy’s face that he didn’t want to go, saw how he looked longingly at the chopper.

  “See ya, kid,” said the pilot. He gave him a high five, and then pulled him into a quick hug.

  George’s face twisted. “Thanks for letting me ride in your helicopter.”

  “Hey, any time.”

  “Time to go,” called Andrea from where she stood beside one of the cars.

  They started piling into the vehicles. George looked warily at the other boys, who gave him nods and smiles of greeting. George returned their smiles with a shy one of his own. I couldn’t imagine how he felt, being pushed into the company of a whole heap of people he’d never met before. This wasn’t exactly the best circumstances for them to meet either.

  The little blond boy, Charlie, resisted getting into the car and started to cry again. “I didn’t get my toy!”

  Shit, what had happened to Clay? Worry stabbed at me.

  The man trying to get the boy into the car rolled his eyes at the fuss the child was creating.

  I glanced back toward the entrance. To my relief, Clay came charging out, waving a plastic dinosaur in the air.

  “Hey, wait up, kid! Is this the one you’re after?”

  “Seratops!” the boy declared, reaching for it.

  Clay handed the toy over, and the boy kissed the toy’s spiky little head. Despite the circumstances, I couldn’t help smiling. Clay would make a good dad one day. The thought had pinged into my head, and my heart flipped. I couldn’t allow myself to think that way, to think of us all with a future. How would it even work with us? What if one guy wanted to be a parent, and the others didn’t? How would we even know whose baby it was? Maybe it wouldn’t even matter. Maybe they’d be content to see the child as all of ours, and the kid would get five dads instead of one. I didn’t know how it would work when we tried to explain things at parent-teacher meetings, but families were made up of all shapes and sizes these days.

  “Darcy? Everything okay?”

  I realized Alex had been talking to me, and I gave my head a slight shake, trying to dispel the image of us all as a family. Alex would be another one who’d make a great dad. He’d be fantastic with the teachers, too, would schmooze them into not asking too many questions. No, stop tha
t, Darcy, I scolded myself. We might not even survive the next twelve hours. I couldn’t be thinking about babies.

  “Yeah, fine. Just too many thoughts going around my head.” My cheeks heated, but I had no intention of telling him just what those thoughts were. Maybe, when this was over, we’d sit down and have a conversation about where this was going, but that time wasn’t now.

  The boys were divided between two of the vehicles, and then followed by the adults. Everyone was ready to go.

  Andrea gave Isaac’s hand a final shake, and bade farewell to the rest of us with a raise of her hand. “Good luck. I hope everyone stays safe.”

  Isaac nodded. “You, too. Keep in touch.”

  The drivers climbed behind the wheels, and then they were pulling out of the area.

  I breathed a sigh. They were leaving, putting distance between themselves and this place. I hoped that meant they’d be okay. We stood and watched them drive down the road until they became no more than tiny specs.

  It was just the six of us again.

  Oh, and the helicopter pilot, of course.

  “Come on,” Isaac called to us, taking long strides across the grass in the direction of the helicopter. Jonathan had already gotten behind the controls, and now the big machine was warming up, the rotor blades spinning faster and faster. It was already loud, the roar of the engine increasing. I ducked my head and ran for the chopper. The other guys moved beside me, each mimicking my movements, keeping low and running at a jog.

  “How are you all doing?” Jonathan asked, shouting over the roar of the helicopter. “I hear we’re heading home.”

  “That’s right,” Isaac yelled back as he pulled himself on board. He took one of the seats behind the pilot. “We got enough fuel to make it?”

  Jonathan nodded. “Barely. Good thing we refueled when we did.”

  The idea of stopping once more to refuel would have driven me crazy with frustration. We needed to be back at the base right now, but such a thing was impossible.

  I climbed into the second row, with Clay taking the seat on one side of me, and Lorcan the other. Alex moved into the back row, directly behind us, and Kingsley climbed on board and sat next to Isaac.

  Jonathan slammed the doors of the helicopter behind us, and then climbed in the front. “Everyone ready?” he called back.

  We each nodded, and then proceeded to pull the headphone from the backs of our seats and settle them over our heads. I immediately felt more comfortable without the sound drilling against my eardrums, but I was never going to relax completely. I didn’t know what we were going to discover when we got back to base, and my mind kept conjuring up images of what we’d found at the Atlanta location. I was terrified of us finding the same thing.

  The roar of the helicopter blades increased, and then we lifted into the air. I held my breath, finding this transition between being on the ground to being airborne the worst part about traveling in one of these things. People might think it was glamorous, but all I felt was uneasy. I’d only been in an airplane a handful of times, but even they seemed more stable than this thing.

  But as we reached a cruising altitude, I forced myself to relax a little. We had a few hours until we got back to our base, and I’d be a nervous wreck if I couldn’t bring myself to chill out. I took a couple of deep, slow breaths, trying to calm my heartrate.

  “You okay?” Clay asked me through the headset.

  I looked to him and forced a smile. “I’m working on it.”

  He returned the closed lipped smile and nodded. “Yeah, I know what you mean.”

  I always thought of the guys as being tough, and not letting any of this affect them, but I guessed that wasn’t the truth. I didn’t want any harm coming to anyone at the base, and of course I loved my aunt, but that place had been their home since they were children. They’d grown up with the people there, and had watched the boys there grow and learn. The truth was that however much I felt this thing between me and Hollan was personal, they had far more invested in this than I did.

  As we left the base behind us, I leaned over to look out the window. I was frightened that I had gotten things wrong, and the leaving vehicles containing the children would come face to face with Hollan and his men coming in the opposite direction. Though I didn’t want that to happen, at least then we’d know the reason Devlin wasn’t answering his phone, and Isaac couldn’t make contact with the D.C. base, was because of something less innocuous than we were imagining.

  With time on our hands, we took the opportunity to figure out what our move would be when we arrived. Isaac used both his phone and laptop to try to contact base again, but only got the same result. It seemed unlikely that the reason no one was answering was because they were busy. Something was preventing them from making contact, and whatever that something was probably wasn’t going to be good.

  “I suggest we circle the clearing where the base is located before we do anything else. It might be obvious from above what we’re about to walk into. Hollan won’t have walked there. There will be vehicles around.”

  “He might have left the vehicles a distance away, and sneaked in through the tree line,” Lorcan suggested.

  Isaac nodded. “Yeah, that’s possible, but we’ll be able to do a flyover and see if there’s any unusual vehicles around.”

  “That won’t be much good if they’ve used the tree cover.”

  Isaac’s lips thinned, and I watched his shoulders tense and his eyes narrow. “You got any better suggestions?”

  Lorcan shook his head and glanced away. I didn’t like seeing them fight, but tensions were high. I knew Isaac only wanted to do the right thing.

  “There’ll be some kind of disturbance,” I offered. “Devlin wouldn’t have just let them in.”

  “How do we know that? Hollan might still have the boys he took from the Atlanta base. What if he threatens to shoot the kids unless he opens up?”

  My stomach twisted. I couldn’t imagine being in Devlin’s position to make that kind of choice. He’d want to protect the boys he had down in the base, while wanting to save the lives of the ones Hollan had. It would be an impossible decision.

  “Maybe Devlin will be able to talk to Hollan on a different level? Try to reason with him.”

  Isaac arched an eyebrow at me. “You think Hollan is a reasonable man, love?”

  No, I didn’t, and Isaac knew that.

  Like Lorcan had done, I glanced away.

  The truth was that there was little we could do to prepare for what we might be about to face.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The time on board the helicopter seemed to pass frustratingly slowly.

  But it did pass, and before I thought I could ever be ready, we were approaching our home base. Nerves swirled in my stomach, making me lightheaded, and my heartbeat felt like the flutter of a trapped butterfly’s wings against the inside of my ribcage. I alternated squeezing myself tight, my arms compressed against my torso, and stretching out to try to relieve some of the tension.

  My hands shook as I checked my gun, making sure it was still fully loaded, even though I had yet to shoot a bullet. I felt sick with fear about what we might find, and prayed my hunch had been wrong. Around me, the men did the same thing, checking their weapons and making sure they had plenty of ammo on hand for reloading. We didn’t know what we were going to be dropping in on, and we wanted to be prepared.

  “We’re approaching the area now, folks,” Jonathan said over the headset. “You might want to keep an eye out the window, watch for anything that looks out of place.”

  I did as he instructed and leaned over Clay to look out at the ground below us. The helicopter started to descend, bringing the green blobs of trees and the gray snakes of roads into focus. There wasn’t much out here—it was mainly forest—but I strained my eyes trying to pick out any detail, spot anything that would give us a clue as to what was happening.

  The chopper dipped lower again, and through the trees, I spotted the tall, rust
ed equipment of the abandoned logging site. My breath caught. We were back. Jonathan circled the area, sweeping down over the tops of the trees, so the clearing of the logging site where the entrance to the base was located came into full view. I wanted to grab hold of Clay’s hand beside me, but instead I reached to my hip and wrapped my fingers around the handle of my gun. The weapon would provide me with more protection than holding a man’s hand right now, however much I wanted to.

  We were all doing the same thing, peering out the side windows of the chopper, trying to see if there was anything different we should be aware of, but, from as high up as we were, it was impossible to tell.

  “Can you take her lower, Jonathan?” Isaac asked over the headset.

  “Sure.”

  The helicopter banked sharply to the right and started coming back around. We were going to circle back over the area. He brought the chopper lower, so it almost brushed the tops of the trees. The downward draft the huge machine created caused the branches of the trees to fan outward, leaves and twigs flying into the air, only to be whipped away by the rotor blades.

  I had no doubt that if Hollan was somewhere around, he’d certainly have noticed our arrival.

  “There’s nothing,” Isaac said through the headset. “Maybe we should set her down.”

  Jonathan called back, “Can do, boss.”

  He brought the aircraft back around, aiming to land in the clearing.

  Suddenly, there was a loud crack, and Jonathan jerked to one side, a spatter of red droplets spraying onto the glass. The helicopter banked heavily to the left, throwing us all in that direction, and a scream escaped my throat. Confusion and panic filled me. Amid the chaos of the helicopter lurching out of control, I tried to piece together what had happened. Not only was the helicopter starting to turn in a spin, there was a small hole through the pilot’s window. Because of the noise of the engine and the wop-wop of the blades, it had been hard to hear, but someone had shot us from the ground.