Twelve Shades of Midnight:

by Liliana Hart

  He paused, his breathing audible through the locker slats. “The police found evidence in the school earlier today that he now has your son.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Nate paused twenty feet from the school door and scanned the playground for Rachel. He’d given Bradley quite a chase through the park and nature preserve, letting him get close now and then to take the heat off Rachel. The last few yards, only the officer who had accompanied Bradley had been able to keep up. Eventually Nate had lost them both.

  Still, the circuitous path he’d chosen had eaten a lot of time, plenty enough for Rachel to consecrate the trident and make it back. So where was she?

  “She’s inside.” The police chief stepped around the corner of the school and into his line of vision, the moonlight catching her blond hair, her hand resting on the butt of her pistol, still in the holster at her waist. “Even though we cleared the building this evening, she seems to still be convinced that her son is inside. Do you want to tell me why?”

  “You wouldn’t believe it.”

  “Try me.”

  Telling her the truth was pointless. Val Ryker struck him as a skeptical, reality-based woman. Spinning a wild story about a faery-infested school would either cause her to pull out the straightjacket or prove to her her that he was hiding something.

  Nate would try a different approach. “Have you looked into Bradley’s past? Or did he just flash his federal badge, and you jumped to follow orders?”

  “I know he currently works for the IPPO, if that’s what you mean.”

  “And he told you I used to work for them, too?”

  “Yes.”

  “And that I’m dangerous?”

  “He did.”

  “Did he mention why?”

  “He said you stole research.”

  “Stole?” That was a new one, but he supposed in a way, he had. “I destroyed research. I only stole what’s in my head. But Bradley doesn’t hope to get it back. He wants to make sure I don’t share what I know.”

  Ryker’s eyebrows rose. “So share.”

  Nate shook his head. “Like I said, you wouldn’t believe me. No one would.”

  “So if no one would believe you, why is he going to all this trouble?”

  “Good question. One I haven’t been able to answer just yet.” Although that didn’t mean Nate had no theories. In addition to silencing him, Bradley might be planning to recapture the faery, although Nate had his doubts that his former boss even knew the entity was in the school.

  But Bradley wasn’t Nate’s biggest concern at the moment. Getting past the police chief was. He splayed his hands out at his sides, palms up, trying to show he wasn’t a threat. “Listen, we’re wasting time. The real danger is inside that building with Rachel Meier and her son. I’m the only one who can get them out.”

  “Why only you?”

  “Because I understand what’s in there. What it is. What the IPPO tried to do to it. Why it’s so focused on Rachel and Josh now. That’s what Bradley wants to keep quiet.”

  The police chief slipped her hand off the butt of her gun. “I don’t trust Bradley. But I’m not sure I trust you, either.”

  “I care about Rachel and her son. I need to protect them. You have to let me.”

  Val Ryker said nothing, just watched him through those hard cop eyes.

  “I’m going in that building, chief. The only way you can stop me is to shoot me, exactly what Bradley wants. But then, none of us will ever find out what’s really going on. And I’m afraid no one will see Rachel and Josh Meier alive again.”

  He turned away from the cop and started walking for the door, his heart knocking hard enough to hear a mile away.

  Ten feet from the door. Five.

  “Nate?” the chief called. “I’ll be waiting for you when you get out.”

  “I wouldn’t have it any other way.” He yanked the door open and stepped into the school.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Val watched Wells or Welks or whatever his real name was disappear down the long, dark hall before she moved to follow. She’d just reached out for the door handle when her radio fuzzed to life.

  “Chief?” Officer Jimmy Weiss sounded out of breath, panting over the phone.

  “What do you have, Jimmy?”

  “It’s Bradley. He broke off to check something a little while back, and now I can’t find him.”

  Why was she not surprised? “I think I know where he might be. I also located Nate Wells.”

  Val eyed the school doors. As of this evening every one of them was locked. She’d made sure of it. And yet she’d seen Rachel Meier slip in one and Wells open another. Who was to say Bradley couldn’t have infiltrated through a third? “Jimmy, meet me at the school right away. Door four.”

  “Sure thing.”

  Next Val called the night dispatcher, one of three who held down the fort on occasions Oneida had to do things like rest and live her life. “Ask the county to send a deputy or two. There’s something strange happening here at the old elementary school.”

  By the time Val ended the call, Weiss had joined her. She turned her attention back to the door handle, grabbing it and pulling—

  The door she’d just seen Wells enter was locked.

  “Jimmy? Run over and check door three.”

  He did as she asked and soon returned. “Locked.” He handed her the book Val had retrieved from the school library and given to Rachel earlier.

  Val stared at the book’s ornate cover. “Faeries, huh? Well faeries or not, I know someone who can get those doors open.”

  She pulled out her cell phone and dialed a number she knew by heart but tried never to use.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Rachel sagged against the wall of the locker, the coat hook digging into her back. She felt dizzy, Agent Bradley’s words buzzing in her head like a swarm of bees.

  It appears as though Nate Wells killed your husband.

  The police found evidence in the school earlier today that he now has your son.

  Why on earth would Bradley say something like that?

  Why on earth would he think she’d believe him?

  He continued his monologue, his voice humming from a few feet away. “I know you’re probably shocked. I was, too. I’m still not sure I believe it. If we get out of this place, we can ask the police chief to explain her theories. The sooner the better. Now which locker are you in?”

  Rachel could hear his shoes on the floor, moving slowly down the hall toward her. She peered through the ventilation slats. At first she couldn’t see anything, the hall dark as ever, then the glow of his light once again moved into view.

  He was walking close to the row of lockers, his head canted to the side as if listening.

  Of course, he was listening. He was trying to hear her breathing.

  He moved closer. Three lockers away.

  Two.

  One.

  Rachel took a deep breath and held it, covering her mouth.

  He brought his ear close to the vents, just inches from Rachel’s face. The ambient flashlight glow reflected off his scalp. “I can hear you.”

  Rachel pressed her palm harder against her mouth, panic rising…

  A click sounded from down the hall, the sound of a door opening. “Rachel?”

  Nate.

  Bradley straightened, his flashlight bobbing as he reached for something with his free hand. Not just something. A pistol. The gun’s shape silhouetted in the glow.

  “Rach— Bradley. What did you do with Rachel?”

  Rachel pressed her hand hard enough to bruise her lips. The hall was so dark. She had no idea if Nate knew Bradley was armed. She had to warn him, but other than banging on the locker door and giving away her location to Bradley, she had no idea how.

  “She doesn’t matter, Wells. And Steven’s kid doesn’t matter. This is between you and me.”

  “What do you want? Besides me dead?”

  “That would cover it.”

>   “What good is killing me going to do? You can’t get away with it.”

  “With self-defense? Yeah, I think I can.”

  “Self-defense? You’re the one with the gun. I’m unarmed.”

  Rachel let out a shuddering breath. At least Nate had seen the gun. Now she prayed he’d be careful and not rush in thinking he was protecting her.

  “Oh, we all know things like that can be manipulated. I’m the head of a government agency. I’m trusted. You? You’re a fired employee who killed his partner.”

  “Killed…” Nate said. “Steven?”

  “The phone call you had with him moments before he died is logged in his cell phone provider’s record,” Bradley continued. “You told him the faery had his wife and son in Devil’s Lake. You talked him into going up on those bluffs. After that, all you had to do was push.”

  Rachel shook her head. She didn’t believe it for a second.

  “Back up, Bradley,” Nate said, his voice much calmer than Rachel felt. “How did you know Steven thought the faery had Rachel and Josh? He was already in the park when he came up with that thought and called me. So how could you know about it unless you were there?”

  A hum rose in Rachel’s ears. There? Bradley was there?

  Bradley killed Steven?

  “You think you’re so damn smart,” Bradley said. “But what does it matter? You aren’t going to get a chance to share this theory of yours anyway.”

  Rachel couldn’t let Bradley kill Nate as he’d killed Steven. But what could she do from the inside of this locker?

  Wait.

  This school didn’t have metal lockers. The one she was hiding in was stolen from her own memory. The fact that she was now stuck in it was another echo of the bullying she suffered in tenth grade. She could still feel the girls pushing her in, securing the padlock, and her banging on the door until her seventh hour teacher heard the uproar and enlisted a janitor to let her out.

  So this locker was in her mind. And that meant she might be able to gain control over it. The question was how?

  Rachel closed her eyes. She pictured the hall as it really was; trimmed by wooden shelves, coat hooks positioned underneath.

  No, no, wait.

  All that would do is put her out in the hall unprotected, no way to help Nate or herself. She needed something better.

  Think.

  That day… that day…

  She didn’t remember what her teacher had said to her, but she remembered the woman’s tone. Scolding. As if what had happened was all Rachel’s fault. The woman went to get help. Then Rachel waited. And waited. And finally Mr. Toleffson’s Old Spice cologne had drifted through the vents in the locker door. And he’d said something to her in his heavy northern Wisconsin accent. As with her teacher, Rachel didn’t remember his words, but she remembered the tone.

  Friendly.

  Compassionate.

  He’d made her feel as if being locked in her own locker wasn’t such a big deal, and that everything was going to be okay.

  Rachel found the latch with her finger, then taking a deep breath, she flicked it upward, releasing the door, and flung it open straight into Bradley.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Nate heard the locker door clang into Bradley, heard his weapon skitter across the floor, his flashlight following, its beam now centered on the wall. He focused on the shadow that was Rachel. “Run!”

  Bradley fell to his knees, groping for the gun. And as soon as Rachel was clear, Nate launched a kick at the man’s bald head.

  Bradley brought up an arm, blocking the kick. But instead of striking back, he started to crawl.

  Nate strained to see in the dim light. He spotted a shape near the wall, darker than the floor around it.

  The gun.

  He brought his foot down, stomping Bradley’s ankle, the pistol only inches from the man’s outstretched fingers.

  Scissoring his body, Bradley grabbed Nate’s leg, tipping him off balance. Nate twisted, throwing himself on top of the larger man and going for his throat, his eyes.

  Bradley landed a strike to Nate’s ribs. He followed with his left elbow, clipping Nate in the jaw, the blow ringing through his skull.

  When Nate had planned on infiltrating the school to rescue Josh, he’d focused his preparation on challenging his foe on the ethereal plane. He wasn’t prepared for confronting a man. Especially one who was bigger than he was. With distance, Nate could hold his own, but if they continued with this back alley brawling, he didn’t stand a chance.

  Nate had to reach that gun.

  He grasped at Bradley’s head, fumbling for something to hold on to besides smooth scalp. He latched on to an ear, twisting and ripping as hard as he could.

  Bradley let out a bellow. His hands flew to the side of his head, and at that second Nate scrabbled away, lunging for the spot where he’d seen the pistol. He groped the floor, praying for his hand to hit—

  Bradley caught him, chopping his right arm out from underneath, flattening Nate to the tile just as his fingers touched steel.

  Nate twisted around, shoving the barrel into the man’s temple. “Get off. Slowly.”

  Obeying, Bradley lifted his body off Nate, moving backward until he settled on his haunches.

  Nate sat up as well. He kept the pistol’s barrel trained between Bradley’s eyes. The man who’d tried to kill him. The man who’d succeeded in killing Steven.

  “Why the hell are you doing all this, Tim? Before tonight, I didn’t know you killed Steven. For two years, I didn’t put it together. So why did you think I was going to figure it all out now? Why risk coming after me now?”

  “I didn’t know where you were before the police chief called the office.”

  “But why kill me at all? Why kill Steven? Were you afraid we’d go to the press about the fiasco with the faery? No one would believe us.”

  “Maybe I just did it for fun.”

  Nate shook his head, even though he was pretty sure Bradley couldn’t pick it up in his dropped flashlight’s glow. Bradley was a lot of things, but one thing Nate had learned early in their working relationship was that his boss never did anything without a self-serving reason.

  Maybe there was someone who would believe. Someone Bradley had wanted to keep in the dark. “The IPPO doesn’t know, do they?”

  “About Steven’s death? What do you think?”

  “No, not just Steven’s death. The faery. You were keeping the whole thing secret. Your whole idea. Our research. You were trying to develop a supernatural weapon to sell to the highest bidder. And you told us it was a NSA directive to get us to help.”

  The flashlight’s feeble beam flickered.

  “So what happens now?” Bradley asked. “You kill me? Prove to the cop outside that you’re just as dangerous as I told her you were?”

  Nate’s gut clenched. The faery hadn’t killed Steven, but the threat to Rachel was still very real. Learning the truth about Bradley had changed nothing about what Rachel and Josh faced. And yet, he couldn’t just let Bradley go, and as much as he liked the idea, he couldn’t put a bullet in him either. Not in cold blood.

  “Now I take you outside to the cops. They can handle you from there.”

  The flashlight flickered again, then died. In the darkness, Nate didn’t detect Bradley’s movement until the man’s foot connected with Nate’s skull.

  Nate fell backwards, head ringing. Scrambling to get out of Bradley’s reach, Nate raised the weapon, trying to spot Bradley in the dark, and squeezed the trigger.

  Chapter Eighteen

  When the gunshot exploded through the halls, Rachel screamed.

  She kept running, her breath ragged in her ears, the light from her phone bouncing ahead. The trident, tucked back in her waistband, poked her back with each stride. When Nate told her to run, she had without thinking, somehow hoping he would be right behind her. But he’d never followed. And now…

  Please. Nate has to be all right.

  Footsteps sound
ed behind her, someone running.

  Nate? Or God forbid, could it be Bradley? Or maybe it was neither. She no longer knew what was real and what was a hallucination. Maybe the sound was only in her mind.

  She darted to the left, ducking through the door into the lunchroom, and flattened herself to the wall. She turned off the light on her phone, slipped it into her pocket, and tried to sort out the sounds in the hall before making her presence known.

  Something whistled past her head, barely missing. It hadn’t come from the direction of the hall, but behind her, inside the lunchroom.

  She looked for the source, saw nothing but darkness.

  A carton of milk soared through the air and connected with the side of her face, splashing liquid down her neck, soaking into the shoulder of her jacket. An apple core followed, and she hunched forward, covering her face.

  And then the real barrage began. Potatoes and green beans. Full hamburgers. Plastic cups of fruit and Jello. Food rained out of the darkness, thrown by no one.

  Only in her mind. Only in her mind.

  Silently, she chanted the words, but they made no difference. She’d only been in one cafeteria food fight, but she had few school experiences that were more disgusting. In seconds, she was covered with wet and sticky and smelly and gross. She hadn’t heard any further sounds out in the hall, and she had to wonder if the sound was merely a faery trick, a way to drive her into the lunchroom. She’d move on to the library and take her chances.

  She pushed away from the wall, darted toward the door.

  The food barrage thickened. A folded lunch table careened toward her. She dodged to the side, avoiding it, and then dashed out into the hall, just as a wad of mashed potatoes smacked her in the cheek.

  The hall was dark. Even after holding her breath for a few seconds, Rachel could hear no sound. Whoever had been running must have passed by before the food ruckus began.

  She could only pray it was Nate, because if it was Bradley, then that meant Nate…

  Rachel pushed the thought from her mind. She had to focus on Josh. She had to trust that Nate was okay, that he’d be there like he promised.