by H. D. Gordon
I leapt over to the rooftop of the building they’d entered, landing with a roll to keep from making noise. From there, it was easy to slip inside a window, like a mouse sneaking into a lion’s den.
I had to stop comparing myself to mice. It was not in the least helpful.
The window let into a loft area, which looked out at the dock house floor below. Two medium sized boats swayed gently in the water, and the group of Cross family members and their henchmen, along with Cynthia Shay, looked like they were just getting down to business.
I remained behind a couple of crates as I peered down at the party below, careful to stay out of sight.
My eyes drifted to Caleb, and the negative emotions of our recent encounter came back to me. I shoved them away as the gathered began speaking.
“Hello, Christian,” Shay said.
“Cynthia,” Caleb’s father responded.
Very casual, as if the two had known each other for a lifetime. My eyes narrowed as my heart hammered. I leaned a little closer.
“How is The Project coming?” asked Shay.
“Despite the setbacks thanks to your former operative,” Dr. Cross said sharply, “everything is running right on schedule. Has that situation been handled?”
The movement was so slight most would not have noticed, but Shay stiffened. “It’s taking care of itself, so there’s no need for concern.”
Dr. Cross raised his chin. “You said you had it handled last time, and I ended up having to transport an entire laboratory, Cynthia. An expensive and annoying endeavor.”
Shay held utterly still, like a serpent prior to striking. In her cold, even voice, she said, “I’m sure your resources were adequate, and you shouldn’t forget how you came to those resources in the first place, Christian.”
Now it was Dr. Cross’s turn to stiffen. “Word is, your rogue and her band of misfits are going after the Relic,” he replied, a smug smile appearing on his face as he saw the surprise on Shay’s. “That could be very bad for business. Very bad, indeed.”
Shay quirked an eyebrow. “You question the Seers’ ability to protect it? Perhaps you should tell them of your concerns.”
“I only want what’s best,” said Dr. Cross.
“As do I,” replied Shay.
Tense silence held for a tick. I hardly dared draw breath.
“Even if she doesn’t find the Relic,” Cross said, “if she exposes what we’re up to, everything will be ruined. Not just for me, and not just for you. Do you understand?”
Shay spoke through tight teeth. “You know damn well that I do.”
Dr. Cross gave a curt nod. “Good, because I’ve received word from him. He says the time has come. We are to move into the final phase of The Project.”
So many questions were flying through my head, so much confusion. I wasn’t aware of doing it, but I was leaning closer in my spot on the loft, as if a closer proximity would somehow provide answers.
It was only when I locked eyes with Caleb that I realized I’d leaned out a little too far. His eyes narrowed, his mouth falling open as if to shout.
Chapter Nineteen
Time seemed to freeze in that moment.
I could have slipped out the window just then, probably should have, but a part of me wanted to see if he would do it. A part of me wanted to know if he really hated me as much as he’d claimed.
A second went by. Two. Three.
Caleb snapped his mouth shut, looking pointedly away from me.
I watched his aura in fascination for a moment, seeing the new darkness of it battle against the remnants of the old Caleb. Then I slipped back out the window before the new beat out the old. Hopping back over to the roof of the adjacent building, I saw the groups exit the dock house a few minutes later, getting into their black cars and driving away.
Then it was just me on that rooftop, the gentle sounds of the bay my only company. I tried to piece together what I had heard.
So the Peace Brokers were working with the Cross Corporation, just as I’d suspected when they’d pulled Vivian off the task of investigating that lab of experimental Halflings I’d found. And more than that, they were both working for a male whom they seemed afraid of even in mentioning, another thing I’d picked up thanks to my aura reading skills.
The Project. What the hell was that, and why did I get the feeling that it would be nefarious af? I stood and stretched, staring up at the cloud covered night sky. When I checked my phone, I saw that I had six missed calls and several texts from Thomas, Sam, and the others. I shot a quick text back to let them know I was okay, just following some leads. The phone was a burner, so there would be no hope of the Peace Brokers tracking me through it, but I wouldn’t put anything past my Sam.
I got a text back immediately from her:
Stay in touch, buttwipe. We were just starting to freak out. <3 you.
I sighed, tucking the phone away and thinking about my next move. If I were smart, I’d be searching for another Seer who could help take me to their mystical City in the clouds. I had a little over two weeks before Saleos came to claim me, and finding the Relic and returning it to the guardian in hopes that he’d grant me one wish was literally the only lead we’d gotten on the matter.
But my heart told me to follow the Cross family, to see where that led. This was the thing I’d been chasing since I’d come to Grant City, since I’d first put on a mask and stumbled onto that boat of women being sold into…. Well, that was the thing, I still wasn’t sure yet. But my gut told me it was all more connected than I’d even suspected. The death of Sam’s mother, the women on the boat, the lab of Halflings, the escaped Blue Beast. All of it was woven together.
And Gods help me, but I wanted to know how.
I’d never claimed to be particularly smart, after all.
This might have been the stupidest plan I’d ever come up with, but short of sneaking Sam into Cross Headquarters and having her hack their computers for information on The Project, it was all I had.
I tugged down the bottom of the skin-tight black dress for what seemed like the hundredth time, trying not to think about the pain devices known as high heels that were currently strapped to my feet.
I’d found the dress and heels at a thrift shop, and the former smelled slightly of cigarettes and what I could only hope was not cat pee, but it was all I could afford. And it didn’t really matter what I smelled like. I just had to look the part.
Riding the motorcycle over to Benton in the outfit had been even less fun, and the hoots and hollers I’d received from men passing by confirmed that I’d done a good enough job. I felt ridiculous, and the catcalls pissed me off, but I’d come for a much bigger fish than a couple of misogynistic assholes who knew how to whistle.
I parked the bike outside of one of the busier nightclubs, trying not to walk like a toddler trying on her mother’s heels. I’d come to Benton because women were still disappearing from this city periodically, whereas the bastards had begun to steer clear of Grant City, no doubt thanks to my efforts as the Masked Maiden. I would need a little luck, but I figured the universe owed me that small favor.
When I got to the entrance of the bar, I handed the bouncer my fake I.D., and he studied it closer than I would like. This annoyed me more than it should have. I knew he was just doing his job, but I was twenty years old, had no intention of actually drinking, and was likely going to die in about two weeks. I just didn’t have time for the nonsense.
So when he opened his mouth to question me, I pushed a good amount of my persuasive magic toward him, forced a smile and batted my eyes.
He unclipped the rope barring the entrance, and I was in.
I pressed the back of my hand to my mouth to keep from gagging at the scents of alcohol and sweat, and made my way over to the bar. When I got there, I ordered a Redbull and cranberry (a drink that looked alcoholic but was not) and busied myself by leaning against the wall, pretending to enjoy the music.
I waited until the hour got late, a
nd was glad when I stepped out into the cool night air. Why anyone would come to a place like this willingly was beyond me. But this was exactly where predators would appear. I’d parked the motorcycle a few blocks from the bar, down a street that was dimly lit and more secluded.
I stumbled and weaved a little as I made my way back to the bike, pretending to take my time because I was drunk.
When my sensitive ears picked up the sound of someone following me from behind, a smile spread across my lips.
Jackpot.
If there was one thing men could be counted on for, it was to take advantage of a female in a vulnerable situation.
I could only hope that whoever was following me was doing so because he worked for a group of people who were kidnapping women for their nefarious reasons, rather than an everyday sexual assaulter.
The former, I would let take me, so that I could be led to the answers I was seeking. The latter would just get his ass kicked, and would have wasted both our times.
But I couldn’t make it too easy for him or he might grow suspicious.
The way he did it made it clear that he had done this before, and that I was definitely dealing with a kidnapper rather than an everyday rapist. He snuck up from behind, moving too quietly to be detected by most human ears, and his hand clamped around my mouth while his other arm circled my waist in a tight grip.
In a single move, I could have easily tossed the bastard over my shoulder, but instead, I bucked against him, as if trying to break free. When I heard a metallic click, and the cold barrel of a gun pressed to my temple, the fear I felt didn’t have to be faked.
“Scream and I’ll blow your head off,” he said into my ear. “Understand?”
Wide-eyed, I nodded.
A van screeched up to the sidewalk beside us, the side door sliding open. I was tossed inside.
Three other women were already in here, their faces streaked with makeup and their auras colored with terror.
Another stone-faced man with a gun sat with us, the barrel swinging from one terrified female to the next and back again. I huddled with the other women, who tried to beg for mercy until the man with the gun shouted for them to shut up. Then they only cried harder.
We collected two more women. Both times the van door slid open, it would have been all too easy for me to disarm the men and escape. I almost did just that, not for my sake, but for those of the women with me.
But we’d spent months searching for leads on this case before accepting the fact that there was no way to get to the bottom of it, so while I felt guilty knowing I could save the women with me, I told myself that this was necessary so that I could save more women in the future.
The lines of good and evil always seemed to blur like that, and the worst of things often came from the best of intentions.
The back of the van was pretty much full with the six women and four armed men—two in the front seats, and two in the back with guns. We drove for a little over an hour, leaving behind the lights of Benton, before turning down a gravel road. My ears informed me of this, as there were no windows in the back of the van.
We came to a stop, and the door slid open, revealing yet another man with a gun.
“Get out,” he said.
The women and I were shoved from the van, and I tried to looked suitably afraid, rather than interested, as we approached a large, squat building set out in the middle of no where. Morning was still a handful of hours off, and it was so dark wherever we were that I could see every star in the night sky. No light pollution for miles.
Around the building were high stalks of corn, and in the distance, hills that were large enough to look like small mountains.
The perfect place to run a top-secret, nefarious operation.
My heart picked up in pace as we were led toward the building, and I noticed more stone-faced men dressed in all black and packing. Yep, this was definitely the place I was looking for.
A single door made up the face of the building, no windows, and no additional exits from this side. Unless there were back or side doors, that meant there was one way in, and one way out.
That would complicate things, but there was no turning back now, even if I wanted to. Too many men with guns, which seemed to be the plague of the human world.
The single door opened, and the armed men shoved us through. I continued to make my subtle observations, but my stomach had gone tight, and a little voice piped up in my mind.
Are you in over your head?
I shoved it away. That was a question that would do me no good here.
As the door clanged shut behind us, I only hoped the answer was negative.
Chapter Twenty
Down a hall with bright lights and sterile scents, and into a receiving room.
A woman with a clipboard assigned us a number, and then we were shuffled into a concrete room with drains in the floor.
When we were told to strip down, the women with me began crying and begging again. They shut up real quick when one of the gun-toting thugs smiled his predator’s grin and repeated the order to get undressed. The woman with the clipboard watched on without emotion, her aura as serene as a monk’s.
I decided instantly that I hated the bitch. I expected shit like this from males, as human culture taught boys that violence and aggression were “manly” qualities, but I would never understand the women who aided them.
We stripped out of our clothes, and if not for the fact that I was planning to burn this damn place to the ground, the whole episode would have been much harder. There are few things more humiliating than being forced to get stark naked in front of people planning to do terrible things to you, few things more degrading.
When water began to spray harshly upon us from above, followed by foamy soap, as if we were in some human carwash, I rethought that assessment. This was the most degrading.
What in the actual hell was going on here?
Once we were rinsed and dried like last night’s dishes, we were shuffled into another sterile room and issued identical gray clothing—the kind that might be given in a prison. We dressed, happy to cover our intimacies after the former display, and were pushed along. The process was so efficient and clinical that I couldn’t help but think about how many women had suffered this before me…and how many would come after unless I figured out how to shut this whole mess down. Oddly, this comforted me, as if assuring me that if I had limited time left anyway, I was putting it to good use.
The Seer’s words came back to me with this thought. That’s the trouble with heroes, she’d said. They’re annoyingly selfless.
We were taken down a long hallway, made another turn, and went through another doorway, all of which I was committing to memory. If things got much worse, I might be forced to fight my way out, and if I managed not to get shot, I would need to know the way back to that single front door.
At last, we came to a large, bright room with high ceilings. Inside this room, there were circular tables with attached seats that were bolted to the linoleum. The upper half of the room was all windows, and behind those windows, people in white coats and nice clothing appeared to make observations and wrote them down on clipboards.
Inside the room itself, around the perimeter, were five more armed men in all black. They watched the occupants expressionlessly, but their hands rested on the butts of the guns at their hips. The scientists and the guards, then.
That would make all the women milling about the prisoners. There had to be over a hundred in this room alone, all dressed in the same gray clothing I’d been issued. They sat at the tables, playing cards and chatting, stood around talking or brushing one another’s hair.
They eyed us as we entered, taking stock of the new arrivals, their auras spiking with curiosity and something else I couldn’t pin down.
As I observed a little longer, nothing to do otherwise, the answer hit me along with a realization.
Over half of the women in this room were pregnant, many of them far enoug
h along to make the condition obvious. My brain cells began firing—finally—and I made a terrifying connection. In order to create a Halfling, a human would have to procreate with a supernatural, as my mother had with my father. Most supernaturals steered clear of this, as it was taboo cross culturally, and because the Peace Brokers snatched away every Halfling they could find to force them into the service.
The lab of Halflings…
For whatever reason, it had never occurred to me that instead of waiting for more supernaturals to mix with humans, the Peace Brokers could swell their ranks by breeding their own Halflings.
As the thought came to me, a certainty of its accuracy came along with it. The Peace Brokers didn’t want to investigate the lab of Halflings Thomas and I had found, because that lab had been making Halflings for the Peace Brokers.
I sat at one of the round, bolted down tables in the bright, stark room full of other women, and my metaphorical mind exploded all over the ceiling and linoleum.
Everything I’d ever been taught was a lie.
Those bastards…
On the heels of this, I was finally able to pinpoint that emotion that was in all the auras of the women in this room, and with it, fear as real as any I’d ever felt came over me.
The emotion they’d felt when they’d looked at the new arrivals was pity.
Pity, because we had no idea what was in store.
Okay, so I was going to end up fighting my way out of here, because there was no way I was going to let these bastards try to impregnate me.
But I wasn’t done gathering information just yet, and escaping would take a little more planning on my part than I’d originally anticipated. The upside was that there was a whole room of informants right here with me, and if I could make friends with a few of them, I might gain more insight into this madness.
