Forsaken (6 page)

I
knew Rachel would have had it laundered before packing it up and
sending it to me, but in some indefinable way it still
smelled
like Sanctuary. Even worse, each article of clothing reminded me of
Alec in some way or another. I'd worn the brown hiking boots on our
trip up to the top of the mountain that sheltered the estate. The
paint-speckled tank top had borne witness to the one and only time
Alec had taken me to his studio and tried to teach me how to paint.

It
was both harder and easier to deal with than I'd expected when I
first opened the box and saw all of 'my' clothes sitting there.
Easier because I didn't pass out or even really have to fend off a
serious panic attack. Harder because it was like I was having to
leave Alec all over again.

I
was crying before I managed to finish cleaning out the second box,
but it was the good kind of crying. It left me feeling tired and
wrung out, but somehow lighter. I cleaned the remnants of my mascara
off my cheeks and turned to the last box. There was a handwritten
note inside the box, on the top of all the clothes.

Adri,

This
is all of the stuff that I was planning on giving you for Christmas.
I expected you to be able to wear it on the skiing trip. I figure you
probably need the cold-weather gear there in New York even more than
the rest of the stuff I'm sending. I'm sorry. I would have just sent
it right to you, but I didn't know how you'd feel about that. You
seemed pretty determined to cut all ties with us when you left.

If
you see this then I guess that means you and Isaac are getting along
better than I'm afraid you will. I'm sorry about all of this. Alec
wouldn't even talk about his decision before he sent Isaac to you.
I'm sorry the pack is intruding on your life again, but I'm glad
you'll have someone there to watch over you.

The
handwriting was unmistakably Rachel's, and for a few seconds I almost
broke down into more tears, but I managed to hold myself together, if
just barely. I'd forgotten about the trip that Alec had planned on
taking us all on over Christmas. It took everything I had to
keep myself from imagining what the trip would have been like, but I
sternly kept my mind in the present as I put away a dozen incredibly
soft sweaters and other assorted articles of clothing.

I
wasn't sure what to do with the boxes, so I wandered through the
house looking for Isaac's study. The rest of the place was just as
incredible as what I'd seen so far. The floors all seemed to be a
combination of lush carpet or heated stone, and the furniture had the
simple elegance that you only got when you were ready to really open
up your wallet.

Again
and again my gaze kept coming back to the huge windows that seemed to
occupy every single exterior wall. I'd started to feel
almost...claustrophobic since we'd moved to New York. That
wasn't quite the right word, but more and more I'd begun feeling like
there wasn't any way to get away from all of the people around me.
There were too many of us packed in much too small of a space, but I
didn't get that feeling here. Looking out over Central Park with the
light dusting of snow that covered all of the trees, I felt for the
first time like I could deal with living in the city as long as I had
access to a place like this.

The
study proved to be a massive room that had gigantic bookshelves on
two walls and a desk with the biggest leather chair I'd ever seen.
Isaac had a large antenna rigged on one edge of the desk and was
typing commands into a terminal.

"What
do you want me to do with the boxes now that they are empty?"

"Just
pull them out into the hall and the maid service will take care of
them sometime tomorrow."

"You
have a maid service, too?"

Isaac
nodded absently. "Yes, a very exclusive, bonded service comes in
four times a week to keep everything tidy."

Yet
again with the whole bit about blowing my mind.

"So
what are you doing right now?"

Isaac
pushed himself back from his desk with the air of someone who was
having to make a conscious effort to bring themselves back to
reality.

"Sorry,
I was in pretty deep there. In short, I'm trying to create a more
secure route to use for communications back to Sanctuary."

"What,
like encryption?"

"Yes,
but that's only one layer of what I'm doing. The encryption piece is
pretty easy. The hard part is making sure the communications can't be
tracked back here. In Sanctuary I've already got a pretty bulletproof
system in place along with hacks into a few key bits of telecom
equipment that allow me to monitor when someone starts getting close
enough that I need to rework the paths. That isn't an option here, at
least not in the time I'm willing to spend on it."

My
head was already starting to hurt. Isaac was going to get way over my
head, but after the way that my mom had rocked my world earlier that
day, I really didn't want to just hide out by myself in my new room.

"Can
you use less tech speak?"

Isaac
smiled like I'd just issued a challenge and then pointed to the
antenna. "Essentially, I'm going to hack some of the nearby
wireless routers. I'll bounce our traffic from one wireless device to
the next so that there is a long trail that the Coun'hij or the
police would have to unravel in order to trace everything back to
here."

That
I could follow. "So how will you know if they start coming after
you?"

"That's
actually the interesting part. Essentially, I go in and overwrite
each router's firmware. The package that comes from the manufacturer
is more bloated than most of them realize. I put a dummy interface in
place that matches up with what the owner is expecting to see and
then bury the true protocols further down. It lets me make sure that
there isn't any kind of logging going on as well as forcing the
router to connect to other routers."

"So
you've made it so that there isn't anything in place for them to
track back?"

"More
or less. They could eventually figure out what I'm doing if they
opened the device up and accessed the ROMs, but the only way they
will really get me is if I load my firmware up onto a router that
they've already turned into a giant trap. I'm going to suborn the
closest couple of hundred devices over the next three or four days,
and then I just won't go after any new devices that come online."

I
could kind of follow the fringes of what he was saying, and it seemed
like a smart way to do things, but I could already see a problem even
with my limited understanding.

"So
what happens when all of the devices you hack end up breaking or
disappearing? Your network will vanish at that point."

Isaac
nodded, seemingly impressed. "Yep,
you're right. That's why this isn't a great long-term solution. It's
one of the reasons that I didn't use it for our Sanctuary security
protocols, that and the fact that we don't have anywhere near enough
wireless routers close enough together there to make it work. This
won't last forever, but it will at least work for a couple of years,
and by then, if you don't decide to go somewhere else for college,
I'll have had enough time to put something more permanent in place."

Isaac
casually threw around terms like 'years' and 'college'. It made it sound
like this arrangement was going to be longer-lasting than I would
have expected. I opened my mouth to prove him a little bit on that
point, but my phone vibrated with a text.

Russ
is gone, I made excuses for you. I'm sorry that I sprang things on
you like that. Where are you and when are you coming home?

I
had to hand it to Mom; she trusted me more than she had back in Utah.
I suspected it was because she'd seen me make a really hard choice
and she was still confident that it was the right choice.

I
looked up and saw that Isaac was looking at me.

"It
was my mom, trying to extend the olive branch."

He
nodded understandingly. "You want to talk about it?"

"Not
really. I mean yes, but no all at the same time. She wanted to spring
some new guy on me that she's dating. It's hard on so many levels. I
want Mom to be happy, but it feels like she's betraying my dad. It's
been a little while since I've felt so conflicted about something."

I
wanted to go on, but I stopped myself. Isaac had always seemed so
sure of himself. There was zero chance that he was going to be able
to relate to me when it came to this particular problem.

Once
again, it was almost like he was reading my mind. It had frustrated
me beyond measure sometimes back in Sanctuary the way the pack had
been able to do that, but at times like this it was nice the way it
helped smooth over some of the bumps on the road.

"It's
hard when you can't decide how to feel about something, or when your
feelings are all tangled up and headed in opposite directions. It
makes me feel...well, there's a word in Italian that captures
it, but nothing in English really feels adequate to the job."

This
was a different side of Isaac than I'd ever seen before.

"How
are you conflicted? Jess?"

"Yeah,
that one is at the top of the list. Before Oblivion wiped her
memories away, I really loved her. I would have done almost anything
to protect her, but I failed her when I let him hurt her."

"There
wasn't anything you could have done. Alec acted so fast that you were
trapped pretty much as soon as it happened."

Isaac
shrugged. "Maybe. It's hard to say for sure. There were things
that I could have done, they just might have ended badly for either
Alec or for me. I think the hardest part is that I can still see so
much of the Jess that I used to know in this new Jessica. I want what
is best for her. I want her to be happy, but I want so badly for her
to be happy with me. Sometimes it pushes me into bad decisions."

I'd
moved closer while he was talking and was sitting on the edge of the
desk now. I reached out a hand and placed it on Isaac's shoulder.
"Things will work out there eventually. One way or another,
they'll work out."

He
took a deep breath and nodded. "I know. Intellectually I know
that this will all eventually fade away into something that isn't so
important, but it's hard sometimes still. The whole Alec thing
doesn't help at all."

He'd
caught me completely by surprise, and hearing Alec's name threw me
for an incredible loop. It might have been because of the emotional
rollercoaster I'd been through while unpacking, or it might have just
been that I'd used up my full allotment of willpower for the day
already. In the end, the why didn't matter as much as the impact.

My head spun and I nearly fell off the desk. Isaac steadied me,
catching me before I could drop to the ground.

"I'm
sorry, Adri. I'll do a better job from here on out. I won't mention
him anymore."

I
already knew from the panic attacks with Dad and Cindi that I had a
brief period of immunity right after a spell struck me, so I shook my
head and carefully sat back on the desk.

"No,
tell me what you meant. I'm okay for a few minutes."

Isaac
cleared his throat and then shrugged. "It's hard to describe
exactly. I think the best way to put it is that there is a constant
pressure on me to decide."

"Decide
what?"

"How
far I'll go for Alec, how loyal I am to him, how much he can depend
on me."

It
was another sign that my departure hadn't had the effect that I'd
been hoping it would.

"He...Alec
puts pressure on you?"

Isaac
shook his head. "No, actually he's been pretty careful not to
push me too far for the most part lately. He hasn't made an issue out
of it, at least not yet, but I still feel a need inside to figure out
whose side I'm really on."

"Does
it really have to be like that? Do you have to be on someone's side?"

The
smile he gave me was bittersweet. "Yes, I'm afraid so. I don't
necessarily see eye to eye with Alec on as many things as I used to,
but he's right. Our world is too savage for an individual to survive
unaided. There has to be a boss, and I either need to start backing
him again like I used to, or I should get out of the way."

"Are
you sure that's the answer? Maybe you keeping yourself more in the
role of an observer will help convince Alec that he's going too far."

Isaac
took a slow deep breath and then shook his head a final time. "Alec
is convinced of what he's convinced of. He's not going to change a
single bit of his beliefs. All that is left is for the rest of us to
decide whether we stand with him or against him. There isn't a middle
path."

Alec Graves
The 'Old Anderson Home'
Sanctuary, Utah

I'd
debated the purchase for weeks before going through with it. The
price had amounted to little more than petty cash, but I'd still almost
not proceeded with the deal several times. It didn't seem like a very
healthy thing to be doing, but I also couldn't help but provide one
last bit of assistance to Adri and her mom.

My
purchasing their home at a slight premium over what they'd paid for
it several months ago had allowed them to retire the loan to the bank and
move on with life. Unfortunately, it left me with a unique piece of
real estate that I didn't know what to do with.

That
wasn't quite fair; I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it. I just
knew that it would be a very bad idea.

I stood outside their door...my
door now, for at least an hour before I finally fished the key out of
my pocket and used it to let myself in.

The
bare wood floors and tired white walls seemed too small to have ever
contained
her
,
but there was no denying the scent that teased at my senses as soon
as I entered the house. It was like coming home and torture all at
once. My beast surged nearly to the surface as I fell to the ground,
but I just barely managed to keep myself from transforming.