Nemesis: Box Set: Books 1 - 3 (19 page)

M
orena waited
until The Council called her. She wanted as much protection over her actions as possible; she wanted to be able to say that she gave The Council all the time they asked for, that she worked with them in every possible way. Of course she made her preparations in case The Council decided something unwise, but that was her duty as Var. No one could blame her. No one could expect any different.

Morena played the politics of the situation, though she knew in the end, it would come down to war.

War.

That's what this was, and Morena moved through the hallway knowing she would soon be both a general and a foot soldier. Guards stood behind and next to her now, and while it wasn't exactly normal for Morena to walk the hallway with such an entourage, it wasn't uncalled for either. She was the Var and she could do as she pleased in such matters. She needed these guards for what came next, but she didn't want to arouse The Council's suspicion before it was too late for them. If they had any idea what was coming, they wouldn't show up to this meeting. They would go into hiding or begin mounting their own coalition. Truly, Morena didn't know what to expect because no one had ever attempted something like this before. The Council and the Var were supposed to be copacetic, almost interdependent on one another. Not at odds. Not like this.

Morena stopped outside of the entrance, the barrier tinted dark so that no one could see in or out. She looked down at her hands, seeing her aura. It was still strong. She was still strong. She had to do this, because if she didn't, everything she loved, everything she had been born for, would end. There wasn't any other choice, even if this all rested on her shoulders. Had she chosen a different husband, someone other than Briten, someone other than a Lorn, The Council might have listened.

Those were all memories that she couldn't change. They mattered not now. She had to perform her duty.

She stepped through the barrier, her guards following in tandem. She walked forward and they spread out to her left and right, their faces solemn, their weapons in hand. It was all for show, guards like this. The Var need never fear for her life and Bynimian had never been to war. These people were here to showcase her power as The Council tried to tell her that they would not move forward with Briten's advice. That's what Morena hoped they took from this.

The six of them sat above her, in the same semi-circle, raised platform she had sat in when Briten presented. Chilras was in the middle, the Hindran obviously prepared to be the leader in this ordeal. She would enjoy it too, Morena thought. She would enjoy this slap in Morena's face, would enjoy showing her how bad her choice of a husband had been. This would be Morena's punishment for spoiling the Var's bloodline.

"Thank you for coming, Var," Chilras said. She didn't smile, but spoke with a stone's emotion.

"Thank you for inviting me," Morena responded.

"You have brought quite the crowd to hear us speak."

"I believe that sometimes a crowd is necessary, depending on what is to be said."

"Very well, then," Chilras said. "We have looked through your husband's data and have decided that more research should be done. We want different eyes on this, and we want to test other theories out besides the mathematical proofs he made. We want to make sure that just because the theory says it is impossible, that reality doesn't tell us different."

Morena looked down. Here was the moment, the one she traveled to The Tower to understand. Here was the moment when everything that Bynimian was built on would be burnt. Peace. Respect. All of it ashes.

"So your plan is to sacrifice the safety of our people by trying out any idea but the one with the greatest likelihood of working?" Morena asked.

"We plan on finding other ways, besides leaving our world for foreign places to battle foreign creatures."

Morena looked up at Chilras, her eyes hard. Doubt lived in her up until now, up until she heard that single sentence. Doubt about ships she was building, doubt about what she was preparing for. As she looked on the Hindran, Morena lost that doubt, replacing it with steel. With certainty.

"Seize them," she said, her voice echoing across the chamber, reaching up to the lofty heights that The Council sat at. She saw Chilras' face turn to a bright shock, heard the gasps as the others understood what she just said. Morena heard the footsteps of her guards as they moved to the sides of the room, moving up the staircases that led to The Council. She watched as one of the members on the end tried to stand up, tried to run, but the sonic wave from one of the guard's hands caught him before he had taken a step, freezing him in an almost comical posture. His hands up to help him run, his mouth twisted in a grimace of fear and hope. All of it for nothing.

"I'm truly sorry," Morena said as the other five were taken.

M
ichael moved
his head slowly at the sound of the door. It was instinct more than anything else that made him look. Exhaustion weighed on him like the weight of the ocean. The fucking guys at the front of the room, the questions didn't stop. If he began to drift off, a quick slap across his face woke him up. The fucking questions, the same ones over and over. He couldn't even remember his answers anymore. They were all the same and they were all different, but the questions didn't stop no matter what he said.

He knew, at least on some level, what they were trying to do. They were trying to drive him and Julie insane. To make them lose their minds and…that's where he lost the trail. He didn't know what came after that. What would they get out of him or Julie if they were legitimately insane?

Probably the same answers they were getting right now.

Michael didn't have any idea how many hours they had been at it. He knew the sun was up outside because the dingy blinds let a little light through, though not nearly enough to illuminate the dusky room. He blinked hard a few times, trying to see who was walking in.

The man in charge.

The man that had been in the SUVs that picked them up. Michael hadn't seen him since; he disappeared as soon as the two question men took over.

Michael's brain started waking up, adrenaline flooding through him as he realized something might be changing.

The man in charge closed the door behind him before speaking. "Their parents?"

The man in the left chair, the one that smoked, looked over to him. "Alpha isn't responding. We've sent someone to find hers."

"What the fuck do you mean, not responding?"

The man pulled a cigarette out from his pack. The whole goddamn room smelled like cigarettes, almost to the point that Michael barely noticed it anymore except when someone lit a new one. "We've been trying to contact him for an hour, but nothing comes back."

The man at the door took a step forward so that he stood directly above Cigarette Smoker. "An hour and no contact? Were you going to let me know? Did you have any plans?"

Cigarette Smoker took a drag and blew the smoke out, not looking up. "What do you want us to do?"

The leader walked across the room, passing both of Michael's interrogators, and found the sink on the other end of the room. He turned the water on and dipped his hands into it, then splashed his face. Michael watched, fully awake now.

It was clear they were sending someone out to his and Julie's parents, and it sounded like Alpha was the one that had gone to his father. Michael didn't say anything, but looked over at Julie. She was much more awake too, except she had heard something completely different than Michael. She hadn't heard that Alpha wasn't answering. She heard that they'd sent someone to find her parents.

"Don't hurt them," she said.

"Someone needs to get out there to that trailer right now," the leader said from the sink. "When is someone scheduled to get to the other house?"

"Within the hour," the man next to Cigarette Smoker said. Michael hadn't thought up a name for him, hadn't been thinking much at all up until this interlude.

"How bad is it?" the leader said.

"They haven't stopped calling the cops, but we've intercepted them all."

"What about other calls, family?"

"We put in a lot of busy signals," Cigarette Smoker said.

"Good. Someone needs to get out to his house immediately. If you can't find anyone, then one of you do it."

Whoever they had sent out to Michael's home hadn't made it back. What did that mean?

"Our parents aren't involved in this," Michael said. "They didn't do anything." He tried to keep his voice from shaking, tried to sound like some sort of man instead of a high school kid who hadn't slept for twenty-four hours.

"Don't hurt them!" Julie shouted, tears streaming down her cheeks. Her face was red, and she looked ready to scream again, but then the leader was standing at the side of her bed, above her. The man moved fast, and his presence above Julie killed the next scream dead in her throat.

"Not another fucking word," the leader said. He stared down at her with eyes that spoke only of murder. Not anger, not insanity, just that he would kill her if she said anything else.

Michael listened to Julie whimper as she looked down at the bed, bringing her hands to her eyes.

The leader turned away from her, looking to the two men at the front of the room. "Get people out to both of their fucking houses."

T
he flask sat
on the passenger's seat of the truck. A metal thing, old, with scratches across it. Wren looked at it, his vehicle pulled over at a gas station. His hands weren't shaking yet, but they would be soon. That's what the flask was for, to keep the shakes away. A sip now and then, maybe a swig, just to keep the buzz going all day.

A buzz, Wren, that's all you get.

She was right; all he could have was a buzz. Anything more and the wheels would come off.

Have they not already?
But that was him talking, not Linda. His eyes moved away from the flask and to the rearview mirror. Wren stared at himself for the first time in a while. He had no reason to look at mirrors. No job to go to. No one to see. And if he was being honest right now, he didn't look because he didn't want to. He knew what he would see, knew—to a degree—what was happening to him. He could say it was age, could blame the goddamn headaches on anything he wanted, but the truth came down to the stuff in that flask next to him.

Addiction. That's what this was. He wasn't completely sober right now—he couldn't be if he wanted to keep moving through the day—but he could still see the truth of it. Hell, he'd seen the truth of it since it began. And now, when he needed a break, a single break for just a few hours, the flask sang to him as dangerously as any siren ever did to a sailor.

He wanted it.

Wanted to drink the godawful tasting stuff inside. He couldn't stop thinking about it, even driving down the road; that's why he pulled over, because he had ended up just driving aimlessly as he thought about grabbing the flask and tilting it up.

A buzz, Wren
, Linda reminded him. And if she had never been right before, in all his life, she was now. The buzz is what he needed to keep moving through the day, there was no cold turkey about to be discussed right now. But anymore than a buzz? Whatever was happening right now would move on without him, whatever Michael had gotten himself into. He would be an observer at best, and most likely not even that. Someone showed up at his goddamn house to murder him—were they going to stop, whoever they were?

No. No chance. And if he picked up that flask right now, and did what he wanted, everything else fell apart. He was dead. Michael was dead.

In Alcoholics Anonymous they called it a disease. And maybe it was. Something that got inside your head and wouldn't let go. Something that changed the damn structure of your brain. Wren didn't go to AA because he wasn't planning on quitting. That's what got him a lot of the time. You can't quit a disease. A disease quits you.

He looked away from the mirror and back over to the flask. He could pick it up easily and put it to his lips, but the end result was always the same. The end result was him in his recliner with the television on, barely able to think. No matter how loud the flask called to him, no matter how bad he wanted to drink it all, that would be where he ended up. Someone else would come to the door and he wouldn't be lucky enough to brain them with a pan this time.

"Just fucking say no," he said aloud. "Just say no and get moving."

Still, he didn't pull his eyes away.

Michael. That's who he needed to focus on. That was the only thing that might pull him away from this damn gas station. His son. He didn't have anything else, and Wren barely had him. If something happened to Michael, that was all she wrote. It's not like he had a lot to live for right now, and not like he did much living for Michael anyway, but still. If his son…if something happened to his son, he wouldn't be able to continue. And if he picked up that flask and started drinking, then something would happen to his son.

It was there to keep him moving, not to get him drunk.

Here to keep the shakes away, not to put him to sleep.

"Michael," he said, still looking at the flask. A single word, a name, but maybe a talisman against the evil in his hand. Maybe the only thing that could keep him from drinking, for a bit at least.

Wren put both hands on the steering wheel, gripping as hard as he could. He was going to find Michael.

J
ulie's mother
, Myra Lean, couldn't stop shaking or thinking. The shaking stemmed directly from the thinking, but it circled back as well, creating a loop that fed her to think more.

She could hear Tom in the kitchen, pacing there just as she paced in the living room, yelling at the police. Literally yelling now, but what did they expect? What did any of them expect? They were useless, worse than useless—they might actually have been harmful. Tom hadn't gotten off the phone with them all day, and each time he called, it was the same thing. "We're working on it, sir."

She couldn't take it anymore and she'd left the kitchen a few hours ago. She was making her own calls, but it was like no one in the entire town had their cellphones on. The landlines she called were the same, just ringing and ringing. She wished she could go up to the school, but apparently they had closed
it
down due to a water outage, or something—Myra received a robocall on her voicemail about it. She drove around the town first thing in the morning, when they both woke up and realized that Julie wasn't at home. Bryan wasn't answering. Thera wasn't answering. Michael wasn't answering. Myra went to the field while Tom stayed on the phone, trying to get something out of those goddamn cops. She knew about the field, knew that people went there to drink and party, and for the most part it seemed like harmless fun. When she got there though, the place was empty. No beer cans. No people.

She kept driving, looking at restaurants, even going into the tanning bed next to Publix, but Julie was nowhere. It was like she had disappeared.

Myra looked down at her hands, both of them shaking like she had Parkinson's.

Disappeared.

What did that word even mean? It was on the television. It was on all those CIS and Snapped shows, the ones where someone always came up missing. It didn't happen in real life. It didn't happen in Grayson, Georgia. It didn't happen to Myra and it didn't happen to Julie.

Yet her hands were still shaking, and she heard her husband screaming "LISTEN TO ME!" from the kitchen. None of this would be happening if Julie was here, if she hadn't disappeared.

Myra turned and walked to the kitchen, shoving her hands in her pockets to try and settle them some. She looked at Tom, his face red, a blue vein running across his forehead. She hardly ever saw that vein, because she hardly ever saw him this worked up.

Tom hung the phone up and dropped it to the floor. Myra saw the tears in his eyes.

"The same shit. They're looking. They have police officers out working on it. They said that an officer should be coming here shortly to interview both of us." His voice shook as bad as her hands.

Tears fell down Myra's face before they fell down Tom's, but his came shortly after. She watched with blurred vision as he walked across the kitchen and wrapped his arms around her.

"She's going to be okay. She is. Maybe she and Bryan ran off somewhere."

Myra buried her head in his shoulder, trying to dry her tears on his shirt. Maybe Julie was with Bryan. Maybe she was okay. But it didn't feel like it. It felt like something really bad had occurred. It felt like Myra's life was over and nothing Tom said could help her shake that feeling.

They stood there for a while, holding each other, crying. No phone calls came in, not from the cops and not from the community.

Finally Myra pulled away, not sure of what she should do. What did you do when your child, your baby, disappeared?

"Should we go to the police station?" she asked, looking up to her husband's red eyes.

"We could, but they're sending someone out. If whoever they send is as useless as the people on the phone have been, then we will. Or we'll go to the news, or something."

She kept looking at him, seeing that he didn't know what to do anymore than she did. That he was lost and trying to make decisions, but those television shows didn't explain how to act when something like this happened. They didn't explain what to do besides call the police, and they certainly didn't give instructions for what to do if the police were idiots.

"She's going to be okay," Tom said again but Myra didn't think he was saying it for himself. She thought he said it for her. Because his eyes said the same thing that she felt. Nothing was okay and nothing would be okay. Eighteen years with Julie and nothing like this had ever happened before, so why would it happen now if everything was okay?

She nodded, but their eyes spoke a different language, a deeper one, even if neither dared bring that language to their lips.

Myra's shaking hands tensed at the knock on the door, and she grabbed onto Tom again. Her heart filled for a brief second, filled that Julie was at the door, that everything was okay. It emptied just as quick, though, as she realized that Julie wouldn't knock on the door to her own home.

"It's the police," Tom said, gently stepping away from Myra and starting to walk toward the door. Myra watched him go a few feet before following.

"What the hell are they going to ask us that you haven't told them?" she said as she walked across the foyer.

"I don't know; they said it was protocol. I asked them why it took so many goddamn hours to follow protocol then."

Myra heard her husband's sadness turning to anger, at the police, at the situation. It didn't matter. The police were here and maybe they could help. Maybe they could turn this nightmare into something that made sense, into something that contained some kind of hope.

Tom twisted the knob on the door and pulled it open.

It took a second to understand what happened. It was like her eyes saw it but Myra's brain couldn't possibly understand it, because she hadn't seen something close to it before. Just like when she woke up this morning, and Julie wasn’t here—her mind couldn’t adjust.

Though it only took a few seconds for it all to happen.

The man at the door raised a gun to her husband's head and pulled the trigger. Tom stood there for a minute, no sounds coming from him, and then collapsed to the floor. His head was completely intact, no pieces flying off like on those television shows. It was when she found the hole though, with blood leaking out across his now pale, white forehead, that her brain made the connection.

She screamed.

For a brief second.

And then, hopefully, she found her husband in whatever life awaited them after.

A
ndrew looked at the ashtray
. It held almost a whole pack of cigarettes. He hadn't moved from this chair in hours because it was part of the grind, part of wearing down the two kids on the bed. No movement. Nothing to excite them. Just continual pressure. Will coming in had fucked it up some, but Will did what he wanted and Andrew had no say over that. He knew that he had fucked up by not getting someone else out to the boy's house, he and Lane. There wasn't any excuse. They were professionals and sleep deprivation shouldn't affect them, but somehow, they'd forgotten. Will hadn't lost it, not completely, but when he left there wasn't much doubt where the two of them stood in his mind. They'd been here the whole time and in one move had dropped multiple levels.

Lane didn't say anything about it and neither did Andrew. They just got to work on cleaning up the mess.

And it was a big mess, to say the least.

The asset that went to the boy's house was dead. A massive brain hemorrhage brought on by blunt force trauma inflicted from a frying pan that lay right next to him. Andrew would have found it humorous if he didn't have to tell Will, if the man they needed hadn't gotten away. Instead, both of those things had or would occur, and that made the situation as unfunny as it could get.

Andrew was the one to call Will.

"Alpha is dead."

"You're fucking kidding me," Will said back.

Andrew didn't respond.

"Jesus Christ. You got someone else going out there?"

"Yeah, already on it."

Will went silent for a few seconds. "Alright, I'll let everyone else know to look for the father. Send me all his information, car, height, all that shit, okay?"

"Got it."

The line went dead and it had been better than Andrew expected. Or maybe the damage was already done. Will wasn't someone to…except Andrew didn't know exactly how to put it. When he found he was coming down here to work with the man, he'd been beyond excited. Will was, more or less, a legend, and not just because of Bolivia. Maybe it was just his length of time in the business, or maybe the stories were true, but if you got the chance to work with him—you took it. And if you fucked up while working with him? Well, his recommendation probably went a long way.

It was too late for all those thoughts, though. Both he and Lane had fucked up pretty bad, and if Will was going to shit on their careers, then they would just have to accept it. The only thing either of them could do now would be to somehow make up for it.

They were waiting to get some confirmation back from the girl's house. Most likely everything would go well over there, but after what happened earlier today, Andrew still felt nervous about it. They would call Lane when they finished.

Andrew looked over at the bed to the two kids. Both of them were done. Maybe not the guy, not quite, but the girl? She would tell Andrew that she was the Queen of England if he asked.

The phone rang in Lane's pocket and Andrew looked over. The girl on the bed opened her eyes slowly, the noise of the phone bringing her out of whatever light sleep she found. The boy's eyes were already open, doing his best to stay awake like a child that doesn't want to miss anything.

"Okay," Lane said into the phone and then hung up. He found Andrew's eyes. "Hers are done."

Thank God
, Andrew thought as he nodded. He leaned forward, putting his elbows on his knees and grabbing another cigarette from his pack. He brought it to his lips and pulled a lighter from his pocket. This was the first good news they'd heard all day. It really wasn't even that big of a deal, something that should be routine, but right now Andrew and Lane needed whatever good news they could get.

"What's done?" the girl asked from the bed.

Andrew looked up, taking a drag on his cigarette. The girl wasn't sleeping anymore; her eyes were wide open and her face a sick paleness.

Christ,
Andrew thought.
Fucking Christ.

This was going to cause a problem, those three words from Lane. Because now she was going to start freaking out, and no one had time for it. Andrew stared across the room, his eyes as tired as hers, just wanting her to shut up.

"What's done?" she asked again, her voice rising. Tears were already welling in her eyes, because she knew the answer. Everyone in this room knew what Lane meant. "What the fuck did you all do?" She was almost screaming now and that was something Andrew couldn't allow to happen. Their organization filled up the majority of the motel, but risks of a girl shrieking were too great.

"Hush," Lane said, his voice as black as ice on asphalt.

"No! What's done? You goddamn tell me what's done!"

The girl stood up from the bed, the tears flowing freely. Andrew sighed and looked over at Lane. The girl was walking forward and screaming words that Andrew didn't even bother to listen to. He was about to stand up himself but saw Lane doing it first.

"Julie, come here," the boy said from the bed, getting up too. Andrew stood, his cigarette in his right hand, ready to move if the boy did anything stupid.

The girl took another step or two forward, "WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY PARENTS?"

Lane moved, his hand flashing up to the girl's face, where he grabbed it and slammed her head into the wall. Her face barely registered that she understood what was happening, his hand moved so fast.

The girl collapsed to the floor in between the bed and the wall. The boy scrambled across the bed—silently, God bless—grabbing her and pulling her up onto the bed with him. Andrew watched as he looked over her face, a slight trickle of blood running from a cut across her cheek, which was already swelling.

At least the room was quiet now; Andrew sat back down and went to smoking his cigarette again.