Chapter 18
It was nearing dawn as the young man walked through the gate of the yard of the old country house that served the agency known as Haven. All Haven agents could find a safe "haven" from Slade here, or any other place where they had a safe house. He unlocked the front door, went in, and locked it again behind him. That was one habit he could never break, locking doors. It was his way of locking the horrors of his past out. He slipped down the hall and up the stairs, heading towards his own little cubby of a bedroom in the attic. It wasn't the grander room he could have commanded due to his seniority and experience, but he preferred only so much space around himself. No one could sneak up on him that way.
He was convinced that no one was around to see him, but he was observed by a tiny green mouse that crouched in the niche between the floorboards and baseboard in the hall. The mouse watched with interest for a few moments, and then moved on, determined to learn the layout of the house quickly. This place was too interesting for words for the little mouse, and he wanted to learn all about it.
Space
Robin woke up slowly, hearing Mike moving about the room. Mike was already dressed, and seeing Robin awake, he smiled.
"Morning, buddy," he said, pulling on a jacket. "How'd you sleep?"
"Like the proverbial log," Robin said, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. "What time is it?"
"About nine in the morning, and Molly just poked her head in as I was waking up and said that breakfast was ready. You hungry?"
At the mention of food, all of a sudden, Robin was. He nodded as he got out of bed and started dressing, feeling his mouth water. How long had it been since he had eaten a good meal? He couldn't remember, but it was probably at his birthday party. While with Slade and at the school, he'd been too nervous to eat much. Right now, though he was pretty sure that he'd manage an elephant or two with the way he was feeling.
He and Mike were almost at the bottom of the stairs when they almost literally ran into someone coming up. He was young with dark hair tied back into a ponytail, dressed in loose black pants and a white shirt, and he carried a katana sword.
Mike froze, staring at the sword. "Sorry, Randall," he apologized. "Didn't mean to—"
"It's all right," the young man said. "I should have known the staircase would be busy. Is this Robin?" he asked, indicating the other boy.
"How did you know my name?" Robin asked, surprised.
"I try not to let Slade get too far ahead of me, so I always try to know what he's doing," Randall said. "When he kidnapped you the first time, I knew about it. Have a good morning." Randall continued up the stairs, whistling a tune as if nothing were going on in the world and nothing bad could ever happen.
"Who was that?" Robin asked as they went into the kitchen.
"That's Randall," Mike said, sitting down and waving Robin to a chair. "He's one of the ones who's been with the agency the longest. He's really got it in for Slade, and nobody knows why."
"How long has he been here?" Robin asked speculatively. "He doesn't look that old."
"He joined up when he was twelve, and now he's twenty-five. No one wanted to take him, mind you, but he started pulling out all this information about Slade—where he banked, where he owned homes, his associates and middlemen, his front companies and money makers, the industries he dabbled in, and just about anything else you could wish to know about him, so we snatched him up."
"Twelve?" Robin said in disbelief. "Didn't he have a family or someone who would notice he was gone?"
"If he did, he's never mentioned them, but there's a couple of things I've noticed: he never lets anyone take his picture, he speaks very carefully and uses a "school" voice, and the only bank account he keeps is a Swiss one so that no place has his signature. I think someone may be looking for him and he knows it, so he's trying to keep himself from being found."
Robin took all of this in quietly. "It sounds like it," he said, as a woman came into the kitchen and began to bustle around. To Robin, she looked like "Grandma" personified. She quickly filled dishes full of food and set them in front of them, telling them to "tuck in." Robin did so, thinking about Randall.
