Equinox
Chapter Nineteen
My heart hammered like thunder against my ribcage. A tremor ran down the entirety of my body, jarring each of my limbs until I finally collapsed onto my bottom in a puff of dust. Before I could assemble a single thought, a wave of nausea pummeled my defenses. I twisted to the side and the contents of my stomach heaved and spewed onto the ground. Fang held my shoulders as I choked over my own bile and coughed until there was nothing left inside of me to give.
"Nudge," Fang hissed, swiping his thumb across my forehead and whisking away the sweat accumulating there.
"They're inside, they didn't hear," she assured him. Her words filtered to my ears as if through a film of water.
I seized up again, but only air wheezed through my throat. My hands grated uncomfortably in the dirt as I shoved myself into a sitting position. I deposited my head between my knees, sucking in oxygen like I had never learned to breathe. I still couldn't form a coherent thought. Random jumbles of words and images spiraled in my mind.
"Max," Fang murmured, one hand on my elbow and the other brushing my hair from my neck with a light touch. I thought him incapable of such tenderness. "Max, listen to me. What's wrong? What happened?"
My breaths turned to dry sobs. My father. Here. At the School. My father, who was dead. Supposed to have been dead, for six years nonetheless. Everyone thought he was dead. At least everyone had said he died. I had never seen a body and I had never really questioned that. He was dead and there was no changing the facts, no matter how much it hurt. No matter how many nights I lay awake, haunted by his memory and wishing he would walk through the door with a smile and a shrug.
My father was dead … and yet his ghost still walked among man. Because he was not a ghost and he was alive.
"That man," I mumbled, voice cracking over my dried throat. "Do you know him?"
Fang reached over and lifted my chin. I swiped at my lips to get rid of any lingering vomit, but the acrid taste stained my mouth. He kneeled next to me, brow hooded and lips twisted in a frown. I gazed beseechingly back.
"Which one?" he inquired, feeling my forehead again with the back of his hand. Maybe he thought the desert was making me woozy, but I wasn't getting the kind of fever he thought.
"Jeb," Angel supplied, her blue eyes filled with sadness. She hugged her knees tightly to her chest.
Fang glanced to Angel, then back down at me. With a shrug, he said: "Always. He wasn't around as much until later, but what does that have to do with anything?"
I closed my eyes, craning my neck to the sky. Always. Fang was my age, and his memories of Jeb stretched the length of always. That means for my entire life my father, who I had always considered so brave and honest and true- the man that fought demons in the night and died fighting for what he believed in … was really a coward who abandoned his child and practiced cruel, twisted experiments on innocent children. A man whose work became so important that he allowed me to think he was dead so that he could work unimpeded.
I rubbed my eyes, but the tears I had shed for my father were long dry. Brushing the dust from my knees, I resumed my crouch behind the rocks.
"I knew him once. It doesn't matter, we have work to do," I said blankly.
"Max …" Fang murmured, a hint of uncertainty in his words.
"Drop it," I snapped. I turned to him, smiling slightly lest I come off harsher than intended. He wasn't remotely convinced, but he seemed willing to let the subject go for now.
As I squinted at the area of the School that was visible from our vantage point, I felt a small, soft hand slip into my own. Without a word, Angel squeezed my fingers tightly in her own, and I returned the pressure, feeling some of the weight on my chest dissipate.
Just as I was beginning to lose hope of ever finding a way in, the doors opened and a single man strolled out. He whistled tunelessly and swung a pair of keys around his finger. Mostly, though, my attention was drawn to the ID badge clipped at his belt. Before anyone could stop me, I lunged from our hiding place and sprinted toward the School.
The man got a two second glance of my face before I skidded to a halt and slammed a punch straight to his temple. Gravity did her part then and yanked him to the earth. He was out cold. I had just snatched the card from its clasp when Fang slid into view, his dark eyes glinting in a frenzy of panic. Nudge and Angel blurred past, immediately flattening themselves against the wall and out of sight of any camera angles.
"Are you crazy?" Fang snarled, nails digging into my elbow.
"Just help me," I hissed, snatching the unconscious man's collar and dragging him toward an alcove by the door. He'd be out for a while, so the most I could do was stow his body somewhere nobody else would hopefully find him for the next hour or two.
Reluctantly, Fang grabbed his feet and we easily lugged him into the indent of the wall. Once he had been propped into position, I pulled his ID from my pocket and calmly walked back to the door. Fang followed more cautiously, but as bad as it may sound, part of me wanted to get caught. Part of me wanted to see the look on my father's face when he realized I knew what a worthless piece of trash he was.
But I had to protect the others, and getting them captured by the sadists they had already escaped from once was not in the plan.
I swiped the bar code through the slot on the door handle. One flash of green light later and we were inside. The hallway before us stretched in blinding white tiles down an uncomfortable distance. We were too exposed standing out in the open like this. Someone could walk by any moment, and we'd be screwed before we even started.
"Are you recognizing any of this?" I muttered from the corner of my mouth.
Fang's entire body was coiled tighter than a spring. His eyes shifted everywhere and around again, never stopping for a moment. He scratched his neck, trying for nonchalance, but his nails scraped deeper than normal, and he left bright red lines on his tanned skin. Angel and Nudge were in similar states of unease. I hadn't anticipated the effect their fear would have on me. How could I have made them come back here? It wasn't worth it.
"Maybe we shou-" I began to say, inching back toward the door.
"Come on." Angel's brow had folded with determination. She gripped my hand and pulled me down the hall, her shoulders squared and defiant.
We veered at the first left, taking a different corridor. I followed blindly, trying to keep track of our progress, but everything looked the same. Just a bunch of halls and blank doorways. After a couple minutes, Angel suddenly halted. A din of voices drifted from around the corner, coming ever closer. At the last second, she lurched to the right and we all piled into what appeared to be a boiler room. Nudge pressed her ear to the door, listening intently. Eventually, she nodded that it was all clear, but Angel seemed to have a different idea.
She had drifted to the opposite wall, and was scanning a small hatch in the corner. Suddenly, she turned and blinded us with a brilliant smile. "Through here," she insisted, swinging it from its latch. There was just enough room for me to stoop down and crawl through.
I immediately came to another similar door. With Angel's encouragement, I nudged it open and tumbled into an empty office. The nameplate on the desk read Jeb Batchelder.
My father's office.
"Nudge, take the computer," I immediately ordered, my senses snapping into focus. We needed to be in and out. "The two of you keep guard."
Nudge scrambled into the worn leather chair, rolling herself into a comfortable position. She cracked her knuckles and began typing away at the keyboard, occasionally muttering to herself. I busied myself browsing through the stacks of papers on his desk. There was plenty for me to learn about the School and its activities, but I needed to focus on any mention of the paranormal or the CSM, so my eyes became attuned to scan for certain keywords … those of which I wasn't remotely finding.
I raked my hand through my hair, loose blonde tendrils spilling through my fingers. Frustration ate away at my vision. I was a girl of action, and I didn't cope well with mystery. Faintly, I wondered what in the hell I was doing here, trying to be a detective when all I had ever known how to be was a hunter. I should be stalking a werewolf pack, or trailing a vamp through the suburbs, or preventing the fay from kidnapping a child- not this, whatever it was.
"Max." Nudge's voice whipped through my uncertainty and wrestled my attention into focus.
I leaned toward her, scanning the screen. She had accessed what looked to be pay rolls- extensive ones, between the School and the CSM. So, I had found proof that they were connected- in a very serious way, considering the amount of money being transferred between the two organizations. But what was the purpose?
She moved the cursor, pulling up a different file. This time there were pictures- gruesome, grotesque images of mutilated bodies.
"The School's failed experiments," Nudge whispered hoarsely, tears sparkling in the corners of her eyes. Despite my previous stint of upchucking, I felt my stomach roil.
She began to scroll faster, not wanting to look too long. I didn't either, until something caught my eye. I reached out and stopped her. Gently, I replaced her hand with mine, and returned to the image that had set off warning bells in my head.
"And the CSM's, too." The bitter taste in my mouth increased. "Look, that's a witch. Werewolves. A troll. That's all Marian Janssen's handiwork, I'm sure of it."
The evil bitch.
I tilted my chin away, steadying my breath. Twisted, disfigured limbs flashed behind my lids every time I blinked. Tears streaked down Nudge's face, but there was nothing I could do to help her. She was a lot closer to the issue than me. I realized, with horror, that probably she was thinking that she could have been one of these pictures- just a serial number and a test gone wrong. The sick feeling in my gut worsened.
It was as I thought this that a post-it note stuck to the side of the computer screen caught my attention. I squinted at it, easily reading Jeb's scrawled print. Effects of solstice not waning. Cause, to be determined.
So I was right. Paranormals were unnaturally powerful. The strength they gained on the solstice hadn't faded yet, and no one knew why, which is exactly why Anne was trying to cover it up.
A few things happened simultaneously then that interrupted that train of thought for quite some time.
First, Nudge called my attention back to the computer. I had the briefest glimpse of a file folder with my name on it when Fang was suddenly at my side, eyes flashing and teeth gritted.
"We have to go," he muttered darkly.
I looked at the screen, and the cursor hovering next to my name. Why would he have a folder with my name as the label on his office computer?
"Max, now."
With a crushing sense of disappointment I turned my back, loping toward the small tunnel that fed into the boiler room, but Fang caught my elbow. He shook his head, pointing to where Angel was poised with her hand on the door knob. Nudge had just finished shutting down the computer and was on her feet.
"What?" I demanded, eyes widening. Why were were just waltzing out the door? Why did Angel look so scared? Why had every inch of Fang's face settled into the mask I had slowly seen fading over the last month?
"They know we're here."