A/N – sorry for the delay but I've been crazy busy. Got into university, passed my driving test, been out and about. But while I've been on this mini hiatus I've had a flood of emails from people following and favouriting this fanfic so thank you so much for all that! It gave me the motivation to come back to this. Thanks to all the reviewers, your words mean the world to me. Bear with me, I'm feeling a little rusty, so let me know what you think!
HalfMaskedWholeHeart: I haven't really thought about what celebrity Eden would look like. She doesn't really look like any I know in my head. But if I had to say anyone then I'd say maybe Faye Marsay? :)
Chapter Eight
They hit the landing at a run.
Adrenaline made Eden feel sick. She wanted to sit down and breathe at the same time as she wanted to run and never stop running.
"Guys!" Jack called out, racing ahead of her, his hand still firmly gripping hers. He looked in each of the rooms in turn but the beds were empty. It didn't make any sense.
Yet it was just as they were passing Daniel's room that a hand snatched at them, dragging Jack through the door by his t-shirt.
The two of them stumbled into the room to find themselves staring at their own wild reflections. Daniel was stood beside the mirror, which itself was jutting out from the wall, no longer propped up against it.
Jack pointed at it. "That wasn't there before."
"Oh, really?" Daniel's voice dripped with sarcasm as he ushered the two of them round the side of the mirror. Instead of finding a patch of bare wall, they found themselves being pushed into a room, the walls made of metal and inlaid with glowing screens and buttons.
"Holy shit," Jack breathed.
Eden could only stare. The room went back a lot further than she thought was possible. There were sofas and armchairs identical to the ones downstairs; even a TV and music system.
"Is this a panic room?" she asked.
The answer became apparent immediately when Daniel slammed a button on the wall and a heavy metal door slid shut. A light thump came momentarily later as Eden guessed the mirror went back into place.
She was so busy taking in the details of the room that she almost forgot Jack was still holding her hand. In the last few hours it was like someone had placed magnets in their palms. She dropped his hand first, aware that hers was beginning to become a little sweaty with nerves.
Merritt was leaning against the wall beside the monitors. At first glance he looked casual, but there was a rigidity to his posture.
Eden stepped closer to the screens. Daniel was rushing about behind her, hastily chatting away at Henley, but his words washed over her as she watched the scene unfold in the apartment beyond their little panic room.
Armed police were spilling through the front door. The door itself was on the floor, caved in. Eden looked to the screen that showed the living area and her breath stuck in her throat. Dylan Rhodes was downstairs.
She half-turned as if to tell the others, but then she looked more closely. The police weren't hounding him. They didn't have him on the floor, arms wrenched behind his back. No, he was just standing amidst them as if he belonged. It even looked like he was directing them, his mouth moving in silent speech, his arm outstretched and pointing.
Eden glanced at Merritt. "What's Dylan doing down there?"
Merritt smiled. "Let's just say Dylan leads a double life."
Her eyes widened. "He's in the police?"
"He's an FBI agent."
"Well why isn't he keeping them off your tail then?"
"He's gotta keep up appearances," Merritt answered. "Besides, where's the fun in that?"
Eden guessed Dylan must have left sometime after she'd gone to bed, only to be woken up about a raid on an apartment or what not. It all sounded like too much lying to her. She had to admit she was a good liar, but not on this scale. The thought filled her with a new-found respect for him.
"What's the plan now then?" Eden asked, turning her back on the monitors. "We wait for the police to leave?"
"Or wait for them to find us," Henley added under her breath.
Daniel shot her a look. He seemed a little stressed. Stressed and tired. "They won't find us. We got this apartment specifically for the panic room in case something like this happened. The room isn't on the layouts; they don't know it exists."
"But still," Henley argued, "this was meant to be a last resort. It was never meant to come to this, us hiding in a panic room. Everything we've planned has been unravelling from the very beginning. Even Dylan didn't have time to warn us."
Eden looked on, her gut squirming. This wasn't the first time Henley had said something like this. Eden didn't like how someone who seemed so usually calm could suddenly turn. It didn't exactly fill Eden with confidence.
Daniel stood in the centre of the room, hands on his hips, eyes fixed on the floor as he mulled over Henley's words.
But it was Merritt who spoke first. "Someone's working against us."
Daniel nodded. "And I think I know who."
"My father." Eden said the words without really thinking. She hadn't needed to think. She knew.
They all looked to her. She could see in their eyes that they agreed, and she could see that they were sorry. Her own dad seemed to be working against her, undermining her efforts to find him.
She sighed, crossing her arms over her chest. "This is ridiculous."
"You're telling me," Merritt quipped.
"But how does he know?" Daniel went on. "It's like he's one step ahead of us and we haven't even got started yet."
Jack shrugged. "He's better than we thought. I mean, the guy stole artefacts from the Eye. Like, who even does that?"
He suddenly glanced at Eden, as if worried he'd offended her, but she just shrugged in turn. "I don't even know who he is any more."
They all stood around awkwardly for a moment until Merritt made the first move, shuffling over to the sofas and throwing himself onto one. "Might as well just wait this one out. Sorry, no car chases today, folks."
A wave of tiredness hit Eden like a brick wall. She'd had barely any sleep, and the adrenaline that had been pumped into her veins was already beginning to ebb. Tonight was going to be a long one.
She collapsed on another of the sofas, her limbs sagging. Merritt already had his eyes closed. Daniel was babbling in the background. "All our stuff is out there. They're gonna know we were here, at least."
Over the top of it came Henley's voice, more soothing now, as she took her place on the last remaining sofa. "There's nothing we can do about it, Daniel."
By the sounds of things, the Four Horsemen weren't used to losing control.
Eden had just closed her eyes when someone grabbed her legs, lifting them up. She opened her eyes to see Jack moving to sit on her sofa. He let her legs fall on top of his and tipped his head back, directing a lazy smile her way, his eyes just slits. "I hope you don't mind."
"Not at all," she answered, an involuntarily smile pulling at her lips. He felt warm, her own little radiator.
"Good."
She didn't know how much time had passed, whether it was one minute or one hour, when Daniel's voice cut through the silence. "Oh God," he said, sounding, to all intents and purposes, defeated.
"What is it now?" Merritt croaked.
"They're arresting Dylan."
"What?"
Eden's eyes flew open. She sat up, peering over the top of the sofa to see Daniel stood by the monitors, his face practically pressed against a screen.
"Arresting him?" she asked, her speech a little slurred.
"What? What for?" Henley was off the sofa in seconds, hurrying towards the screens, Merritt hot on her heels.
Eden gently shook Jack awake. His head snapped up and he grimaced, rubbing the back of it. "Come on," she said to him, getting up. The adrenaline was back in her veins.
"What's happening?" he asked, following her.
"Dylan's being arrested," Daniel said. Now he sounded angry.
"Please tell me this is part of your plan," Eden said to him, but he only shook his head.
"I wish I could."
The first thing Eden saw was Dylan, stood in what seemed to be the room just outside that thick metal door. Eden glanced towards it momentarily, but she couldn't hear anything from the other side.
"Where's the speaker button?" Daniel snapped.
"There," Henley said, pressing it, and the tinny speakers came to life.
"Hey, you can't do this, Cowan!" Dylan was shouting at another agent, who only stood watching on placidly in the face of Dylan's struggling.
"We're taking you off this case, Rhodes, and that's final. You were never meant to be put back on it," Cowan said.
"Oh, why, because I did a better job at trying to solve it than you ever did?" Dylan retorted. "And what about this guy? I thought foreign agents had no jurisdiction here, or at least that's what happened with Alma Dray."
Even the grainy image couldn't hide Cowan's smirk. "We have reason to believe a British national is now involved in this case so, yes, Agent White does have jurisdiction here."
Dylan looked like he was about to say something else, but apparently thought better of it. Instead, he grudgingly allowed two agents to escort him from the room. The Four Horsemen and Eden watched on. There was a strange detachedness about it, like it wasn't really happening. Dylan left the apartment, and their plans went with him.
"Is it just me or have things only gone from bad to worse?" Merritt asked.
Henley sighed. "It's not just you, Merritt."
"What now?" Jack asked. He was still radiating heat, but it wasn't so comforting to Eden any more.
"We get the hell out of here," Dylan said.