Blood Bond, page 5
“Fine.” He released her wrist. “Go. I’ll keep watch.”
Heart in her throat, Matra ran up the other flight of stairs as fast as her legs could carry her. Fourteen steps, a fast, pounding rhythm. She darted left at the top of the stairs, then down four doors, each standing open. She turned into her bedroom, then made a line past the too-big bed she wouldn’t miss to her dresser, the drawers built into the wall. She dropped to her knees and pulled the bottom drawer open, then gripped the sides and lifted it out of the frame. She sat it on the floor beside her, then ducked and reached into the cavity the drawer had just left.
A fine seam in the wall, so thin the only reason Matra found it was because she knew it intimately, slipped under her fingers. She pressed the seam and the dry wall popped inward, sending the other side of the small rectangular hatch jutting out. With careful fingers, Matra gripped the ridged piece of wall. She pulled it aside, propped it against the inside of the dresser, and reached her hand into the opening.
The laptop was easy enough to find. The small, folded piece of paper took a moment longer.
She pulled them out of the cavity and put the slice of drywall back in place, followed by the drawer back into its home like she’d done so many silent times in the middle of the night. Then she stashed the letter in her bra before tucking the computer under her arm.
It all took about two minutes.
“Where the hell were you stashing a laptop?” Audil hissed as she came jogging down the stairs some seconds later.
“Not important,” Matra replied. “Let’s go.”
The unmistakable sound of the door from the primary house opening hit their ears.
Audil’s eyes flew wide as they met Matra’s.
Chapter 8
Matra
Next thing she knew, Matra was speeding down the hall toward the storage room with Audil right on her heels. She shouldered the door open and flew into the dark room where she crossed on quick strides to the hatch. She only looked back for a moment right before crawling through, back into the tunnels.
Audil was at the storage room door, easing it shut when they heard voices.
“Is somebody down there?”
Shit!
Door closed tight, Audil made a mad dash across the room.
Matra was through the hatch at lightning speed, and Audil was through with her next breath. They slid the hatch door closed together, forcing it home until it sunk into place with a thud.
Then they sat in silence for a few fast, gasping breaths. They needed to get away from the door, but she needed to give her legs a chance to stop trembling first.
She’d thought, when they first got there, she didn’t care very much if they were caught. Being arrested would suck and she had no idea what would happen to her—except she knew she’d no longer be a prisoner of her own family. But hearing that voice, knowing they were moments away from discovery had flipped the script on her apathy. She was grateful this would be the last time she’d ever see the compound, and she still wanted to find a way to Beta, but maybe she could find a way for all of them.
“You tell them,” Audil whispered into the silence.
He was looking at her when Matra looked up, feeling her brows furrow in question.
“You’re better at that sort of thing,” he went on. “They’ll want to hear we’re never going back from you.”
Callee
Callee sat near Matra’s empty bed, sharing a can of fruit cocktail with Nev. She took a bite and handed the can and spoon back to the younger girl.
“You seem stressed,” Nev remarked as she fished for a bite.
Callee forced herself to smile as she pulled her eyes away from the tunnel she knew Matra and Audil would have walked down earlier—the one that would hopefully deliver them back any minute. Then again, smiling wasn’t that hard—Nev had a way about her that made Callee feel lighter.
“You don’t like it when Matra is away with Audil,” Nev said simply, her voice low.
Now Callee’s brow furrowed. “That’s not true.” Even though it was.
Alix drew near, Callee could feel it before she could see him. He appeared some feet away and smiled when he saw her.
“She’ll be back soon,” he said quietly as he took a seat on her other side.
“I know,” Callee replied.
“Then why are you stressed?” he asked, his tone even.
“Thank you,” Nev muttered under her breath, victorious.
Callee fought to keep her expression even as she looked to Nev. “Could you give us a minute?”
Nev rolled her eyes but smiled as she did it. Then she carefully pushed herself up from the ground. “Fine, but I’m keeping the can of fruit cocktail.”
“It’s all yours,” Callee replied with a laugh. But the levity fell flat as she watched Nev limp away. She looked to Alix again.
“Now are you gonna cut the B.S.?” he challenged, serious and joking at the same time.
“Yes, okay. I don’t like this,” Callee hissed. “They’re both gone, and we have no idea where to or why.”
She’d woken up and found Matra’s bed empty when she stopped by on her way to the bathroom like she’d done every morning since they’d been here. Callee had expected to find her when she got there, but no. Following a hunch, she’d knocked on Audil’s door—no answer. Which was when the suspicion and worry had set in.
“You don’t trust Audil to be alone with Matra,” Alix said, dropping his voice further. “You never have.”
“Neither have you,” Callee replied.
Alix tilted his head like he was considering that. “He has a light and a dark side to him—but everybody does.”
Callee scoffed. “Yeah, and a megalomaniac for a father.”
“Well, that certainly had an effect on his balance of light versus dark,” Alix allowed. “But according to the group, Marx is all of our fathers, so I guess we’re all in that boat.”
Callee gave him a look, knowing her cynicism would be written all over her face, but Alix looked past her instead of responding to her expression. Following his line of sight, she was thrilled to see Matra and Audil come around the corner.
Thank the universe.
She could only see their outline at first, but Audil’s broad shoulders and rolling gait were easy to recognize, as was Matra’s slight build and purposeful strides. But the moment of relief was dampened when Matra’s expression came into view some seconds later.
She looked like she’d seen a ghost. And what was she carrying?
Callee got to her feet and heard Alix doing the same. Nev joined her as she crossed the distance and met Matra halfway.
“Hey, you okay?”
Matra’s smile was forced. “Yeah, I’m good.” She turned and watched Audil as he passed them both before looking to Callee again. “Can you take this to your room, and then go get everybody together?”
Callee took whatever it was Matra was handing over, only realizing it was a laptop once she was holding it. “Yeah, of course. Is everything okay?”
Matra’s pause was a non-answer that nonetheless gave Callee all the information she needed: no, everything was not okay.
* * *
“What’s going on?”
Callee turned to Nev. They’d split up so they could get everybody together that much more quickly and now they met in the middle of the wide, high-ceilinged space with everybody else on their heels. “We’re about to find out.”
Callee had a feeling she knew what Matra was about to say, but it wasn’t her place to speculate aloud.
The rest of the group was gathering in the middle of the station, coming from their make-shift bedrooms and walking back from travels into the tunnels, most likely toward the facilities. There were only eight of them in all—and that included Matra and Audil—but somehow the group felt bigger as they all condensed into one mass of bodies like this.
“Let’s all step back and give Matra some space,” Alix said.
The group loosened, forming a horseshoe shape, and Matra stepped forward into the center. Audil hung back by a couple of steps, staying behind her like he knew what she was going to say.
Which was something because, from the looks of it, Matra didn’t.
She drew a breath and sat the lantern she was holding on the floor at her feet. The light cast stark shadows across her face. “Um. Audil and I just got back from the compound.”
The collective tension in the group ticked up a notch, Callee’s included. She drew a silent, startled breath when Alix’s fingers found hers. They looped just their pinkies and ring fingers together, surreptitiously holding hands in a way that drew as little attention as possible.
She’d have loved to grasp his whole hand in hers and hold it tight, but even this tiny connection was a blessing—and a risk. It wouldn’t have been hard for somebody in the group to see them if they cared to look.
Then again, everyone was so focused on Matra, they weren’t liable to get caught.
“You went inside?” Leif asked.
Matra gave a nod. “We wanted to gauge... well, it doesn’t matter.” She shook her head. “Look, there’s no good way to say this. It is very unlikely we will be going back there.”
A beat of stunned silence—then rapid-fire questions:
“For how long?”
“Anybody?”
“What do you mean?”
“What did you see?”
Matra stood, letting the questions wash over her.
“Guys, wait.” Vega’s voice could suddenly be heard over the others. She went on when the din of indignation settled for a breath. “Don’t jump to conclusions. I don’t think she meant we can never go back.” She looked to Matra. “Right?”
Callee watched as Matra forced a swallow down her throat. Her gaze traveled the group, everyone looking to her, waiting and expecting her to say something Callee knew wasn’t coming.
They weren’t going back there.
The thread of relief that was sliding through Callee’s chest was unexpected.
“That is what I meant,” Matra said finally, in response to Vega’s statement. “Police have found the compound. It’s not safe to go back there. Ever.”
Callee expected a din. She expected the group to erupt into defiant questioning and unfounded accusations—but they didn’t.
Instead, they fell quiet. For seven heartbeats, nobody said a thing.
“Okay.” Leif’s voice fell into the void. “So what do we do now?”
Vega broke away from the group, pushing Leif and Yumi out of her way as she bolted, taking the sound of her own sobs with her.
Callee turned to Matra to find her watching Vega leave. On her face was worry and question. She took a step forward, but then stopped and looked to Leif instead.
“We’re working on that. Right now, the plan is to stay put. After that...” she shrugged. “We’ll figure it out. I’m open to ideas if you’ve got ‘em.”
The next twenty minutes were spent answering questions from the group, responding to people’s ideas—some sound, others completely cracked. Callee watched Matra talk to the group like she’d been doing it her entire life.
Sure, she and Audil always acted as de facto leadership when the parents were away, but that had never involved organizing the group around a single cause or dealing with anything more trying than a disagreement between two detached-adults.
“Everybody trusts her,” Alix mumbled.
The two of them had stepped back when everyone else had stepped closer to Matra. They were still with the group, still listening, but they weren’t in the middle the fray. There was no reason to be—they could talk to Matra whenever they wanted to. So could the others for that matter, but that didn’t seem to occur to them.
“You’re relieved,” Alix murmured a moment later.
Callee gave a nod and looked at him. “I wasn’t expecting to feel that way.”
Alix smiled and his pinky found hers again. “Me neither.”
Callee was squeezing his fingers when a wash of nausea broke over her.
“You okay?” Alix asked.
She drew a breath and blew it out, letting the sensation roll through her. She nodded. “Nauseated, but it’s not me.”
“Who is it?”
She let her eyes roam. When Callee had been a child, her sense of other’s physical wellbeing had manifested as constant, unexplained illnesses and invisible injuries that disappeared as soon as they came on. As she got older, she’d figured out how to separate other people’s illness and pain from her own. The nausea rolling in her gut now was ephemeral. Its rhythm was offset from her own body’s tempo—she just had to figure out whose tempo it belonged to. Her eyes landed on Matra—just in time to see her draw a slow breath and blow it out.
Alix must have seen it too. He stepped forward. “Hey, let’s give Matra some space. We have time to figure everything out, okay?”
The group took a step back, and Callee was on her friend like the void had created a suction that drew her to Matra’s side. She opened her mouth to speak but Matra beat her to it—
“I want to go talk to Vega but—”
“But you feel like shit,” Callee filled in. “Go lie down in my room. We got it.”
Matra drew another breath. She nodded and stepped back with a tired smile. “Yeah. Thanks.”
Callee watched as Matra walked away, some instinct trying to worm its way through the persistent, extra sensory nausea.
“Something she ate, maybe?” Alix asked. “Should we check the food?”
Callee couldn’t pull her eyes away until she watched Matra slide the sheet of plywood that covered the end of the inset vestibule Callee had been calling a bedroom into place.
Then she looked to Alix and found concern in his furrowed brows. “Yeah, let’s check the food tonight.”
What was left of it, at least.
Chapter 9
Matra
Matra stuck her head into Audil’s room. “Hey,” she said, voice low. “Callee said you were looking for me.”
Audil looked up from where he was sitting on the floor at a large spool-turned-table. The look on his face said he might have been zoned in on whatever he was working on for a while. “Yeah, she said you weren’t feeling well.” He pushed himself up from the ground and brushed the back of his pants off as he came toward her.
“I don’t know what that was about,” Matra admitted. “Anxiety maybe? I feel fine now, though.”
She’d slept the day away, of course. So maybe she was fighting a virus. Or, maybe she just hadn’t been sleeping as well as she thought she’d been on a thin bedroll mattress against a wall. Maybe the whole I-don’t-need-any-privacy idea hadn’t been as good as she’d first thought.
“Glad you’re good,” Audil replied.
She shrugged. “I don’t know if I’d say I’m good, but I’m not sick.”
Audil laughed under his breath as he crossed to the foot of his thin mattress and flopped down onto his ass like he was exhausted and tired of hiding it. “I hear you there.”
Concern pinged behind Matra’s ribs. “Are you okay?”
He glanced up at her and tried for a no-big-deal laugh—which fell short. “Yeah, I’m solid.” He drew his knees up, resting his elbows on them as he ran his hands over his hair, pushing it back from his face.
Matra gave a nod, not believing him but unable to come up with any constructive way to say it.
The fact was, they’d just come face to face with the knowledge that their lives were never going to be the same again.
Who would be okay after that?
“I was thinking,” he said after a breath’s pause. “If I construct a false closet, we can make it look like that hatch door leads to nowhere. That way if they find the hatch they won’t have a reason to suspect it’s anything but a crawl space.”
Huh. Matra had to admit, that was a good idea. “Do you have the supplies to do it?”
He gave a nod. “I have the tools. The materials are the only question, but I think we can find those too. We aren’t trying to build anything permanent, just a convincing enough decoy.”
“Could you use some help?”
Audil’s expression turned questioning. “Building computer programs not enough for you? You wanna learn to lay drywall too?”
He was teasing her. Matra felt her own smile turn sarcastic. “No. I like my computer programs, thank you very much. But the group could use the distraction.”
Audil sat back with a nod like he’d only just considered that. “Fair point. Yeah, I could use more hands.”
Good. Matra liked that idea. She nodded, looking down at her feet because she didn’t know where else to put her eyes all of a sudden. When she brought her gaze back to Audil, she found him staring at her.
She could feel his eyes on her skin like his gaze held weight. She tried to look away, but her eyes just skated right back to his as he stood from where he was sitting and crossed the short distance between them.
“Look,” he said when he was close enough that she could see the color of his dark blond hair despite the pervasive darkness. “It’s just you and me now.” He looked into her eyes and she found her breath going shallow.
What was he doing?
“I know we haven’t always... seen eye to eye,” he went on. “But I want you to know that I trust you more than anybody else here. And, if we have to be doing this, I’m glad it’s you I’m with.”
“Audil...” Where the hell was all this talk about trust and feelings coming from? This wasn’t Audil’s style and never had been.
She had no idea what to say, her mouth going dry, thoughts scattering.
Especially as he took her hand in his. “I know you’re upset. That’s understandable.”
She nodded. She was upset, but probably for different reasons than he was. Matra was upset because the longer she was away from the compound, the less she trusted the parents who had raised them all. She was upset because now that they were gone, she couldn’t seem to remember why she’d stayed for so long. Leaving the group would be more complicated now than it would have been before in many ways—leaving the group in the tunnels would be tantamount to abandoning them. In other ways, though, it might be easier—without the parents lording over them, maybe the whole group could find safety, instead of Matra alone. But Audil wouldn’t allow any solution that involved going outside the group, and that would pose a problem when going outside of the group quickly became their only option. She didn’t know how she knew it would end up that way, but it would.
