“Something's wrong with it. I think he did something to the signal or something. I didn't trust it.”
Mr. Blackbourne reached into his pocket, taking out his own phone. He examined the screen. “It seems normal.” He flipped on the flashlight app, making the white light glow bright in Nathan's face. He reached into his pocket, producing a small flashlight he kept on his key chain and passed it to him. “Hang on to this.”
Nathan kept the keys with him, and they proceeded out of the kitchen area, opening up into the dark hallway on the other side.
“I didn't want to leave her,” Nathan said breathlessly as the doors closed behind them and they were cast into darkness except for the lights they held.
“You did it right,” Mr. Blackbourne said, motioning to Nathan to lead the way. “We need to stay together. Tell me what happened on the way.”
Nathan started with telling him about what happened downstairs, how they discovered the doors locked, the masks, and then going upstairs. “The sirens. I was pretty sure the police were here. I was trying to hide her.”
“There were no police. He may have just waited for you to go somewhere dark so you couldn't see him coming,” he said. “But I would have done it, too. If he's alone, it would have been his best chance to take you down without a fight.”
They had reached the stairs by then, and at the top, Nathan shined the line outward, casting a beam along the hallway. He directed it to the one they'd been in. “We were here. I got zapped in the middle. She ran this way toward the stairs. But I can't tell where she went after that.”
Mr. Blackbourne switched his beam of light from one hallway to the next. “He could have her anywhere. A closet or went to the front of the building. We'll have to do a sweep.” He held his phone to his face, pushing a button. “We need to stay in contact.”
He said nothing else but waited, looking at his phone. He put the call on speaker as it dialed, but the answer was within one ring.
“At the front entrance,” North said instantly. “I don't see anyone.”
“Stay there,” Mr. Blackbourne said. “When anyone comes in, send them to do a sweep of the bottom floors. I want every possible place he could have taken her search.”
“What if he left with her already?”
“With Luke in the parking lot, and us in the back lot, unless he carried her out the back and through the woods, he's still here.” He paused. “Have someone check those woods. The way you came in the other night.”
“On it.”
Nathan swung the light around, looking through the hallways. So many classrooms and nooks. He could have her anywhere.
Hopefully he hadn’t left. She had nothing on her to track her this time after she turned her phone off. She may be impossible to find.
He’d blame himself forever if she disappeared after tonight.
Work Alone
Sang
––––––––
I became a dead weight, something the guys had told me before about when you were being taken.
I stopped trying to fight and just become heavy. Slow him down. Stop him from taking me anywhere.
He was stronger than I was, so anything I could do at this point was only to give Nathan more time to come after him.
The dark cloth around my head stifled my breathing. It was tight, some of it stuffed into my mouth. There was no way to tell which direction we were going.
But with my body like it was, I was making him slower.
There was grumbling, but nothing further.
And I felt four hands, not two, that lifted me. Around the legs and chest, I was picked up.
Two of them.
One of them groaned.
“Quiet,” said a mechanical voice. Volto.
“You didn't say we'd have to carry her,” another voice said. A woman, her voice smooth and cold as she staged whispered. “You said she'd go willingly.”
“She wasn’t alone. Circumstances change.”
I tried to wiggle, since being a dead weight wasn't going to work anymore. The effort had me panting into the hood they'd put on me. I couldn't get enough air into me to get my body to move as swiftly.
They struggled but soon found their stride and I was carried a good distance. The only thing I could tell was we hadn't gone down any stairs.
A door was opened, and I was brought inside a space where the air was warmer. Their footsteps softer, like going over carpet. The only carpet I knew that was upstairs was in the library.
Another door opened, perhaps to one of the study rooms near the back. I wasn't familiar with this library.
I was put down on some sort of table, held up by one of them. He kept my wrists together, and shortly after, bound them with plastic restraints. He did my legs as well.
“I only need a minute,” Volto said.
“That may be all you get. They'll have the lights on soon,” said the woman. “Once they're on, we have to go.” A door closed.
The hood over my head was lifted.
Volto's green-glowing masked loomed close. Everything else was dark around us.
I breathed in deeply to get the fresher air into my lungs and then bit my tongue. If I could, I would have stuffed my ears with my fingers. I wasn't going to let him use me for anything. I wouldn't tell him anything.
His head titled slightly, creating shadows on the mask that give him an almost coy look. “I told you I needed to talk to you.”
I said nothing. I turned my head away, to let him know I didn't care.
He captured my chin and turned my head his direction. The mechanical voice from the modulator in his mask continued. “You can't stay with them. Blackbourne is in serious trouble.”
I glared at him, refusing to give into this.
“Your friends are meddling in areas they shouldn't be.” He released my chin and stepped back, swinging an arm in the darkness to motion to the rest of the school. “I'd tell you to tell them to leave, but I doubt they will. Hendricks is watching.”
“You're with him,” I said. I couldn't help it. If I was going to talk, it would be about him, not anything else. “You're with Hendricks.”
“No,” he said. “I’m not. I work alone.”
“Then who’s the woman?”
“She needed me. I work alone.” He stood up straighter, his head tilting down to look at me. The mechanical voice came out louder than before. “Hendricks is watching.”
“We already figured he set this food thing up to get Mr. Blackbourne in trouble,” I said. “We don’t need you to tell us this.”
He tilted his head again. “Food?”
“The night you took Nathan on a wild chase and you left him at the lake,” I said, my anger growing inside of me an unable to help myself. “We were there watching the food being swapped. Students have called in sick. We’re pretty sure it was a set up.”
“I was following McCoy,” he said. “He’s with Hendricks.” He leaned in, but his voice modulator was just as loud. “But this doesn’t change anything. He’s lost McCoy, but he’s after you.”
“You mean them?”
“I mean you,” he said. “He wants to use you. To get to them. To get them into a heap of trouble they’ll never be able to weasel their way out of.”
I strained at my wrists, at the binding, trying to separate them. “How?”
“Like how I got to you. Only he’s more stupid than your Academy.” He clamped a hand around my wrists to get me to stop. “I came to tell you so you won’t make this mistake again. And so they won’t, either. Maybe now they’ll avoid using you like a pawn and leave you the hell alone.”
He turned away from me, heading for the door.
“How does he listen?” I asked him. “Tell me. How does he know what we’re doing?”
He paused without turning back to me. “Once a gutter rat, always a gutter rat,” he opened the door, letting it slam behind himself after he left.
Before I could call after him, the lights came on, blinding me for a minute. I covered my face against the brightness.
I was alone in one of the study rooms. With my ankles and wrists bound, I wasn’t sure about jumping off the desk in an effort to get away.
The others would find me soon. I hoped.
Fishing for a Rat