Author: Erin Klitzke

 The Institute called them their Angelic Legion.  They expected a few hundred children, gifted with talents beyond nature, properly trained, would be able to turn back the forces of hell when the End Times came.  Ky Monroe saw them for what they were years ago–a cult masquerading as something good, something holy, something that would help and not harm.  Matthew Thatcher recognized them for what they were, too–a dangerous organization not above murder and violence to achieve their aims, and together with Ky worked tirelessly to make sure the organization died–and when an explosion ripped through the Institute’s main facility in the midwest years ago, Ky dared believe they might have succeeded.  But when an old friend reappears with a story to tell, Ky realizes exactly how wrong she’s been–and that time is running out to save the people she loves…

When All’s Said and Done is narrated by Kyle Anne Monroe (alias Kyrie Thatcher), a college student who escaped from the Institute as a teenager.  It is the major work planned for the Lost Angels Chronicles, which shares a universe (and many characters) with the UNSETIC Files (and Court of Twelve works like The Man Who Made Monsters, a project I’m working on with L.P. Loudon).

This is another one of those super-long chapters that might be cut into two in edits.

Two

Reece was still up when I got home, curled in the corner of the old blue couch with a book open against her knees. She glanced up at the sound of my entry, tilting her head and glancing at the clock. “Later than usual,” she observed, smothering a yawn.

“Were you waiting up?” I asked her, tossing my keys into the basket on top of the microwave. The evening had grown sticky, humidity promising a late summer storm. From the temperature inside the apartment, she and Marie had closed the windows and turned on the air when the stickiness began to ratchet up, probably a few hours before.

She marked her page and closed her book. “Not really. Just got sucked in, that’s all. Enjoying the last few days I can read and be guilt-free about it.” She grinned at me, but her brow began to furrow the longer she looked at me. “You okay?”

I nodded, starting to put the kettle on for hot water. I needed a mug of something hot, mostly to soothe my nerves and help me calm down enough to sleep. “Yeah, I’m okay.”

“Was it bad?” I’d told her on the phone that Matthew had gotten a call about work. She knew by now what he did, and she’d seen me after I’d helped him through dealing with victims. She didn’t quite know how or why I was so readily able to deal with Matthew—or sometimes the victims themselves—the way I could, but she’d mercifully never asked about it, either. I sometimes thought that was a blessing and a curse all at once.

I took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly, preparing myself to lie to her as I took down a mug from the cupboard. “Kind of,” I said. “Someone who escaped a cult made it to Damon, so he called Matthew. But it wasn’t really that bad. Could’ve been worse.” Could’ve been a lot worse. I finally looked at her. “You want some cocoa or something? I’m putting water on.”

She shook her head a little, still watching me. “You seem like you’re upset about something.”

“I am a little bit.” I never thought that I’d ever see Ridley so…defeated. Broken. Lost. “It’s hard, that’s all. On Matthew and on me.”

“Do you need to talk about it?”

No. Not yet, but maybe soon. I took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly, shaking my head. “No. Thanks, though.”

She nodded. “Okay.” She got up and went to lock the door again as I spooned powdered latte into my mug. She paused for a moment next to me at the counter, brow furrowing. “You sure there’s not more to it than that? You’ve been weird for a couple of days.”

“Have I?” I hadn’t noticed. If I had, I might’ve tried to hide it.

“A little. Distant, distracted. I thought it was maybe you worrying about classes starting up again, but you’re never worried about that. Heck, I realized that when we talked about scheduling in March you were really blasé about this semester. Cakewalk, you said. So I know it’s not that.”

Leave it to Reece to pick up on something like that—and remember what I said six months ago. I exhaled and leaned against the counter, staring sightlessly at the teakettle. “I’ve just had a lot on my mind. Not school stuff.”

“And you’re sure you don’t want to talk?”

I nodded. Not yet, anyway. Not quite yet. “Yeah. Not tonight, at least.”

“You haven’t been having nightmares again, have you?”

I shook my head. I hadn’t had the nightmares in almost two years, but they’d been really bad around the time she and I met and became friends. “No. I haven’t had one in a long time.” My stomach twisted as the teakettle began to whistle. I swung it off the burner and started to fill my cup. Hopefully they’re not going to start up again. Hopefully my imagination isn’t going to run wild, run rampant. I looked at her and forced another smile. “Really, Reece. I’m okay—or I will be. Nothing for you to worry about.” Not yet. Not tonight.

She hesitated before nodding. “Okay.” She was quiet for a moment, then said, “You know, maybe instead of just looking at that old box of cards, you should open it for a change.”

I sucked in a breath, remembering the way my arm tingled earlier when I’d touched the box. I’d shown her the cards once, a long time ago, when she’d seen it sitting on the shelf and asked about it. I hadn’t told her the whole story, just a series of vague half-truths. That someone I loved had given it to me, that I didn’t really know how to read them the right way, and that it was the only piece I had from the person who’d given them to me. It was a keepsake, a memento. “I didn’t know you saw me looking,” I mumbled.

Reece put a hand on my arm, smiling at me gently, her gaze sympathetic and concerned. “It could help, Ky. With whatever’s bothering you.”

I nodded wordlessly. Maybe she was right. Maybe it’ll…maybe it’ll help. Maybe it’ll help me touch him again… The ceramic of the mug was warm against my hand. “Maybe I will.”

She nodded. “Good.” She went and picked up her book and shut off the lights in our living room. “I’m going to go to bed, I think. Marie’s out with Ian. Said she might not come home tonight.”

“Okay. G’night, Reece.”

“Night.” She headed upstairs and left me alone in our kitchen.

I took a slow sip of coffee and glanced toward the window out onto the parking lot in front of the townhouse, toward the lights of the student union beyond it. The campus was still quiet, still a week out from freshman orientation and a week and a half out from the start of classes. Maybe that would be enough time for me to get my head back on straight.

Maybe enough time to find him and make him safe. I exhaled and turned off the kitchen lights, trudging up the stairs to my bedroom. I flipped on the light and sank down on the edge of my bed, staring at nothing for a long moment. I could hear Reece in the bathroom for a few minutes, and then silence. She’d gone to bed, or at the very least flopped into her bunk to read. I took another swallow of coffee and set the cup aside, taking a deep breath and exhaling slowly. My eyes fell on the box. It felt like a long time had passed before I actually picked it up.

My arm tingled all the way up to my elbow as I lifted it, shifting to sit cross-legged on my bed. I settled it in my lap and brushed my fingers across the pentacle carved into the wooden lid, exhaling quietly.

Hadrian. I closed my eyes, resting both hands on the box for a long moment. I took another deep breath and opened the box and my eyes in the same moment. The Knight of Swords stared up at me, face-up on top of the pack. I knew I hadn’t left it like that, the last time I’d opened the box, touched the cards. For a moment, I lost all of my breath as a giant hand wrapped around my heart and squeezed.  The Knight of Swords was Hadrian’s card.

I picked it up. Beneath it was the Queen of Swords—my card—also face up. I shivered. After all this time? Are you reaching? Are you…are you trying again? I bit my lip, then picked up the card.

The Devil stared back at me from the top of the deck, mocking me. The Institute. I sucked in a breath and picked up the card with a shaking hand. The green and white Celtic knotwork pattern on the backs of the cards greeted me. Relief flooded me. I was afraid that I’d see more.

I turned the Devil over and laid it back down, followed by the Queen of Swords, but I held the Knight of Swords for a long moment, staring at it and trying to bring to mind the image of Hadrian’s face. It was harder than it should have been, and that brought tears to my eyes. I stared at the card a little longer, then slowly put it back in the box and lowered the lid. I didn’t put it back on the shelf, though. I tucked it into the corner of my bed, near my pillow. That way, it would be near enough to touch without getting out of bed.

I got up, put on my pajamas, and turned out the lights. My coffee sat forgotten on my desk as I curled in bed with my blankets, still trying to hold the wavering image of Hadrian’s face in my mind. I missed him so much, more than I ever admitted, more than I ever let myself feel.

And yet, I was having trouble remembering his face. That upset me more than I wanted to admit.

Closing my eyes, I tried to sleep and hoped the nightmares I expected wouldn’t come. I drifted somewhere between sleeping and waking before I finally dropped off, and dreamed.

I found myself in a familiar garden, a grotto festooned with flowers and trees surrounding a reflecting pool as bottomless as the limitless starry sky it reflected. It was our dream-garden, the place where Hadrian and I had met in dreams, back before, back when I hadn’t dared sneak into his bed back at the Institute, back in those months and years before I failed to rescue him after my own escape. I hadn’t been here in four years, not since then. Not since I thought he’d died because I stopped being able to reach him.

My heart skipped a beat as I saw a thin, frail figure sitting next to the reflecting pool, his back to me. He looked like some kind of shade, dressed in gray, brown hair unruly but limp at the same time. I took a deep breath. Is this real? Or just a fantasy? I slowly walked toward the figure, crouching down to touch his shoulder.

He turned to face me, and I knew it wasn’t a dream.

A nasty, blackening bruise ringed one eye, his face gaunt and narrow, a few freckles standing out starkly against the paleness of his complexion. There was defeat in his eyes at first glance, defeat that melted like ice under the midsummer sun as he stared at me. His chapped lips parted and he sucked in a breath, shock quickly replacing the hopelessness I’d first seen.

“Ky,” he breathed. His shoulder was thin and boney under my hand, and his fingers were frail and reedy as he grasped my arm. “Are you real? Really real? Did I die?”

My heart cracked in half and I sank down onto my knees, shaking my head. “No, Hadrian. No. You’re alive.”

“But you’re dead,” he whispered, fingers tightening painfully. “They all said so.” He sounded confused, terrified.

Oh, Hadrian. I slowly slid my arms around him. He didn’t resist, just sat there, staring almost blankly, as if he was lost. He was so cold, for a moment I wasn’t sure that he was still alive. It was an agonizing few moments before his arms slid around me and he held on tight.

“We’re not dead?”

“No,” I whispered, threading my fingers through his hair. “No, we’re not dead. Whoever told you that lied. I’m so sorry.”

“Ridley and Laren…they said I had to be dreaming. Letting my wishes run away with my heart and mind. That you’d been dead for years, since you tried to escape. They told us…they told us you’d died then. I didn’t believe them.” He shuddered and clung to me. “Until I did. Until I gave…gave up…” He sucked in a breath as if he were a man drowning, struggling for air. “I couldn’t feel you anymore after…so I finally got to thinking that maybe they were right. Maybe I’d just dreamed it all because I missed you so much and needed to be able to focus my hope on something…”

I pulled back and looked at him, at the tears brimming in bloodshot hazel eyes. I took his face gently in my hands and kissed those tears, then held him for a long moment. He shuddered in my arms and pressed his face against my neck. “I’m going to get you out of there,” I whispered. “Somehow. I promise.”

He shook his head a little. “Don’t even know where I am,” he mumbled into my neck.

“We think we do.” I started to stroke his hair again, wincing at how thin and frail he felt. What had they been doing? Had they just never stopped, even though I was gone and they didn’t need the leverage anymore? Or had they found something else to do to him instead?

“We?” He whispered. “Who’s we?”

“Ridley found his way to me and Timothy’s brother.”

Hadrian stiffened. “He gave in to them, Ky. They broke him.”

“I know,” I murmured. “He told me.” He graduated. I knew what it meant when he said that. “There’s some things that don’t go away, though, and one of those things was Ridley’s sense of right and wrong. He got away, and now he’s told me where I can maybe find you.”

“Hurry,” Hadrian murmured. “Please. I…there isn’t much time, Ky.”

My heart seized up again. “What is it?” Tell me you’re not dying. Tell me I haven’t come this close only to lose you again. Please. 

He shook his head a little, drawing back and staring at me with haunted eyes. “Something’s going to happen,” he whispered, a glimmer of clairvoyant madness slipping into his gaze, lending an edge to his voice. “I can’t…I can’t quite grasp what, but I know. I can feel it, in the pit of my stomach. Something big, something bad. They’re going to do it and you have to stop it.”

I grasped his arms and squeezed. “We have to stop it.”

Hadrian stared at me for a long moment before leaning forward again, pressing his forehead against my shoulder. It was my turn to cling to him, now, as if he’d slip through my fingers and be gone again if I didn’t hold onto him with all of my strength. He shivered, once, and pressed closer.

“So cold,” he murmured. “So tired.” He swallowed hard. “What if they find you, Ky? What if they find you before you can get to me? What if they’re…what if they’re using our connection right now to find you?”

“They don’t have anyone that could do that, Hadrian,” I murmured. At least they didn’t then. Why should now be any different? I’ve never heard of someone with that kind of gift. He just shivered again, not answering me.

“Don’t tell me where you are,” he murmured. “Don’t tell me what you’re planning—not all of it. I…I don’t know how far I can be trusted these days. I don’t know what I’ll say if I’m delirious. Don’t know what I can keep back from them.” He sucked in a breath. “I’m almost an open book, Ky. If they asked someone loyal to them to read me, they’d know everything.”

“Do you think they would?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he said honestly, arms loosely ringing my waist, now, as if he was too tired to wrap them any higher. “Don’t know if they could tell what’s real from what’s a delusion, either. Don’t know that they care that much anymore. They’ve stopped asking me to tell them what I see. Maybe they already know.” He wet his lips, lifting his face to mine again. “Before tonight…before tonight, I’d started hoping that they’d just end me and let me have peace. I thought that whatever was on the other side had to be better than what I was trying to live through.”

Oh, Hadrian. “And now?”

“I have to hang on,” he said simply. “You say you’re coming for me, and I believe you. You’re the only thing I have left to believe.” He reached up, put his cold palms against my cheeks and cradled my face in his hands, his eyes searching mine for something he’d lost—his hope, I guess. “Tell me this is real, Ky. Just one more time. Tell me it’s real and I’m not imagining this.”

I hugged him close again, drawing him tight against my chest, near enough that he could hear my heartbeat. “This is real,” I murmured to him, resting my chin on his head. “This is real and I’m coming for you, one way or another. I’m going to find you and you’ll be safe and we’ll be together, like we always planned. Like we’re supposed to be.”

He swallowed and nodded. “I believe you,” he whispered. “But please hurry.”

We sat there together, in our dreaming place, for a long time. All I could do was hold him and pray. I prayed that I would find him, and that I wouldn’t be too late. I loved him, after all. I owed it to him—needed to keep my promise. I’d promised I’d come back and get him out of there, a promise I’d made before I ran six years ago, before I escaped.

It was a promise I intended to keep. 

♦ ♠ ♦

I woke in the morning to my phone ringing, tears still wet on my face. It was light outside, the sun slowly climbing up into the sky. The ringtone told me it was Matthew and given current circumstances I probably shouldn’t ignore it. I rolled out of bed, grasping for my phone.  I eventually found it just before it kicked to voicemail.

“Morning, Matthew,” I grated, then coughed and cleared my throat. “Sorry.”

“You okay?” His voice sounded concerned, even over the phone. “Kicked to voicemail twice before you picked up.”

“I was asleep.” I sat on the floor against my bed, staring at the open blinds. How I’d managed to sleep with that much light flooding into the bedroom, I wasn’t quite sure. “What’s the matter?”

“I just thought it would be better if you were with me when I went to collect your friend and Damon’s cousin today, that’s all. I found a safehouse for them.” Matthew exhaled. “If you don’t want to come, tell me now, because I’m already driving.”

Weariness dragged me down. I took a deep breath. I couldn’t say no, not to this, even if I’d wanted to. “No, I’ll come. When will you be here?”

“Twenty minutes.”

Enough time for a shower. “All right. If I don’t answer the door when you knock, just wait. Might still be in the shower. I’m getting off the phone now.” Maybe the shower would help ease all the tightness in my limbs, the knots in my back.

“All right. See you shortly.”

We both hung up and I headed for the shower, which helped ease some of the tightness, but didn’t erase it completely.

We’re really connected again. The aching wasn’t mine, it was his—it belonged to Hadrian. Whatever had severed our connections four years before wasn’t keeping us apart anymore. In a way, it was a relief, though I feared the moment that I stopped feeling again. I wasn’t sure what that would mean, but given the skeletal, gaunt vision of him, I was afraid it would mean that I’d lost him forever.

I was scrubbing a towel over my short hair when I heard Matthew knocking on the door. I poked my head out of the bathroom to see Reece heading to answer it. I ducked back into the bathroom to drag a brush through my hair. Their voices drifted up to me.

“Hi Matthew. Ky didn’t tell me you were coming over this morning.”

“She didn’t know until half an hour ago,” Matthew admitted, probably as she let him inside.

“What are you two doing today?” Reece sounded confused. I wondered for half a minute what the hell Matthew was wearing. Either he was in a suit or he wasn’t. I wasn’t quite sure which would have confused her more.

I didn’t catch his response as I tossed my brush into a drawer. “Sorry, sorry,” I said as I came down the stairs.

Matthew was dressed in a pair of khakis and a polo shirt, looking more like he was about to go play golf than about to go move two people to a safehouse. Then again, that was probably safer. At least he wasn’t carrying his gun, which I was pretty sure was out in the trunk of his car. It was never that far away. He smiled at me and nodded.

Reece glanced at me and arched a brow. “You guys don’t look like you’re dressed to go to work.”

I shook my head. “Suits are intimidating.” It was the first thing that came to mind, and apparently it made as much sense to her as it did to me.

“I guess so,” she said, looking between us for a moment. “You going to be home for dinner, Ky? I think Ian was going to cook for us.”

I nodded. “Hopefully. I’ll call by four if I’m not, okay?”

“Sure.” She chewed the inside of her lip for a moment, then glanced at Matthew, then back to me. “Ky, can I talk to you for a minute?”

I looked at Matthew. “I’ll be out in a second, Matthew. Just give me a couple.”

He nodded. “I’ll start the car.”

Reece waited until he was out of the house before she took a deep breath and stared at me. “What’s going on, Ky? I’ve seen you go with him on a case once, but never twice on the same case like this.” She touched my arm. “Are you going for him, or are you going for you?”

I took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly. Do I tell her the truth? “He asked me to come,” I said quietly.

“Why?”

I grimaced, crossing my arms, almost hugging myself and looking toward the sliding glass window and the shared commons behind the townhouse—looking anywhere but at her. How much do I say? “Because I know how to help the victim he’s dealing with.”

“How?”

I’d braced for the question, even though I hadn’t quite formulated how I was going to answer her. I took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly. Bite the bullet, Ky. “Because I used to be like him.”

I still couldn’t look at her, couldn’t bring myself to see what her reaction was to that. The strain in her voice, though, that told me all I needed to know. “Ky…what are you talking about? You used to be just like who?”

“The victim,” I said quietly. “The one Matthew’s going to go move to a safehouse.” I swallowed and finally looked at her, seeing the shock etched on her face. It was a big secret, one I’d kept for a long time, even from my closest friends. “You knew that Matthew took me in after my folks died, but you didn’t know that they died a long time before Matthew found me.”

Reece’s jaw worked for a moment before a sound managed to come out. “A cult had you? You never told me.” She wet her lips. “No wonder you have such a problem with religion.”

I couldn’t help myself—I burst out laughing, so hard I sat down on the floor just shy of our stairs. I covered my face with my hands, laughing helplessly until tears came. Reece dropped to her knees next to me, putting a hand on my shoulder.

“Ky?”

“I’m fine,” I gasped between fits of laughter. “You have no idea, Reece. No idea.” Angelic legions. Battles at the end of time, against the demons of hell that will rise. There will be no Rapture, no saving, only the Legions to hide behind. The Legions will save us, which is why they must be taught. Must be trained. Must listen and believe… The old words echoed through my brain and that helped me regain control of myself. Most of us hadn’t believed in their rhetoric.  We’d laughed about it in private, mostly so we wouldn’t cry. I could see how someone desperate and broken, though, one of us, could come to believe them. The words were hope, twisted as it was, and made us important, gave us a reason for all of our suffering. Yes. I could see how some of us, some of their purported Angels, could break. The thought sobered me and I took a deep breath, wiping my eyes.

“Sorry,” I said as I finished drying my eyes, suddenly feeling hollow in the wake of my laughter. I shook my head a little. “It’s a long story, Reece, and Matthew’s waiting for me.”

“Let me put my shoes on. I’m coming with.”

I blinked at her. Wait, what? “No, Reece.”

“Why not?” She was already getting her shoes. Something told me I was going to lose against her stubbornness, but I had to try.

“Because this isn’t something you really need to be exposed to.” It was a weak answer and I knew it.

She looked at me squarely, tugging her shoes on and grabbing her satchel. “Maybe not, but it’s something I need to understand. You’re my friend. I don’t know why you’ve kept this a secret for so long, but if you’re not going to tell me why, then I can at least witness why.”

I swallowed bile. “Reece, I didn’t tell you because I didn’t—”

Reece just stared at me and shook her head. “You’re not talking me out of it. You need someone to lean on that’s not Matthew and you know it. Something’s been eating you up almost for as long as I’ve known you. Is that what it is? Whatever you went through?”

After a moment’s hesitation, I sighed. “Part of it.” I grabbed my bag and shook my head. “If you’re going to get involved, will you do something for me?”

She blinked, but nodded. “Depends on what it is, but shoot.”

“Don’t press me. Please? If I tell you I don’t want to talk about it, please believe that there’s a good reason for it.”

A few moments passed before she nodded. “All right. I think I can do that.”

I exhaled the breath I was holding. “Thank you.”

She squeezed my arm. “You’re welcome.” She handed me my keys and stepped out onto our tiny concrete porch. I turned to lock up the house. Her question came quietly. “The box, with the Tarot deck in it. You got that while you were inside, didn’t you?”

I paused in twisting the bolt into place, nodding. “Yeah,” I said softly.

“Is he still out there? Alive, I mean. Somewhere.”

I nodded, squeezing my eyes shut for a moment as I finished locking the house. “I think so,” I lied, not wanting to tell her that I knew. I’d told her enough. I wasn’t ready to tell her that, not yet. Though coming with Matthew and I to move Ridley…well. She’d get an education pretty quickly.

Matthew isn’t going to like this. I shoved my keys into the pocket of my jeans. “All right. Let’s go.”

The Institute called them their Angelic Legion.  They expected a few hundred children, gifted with talents beyond nature, properly trained, would be able to turn back the forces of hell when the End Times came.  Ky Monroe saw them for what they were years ago–a cult masquerading as something good, something holy, something that would help and not harm.  Matthew Thatcher recognized them for what they were, too–a dangerous organization not above murder and violence to achieve their aims, and together with Ky worked tirelessly to make sure the organization died–and when an explosion ripped through the Institute’s main facility in the midwest years ago, Ky dared believe they might have succeeded.  But when an old friend reappears with a story to tell, Ky realizes exactly how wrong she’s been–and that time is running out to save the people she loves…

When All’s Said and Done is narrated by Kyle Anne Monroe (alias Kyrie Thatcher), a college student who escaped from the Institute as a teenager.  It is the major work planned for the Lost Angels Chronicles, which shares a universe (and many characters) with the UNSETIC Files (and Court of Twelve works like The Man Who Made Monsters, a project I’m working on with L.P. Loudon).

The chapter that follows is a little long and might actually end up being two chapters in the final draft.  It also overlaps with the ending of What Angels Fear, available where books (paper and electronic) are sold.

  

One

The Institute was supposed to be dead.

It was dead and I believed that as I stacked a last few books on the shelf above my desk, the scent of summer flowers drifting into the bedroom on the wind. I had been trying to shake an ominous feeling pressing down on me in spite of the pleasant surroundings, one that had lingered since that morning. My fingers brushed along the dark wood of the small box resting on the shelf nearest to my bed, nearer to the lower bunk than the unoccupied upper. My hand tingled a little as I touched the box. I drew back from it, exhaling.

That part of my life was over, long over. It was time to move on. I’d decided that this would be the year that I finally let it all go, stopped dwelling on the nightmares every time they came. It was time to stop dwelling on what had happened to me at the Institute, time to let go, but not forget.

Never forget.

I shivered, despite the warm wind blowing in through the window. The floor was hard beneath my bare feet, my toes curling. There was no way I’d ever forget what happened there. There were too many years, too much suffering. It was something you could never really forget.

“Ky?”

I turned and smiled at Reece, one of my two roommates, all traces of what I’d just been thinking about completely banished from my expression. “He here?”

She nodded. “Yeah, he’s waiting downstairs. You going to be out late?”

I shook my head. “I doubt it.” Matthew Thatcher and I rarely were out past ten. He said it was because he got up early to head into the office. I teased him that it was because he was getting old. “He said dinner. I think he wants to talk.”

Reece’s nose wrinkled. “Talk about what?”

I laughed weakly. “Probably school.” Probably what I told him on the phone the other day about moving on. “Probably what I’m going to do in two years after graduation.”

She shook her head. “Is it really that vital?”

“For financial planning, I guess it is.” I raked my fingers through my hair. “Tell him I’ll be down in a minute, okay?”

She nodded and retreated from the bedroom. I turned back toward my desk and stared at the box for a long moment, though I didn’t touch it again. My hand still tingled a little bit. I flexed my fingers, but the feeling didn’t fade, the persistent ghost of memory clinging tight, too tight.

I hadn’t felt something like that in a long, long time. Not since before they’d all died, not since before the Institute burned them all like some kind of offering to the Old Testament’s God. I took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly, letting the smell of the summer blooms fill my nostrils.

It was the end of August and for the fifth time in my twenty-one years, my life was about to change forever.

♦ ♠ ♦

“You sure you’re not upset with me now, Ky?”

I blinked at Matthew across the table and shook my head, continuing to move pasta around on my plate. I was full, didn’t want to eat any more, but I was making a show of trying. “No,” I said quietly and set down my fork. “I’m not. Are you upset with me?”

The FBI agent across the table from me took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly, shaking his head. “I’m just frustrated. You and I are the only people on the outside that have any idea of what they did and we can’t do a damned thing. We can’t even find them anymore.”

I shook my head again and sighed softly. “I don’t even know that they still exist. I don’t see how they could have vanished so completely and still be active.” I put my hands in my lap and stared at the remains of my dinner. “It’s time, Matthew. It’s been four years. If they were going to move against us, they’d have moved by now. If they still existed, I’m sure they’d have started doing things again, especially if they really think I’m dead.” I looked up at him, brow furrowing slightly. “Or is there something you’ve been keeping from me? Something you’re not telling me?”

“No, there isn’t anything. Nothing’s come up since then. Other things, but nothing Institute.” He shook his head again, a brief flicker of pain crossing through his eyes. “But you’re right. It’s time.”

Damn right. I can’t keep living with that spectre hanging over me anymore. It’s time to stop worrying so much and start living. I reached across the table and squeezed his arm. I hated to hurt him, but I needed to do what was right for me. “Thanks for understanding, Matthew.”

He smiled weakly. “What’s family for? You’re still family, Ky. Whatever you decide.”

My fingers tightened on his arm. “I’m still going to tell our story. I promise. I just…Matthew, no one’s going to believe me. Not without some kind of credentials to back me up, failing having evidence to back me up. You saw what happened four years ago. I’m just some crazy person ranting that this really influential charity and research organization is some kind of cult. You’re the only one who believed me, and that’s because you already knew I was right.”

“Well, if you’re right and they’re gone…” Matthew’s voice trailed away and he sighed quietly. I knew what he was getting at. No one would pay for what had happened to his brother, to his parents, to all of the others that had just disappeared into the clutches of the Institute and were never seen or heard from again. We’d never know. No one would ever know what had really happened, how many they’d stolen, how many they’d killed.

His phone rang and he muttered a curse under his breath. I smiled and shook my head, gesturing for him to answer it and leaning back in my chair. He mouthed the words “I’m sorry,” and got up from the table, easing over to a quiet corner of the restaurant to take the call.

I shook my head a little and looked back to my fettuccini. I’d expected him to be upset about my decision, but instead he just seemed sad—a little hurt, but mostly just sad. I couldn’t blame him. They’d killed his brother and my walking away from the effort to figure out what the Institute was doing these days probably felt like losing Timothy all over again.

Matthew came back to the table a few moments later, brow furrowed. I frowned.

“What’s wrong? Was it work?”

“Kind of,” he said, waving a hand to try to get our waitress’s attention.

I lofted a brow at that. “Kind of?” How can it be ‘kind of’ work? Either it is or it isn’t.

He nodded, fishing his wallet out of a pocket and handing a credit card to the waitress for our bill. “It was Damon. Said he had someone at his place I needed to talk to.”

“Talk to about what?” Damon was Matthew’s longtime friend, back from when they were kids. We’d met a few times, though always in passing. Just like the rest of the world, he thought that I was Matthew’s orphaned cousin, Ky Thatcher. It might as well have been true. No one had seen Kyle Anne Monroe in more than a decade.

“He didn’t say. Just that his cousin was there with someone and they both needed to talk to me.” Matthew took a long swallow from what was left of his drink. “Said that I was the only one that came to mind.”

Matthew’s specialty was dealing with cults and domestic terrorism, and had been for almost as long as I’d known him—six years, since I’d escaped the Institute myself and lost his brother in the attempt. Dealing with cults, especially their victims, always went hard on him. I hadn’t really noticed it until I’d screwed my head back on straight and grew up, pushed beyond all of my teenage crap. That’d been three years ago. I took a deep breath.

“Do you want me to come?”

He hesitated for a moment, the nodded. “Yeah. Something tells me this doesn’t have to do with domestic terrorism.”

I smiled weakly. “Y’think?”

He choked on a laugh and shook his head, nodding in thanks to the waitress that brought back his card and a receipt for him to sign. He handed the signed slip back to her and put his card away, standing up. I stood with him, raking my fingers back through my hair.

“You going to be okay?” I asked him.

He nodded. “Yeah, I think so. But we’re not going to know for sure until I see what we’re dealing with.”

“Damon didn’t tell you anything?”

“Not much.” Matthew took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly as we wandered out into the deepening twilight, toward the car. “But he’s not exactly comfortable with what I deal with, either. Never has been.”

“Matthew, no offense, but who would be?” I slid into the car’s passenger seat and stared at him as he got in and started the engine.

“You are.”

“That’s because I was a victim and I haven’t seen one of your investigations yet where they tortured people the same way.” I stared out the window as he pulled out onto the street. I hope I never do. I can’t imagine having two places like that in the world. That would mean that something’s seriously out of joint with the human race.

Matthew just nodded. “He lives downtown. Twenty minutes, tops.”

I stretched and turned on the radio, closing my eyes.

A figure made of pale shadows drifted down a long hallway, one hand trailing along the wall. There was no sound, nothing, just a crushing weariness coupled with pain, unrelenting, omnipresent pain. Everything hurt. There was nothing that didn’t except for numb fingers and toes.

The radio played one of the darker, moodier tunes currently topping the pop alternative charts. Matthew mumbled a curse under his breath at the traffic on I-196 heading into the city. I righted myself in my seat and frowned a little, trying to shake the sudden feeling of cold and tiredness that gripped me. I flexed my fingers, rubbing them firmly until the feeling came back to them, pins and needles heralding their waking up again.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, rubbing my eyes. Had I slept? I tried to make sense of where we were. I couldn’t have slept. We weren’t that much further up the highway than we were when we’d gotten on it. Up by the old burial mounds near the river, if I was guessing right. That was probably why I was feeling cold.

Some places just have power to them, whether they’re Indian burial grounds or churches dating back to the fall of Rome.

“Traffic,” he grumbled. “People don’t know how to drive.”

I tried not to laugh, but I couldn’t smother a smile. “Calm down. We’ll get there. It’s not a matter of life and death, is it?”

“Damon didn’t make it sound like it was, but I told him we’d be there in about half an hour.”

“And we’re not going to make that.”

“Maybe more like twice that long if people don’t figure this out,” Matthew growled.

I reached over and patted his knee. “Settle down. We’ll get there when we get there. Do you want me to call him?”

He shook his head, seeming to settle down a little. “No, you’re right. We’ll get there when we get there. Whatever it is will just have to keep until we do.”

I nodded and leaned back again, watching the dying light of day against the trees. There would still be light left by the time we got to Damon’s, maybe, but certainly not by the time I got home.

So much for not being out that late. I’d call Reece and Marie when we made it to Damon’s. I had my keys. They could lock up for the night.

♦ ♠ ♦

Damon’s apartment was in the recently rehabbed Division corridor, set above an old furniture store that he’d had converted into a clinic well before I’d met him. He was one of those young doctors out to save the world, still idealistic enough to think that it was possible, but worldly enough to know that the best he could do was help a fragment of those in need in a corner of Michigan’s second largest city. He’d been Matthew’s closest friend since they were kids growing up outside of Detroit.

We jogged up the stairs to the building’s second floor and Damon’s apartment. Matthew rapped on the door and I leaned against the wall, staring at the stairs at the far end of the hallway. There were a few other tenants in the building, but Damon had the largest apartment, save for the two-storey loft upstairs on the fourth and fifth floors. Damon’s voice came muffled from the other side of the door and a moment later he poked his head out, smiling at Matthew and I.

“Sorry we’re late,” Matthew said. “We were out and traffic was murder.”

Damon nodded, smiling a little. “I’m just glad you could make it tonight.” He peered past Matthew to me. “Oh, hey, Ky.”

I smiled back. “Hi, Damon.”

He let us inside and gestured for us to join him in his living room. A blanket-shrouded form was curled up on the couch, apparently asleep, and a woman maybe a year or two older than me was slumped in one of his armchairs, also wrapped in a blanket. She was blinking sleepily as we entered, and something tugged at the back of my brain.

She looks familiar. It wasn’t the sort of familiarity that stirred panic in the pit of my stomach, though, so I knew it had to be something from after the escape category rather than the Institute or before the Institute.

There weren’t many people I recognized from before the Institute. I’d just been too young.

Damon gestured toward the woman as she sat up fully in the chair and rubbed her eyes. “This is my cousin Julia. Not sure if you remember her, Matthew.”

“Vaguely,” Matthew said. He smiled at Julia, who smiled weakly back. “It’s nice to see you again, Julia.”

She nodded a little, then her gaze flicked to me. Her brow furrowed.

Matthew slid an arm around my shoulders and drew me forward. “This is my cousin, Ky.”

Julia stared at me for another long moment before she nodded, almost to herself. “I know you,” she said softly.

I nodded a little. “I know you, too, but I can’t quite remember where from.”

“We worked together.”

Oh. That camp job. I hadn’t lasted long that summer. I’d started the job in May and been utterly spent by the end of June. I hadn’t been ready for it. “That’s right,” I said quietly and shook my head. “I’m sorry. That was a bad time for me.”

She nodded a little and smiled. “We all have our moments.” She got up from the chair, abandoning her blanket, and moved over to the couch. Seating herself on the edge, she leaned over the figure asleep there, who startled slightly and started to roll over, apparently awake now. I glimpsed a bandage-swathed arm and frowned, glancing toward Damon and Matthew.

Matthew must have seen it, too, because he was frowning. He glanced toward Damon, arching a brow. Damon shook his head a little.

“They really need to talk to you, man.”

Julia smiled weakly up at Matthew. “Hopefully, you can help us. Damon said you might be able to.” She helped the figure on the couch sit up.

His unruly dark red hair stuck up in a dozen different directions, a mop of soft spikes over a narrow but not unhandsome face that framed haunted, sunken green eyes. My heart seized up.

“You’re supposed to be dead,” the man on the couch and I said in the same breath.

Ridley. I shook myself. I slowly sank down into the chair Julia had abandoned, feeling myself start to shake. If Ridley was alive, did that mean he was, too? “I thought you all died. All been killed.” Sacrificed by the Institute as if it would appease an angry god. As if they didn’t know it was what they did, not what I did, that brought wrath down on them. The fault was theirs, not mine.

“No,” Ridley whispered hoarsely, leaning against Julia. She slid her arm around him, almost protectively. He was pale, shaking all over. “But I wish I was, now. Jesus pancake flipping zombie Christ on a pogo stick.” His chest heaved for a moment, as if he was choking on a sob, then he leaned forward, burying his face in his hands. “Hadrian,” he moaned. “Forgive me. Oh, god, Hadrian, forgive me.”

I couldn’t breathe. What happened? Oh, god, what happened? Is he dead? Is he? Did I…is he gone forever? “Ridley?” I knew what I sounded like—I sounded like a scared little girl all over again, terror and fear of heartbreaking loss washing over me again for the first time in four years.

Matthew came up behind me and put his hands on my shoulders. I realized I was shaking, then. I swallowed hard, tasting bile in the back of my throat. My stomach twisted. Please. Please let him still be alive. Please. I leaned forward a little, trying not to sound desperate and knowing that I’d fail. “Ridley, is he alive?”

Ridley nodded, lifting his head a little as Julia’s arm tightened around him. “Four months ago, at least, when they cut me loose.”

My stomach twisted again, harder this time, starting to knot up. They don’t let anyone go. Not ever. “They let you go?” No one leaves that place alive unless they’re just being sent to another facility.

“Not really.” He winced. “Kind of. I ‘graduated.’ They…sent me to someone. To watch me. To wait. They were finished with me until the end, until they were ready to use me.”

The end. I wanted to throw up. My hands curled into fists, nails digging into the flesh of my palms. Matthew’s hands tightened on my shoulders. I squeezed my eyes shut. Ridley kept talking, voice haunted, broken.

“That’s how I got out of there. Then Julia got me away.”

I opened my eyes, looking at Julia for a long moment. She bit her lip, her eyes on Ridley, not on me or Matthew or her cousin.

Ridley took a deep breath, seeming to steady himself for a moment, then said quietly, “They told us you were dead.”

I guess that Matthew and I really fooled them, then. I shook my head, swallowing hard again, willing my stomach to settle itself, to stop trying to rebel against me. But to tell them that, all it did was make sure that I never tried to rescue them again. To make them think that there wasn’t any hope for them anymore. To break them. “They didn’t want any of you to have any hope,” I said, hands tightening into fists again. “Damn it all.”

“I’m sorry, Ky,” Ridley whispered, leaning into Julia, his shakes starting to finally ease. “I’m so sorry.” He was, too. The pain in his eyes was deeper than any pain I’d ever seen from him, and he’d always had nearly as much reason to hurt as I had. He’d lost his parents, too, when he was a kid only to have the Institute sink its claws into him within months of that loss. So much for child welfare systems in the Midwest, since the same thing had happened to me. Ridley started to shake again as he stared at me. It was as if he needed me to be angry at him. I couldn’t summon the strength for that. It wasn’t his fault.

“Oh, Ridley,” I sighed. “No. Don’t be sorry. Please, don’t be sorry.” I looked him over again, staring for a long moment at his right arm, bandaged almost from wrist to elbow. “What happened to your arm?” Did they do that to him? What did they do?

He shook his head a little. “They microchipped me, Ky.” Anger crept into his voice, and for a moment, it was like I was with the old Ridley again, the burning outrage that had coupled with Timothy’s purposeful determination, Hadrian’s quiet but fading strength, Ally’s cheerful, directed mischief and my desperate hope. “Like a fucking animal. They microchipped me so they could find me if I ran. I dug it out, threw it out the car window.”

The full impact of the words hit me. They needed to track him in case they needed him. The Institute was still out there, and it could be close. They were still pushing on, toward their ultimate goal. I found myself almost breathless for a moment. “Where?”

Julia opened her mouth to answer, but Ridley spoke before she could. “The only installation I know about is outside of Andover Commonwealth. He might still be there. I don’t know.”

Of course he’d known that I wasn’t asking about the microchip, where he’d thrown it from the car. That didn’t matter. Where the Institute currently laired, that’s what was important. What if he’s still there? I have to find him. I have to get him out. I can’t break my promise again. I just can’t.

Had I somehow known? Was that why I kept being drawn back to the deck, the battered set of cards that were the only possession Hadrian managed to hang onto over the years the Institute had us, the Tarot deck he’d pressed into my hands before the awful events of that night that left Timothy dead and me alone on the outside.

“I need a map,” I said.

Matthew startled, looking down at me with wide eyes. “You can’t be serious.”

I have to find him. I don’t have any time to waste. I have to find him. I have to know. Four years…I wasted four years when I should have been looking for him. “I thought he was dead, Matthew! Get me a damn map. You want to take them down as much as I do.” It was true. They’d killed his brother and they were still out there, even when we’d thought they were gone, or gone so deep underground they were never going to come back up again. Something. They were still out there.

He let go with a wince and headed for the door. I took a deep, shaky breath and exhaled it slowly.

Julia slid her other arm around Ridley, hugging him almost protectively against her chest. His eyes never left me, though. He wet his lips.

“He wasn’t good the last time I saw him, Ky.”

I laughed a bitter, weak laugh, thinking of that last moment I’d seen Hadrian, his hollow eyes, face and body almost all planes and angles, hazel eyes full of pain and weariness. “He hasn’t been good for ten years, Ridley. But you’re telling me he even might be alive and that means everything to me. Everything.” Hadrian loved me, the first and only person to love me in the dark years after my parents had died, the years before I escaped back to the real world, and I loved him back, loved him enough that I’d never quite been able to forgive myself for not saving him, something I’d never be able to forgive myself for entirely ever.

Matthew returned with a map from the car, spread it out on the coffee table. Julia glanced toward Damon. “Get me a pencil?” She asked.

Damon nodded, glancing toward Matthew for a moment, then retreated to the kitchen. Matthew sighed and looked down at me.

“What’re you planning to do once they tell you, Ky?”

Find Hadrian and somehow make him safe from them. Bring him back to me. “I haven’t thought that far ahead. But it’s a place for both of us to start from.” This was the break he’d need for a case that he’d been working since he was young, one he’d never quite closed. He’d always believed that the Institute had engineered the death of his parents, just like we were both pretty sure they’d found a way to kill mine. They had a lot to answer for, in Matthew’s mind, maybe more to him than to me.

Damon brought a pencil and gave it to Julia, who let go of Ridley to bend over the map, eyes searching the southwestern quadrant of the state. “The village is pretty creepy,” she said as she hunted along the I-94 corridor. “Thought so since I was a kid. Everything Ridley’s told me kind of makes the general creepiness make more sense. I think they’ve been in the area for a long time.”

One of their long-term facilities, then. I wonder how long they’ve kept people like Ridley and I there.  Probably not many for very long, I decided. We’d always assumed there were other facilities, we’d just never really known where, or how many. It was like a rigged game of cups, where the ball kept getting moved over and over again, impossible to track.

I have to get to him before they move him. I looked at Ridley. “What are the internal defenses like?”

He winced a little. “Not sure if they’re one-way, but someone like you or me can’t get through the exterior walls without someone opening a gap for us. Doesn’t matter for most, but enough…” his voice trailed away. “You’re thinking about going in there.”

Damn straight. “I can’t let him stay there, Ridley.  I only stopped trying to find him because I thought he was dead, just like I thought all the rest of you were gone, when they blew the place. I haven’t been able to touch him since then.” Since the explosion in Ohio, since I thought that everyone inside had been killed. I’d tried to find him, questing with my heart and my mind the way I’d learned over the years, the way we’d learned over the years. But there had been nothing. No dreams, no feelings. Just endless emptiness. After months of nothing, I finally gave up, accepting that he really must have been gone.

“This is where it should be.” Julia had marked a point on the map and tapped it lightly with the eraser. I reached for the map, flipped it around.

Just off the I-94 corridor. Only a couple hours from here. I exhaled, suppressing a shiver. He’s so close, if he’s there. How could I…but no. Because I stopped looking. I stopped looking. “That’s not so far,” I breathed.

Julia shook her head slightly. “They think we headed south, I hope. The one who had Ridley came after us.”

I shuddered a little as my heart froze for half a beat before starting again. “I’m not surprised.” They need to be protected somehow. I looked up at Matthew. “Is there anything you can do?” They’ll be looking for them both. Someone’s got to help them disappear, at least for now.

He frowned a little. “Not tonight, but in the morning, maybe. Are you two staying here tonight?”

Julia nodded. “We really don’t have anywhere else to go.” She glanced toward Damon. “I really don’t think he’s going to make us sleep in my car. At least I hope not.”

Damon shook his head. “You can stay here as long as you need to.”

Julia smiled. “Thanks, Damon.”

He just nodded, then went to the kitchen and dragged two chairs out into the living room. Matthew appropriated one, spinning it and sinking down in it, arms and chin resting along the top rail. I watched him for a long moment, trying to figure out what he was thinking. I didn’t always know, though most of the time I could figure it out. I looked back at Ridley, who seemed to be pulling himself back together again.

His lips thinned to a line as he looked between Julia and I. “You’re going to go after him, aren’t you, Ky?”

Yes. “If it’s possible for me to, yeah, I am. I’m not going to break my promise again.”

His breath caught. Julia put her arm around him again. “Then you really did try to get to us. You’ve been alive and looking and trying to get to us all this time.”

I nodded slowly. I tried and failed. I was a kid with delusions of grandeur. I wonder how close I was, really. It was too insane to work.

Ridley closed his eyes and shook his head. “I hope you can get to him before they move him or do something stupid,” he murmured. “I owe him a huge apology.”

I reached across the coffee table and squeezed his fingers. They twitched a little in my grip and he looked up at me. I forced a smile. “You’ll get the chance, Rid.”

He nodded a little and offered me a watery smile. He squeezed my hand. “I wish I could help you. But I’m…I’m scared, Ky.”

So am I. But I’ve had more time to learn to handle that fear. “It’s all right,” I said softly. “Matthew’ll find a way to make you safe. Once you’re out, and free, there’s no going back. They don’t own you anymore.”

“They still do,” he murmured. “But not for much longer.” He took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly, releasing my hand and leaning back into Julia, looking exhausted. “There’s so much to tell you, Ky,” he said.

“We’ll have plenty of time, Ridley. I promise.” After you’ve slept. After Matthew finds a way to hide you from them. After I’ve found Hadrian again. I glanced at Matthew, who was just quietly watching us. I swallowed. “…you’re sure you can do something?”

He nodded slightly. “To make sure no one gets to them? Yeah. I just have to figure out what it’s going to be.” The look in his eyes told me that he’d already figured it out, but it wasn’t going to be a pleasant option. I exhaled silently and nodded back.

As long as they’re safe, I’m not sure anyone’s going to complain that much.

“Does it ever stop hurting, Ky?” Ridley’s voice was small. It took me a moment to figure out what he was talking about.

Using my abilities, after I’d escaped the Institute, had hurt for a long time. As all the drugs and everything they’d ever pumped into me started to clear my system, the pain got worse, then eventually went away as I got used to doing things in a normal way again—or at least as “normal” as our abilities rendered us. It had taken a few months, but the pain had passed and I’d felt good again. I looked back at Ridley and nodded. “It’ll stop,” I murmured. “It just takes time.”

He nodded a little and pressed himself into Julia’s embrace. My throat tightened for a moment.

You’ll have that again, Ky, I told myself. Once you find him again. You’ll have him, the way things were supposed to be.

I looked at Matthew again. “Matthew? Think that maybe you could do your special agent thing tomorrow? The interviews and everything?”

He blinked at me, then nodded. “Yeah. I think I can do that.”

I glanced back toward Julia and Ridley. “Would that be okay?”

Julia nodded a little. “Yeah, probably better,” she said. “We’re both pretty wiped out. It’s been a really long day.”

I nodded and stood up. To my surprise, Ridley stood up, too, and took a tentative step toward me. I smiled at him and he hugged me, thin arms tightening almost painfully around my shoulders. I hugged him back for a long moment, feeling him shudder as he choked back a sob.

“When you find him, remember that none of this is your fault,” he murmured in my ear, arms tightening before he released me and sank back down onto the couch with Julia.

I blinked at him a little bit and nodded. “I won’t forget that, Rid. I promise.” Why is he saying that? I shivered a little. Matthew had gotten up from his chair and was saying good-bye to Damon.

We left a few minutes later. I puzzled over what Ridley had said most of the way home, then finally let it go. It would either make sense, or it wouldn’t. I was almost afraid it would start to make sense, because the possibilities that held terrified me.

What was I going to see when I found Hadrian again?

Thank for reading!  I hope you enjoyed it.