Sunlight was streaming in through the blinds when her phone startled her awake from a dead sleep. Ky groaned, groping for it, head aching and eyes gritty. Nightmares had swallowed her whole as soon as her head hit the pillow the night before, probably born of a combination of fear and remembered trauma after spilling her guts to Reece.
She’d never told anyone about it all like she’d told her friend and roommate that night. Not only had she never dared for fear that it would somehow put someone in danger, she’d known deep down that she wasn’t ready to relive it all in the telling. The ache was still there, the pain was still there, the barrier between it and the rest of her paper-thin. Now that Reece knew, though, the burden felt a little lighter—at least the pain felt a little less. Knowing that her friend could be in danger was a whole different story.
Then again, she thought as she fumbled to answer her phone, bleary-eyed and barely awake, just knowing me and being in proximity was going to put her in danger anyway. Nothing’s changed except now she knows that there really are bad guys out there doing bad things and they’re hard as hell to stop.
“Hi.”
“Ky?” It was Matthew’s voice. He sounded worried and for a second she couldn’t figure out why. “You okay?”
“I just woke up,” she said, rubbing her eyes and rolling onto her back. “What’s wrong? You sound weird.”
“Right back at you,” he said, a trace of wry humor infecting his tone. “It’s almost eleven. Your phone went to voicemail twice before you picked up.”
“Oh,” she said, frowning at the bunk above her. “I must not have heard it. I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right. You don’t scare the shit out of me that often anyway.” He sighed into the phone. “I was going to go talk to them and found a safehouse. Thought you might want to come with me for all of it.”
“And talk about what we’re going to do with that map?”
He hesitated. A chill shot through her.
“Matthew. We have to do something.”
“We don’t have the evidence to move in on them yet,” he said. She could almost taste the bitterness in his tone. “We just have a location.”
“Ridley’s story isn’t enough?”
“Was yours?”
It stung, but it was the truth. Her story on its own hadn’t been enough to get anyone moving with any sort of alacrity and odds were good that Ridley’s wouldn’t be, either—assuming he was able to give a solid statement in the first place.
“So we know where they might be but we can’t do anything,” she said. “We just have to sit on our hands and wait.”
“Ky—”
“Matthew, I get it. I just don’t like it.” She rubbed at her eyes, wincing at the sting. “Are you on your way?”
“Fifteen minutes.”
“Okay. I’m going to take a shower. I’ll see you when you get here.” She didn’t give him time to answer, just hung up the phone and tossed it toward the foot of the bed and pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes.
There has to be something we can do that’s not just sitting on our hands waiting to lose them all over again. They’ve got to know that they’ve lost track of Ridley. How are they going to react to that? They’ll run. They always run, find a new hole to hide in before they’re caught, before anyone can do anything. They’ll just fade away again and it’ll take us another four years to find them—unless they’re able to put their plans in motion before that.
The idea sent a fresh shiver down her spine. Their plan hadn’t changed. The idea of it was terrifying. The Institute had always planned to use their so-called Angels—the stolen children, the kids with gifts that they tortured in the name of training them for their roles—to defend them against whatever horrors they believed would come when the End Times came. Somewhere along the way, things had tilted ever-so-slightly, as it seemed the Institute’s leadership had slowly come to realize and believe that the End Times wouldn’t come in their lifetimes without help.
So that had become the new plan. Train the Angels to defend them, but also to help them do what they believed was necessary and right.
Their swords and their shields—their tools to ensure not only their survival when the End Times began, but to choose the day and time of their coming.
No one was ever going to be able to convince her that the people who ran the Institute and the people who believed the teachings of the Agapeistic Center for Religious Studies were anything other than some kind of insane doomsday cult. They were just a terrifying offshoot of some branch of evangelistic Christianity that even she couldn’t trace, not that she really wanted to.
They were more dangerous than anything she’d ever heard of and the fact that they’d been so successful in covering their tracks was even more terrifying than anything they’d ever done to her or anyone else.
It was hard not to linger in the shower. Something had started to ache in her that even the hottest shower wasn’t going to soothe but that didn’t ease the temptation to try. She was toweling her hair when she heard the familiar staccato of his knock on the front door downstairs and muttered a curse under her breath.
Reece’s voice drifted up from below as she answered the door. “Hi Matthew. Does Ky know you were coming?”
She threw the towel over the bar and stumbled out of the bathroom and down the stairs, straightening hair and clothes as she went. “Sorry, sorry. I lost track of time.”
They both looked at her, Matthew from where he stood in the doorway and Reece from where she stood on the mat in front of it. Reece’s brows went up. “Was that you in the shower? I thought it was Ian.”
“I didn’t even realize Ian was here,” Ky said, raking her fingers through her wet hair again as she finished coming down the stairs and headed for the rug where their shoes were lined up in two neat rows. “Was he here last night?”
“I don’t know when they actually got in. It was after I was asleep.”
That would make two of us. Ky shook her head and exhaled. “I’ll have to tell them, too.”
“Not until you’re ready,” Reece said, watching her as she pulled on her sandals. “Where are you guys going?”
“What are you two talking about?” Matthew interjected, his gaze bouncing between the pair. “What did you tell her, Ky?”
“Things you already knew.” Ky straightened, squaring her body to face him. “If the Institute isn’t gone like we thought it was, they’re going to be in danger whether they know anything or not just because they’re in proximity to me. We both know it. So last night I told Reece.”
“I asked her what was wrong,” Reece said quickly. “And I’m glad that I know now because there’s a lot of stuff that suddenly makes a whole hell of a lot more sense. So where are you two going?”
Of course she would have figured out that they were going somewhere, even though Matthew was dressed much more like he was about to go play golf in a polo shirt and khakis rather than a suit. He had a familiar look on his face that suggested that whatever he was about, it wasn’t going to be anything fun, though he looked like he was unarmed. His weapon and holster were probably locked in the trunk of his car. Reece had known him long enough—thanks to her friendship with Ky—to be able to recognize that look on his face without it, though. Today was work, not a social call.
Matthew just looked askance at Ky. She sighed and glanced at Reece. “I asked him to delay doing the special agent thing with Ridley and his friend last night. It seemed like they’d been through enough for one day. They needed to breathe and feel safe for five minutes.”
“So that’s where you’re going? To go talk to them?”
I nodded, crossing to grab my keys from the basket by the door and grab my bag from the peg behind it. “Yeah. Matthew needs to get statements and shit.”
“Cool. I’m coming with you.” She moved for her shoes.
“The hell you are,” Matthew said, his brows shooting up. “This isn’t—Reece.”
The look she shot him was open, innocent, but also brooked zero argument on the matter. “Someone is going to need moral support especially in light of how hard their world just got rocked because of what happened last night. You will be busy. I can be there.”
He shot a look at Ky, gaze pleading for help, but she just shook her head slightly.
“I’m not going to stop her,” Ky said quietly. “Let’s be honest, even if I’m mostly okay, Julia might need someone. Damon might need someone. You and I know too much. Reece will have a bit of an outside perspective that could be a comfort. She knows enough to know this is some serious shit.”
For a second, it looked like he might argue, but he looked between the two women for a second, then just nodded and turned. “Fine. Let’s get going.”
The two exchanged a look of their own. Reece reached to squeeze Ky’s shoulder, smiling reassuringly. Ky managed to smile back, though her heart felt heavy.
It still felt like they were miles away from being able to do anything more than help one person at a time. There were a lot more than that who needed it and not for the first time, she was worried that by the time they could try to help more, it would be too late.
