Unraveling Darkness Page 10

  “That sounds like a plan,” Alex said. “I’ll give you a hand.” He looked to me. “You want to come, Darcy?”

  I did, but leaving Sarah alone worried me. I shrugged. “Nah, I’d better stay here.”

  My aunt knew me too well. “I’m sure I’ll be fine for ten minutes, Darcy. I don’t need to be supervised.” Trouble was, that was exactly what I thought she needed, and I hadn’t had the chance to tell Isaac that she didn’t trust any of them yet. I suspected he was smart enough to see it in her, but my concerns about her yelling for help, or trying to get the attention of a mall cop or security were valid.

  I offered her my most winning smile. “I’d rather stay here with you.”

  Her eyes narrowed just a fraction behind her glasses, perhaps not enough for the others to notice, but she and I knew each other too well, and we both knew exactly what the other one was thinking.

  CLAY AND ALEX RETURNED with seven hot sandwiches wrapped in greasy paper. The smell made my stomach rumble. Bacon, egg, cheese, and sausage. There wasn’t a single vegetable in sight, and as I took my first massive bite, the grease dripped from my lips, and, self-consciously, I wiped it from my chin, knowing it would make my skin shiny. The coffee was strong and sweet, and though I’d only had a few hours’ sleep, I was starting to feel more alert.

  Where was Hollan now? I imagined how pissed he’d have been when he found our two vehicles abandoned in the tunnel. He’d figure out what had happened quickly enough, but would that mean he’d give up searching for us for the day? He’d have access to traffic cameras and perhaps would have been able to track the car we stole to the point where we’d gotten the cabs, and then to here. Though it might take him some time to access all the information. By the time he’d gotten hold of it, I hoped we’d be long gone. I was aware that while Hollan wanted to find us, we also needed to find him. He still had the memory stick, and without that, the code was completely useless. But he’d had the huge advantage of a helicopter today, and I knew it wasn’t the right time. It’s not as though we’d been able to start shooting at the aircraft. We needed to try again, though I didn’t know how or when.

  The guys all wolfed down their food, licking fingers and giving groans of satisfaction. “I could have eaten ten of them,” Kingsley said.

  Sarah handed him her still wrapped sandwich. “Here, have mine.”

  I frowned. “You have to eat, Aunt Sarah.”

  “Really, I’m not hungry.”

  I widened my eyes at Kingsley to try to tell him not to take the sandwich, but he ignored me and plucked the food out of her fingers. Within less than a minute, the second sandwich had vanished. I guessed with Kingsley’s size, he must need twice as many calories as a regular person.

  The mall had gotten busier as we’d sat outside eating, people shopping and chatting with friends. We looked like a group of people just hanging out, but I noticed how alert each of the men were, even while they’d been demolishing their breakfast, and I knew their firearms were close to hand should anything look suspicious.

  A large black van pulled up outside the front of the mall.

  I stiffened, sitting up straighter, my pulse racing. I glanced over to the men to gage their reaction, though they’d all noticed the van’s arrival, none of them appeared worried.

  Isaac got to his feet. “I think our ride is here.”

  I allowed myself to relax a fraction. If Isaac thought it was safe, then it most likely was.

  A man, who appeared to be in his late thirties, jumped out of the driver’s side. He gave a nod to Alex then opened the side of the van. The large door slid out and then across, revealing rows of seats inside, clearly intended for moving larger numbers of people.

  My aunt picked up her bag, and I was amazed she’d managed to keep hold of it through all the drama. “This isn’t making me feel any better about things, Darcy,” she hissed at me as the guys all headed toward the vehicle.

  “You’re safe, I promise,” I tried to reassure her, though my promises felt empty. There was no way I could actually guarantee her safety.

  “I’m going along with this because I love you,” she replied. “No other reason.”

  I gave a half smile, one that covered the sadness that rose inexplicably in my chest. “I know. Thank you. I hope you’ll be able to look back and see that everything we did was for the right reasons.”

  “I hope so, too, Darcy.”

  I reached out and gave her hand a squeeze.

  We piled into the van, with Alex going first and then putting out a hand to help Sarah up, which she took begrudgingly. I followed her in, and then came Kingsley, followed by Clay and Lorcan, who appeared to be holding his injured shoulder again, and then Isaac.

  The driver slid the door shut and climbed back behind the wheel. He hadn’t said much to us so far, and I wondered if Isaac and the others knew him at all.

  There were no windows along the side of the van, only the windshield allowing any light in. It meant we weren’t able to see out, but also meant no one else knew the vehicle contained people rather than building supplies or some other transit material. I was relieved to be leaving the city behind, especially now that we had my aunt safely with us, though I knew this wouldn’t be the end of our ordeal. Hollan wasn’t going to just give up, and neither would Isaac and the guys.

  For that matter, neither would I.

  I sat with Kingsley’s big shoulder wedged up against mine, but, instead of squashed, having him next to me made me feel comforted, protected. That, combined with the low light in the back of the van, and the distinct lack of sleep I’d been getting recently, caused my mind to drift.

  Chapter Twelve

  My eyes flickered open, and I realized I’d been sound asleep with my head on Kingsley’s shoulder. I quickly wiped at the side of my mouth, hoping I hadn’t drooled all over him while I’d been sleeping. My hand came away dry, and I allowed the flutter of panic to die away inside me. That could have been embarrassing.

  “Hey.” He glanced down at me with fondness in his deep brown eyes. “You’re awake, so I can move now.” He rolled his shoulders, the muscles in his neck rippling as he did so.

  “Sorry. You should have woken me.”

  He gave a chuckle. “I’m only teasing. You looked adorable ... mouth open, snoring.”

  I jabbed him in the ribs. “I do not snore!”

  He winked. “Course you don’t.”

  I resisted the urge to deliver another elbow to his side. Blinking the sleep from my eyes, I looked around at the others. Lorcan was also sleeping, his head resting against the side of the van. I hoped his shoulder was okay. Maybe Alex should check it again when we stopped. The guys might all be tough, but running around like that when you’d only recently been shot couldn’t be good for a person. Isaac was staring at his phone, that usual small frown causing lines between his eyebrows as he concentrated. Alex sat with my aunt beside him. Sarah stared resolutely ahead, and though I tried to catch her eye, she wouldn’t look at me. She blamed me for all this, and was probably worried about what was coming next. I was only able to see the back of Clay’s head, and didn’t know if he was awake or sleeping.

  “How long have we been driving?” I asked Kingsley.

  He shrugged. “Couple of hours, I think.”

  “A couple of hours?” I parroted back. “I didn’t think I’d been asleep that long.”

  “You obviously needed it.”

  “Yeah, I did. How much farther have we got to go?”

  “Not too long now.”

  I wondered where exactly we were going and who would be waiting for us when we got there. Were we being taken to another safe house, like the place that had burned down, or the cabin? They’d mentioned a ‘base,’ but I didn’t know what that meant. Were we driving to another city, where there would be a high-tech building they worked from? The limited view out of the vehicle was frustrating, and I sat up straighter, trying to see over the tops of Clay’s and Lorcan’s heads, and past the driver,
to catch sight of any road signs that might give me a clue about our location. Other than being a couple of hours outside of D.C., I didn’t have any idea. I guessed I could ask now. It wasn’t as though I was being kept prisoner.

  “Where is this place?” I asked Kingsley, keeping my voice low. I told myself it was because I didn’t want to disturb those sleeping, but it was really because I didn’t want Isaac to pay attention to me.

  He looked at me side on. “I don’t think I should be telling you that.”

  I rolled my eyes and sighed. “Seriously? I wish you’d start trusting me.”

  “I do trust you, Darcy,” he said, twisting to face me as fully as he could in the confined space. “But it’s something that affects too many people for me to be the one to make that decision.”

  I looked around at everyone else in the van. “What if they all agreed?”

  He shook his head. “It’s bigger than us, even. I’m sorry.”

  Not wanting to push him, I fell silent. Surely once we got out of the van, I’d have some idea of where we were. I could check out street signs, or see if the address was written on anything. It wasn’t as though I’d be completely in the dark. A thought occurred to me—unless they planned on putting a bag over my head, of course. My stomach dropped, but not because I was worried about myself. Aunt Sarah wouldn’t think much of it if they tried to cover her face as well. She already thought they were a bunch of thugs, and putting a bag over her head would only cement that idea.

  Though my view of our surrounding area was limited, there was enough to be able to see that we’d left the city far behind. An expanse of trees stretched on either side of us, and I wondered if we were going back to the cabin. But I was sure we’d left the city in a different direction—from the west—and I hadn’t spotted anything I recognized from the drive down here. We were higher up as well, the flatter ground morphing to hills and valleys, which were only increasing in both size and altitude.

  We stopped for a comfort break, but there was nothing around. No bathrooms or coffee shops. Only more trees, and us on the side of the road. No other vehicles passed us. I stepped into the forest, just off the road, to relieve myself behind a tree, thankful for the dappled shade. Aunt Sarah insisted she was fine, but her silence worried me. She’d never been someone to hold back on what she thought before.

  I figured we were in a national forest, though I wasn’t sure where. Past Harrisonburg, perhaps? Sleeping for so long hadn’t helped my sense of direction either, but the remoteness and height of the surrounding hills and mountains made me wonder. What were we doing all the way out here? This was the sort of country where you could hike for days and only come across a handful of people. I struggled to see what Isaac and the guys would be doing all the way out here.

  We drove for another hour, heading deeper into the wilderness.

  The driver, whose name I didn’t even know, and who’d barely spoken the entire trip, leaned back in his seat to address us. “We’re here, folks.”

  I looked over at the guys expectantly, part of me thinking they were going to crack up and start punching each other on the shoulder at the great joke they’d just pulled on me, but it was a different kind of smile on their faces—wistful, thoughtful, content—as though they’d just come home after an extended trip away.

  Isaac turned, but he was addressing Sarah and me rather than the other guys. “We’re going to have to walk the rest.”

  The driver climbed out, and the side of the van was pulled across to let us climb out. My feet hit the ground, and I straightened up, my hands on my hips as I surveyed the area. We were in a small clearing in the forest. Around us, trees had been felled, leaving only stumps. The tree trunks lay stacked horizontally in piles, but as far as I could see, there wasn’t much else here. A couple of other vehicles, all built to carry a number of people, were parked a little farther on. None of them was new, all with mud splashes, scrapes down the paintwork, and dents in the hood and bumper.

  “It’s this way.” Isaac jerked his head toward the track which led higher up the mountain.

  I looked back to the driver, who was busying himself by shutting the side of the van again. “Is he coming?”

  “Nah, he’s got other places to be.”

  We started to walk, Isaac leading the way. His smart clothes, which he must have found and changed into at the cabin, appeared in contrast to the surrounding area, as though someone had picked him straight out of the city and dumped him in the middle of nowhere. Kingsley and Alex also appeared a little too smartly dressed to be hiking, and Lorcan, while in a more suitable jeans and t-shirt combo, seemed to be struggling.

  Of all the guys, Clay appeared the most comfortable in his surroundings. Like a dog let off the leash, he bounded ahead, a fresh bounce to his usual swagger. He cupped his hands to his mouth and let out a whoop of pleasure that sent birds bursting from the trees. I didn’t know what we were doing here, but just seeing him like that made a ball of happiness swell inside my chest.

  We rounded a corner of the cleared path.

  A gate blocked the way. It seemed strange to have a gate in the middle of nowhere, especially when the fence it was attached to only ran a few feet in each direction.

  A sign was attached to the wooden struts.

  PRIVATE PROPERTY

  DANGER

  LOGGING IN PROGRESS

  TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED

  My aunt spoke in a low voice. “What are we doing here, Darcy?”

  I twisted my lips and shrugged. “I’m not entirely sure.”

  The others all seemed to know where they were going, however, and they took off up the hill, ignoring the no trespassing sign and slipping through the gate. I was glad Aunt Sarah was physically fit from her job, and, as we took after the men, she kept up pace with them. That didn’t stop me wondering the same thing, however. What were we doing here? Admittedly, it was a good place to hide out from Hollan until we decided our next move, but when Isaac mentioned about going back to their base, I was picturing something a little more like Langley.

  Reddish-brown chunks of rusted metal appeared alongside the track, pock-marked with holes and falling to pieces. I had no idea what they’d been in a previous life, but they weren’t much good for anything now. As we grew closer, the sense of dilapidation and abandonment grew, and, with it, my sense of confusion. The guys appeared confident, knowing where they were going and not giving me any impression that they were seeing anything they didn’t expect.

  We rounded a corner and were faced with huge pieces of machinery that had long been abandoned. Metal struts covered in a rash of the same orangey-red rust towered above us. An old pulley was corroded into place. They were hulks of machines that looked as though they’d given up and died right where they were.

  I was becoming more confused by the moment.

  “What are we doing here?”

  Clay hooked his arm around my shoulders and grinned. “You’ll see.”

  I arched my eyebrows. “That’s not an answer.”

  One person had been falling behind, and I turned my attention to him. “How are you doing, Lorcan?”

  I noticed he’d been holding his shoulder again, his face taut with concentration as we’d walked. I wondered if he’d pulled open his wound, or perhaps had an infection. He wore his leather jacket, so it was impossible to see if he was bleeding, but he definitely looked as though he was going backward, health-wise.

  “I’ll be better when we get inside,” he replied, his voice as tense as his expression.

  Inside? Inside where?

  I looked around, half expecting a building to materialize, but none did.

  Isaac approached the rusted machinery. I wanted to call to him to be careful. That stuff didn’t look stable, and I exchanged a worried glance with Sarah. Our concerns came from two different places, however. I was worried about Isaac, where she was more troubled about us.

  He leaned over, pushed a few fallen branches, twigs, and leaves out of
the way, and then did something I couldn’t quite see, though it looked as though he was entering a pin code into a cash machine. Then he spoke, apparently into the ground. “Hey, it’s us. Let us in.”

  Something clicked, and a mechanical whirring thrummed through the ground. I glanced over at the guys. No one seemed surprised.

  A hatch, similar to the one at the cabin, only this one made of metal rather than wood, lifted out of the ground, and out of the hole it left, a metal box began to ascend from the earth.

  My mouth dropped open. “What the hell?”

  The box drew to a standstill, and the mechanical thrumming faded away. I suddenly felt as though I’d stepped into a sci-fi movie. The metal box was taller than Kingsley and looked as though it would fit perhaps four people comfortably inside, six at a squeeze. It looked like an elevator, but was of course missing the usual shaft and pulleys. I wondered where it had come from, but assumed it led down to the base they’d been talking about.

  “I’ll take Darcy and her aunt first,” Isaac said. “The rest of you follow after.”

  I guessed I was about to find out.

  “What about Lorcan?” I said. “He’s not feeling great. He should go down first.” Of course, I had no idea what I was sending him down to, but there had to be more help down there than there was up here.

  Lorcan shook his head, but I noticed the beads of sweat across his forehead and upper lip. It might have just been from the exertion of the walk, but I thought it was more than that. “I’m fine. I can wait a few minutes.”

  Alex turned his attention to the other man. He placed his hand on Lorcan’s forehead, though Lorcan frowned and jerked his head away. Alex got enough of a feel to make a judgment, however. “Your temperature feels a little high. Are you getting more pain?”

  Lorcan snorted. “More pain than a bullet being lodged in my arm?”

  Alex remained serious. “You know what I’m asking.”