Book I - ch 5. Not Just Any Rabbit Hole

* * *

Sarah usually remembered her dreams, or at least enough of them to know that there had been any. This was true even if they burrowed themselves deep into her subconscious after she woke up. But this time, she was sure there had been no dreams. There had been nothing.

Voices brought her back from the void. The door was closing as she opened her eyes. Robyn was in the chair by the corner and the wheelchair parked near the door signaled she hadn’t imagined their previous encounter. She tried to sit up and quickly realized the talk about broken ribs had also been real.

“Hey.” Robyn dragged her chair closer. “How’re you holding up?”

There was still an IV attached to her arm, but the pesky feeding tube was gone. Her head still hurt, so did her chest and various other places to a lesser degree. “It hurts about the same. But I guess being awake enough to know that is an improvement.”

Robyn gently brushed her hair aside.

“Are you gonna tell me what’s going on now?”

Clearly reluctant, Robyn hesitated for a few long seconds. “I was told you know about the New Nation being involved.”

Sarah stopped herself from nodding, her head still hurt.

When Robyn continued, her voice was but a whisper. “They were after Dad. Apparently, when he was in the military, he’d had some run-ins with them.”

“But he’s been out for years. Why would they come after him now?”

“Our friends are looking into it.”

“That’s it?” Sarah scoffed. “They’re looking into it? Never mind that you’re throwing the word friends out there like it’s nothing when you made Laura cry because you wouldn’t let her say you were friends.”

“I did not make her cry,” Robyn protested. “She did that all on her own.”

“Seriously? Looking at it is all you’re gonna give me?”

“It’s all we’re gonna get for now.”

Sarah gave her a stern look, but Robyn didn’t elaborate.

“And why are we here?” Sarah gestured vaguely at the room. “And where is here?”

“The less you know about that, the better. But there’s this sort of joint task force that’s working to stop the New Nation, and we were lucky enough that they found us.”

“Lucky? Really?”

“I was lucky they found me,” Robyn rephrased.

“Great, so when can we get out of here?”

Robyn patted her hand. “We’ll talk about that when you’re fully recovered.”

“What aren’t you telling me?”

“The less you know, the better.”

“I hate that sentence.”

Robyn sighed. “I know.”

“Then tell me what’s really going on.”

Robyn opened her mouth to say something else, but the intercom cut her off before she could get a word out. She gave Sarah an apologetic smile and got up to answer it.

“Athena wants to see you right now,” the voice on the other end said.

“I’ll be right there,” Robyn said. She turned to Sarah. “I’ll be back soon, I promise.”

Sarah let her go without protest. But the paranoid little voice in the back of her mind whispered that it was convenient that they called Robyn away right when she might tell her more.

The following events didn’t help to dissuade that little voice in the least.

Doctors continued to check in on her over the course of the day, but there was no sign of her sister. Whenever she asked, they would say that Robyn was talking with Athena, but no one would even tell her who that was.

The next couple of days, Robyn’s visits were brief and restricted to when the doctors or physical therapists were around, as if to limit the conversations they might have in private. Her questions about where Robyn went when she left were met with vague responses that did nothing to answer the question. Or her favorite: the less she knew, the better.

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The only thing that reassured her—if only slightly—was that Robyn didn’t seem at all worried about any of it. Robyn was also improving with each passing day. She hadn’t even been using the wheelchair on her last visit.

All this led Sarah to believe they weren’t in any immediate danger, but she had gone back to thinking of herself—and her sister—as captives. She’d repeatedly asked about leaving and had been ignored.

On the third day, having finally been disconnected from all the annoying wires and tubes, Sarah tried to follow Robyn out.

Sarah tried to get up. The first attempt went poorly. A sharp pain pierced her sides until her eyes teared up. The movements that would have been natural were impossible right now. She still hadn’t found a way to lessen the pain, if there was any.

After she recovered from the first attempt, she broke the process down into steps.

Step one, sitting up.

Her ribs—two in particular—complained.

Step two, moving her legs to the side.

It wasn’t painless, but she managed.

She took a deep breath, which wasn’t particularly easy, and clenched her jaw in anticipation of the next step, either three or four. How could she have lost count already?

The door handle wouldn’t budge. She was locked in, an electronic keypad standing between her and freedom.

She cursed at the thing and returned to the bed. Get back in bed was a similarly painful process.

Sarah glared at the door. Barring trying to break it down, there was little she could do except stay in that windowless room and wait.

* * *

The tick tick tick of the seconds hand was so very loud in the silence. Robyn shifted her gaze to follow the sound, but it seemed disconnected from the clock itself. Or maybe she was projecting, and she was the one who was disconnected…

Disconnected from this place and the people in it, from that clock that ticked on regardless of her and the rest of the world.

“And how is your sister?” Athena asked.

Robyn blinked, remembering Athena had been speaking to her, remembering she was supposed to respond. She turned back to the woman. “Being a pain.”

Athena raised an eyebrow. Robyn wondered if psychologists really acted this way. She had nothing to compare it with, and Athena was more of a profiler, only doubling as an in-house shrink when needed.

“She’s been bugging me with questions every waking moment. It’s getting hard promising to tell her things later. Everything is later! Later is always later, indefinitely… And if I say she’s better off not knowing something one more time, she’s gonna smother me to death with her own pillow.” Robyn let out a breath and sagged in her chair. “But she’s alive.”

And that was all that mattered, wasn’t it? By some miracle of chance or fate, Sarah was alive. For now, it was all that mattered.

“Can you tell her something without giving her too much?” Athena asked. “Maybe all she needs is a little of the truth. Enough that she understands why she can’t be told all of it.”

Robyn scoffed. “I’m not sure that’s gonna work with Sarah. She was always the stubborn one. She’s not gonna smile and nod and blindfold herself because you ask her to.”

“Not even if you ask her to?”

* * *

A testament to her boredom, Sarah had been counting the tiles on the floor. It was the second time she performed that pointless exercise.

She considered looking under the bed so she could have a more realistic number. Or maybe she could estimate of their size and the bed itself and calculate how many tiles would be hidden underneath.

The familiar sound of the door coming unlocked interrupted her current count at thirty-seven tiles.

Expecting another doctor, she was surprised when Robyn came in. With her was a man in his fifties or sixties. He didn’t have that many gray hairs, but maybe it was the weight of the world on his shoulders that made him appear older. Still, he made for an imposing figure, like what she expected of a general.

“Sarah, this is Zeus. He’s in charge of this place,” Robyn said. “He—”

Zeus stepped forward, raising a hand to cut her off. “Do you have any idea where you are, Sarah?”

Sarah shook her head slightly. “No.”

He smiled. “Good.”

Obviously, they both had very different definitions of the word, but she didn’t interrupt as he continued.

“You’ll stay here while we make sure you’ll be safe. Then we’ll transfer you to one of our institutes until you’ve recovered enough that we can start setting up your return to the world.”

Something about the way he said that didn’t sit well with her. “Me and Robyn, right?”

Robyn and Zeus exchanged a glance.

“We’ll look into that possibility,” he said.

“Why is it only a possibility?”

Robyn didn’t say a word; she wouldn’t meet Sarah’s gaze.

“I know you want your sister with you, but it might not be safe for her.”

“What are you talking about? Why not?”

“We’re not entirely sure it’ll be safe for you, Sarah. But it’s worse because Robyn is older. They might think she knows something.”

“And does she?” Sarah asked him instead of her sister since they seemed to be pretending Robyn wasn’t there.

“That’s not relevant,” Zeus assured her. “The New Nation isn’t known for taking risks, and since we still don’t know why your family was targeted in the first place, it pays to be careful.”

“But you’re sending me out there. So what am I? Bait?”

“No! Of course not,” Robyn protested. “But I won’t be able to come with you for a while.”

Sarah clenched her jaw and focused her gaze on Zeus. “If she’s not going anywhere, I’m sure as hell not going anywhere either.”

Sarah tried to sit up, and pain stabbed at her insides. She winced involuntarily.

Robyn took a step towards her. “Maybe we should continue this later.”

Sarah waved her off. “No, I’m fine. I want answers.”

“I can’t give you those,” Zeus said.

Steeling herself against the pain, Sarah embraced her anger. “Can’t or won’t?”

Zeus’ expression softened. “If we say too much, your life will never be the same.”

“My life already will never be the same,” she spat out. “But if I’m going straight to hell, I’d rather know it before I smell the sulfur.”

“Sarah, there are some things we can’t tell you,” Robyn insisted. “Trust me, please.”

“Is the reason our parents are dead and we’re both looking like color palettes in purple and green something you can tell me?” Sarah bit out each word, using her anger to push aside the pain.

Robyn gave Zeus a questioning look. He didn’t offer any objections.

“I didn’t wanna have to tell you this.” Robyn’s mouth opened and shut a few times. Her pleading eyes went to Zeus.

“Mark… Your father worked for us many years ago.”