Book I - ch 6. A Narrow Escape

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Sarah held onto her head, wishing it would stop pounding. Dad worked here? She suppressed the urge to ask again what this place was. It was not a hospital, but it had one. Not the police, not the military, but that was the feel she got. “Doing what?”

The chaotic memory flashed through her mind. Dad had a gun.

“Data analysis, mainly,” Zeus said. “The important thing is that he worked for us and most of his efforts involved investigating the terrorist group called New Nation.”

Robyn sat on the edge of her bed. “We’re not sure why they came after him after all this time.”

“When he left us to have a normal life away from all this, we thought he was safe. We were wrong.”

“Zeus’ team came to the house to try and help us.”

“But we were too late,” he finished in a breath. “We did what we could by getting Robyn out and managing the aftermath. That’s why you’re here right now. And that’s all we can tell you. Because the thing that keeps you safest is not knowing.”

“I know how that sounds, but it’s for the best. We’re gonna make sure you’re okay,” Robyn promised.

There was an intruding beep from the intercom, and Zeus excused himself.

Sarah relaxed back against the headboard once he was gone. “So, Dad was like a secret agent or something?”

“I know, right?” Robyn grimaced. “Surprise…”

“I think I’m having enough surprises. Please tell me Mom was normal.”

Robyn nodded. “He quit right after he met her.”

“How did you find out?”

“I found some stuff in his closet once when I was looking for money and that got me wondering.” She shrugged. “I connected the dots.”

“You were stealing money?”

“Looking for… to borrow… and I don’t think that’s the important part in what I just said.”

“Robyn, if they were only after Dad, why can’t we go to the police and pretend like we ran away that night and don’t know anything about it?”

Robyn squeezed her hand. “We can’t risk it for now. We have to be sure it’s safe for us to go back.”

Sarah’s protest was cut off by the intercom. Robyn answered it without a moment’s hesitation.

“Sorry for the interruption,” a familiar voice called. “Could you come up here?”

“Does it have to be now?”

“Yeah, sorry. It’s about tomorrow.”

Robyn let out a tired breath. “Fine. I’ll be right there.”

Sarah gave her a questioning look, but Robyn didn’t offer any explanations. She walked back over to the bed and brushed Sarah’s hair from her face. “I’ll be back later to check on you, after you’re done with your physical therapy.”

As soon as Robyn disappeared on the other side of the closed door, Sarah went back to staring at the tiles. She gave them a little smile. Seven.

Her gaze returned to the door. It hadn’t escaped her attention that while she was kept locked in that room, Robyn could roam around the place unsupervised. Robyn even knew the codes to lock and unlock her door.

Sarah noticed the inconsistencies on her second day awake. She attributed that delay to being distracted by the revelation that Robyn was alive and more or less well. Besides, thinking—like everything else lately—hurt. There was Robyn’s slip of tongue when she was talking about the investigation. She didn’t say they’d had no luck finding a motive; she said we.

Step one, try two. Her ribs hurt with each deeper breath as she sat up, and she cursed them in her head.

Seven, she repeated, controlling her breathing.

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Seven-one-five-three-zero-seven.

She got lost between steps two and three, but her legs were hanging off the side of the bed, and she edged herself towards the floor slowly.

Beads of sweat rose on her forehead.

She slid off the edge of the bed, looking down at her feet as they touched the floor. Her toes rejected the cold tiles, as if they had a choice in the matter, and almost caused her to fall.

Thankfully, the chair was within reach, and she used it for support. Her legs, stiff and weak, worked nonetheless. Guess she shouldn’t complain about the physical therapy anymore.

Sarah stopped to breathe. Her balance was off, but she supported her own weight, and that was good enough. Slow steps got her to the door.

Locked. Of course it was.

She was tired of their bs, and this latest revelation about Dad—if it was even true—was more of the same. Yet another breadcrumb to distract her for a while longer. She didn’t understand the point of it all. Especially of pretending she wasn’t a prisoner when she clearly couldn’t leave.

With trembling fingers, she typed in the combination she’d picked up one by one every time a doctor or nurse—or Robyn—came to her room. Today, she’d finally seen the last number of the code.

She crossed her fingers, heart pounding against her chest.

A subtle click, and the door opened.

Sarah poked her head outside to check for people before stepping out into the hallway. Her hand lingered on the doorknob, waiting.

No alarms. No shouting people. Just an empty hallway that seemed a little too bright. She had the weirdest feeling of déjà vu right then, but she couldn’t place it. Maybe it belonged in a dream somewhere or a long forgotten nightmare. If she had to guess, the latter seemed more appropriate.

She shivered, goosebumps rising along her skin.

Since no one was there to stop her, she picked a direction and started walking. Doors identical to hers, with no specific markings or identification, came one after the next. Sarah listened at a few of them, wondering if there were more people like her behind each locked door. No sound came from inside, but she thought it best not to try the doors.

The hallway parted again. She again took a left because something told her there would be an elevator at that end. Coincidence or not, there was.

Her heart was beating so loud, she could swear she could hear it. The elevator was standing there, empty, doors wide open. She’d already come this far. What was the point if she didn’t have the guts to follow through?

Sarah sucked in a breath, cursed herself for forgetting that it hurt, and stumbled inside while holding onto the wall in pain.

The doors closed. She held her breath as she stared at the panel.

There were too many numbers—and too many letters. She had no idea what to press. Maybe she was out of her mind. Where would she even go? She searched the ceiling for a security camera, but couldn’t see any.

While she considered retreating to the relative safety of her room, that choice was taken away from her. The elevator started moving. She tried to make it go back, but up it went regardless of her will.

One floor. Two floors. Three… she wasn’t sure how many had gone by when it finally slowed.

She desperately tried to look calm, tried to look as if she had simply wandered off by accident. As if it were no big deal, really.

She was sure she failed miserably.

Maybe she could claim to be sleepwalking, she was still wearing her sister’s pajamas.

Hoping to delay the inevitable, she tucked herself into the corner nearest the control panel when the elevator finally came to a halt.

The doors opened. She braced herself to be discovered.

There was no one there. At least not waiting for the elevator. The faint murmur of countless voices moving in the space in front of the elevator reached her.

One of those voices stood out. Robyn. Her sister was nothing if not loud.

The elevator doors started to close again. In a split-second decision, she held down the door open button.

The voices were still on the move, as if they were drifting back and forth beyond the open doors, and she strained to hear what they were discussing.

“Stop being so pessimistic,” Robyn said, her voice moving right to left a few feet in front of the open doors.

“Where are you going?” someone asked from the right.

“You’re not going to okay this, so I’m going over your head,” she practically shouted back.

There was a reply that Sarah couldn’t hear. Her index finger started hurting from holding down the button and she switched to her thumb. She considered letting go, but she heard Robyn’s voice again.

“Go look at Hydra’s reports before telling me I’m wrong!” Robyn sounded angry now. She also sounded further away.

“Did you read past his initial statement or are you choosing to ignore his concerns?” a man responded, closer to the elevator than Robyn. He hadn’t moved to follow her.

Sarah recognized his voice as well—the nameless guy who chased her down the street. Even though he was also speaking more loudly, his tone wasn’t heated like Robyn’s.

“Now you’re being annoying!” Robyn shouted. She seemed to have stopped. “Let me just—”

“Stop pushing forward without thinking! Let’s talk about this,” another woman called from right outside the elevator door.

Sarah startled, thumb almost slipping from the button.

“It’s not that it can’t be done,” another familiar voice appeared—Zeus. “But we don’t have the resources right now.”

There was more to the exchange that Sarah couldn’t hear or understand. They’d stopped shouting at a distance from each other. She switched to her other thumb as she lost most of the conversation.

A chair scraped along the floor loudly.

“If we don’t move now, we’ll lose our window,” Robyn said, not quite a shout, but still loud enough for Sarah to hear. “We have a good lead this time. Griffon agrees. The first real thing in ages.”

“And we will send someone to check it out,” Zeus said, also raising his voice. “You have to stay focused.”

Sarah pressed herself harder against the elevator’s cold wall. Her head was spinning. What were they talking about? And how was Robyn mixed up in it? Even more than she’d expected, her sister was definitely not some random bystander.

Her thoughts were in such a turmoil, she barely noticed as someone stopped right in front of the open elevator doors and peeked in.

Their eyes met—it was the blonde from the other day.

“Hey, guys? Did somebody lose a spy?”

Startled, Sarah pulled her hand back. The elevator doors slid shut, cutting her off from that world.