Authors: Jamie Canosa
The note was meant for me, specifically. Sayer knew I’d be the one trying to figure it out. Did he have to make it so flipping hard?
“What were you trying to tell me, Say? Where is it?”
I ran the tip of my finger back and forth across the messy scrawl, until I noted a small space between two of the numbers. And then another.
A13H57T 17 35 8
It wasn’t one long code. It was four small ones. Or maybe . . . I twisted the sheet, examining it from another angle. One long number/letter combo and a three numbered code . . . like a combination . . . to a locker. The lockers at the hospital had codes like that on them demarking the wing, ward, and first letter of the doctor’s last name. In fact, this one was almost identical to Ballard’s. Same wing, A13, and ward, H57, only his ended with a B.
He looked at that thing every freaking day. How could he not recognize it?
“I know where it is!”
“What?” Ballard didn’t sound nearly as excited about my discovery as I was.
“You know what. And know where, too. Why wouldn’t you tell me he stashed the file at the hospital?”
Ballard slumped against the wall, sending a cloud of dust into the air, and ran a hand through his nonexistent hair. “Because this is a fool’s errand. I understand that you mean well. That you both meant well. But this isn’t your responsibility. It’s gone far enough. Auralia, I’ve already lost you once, my girl. Don’t make me do it again.”
He’d always been a master guilt-tripper, but I wasn’t going to let it sway me this time. “I’m going to that hospital with or without you, Ballard.”
><><><><
With him, it was. Refusing to let me go it alone and knowing there was a greater chance of the Legion spontaneously combusting than me giving up once I’d set my mind to something, Ballard opted to join me on my hunt.
Word of Ballard’s involvement in whatever they were accusing Sayer and I of hadn’t gotten around yet, if it ever would. He’d probably turn out to be one of the poor, unfortunate souls that died of a ‘heart attack’ via bullet to the brain, if the Legion had anything to say about it. Either way, his presence at the hospital would go entirely unnoted. Mine, not so much.
Sweat dripped into my eyes as I sweltered under a thick hooded jacket. I garnered a few odd looks—not unexpected for the loon decked out in winter-wear during a heat wave—but no one paid me much attention as we rose to the thirty-second floor. The locker bank was directly off the employee lift, and I knew our luck couldn’t possibly hold out the minute we found them vacant.
“Hurry up, read the combination.” I shoved the scrap of paper in Ballard’s hand and hustled over to the locker we needed.
“Seventeen, thirty-five, eight.”
I twisted the knob on the heavy padlock as Ballard rattled off numbers and it popped open. My hands shook with a combination of nerves and excitement as I wrestled it from the metal door and tossed it aside. I couldn’t believe I was actually going through with this. And yet, I couldn’t believe it had taken so long to get to this point. I knew Sayer wanted more proof, specific documents the insurgents had some sort of plan for, but personally, I thought what Sayer had come to me in the first place with should have been enough. We were about to find out who was right the hard way, and I hoped it was me for more than just egotistical reasons.
The locker swung open and four tan metal walls stared back at me with not so much as a stray paperclip in between. No folder, no kill orders, no death certificates, no
proof
. Nothing. It was all gone. Taken. By the only other people who knew it existed, the Legion. And that could only mean one thing. They broke him. Galen broke Sayer. He’s the only one who knew where the file was.
“I am sorry, my dear.” Ballard’s heavy arm fell over my shoulders, steering me mindlessly away from the violated hiding spot. The blatant relief in his voice belittled his words. “The fate of the boy is pitiable, but you’ve done all you could. There’s nothing more to do.”
“No.” That couldn’t be right. I refused to accept that the Legion could make me that helpless. “I’m going back.”
“What?”
There was one place—one
time
—I knew for sure where the file would be. Right here, three months ago. “If I can jump back to the day he hid it, the day we ran, I can get the file right from the source.”
“You can’t. Auralia, you’re not strong enough to—”
The shock of the empty locker quickly shriveled and turned to ash, burnt away by my fury. “I really wish you’d stop telling me what I can and can’t do. I’m not a child anymore, Ballard. I know you’re disappointed with how I turned out. I know you wanted me to be a good citizen, follow the rules, keep my mouth shut and my head down, but—”
“You’re darn right I did! After what happened to your parents—” Shock at his own disclosure widened Ballard’s eyes.
“My parents? What does any of this have to do with them?”
“Nothing. It has nothing to do with them.”
One thing Ballard wasn’t, was a good liar. “Ballard . . .”
He also couldn’t keep a secret to save his life. Or so I thought. But this one was a doozy. And he’d been keeping it from me my entire life.
Dragging me into his old office, he locked the door and slumped back against it. “You know your father and I were more than colleagues, we were like family. He was a brother to me, but he was also a fool. He saw some documents he wasn’t supposed to and he just couldn’t let it go. I warned him. I told him they’d only bring trouble, but he wouldn’t listen, and look where that got him. And your mother. You’re just like him—stubborn, pigheaded—but don’t let that make you repeat his mistakes.”
“Are you . . .?” I was already in the middle of one dilemma up to my eyeballs, I really couldn’t handle an identity crisis on top. “Are you telling me my parents were insurgents? And that it got them killed?”
Ballard’s gaze turned inward, his chin wobbling as his head bobbed on his thick neck. “He brought you to my house the night they came for them. Told me to keep you safe. I didn’t know what was happening, but by the next morning, both he and your mother were dead.”
“The Legion
killed
my parents. And you let me go to work for them?”
“I tried to stop you, but you wouldn’t listen to me.” He had fought my career choice, but I thought that was because he’d wanted me to following his footsteps and go into medicine. Personally, I couldn’t even imagine what my bedside manner would be like. People would have died of the plague before they came to see me twice.
“You knew all along that they were corrupt. That they were killing innocent people.
My parents!
And you let me believe they died in a car accident. How could you?”
“I was keeping you safe like I promised your father.
Everything
I did was to. Keep. You. Safe! You have no idea how hard it was for me to call them.”
“Call who?” I shoved aside all of the other chaotic, frenzied thoughts ricocheting through my brain like a pinball machine. Nothing mattered more than that answer.
And he gave it. He looked me right in the eye, not ashamed at all, and laid it right out there. “The Legion. I hate them as much as you do for what they did to your parents. But when you came back sick . . . dying at my doorstep . . . What else was I supposed to do? I couldn’t let this continue to go on.”
“So you called the Legion? The very people we were running from? The ones who wanted us dead?” Some people’s reasoning skills fascinated me. Some terrified me.
“Not you, my girl. We came to an arrangement. If you backed off and left them alone, they’d leave you alone. Let us live out our lives in peace.”
“And what about Sayer?” I don’t know why I bothered to ask. I already knew the answer. I’d seen it play out before my very eyes. I just needed to hear him say it out loud. Confess what he’d done to insure our safety.
“The boy is not my responsibility. You are.”
“
Sayer!
His name is Sayer. What did you do to him?”
“There was nothing I could do for . . .
Sayer
. They wanted him. And truthfully, I didn’t much care. He got you into trouble. I was getting you out of it.”
“No.” Rage swelled in my chest like a balloon filled with the fires of hell. “You tell yourself that, but it was Sayer who kept me safe. You . . . You sold us out. The only family I’ve ever known and you
sold me out!”
“Not you. Never you, Auralia!”
“You’re a fool if you believe anything the Legion tells you. And an even bigger fool if you believed I’d stop going after them while they have him.”
Ballard shook his head, showing the first signs of regret I’d seen from him, thus far. “The boy is probably already dead.”
“Sayer is alive. And I’m going to help him. Get out of my way.”
Ballard didn’t move a muscle. I was a trained security officer. It wouldn’t have been difficult for me to make him do as I said, but I loathed the idea of hurting the man I’d once loved.
“You’ve broken my heart, but you will not break my will. You can’t stop me. Last warning. Get. Out. Of my way.”
Genuine sorrow clouded Ballard’s eyes, gutting me. This was the man who had taken me in when I had no one. The man who had raised me as his own and done everything in his power to protect me. Even if he’d been foolish and wrong, his heart had always been in the right place. But I couldn’t think about that now. All I could think about was what Sayer was suffering because of him. Because of
me
.
“I am sorry, my girl. I’m sorry it’s come to this. That I didn’t take better care of you. But you’re right. You’re not a little girl anymore. I can’t stop you. I can’t protect you. It’s up to you now to protect yourself.”
He stepped aside slowly, clearing the way to my exit, and before my temper could get the better of me, I took it.
><><><><
Stalking a Legion officer was easier said than done, and probably just about the dumbest thing I could be doing at the moment. So, of course, there I was, slinking down some back alley behind some boot-stomping, uniform-clad patrol officer. If he caught me sneaking up on him, I was absolutely, positively one-hundred-percent screwed, but that was a problem for
if
that happened.
So far, so good. I was closing the distance between us in small, evenly spaced increments not to draw attention, just like I’d been trained to. The Legion’s own training meant to enforce their power, serving to bring them down . . . There was something poetic about that.
The final five feet were the hardest. There was no more hiding, no more sneaking around, no turning back. It was do or die time, and I was
really
hoping for the former of those two options.
“Hey, officer!”
Surprise widened the rookie’s eyes as he spun around, morphing to shock when he clocked my face. I must have been public enemy number one if even the newbies were looking for me. Some sick, twisted part of me took pride in that fact.
“You!” He was clearly delighted to see me. Why not? An arrest of this caliber would surely cement his entire career.
“Me. Listen, I need to borrow this.” Before he could react, I twisted my fingers in the leather cord hanging around his neck and tugged.
“Hey, you can’t do that.”
Eternity crux dangling from my finger, I fell into an offensive stance. The reason I knew he was a rookie was because he carried himself all wrong. He hadn’t been trained nearly as long or as hard as I had, and it wouldn’t take much effort to best him.
“You sure you want to do that?” I wasn’t overly enthused with the idea of beating up some poor guy just trying to do his job. And he didn’t look overly enthused with it, either. His hand rested on the butt of his taser, but he hesitated to withdraw it. “You can say you lost it. We can forget this ever happened. I don’t know what they told you about me, but they’re liars. If I can finish what I’ve started everyone will know just how deceitful they really are. You don’t want to be a part of that, trust me.”
Not exactly Legion material—I never would have let me go—he opted to do the smart thing, continuing his patrol route without another word, as though nothing had happened.
In all honesty, I couldn’t believe it had actually worked. That I was standing there with the means to go back and collect the proof we needed to expose the Legion. That I was really doing this.
It wasn’t
my
crux, but I had to believe that my body had stabilized enough to withstand one more jump using someone else’s. Squeezing it in my hand, I shut my eyes and hoped I’d come out in one piece on the other side.
><><><><
“Aura? Aura!”
I turned at the sound of his voice and took a moment to orient myself. I was standing outside the bank of lockers at the hospital, and Sayer was bearing down on me like a man on a mission.
“Aura, we have to—”
“I’m not her.” I’d already heard this spiel once and I didn’t have time to go through it all again.