Chapter 5
Aeron raced down the stairwell, and made her way to the gym, ignoring her friends yells—they would follow her. She burst through the double doors, and walked right through an ongoing class of thirteen-year-olds. She continued out the back door, which lead to a very small hallway. They followed the hallway as it sloped downward and twisted.
No one spoke. The hallway ended in a solid wooden door. Aeron pulled out a small key and turned to Decius, who, ten feet behind, put an identical small key into a keyhole hidden along the wall. Aeron put hers into the small opening in the door and they locked eyes—turning the keys at the exact same time. The door in front of Aeron clicked open and everyone followed through, Decius last. The same lock combination had to be done on the other side for the door to lock.
They were in a large, dark, underground room; there were no windows, and no lights. Decius walked over to the far wall, using his cell phone as a flashlight, and bent down, lighting a match and dropping it into the fireplace. It took two more matches before a small fire lit the room. It was sparsely decorated, with large couches and chairs scattered about the room around an old, beat-up coffee table. Alicia and Lesley took the red love seat near the fireplace, Decius sat in a large, black leather chair, and Justin, Luke and Shannon took the largest couch, which was red and green plaid. Aeron walked around and lit the candles placed in the room, allowing more light in, and then stood next to Decius’ chair. Everyone looked up at her, not wondering why she had called this impromptu meeting, but wondering what she was going to do about it.
“She has to go,” Aeron said, seriously.
“Agreed,” said Luke, still not meeting her eyes. “Who the hell is she?”
“We first need to figure out what happened to Laura.”
“I’m on it,” Shannon said. “It won’t be that difficult, I don’t think.”
“Good,” Aeron agreed.
“We need to find out where she’s from,” Decius added. “She’s not from around here, and I don’t know why the Institute would have hired her—another thing we need to work out.”
“I can look into my father’s files,” Justin said. His father worked in the administration office. “I could just tell him I’m interested in what he does as a career path.”
“That’s a good idea,” Aeron said. “Shannon, you’re going to find out what the hell happened to Laura. Justin you break those files, Alicia, you go with him-you have the best eye for penmanship. Try and find Laura’s hand writing in all those written files. Lesley, you want to help me check her background?” She nodded.
“And us?” Decius asked, motioning his hand between himself and Luke.
“Tail her. We need to know what she is doing. Who likes her, who avoids her, her eating schedule. Anything and everything.”
“Got it boss,” Luke said, and smiled at her. Aeron felt a small knot in her chest loosen she hadn’t even known was there.
“Glad that’s settled. Anyone want a drink?” Lesley asked, moving to a seemingly solid wall. She moved a panel aside, opening into a small pantry with cans of soda and bags of chips. They ate through friendly conversation, veering off the serious reason which brought them down there, and headed back to the main building of the Institute only when Shannon mentioned it was almost seven and the guards would be getting ready for curfew to kick in.
—
Her alarm was going off—loud and blaring. She reached her hand around for Jazz, but he was nowhere to be found. Aeron sat up. It was pitch black, and the blaring noise wasn’t her alarm clock, but the fire alarm. She jumped out of bed and rushed to Shannon’s room, throwing open the adjoining door. Shannon’s red hair was a disheveled mane, and she was throwing on a bathrobe. Aeron returned to her room, threw on her own robe and sneakers, and fished Jazz out of his hiding place beneath the bed. In the living room, Lesley and Alicia were frantic, and she motioned for them to follow her out. They bumped into the boys in the hallway, all looking groggy and confused.
They headed straight for the stairs and began mingling in with the other residents of the apartments as they descended. There were children, parents, older residents—and Aeron’s group easily out stripped them. She thought of stopping to help, but heard the fire trucks and worried less about the people. They had reached the lobby and Aeron searched for the fiery hair of Shannon. The Institute supplied each apartment with an emergency evacuation plan—Aeron hadn’t read hers. She caught a glimpse of red slipping through a side door and followed—but it wasn’t Shannon. A girl of similar build was running back up the stairs, her short red hair bouncing around her head. Aeron heard Luke calling for her and slipped back into the lobby.
“Luke!” she called for him. “Lulu! Over here!” She jumped up and waved her hand in the air. He pushed his way through the crowd.
“What are you doing?”
“Not now,” she said, cutting him off. “I need you to take Jazz. I’ll meet up with you in a few minutes.” She pushed the cat into his arms and headed back to the stairwell. Aeron could hear the footsteps several floors above her in the empty stairwell, and was glad she had thrown on sneakers. She followed, quickly catching up. The red headed girl continued to the top floor—oblivious of anyone following her—and slipped into the hallway. Aeron waited for the door to close before peering through the window. The girl was now attempting to open their door. Aeron pulled back as the adjacent doorway at the end of the hall opened, and bumped squarely into a solid body. A strong arm wrapped around her waist—not her mouth or throat—and a familiar smell assaulted her nose.
“Two more with duffle bags just entered from the other side,” Aeron said, hoping he heard her over the blaring alarm.
“I’m guessing there really isn’t a fire then,” Luke said, into her ear. Aeron felt a chill run through her as his breath caressed it. They peered through the window again to see the intruders had now taken to trying tools on the apartment door.
“What do you want to do, Ron?” Luke asked. Aeron leaned back and was once again aware of how close Luke was to her, his arm still wrapped around her waist. There was no way to break into the apartment. A re-enforcing door would fall inside if the main door wasn’t unlocked properly. Only a code from the Institute would open it.
“Let’s leave them,” Luke suggested. “Maybe they’ll get in before the door closes and get stuck.”
“Or maybe they’ll get away and we won’t know who they are,” Aeron said, peering forward again. “Do you have your phone?” She asked glancing back at him, and then her stomach dropped. “Luke, where is my cat?”
Luke’s brilliant smile faltered. “I passed him off to—”
“You what!”
“I mean, I gave him, very lovingly, to Alicia. He went right to her, and…”
A crash came from the hallway and the alarm stopped blaring. Aeron felt Luke push her behind him as he looked through the window. “Well the security door is down. And it looks like we have company coming this way.”
Aeron didn’t wait to hear anything else and let Luke push her toward the railing. Looking over, she could see straight to the bottom floor. “Follow me,” she said. “Let’s get them a few floors down.” She launched herself over the railing and fell four floors before grabbing the landing and swinging herself down, rolling onto the fifteenth floor. Luke landed next to her. They heard the door open.
“How was I supposed to know there was a security door!” It was the female voice.
“Didn’t Janet tell you—”
“Obviously she didn’t tell me Jack, or we would have known.”
Aeron motioned for Luke to follow. She wanted to hear this conversation more than she wanted a good fight, so they crept quietly ahead of the oblivious trio behind them.
“I don’t think Janet is telling us everything that’s going on.” It was the other male voice.
“I don’t think Janet really knows what’s going on,” said Jack. “I mean what kind of mission is ‘let me know how difficult it is to break into their apartments’.”
The footsteps above them stopped. Aeron and Luke were on the fifth floor now. “What are you saying Jack?” asked the female voice.
“I think what he’s saying—”
“I didn’t ask you Brian!” the girl yelled. She started down the stairs again. “My aunt wouldn’t send us on a wild goose chase!”
Aeron and Luke had reached the second floor, and slipped into the hallway to get a look as the three people passed by. The red-headed girl was about their age. The two boys both had black hair and looked a few years younger—shorter and not grown into themselves through training yet. The duffle bag was stamped with a wolverine with ‘McCarthy School’ across the top. Aeron turned to Luke, who was staring after the three invaders.
“You know what this means?” she asked him, almost with excitement.
He smiled down at her. “That they have a rouge agent, or one of us is being targeted. Either way, this means war.”
They waited for the trio to leave the stairwell, and then made their way upstairs. “Why do you think they were sent here?” Luke asked, opening the door to the top floor.
“No idea,” Aeron said. “Someone sent them though, and they’re obviously not very good at what they do. Damn.” They had reached the girls door and it was open, but a steel security door had dropped from the ceiling. “Guess we’ll have to wait here.”
“No,” Luke called, from a short distance behind her. He was standing next to his open door, a smile on his face and no steel gate locking them out. “Would you like to come in, my lady?” he asked, bowing slightly.
Aeron smirked and smacked him on the back of the head as she passed. She wasn’t surprised to see the boy’s apartment did in fact mimic theirs, but it was clean, and manly. There were no sports posters or hoops hanging from the walls, instead there was tactful art pieces, and modern furniture.
“Wow,” she said, turning around, and nearly jumped when she realized Luke was, once again, so close. “It looks…”
“Grown up?”
“Yeah,” she laughed. “When did this happen?”
“When Justin made the point that bringing a girl back to a dorm-like-apartment wouldn’t hold up to our aliases.”
“Oh,” Aeron said, taken off guard. She had never really thought of the boys bringing back girls, though she supposed now it didn’t seem that far-fetched. They were a bunch of seventeen-year-old boys occasionally pretending to be in their twenties.
Luke seemed to notice her sudden uneasiness because he added, “But not that I ever bring girls back here. Or Decius, not that you care that Decius…”
“It’s fine Luke. I know you all have social lives outside of us.”
“Well, have a seat,” he said, motioning to the couch. “I still have to give you your birthday present.” He was gone before Aeron could protest. He came back with a small box wrapped in silver wrapping paper.
“What is it?”
“Open it,” he said, sitting across from her. Aeron smiled as he bit his lip, a nervous habit of his.
She tore at the wrapping and a plain white box fell into her lap. She slowly opened it, and gasped. It was a cuff bracelet, made up of silver, gold, and pewter elongated S’s. “Lulu,” she said, softly, “it’s beautiful.”
“It’s reinforced, meant to be used as a block support or a weapon. May I put it on you?”
Luke moved next to her and took the bracelet. She extended her left arm and he slipped it on her wrist.
“Fits like a glove,” Aeron said, smiling. “Thank you.” She added turning to face him. “I love—”
His lips met hers. It was unexpected, soft, and absolutely delicious. Aeron leaned into him, and Luke wrapped his arms around her pulling her closer. The empty present box tumbled to the floor, and the apartment door banged opened.