Ending ELE (ELE Series) (10 page)

He shakes his head.
“No, that one had a normal door and was off the kitchen. I didn’t see this place.”

“
Well, let’s check it out,” Alec suggests.

Claire goes and closes the door to the office first.
“I just want to make sure the kids don’t come running in here and accidentally fall down the stairs.”

“
Good thinking,” Marya tells her.

I smile at
her maternal instincts.

“
Boys first.” I gesture to Alec.

He cautiously starts leading the way down the stairs. At the bottom
, we find yet another door. Alec tries opening it. “It’s locked,” he says.

“
I got this,” Connor says. He steps through the door, using his powers. I hear a rustling and a few grunts on the other side as I assume Connor is trying to find the lock in the dark. A second later, the door is opened from the inside.

“
Good job, babe,” Claire tells him.

He beams with pride.

Alec shines his flashlight in the room and looks around for a light switch. With all the natural light up on the main floor, I hadn’t even thought to try a light switch. It’s been so long that we’ve been without electricity. I assume though, that at some point, Dr. Hastings would have made sure that there was power running to his home again. My stomach clenches as I think of him and whether he stayed here while he was holding our people hostage.

Marya spots the light switch first and flips it on. The room floods with a bluish white light
, illuminating the lab. All kinds of electrical equipment, medical charts, and devices fill the room. An operation table sits on one side. A desk and workspace with two computers is on the other side. Beakers and testing equipment sit on an island workspace in the middle of the room.

“
Creepy,” Connor says.

“
Yep,” Tony agrees.

The question remains in the air as to why Dr. Hastings would need an operating table in the basement of his house.
I shiver. I don’t need to wonder why Dr. Hastings felt the need to have a secret lab. Nothing he did seemed to be much on the up and up.

We all branch off from each other and take turns scouring the room.
I immediately head to his desk and search for any information that could be useful to us. I can’t help but notice that his desk is meticulously clean. Everything has a place and is organized just so. I open the drawers and find a bunch of files. Nothing seems interesting to me at first, just files on family matters and finances. I can feel Tony behind me before I can see him.

“
That drawer is too shallow,” he states. I step off to the side as Tony steps in, examining the drawer. He begins pulling out the drawers at the top and setting them off to the side. He shimmies under the desk like an auto mechanic would a car and runs his hands along the surfaces. After a few minutes, he has an audience. All of us gather around Tony to see what he uncovers. I hear some sort of click. He gets out from under the desk and places one of the drawers back in place. Then he pulls it out halfway. Another click is heard and then Tony opens the original drawer the rest of the way, revealing another round of files.

“
Seriously Tony, that’s like the coolest thing you ever did. Very James Bond.” Connor pats Tony on the shoulder.

“
Yeah, that was pretty boss,” Alec adds.

Tony
grins and I can’t help but smile at him. I know he hasn’t officially been deemed “one of the guys,” yet. Moments like this tell me that it might not be too long before Alec and Connor’s bro-pack grows a little larger.

I inch closer to examine the
contents of the drawer. A stapler, box of pens, and seven manila colored files are all that sits in it. Ignoring the office supplies, I pull the files out and place them on the desk. I bet Dr. Hastings is rolling over in his grave right now! We each grab a few of the files and surf through the contents.

“
It’s just a bunch of formulas, tax documents, and such,” I announce rather bitterly. Just when I thought we had something. The only interesting thing I see is what looks like a code to some type of safe or something that is written by hand at the bottom of an instruction manual for the operating table. It’s a series of four, two-digit numbers. We haven’t seen any type of safe around here yet, so it’s pretty much useless thus far.

We all throw the files back
together, leaving them on the desk this time. Connor announces what’s on everyone’s mind. “I’m starving.”

Feeling a bit defeated,
we head upstairs, close the secret bookshelf, and wander towards the kitchen. It doesn’t take long for the smell of pancakes to drift towards our noses. Instinctively, we rush quicker towards its origin.

Inside the kitchen, we find
Carrie flipping a golden pancake in the air like a pro. It lands back down on the skillet with a sizzling sound. Without taking her eyes from the stove, she answers our unasked question. “I found some wheat flour and other staples in the pantry. I was pretty sure you guys would be hungry so I whipped up some pancakes. I hope you all don’t mind.”

“
Mind?” Connor says in mock shock. “As long as it isn’t sauerkraut, I’m game!” I try to stifle a grin but fail. Connor puts his two fingers to his eyes again and moves them in Tony’s direction. “I haven’t forgotten,” he says. To make it even funnier, he further clarifies his gesture. “Meaning, I’m watching you and when the time comes, you’re getting yours.” He clamps a fisted hand into his open hand.

Tony
’s eyebrows raise a quarter of an inch to let him know, ‘Game on.’

I love these guys. Humor is
a great distraction from the hectic world we live in.

Claire, Marya
, and I help find some plates and forks for everyone. My dad comes into the kitchen with Lillie and Sabby in tow. Their little cheeks are rosy red from being outside.

“
We foun a twampoline!” Sabby declares excitedly.

Lillie
nods her head with equal enthusiasm. “It was awesome, Coco!” Her little, red curls bounce against her head as she runs to her brother’s side.

“
That sounds like fun! You’ll have to take me there later,” Connor tells her with a hug.

“
Deal!” She smiles.

We take a seat around the kitchen table. My dad insists that Carrie take a seat and let him serve us.
“You did all the cooking, so you get first dibs!” he tells her.

She smiles.
“I like these rules!”

Alec
comes to the table holding a jar over his head like a trophy. “I found some maple syrup! I don’t know how old it is, but I don’t think maple syrup goes bad.” He sets the jar on the table.

Carrie picks it up.
“Oh, this is the real stuff. I never could justify paying fifteen dollars for such a small bottle. This is going to be good.” She opens the jar and pours a liberal amount on her hotcakes.

After everyone’s been served, we dig in, leaving our manners at the door.

Sebastian is less than thrilled with our
table etiquette. “Slow down, Wello. You gonna choke!”

I purse my lips and smile.
My mom was a horrible cook but she always made sure to teach us the proper way to eat a meal. I slow down and remember to actually chew my food—not inhale it.

Sabby nods his head as if to tell me,
‘good job’.

Could he be any cuter? I watch him gingerly cut his pancakes with the side of his fork and stuff a small bite in his mouth. I wonder if he realizes that h
is birthday is only a day away. He hasn’t mentioned it. Then again, we rarely ask what day it is. I haven’t the slightest clue as to what we’re going to do to celebrate. My mom used to make him birthday pancakes with icing and sprinkles. I wonder if that would be too much for him though… now that Mom’s gone.

After we
’re done eating, we shoo Carrie out of the kitchen and take on dish duty. It amazes me that running water is also available here. I guess Dr. Hastings still has the hook up… even after death. I push that thought out of my mind immediately—it sounds so morbid.

We spend the rest of the afternoon sifting through the house.
We come up empty with anything that may leave us clues as to what happened with Project ELE or clues as to what our next move should be. It seems like we’re running in circles; none of us are sure about what to do next. As the sun begins to set, we go in search of candles. It’s one thing to have access to electricity, but another to use it in the dead of night. We don’t want to light up the house like a Christmas tree and give the ‘other guys’ the location of where we are. We may as well send up fireworks if we did that.

After we put Sebastian and
Lillie to bed, the rest of us congregate in the living room. Carrie made us all some hot tea, which is immensely soothing. I sit on Tony’s lap on the floor of the living room. We’ve all brought down blankets to cuddle up with. While we’ve lit the fire and turned the heat up a bit, there is still a crisp chill to the air.

My dad
’s the first one to speak up. “We’ve had a pretty grueling last couple of days—er, well, a long year I guess.” He clears his throat and continues. “But, as of now, I feel like we reflect some resemblance of safety being here. Now, having said that, I don’t want us to put our guards down. I do, however, want to celebrate my little boy’s birthday. He’s had a rough year and even if it’s just for a day, I want him to be a little boy and worry for nothing. In order to do this though, I’m going to need to enlist all of your help.” He looks around the room at all of our smiling faces and nodding heads. There isn’t anything I would love more than to make Sebastian’s fifth birthday one he’ll never forget. Even in these turbulent times, it’s important to make memories.

We find a pad of paper and some pens and begin jotting down some ideas for what to do for Sabby
’s birthday. We don’t have a whole lot to work with, being as though we’re out in the middle of nowhere and only brought the necessities with us. However, we can use our imagination—which is something a five-year-old can certainly appreciate. After about a half hour or so, we’ve managed to compile a very long list of ideas, which are mostly games. It takes us another twenty minutes or so to narrow it down to our top five. Connor takes up most of our time trying to persuade us to keep no-rules dodge ball on the list. With as powerful as Sebastian is, that one seemed like a no-brainer to me that the game might end in complete disaster.

“
Okay, so let me read off the final list,” I tell everyone as we all quiet down. Connor folds his arms and huffs in the corner. He would have been creamed if we’d kept no-rules dodge ball so I’m not sure why he’s huffing and puffing. Claire rubs his back as I continue. “We have: snow war, capture the flag, tag, red rover, red rover—which I’m still a bit wary of—and kick the can.” I look up from my list and find everyone satisfied.

Alec interjects,
“If we are going to have the snow war after Sebastian wakes up then we have a lot of work to do between now and then.” I nod my head.

C
arrie speaks up, “I can stay here with the little ones while the rest of you start making the forts. I can also take care of the meals.”

“
Thank you, Carrie!” I say. “That helps a lot.” We all get up and stretch, then go to put on our snow gear.

Tony
surprises me by coming up behind me and putting his arms around me. “Hey babe,” he says, giving my neck a small but intimate kiss.

I squirm at his touch and giggle.
“Hey yourself. You need to get ready; we have a lot of work ahead of us tonight.”

He gives me another kiss or two
and then lets me go to get his winter gear on.

It
’s a cold but pleasant evening. The wind is calm and the sky is clear. We bring out flashlights but don’t have to use them—we work with the light of the moon. Carrie brings us out every Tupperware container she could find for us to use as brick molds. Our goal is to turn this yard area into a place any five-year-old would kill to be in. Snow forts of every shape and size every ten feet or so are planned to litter the yard. We work late into the night and start to finish at about five in the morning. We make a few hundred snowballs and place them in mounds at the larger snow forts. When we all step back to look at our work, we can’t believe our eyes.

“
This. Is. Totally. Awesome!” Connor exclaims, fist bumping the air. All the boys join in, hooting and hollering about their accomplishments.

The girls stand back and let them do their thing.
“Men,” Claire huffs jokingly. She makes me giggle.

We take our shoes off when we get in.
Carrie is there to meet us with some hot tea and cocoa. While we warm our hands by the fire, we decide to take a quick nap before the little ones get up. Carrie is smart and says she put a heavy, black blanket over the window in their room to make them sleep longer. Genius. I fall asleep next to my best friend while counting all of my many blessings.