Grandfather (42 page)

Chapter
Seventeen

I
woke up around noon the next day. Everybody but Belladonna
and Robert was at our lunch table. Ashton had a pair of crutches
which he propped up against the table to his left. His ankle was
freshly bandaged and it seemed he was going to be okay.

“
Dr. Mac says that the gel
he used will have me healed in just a few days,” Ashton told
me.

“Lucky, too,” Edgar said.
“In my day, it took a lot longer.”

By the time we finished
eating, Belladonna and Robert arrived, leading some young guy to
our table. He had to of been just a few years older than me. He was
much taller and had bright blond hair. What stood out the most was
a bright silver ring on his finger. They approached the
table.

“Edgar,” Robert said. “We
want you to meet Cain.”

Edgar stood up and shook
his hand.

“This is the one we were
talking about,” Belladonna whispered. “He figured out a way to
identify everybody in Grandfather.”

“You were in Grandfather?”
Ashton asked, his voice dark and harsh. He still wasn’t going to
trust the guy. I didn’t blame him.

Marley lightly slapped his
arm.

Cain looked at Belladonna
nervously.

“Yes,” she said. “He
actually still is.”

I was pretty sure there
was nothing worse Belladonna could’ve said. I thought Ashton was
going to punch the guy. But that would have required him standing
up, which he obviously couldn’t do. But I wasn’t about to put it
past him trying. Edgar wasn’t either. He placed a hand on Ashton’s
shoulder and whispered, “This is not the place.” People around us
didn’t notice the tension.

“You killed a lot of
people yesterday,” Ashton said. “Thousands died because of
Grandfather.”

“Ashton,” Mae said in her
soft voice.

I would’ve been on
Ashton’s side, but I trusted Belladonna. She seemed to trust this
Cain guy. Therefore, I did. She had mentioned earlier that there
was somebody with Robert who used to be with
Grandfather.

“He came with Robert,” she
said. “He’s technically still a part of Grandfather, but he
disagrees with what they do.”

“Exactly,” Robert said.
“He can help us.”

“How can you trust him?”
Ashton asked.

“I’ve been with him and
talked to him these past few days,” Robert said. “Trust me, I
know.” Belladonna glanced at Robert. She seemed nervous. Was she
having a hard time trusting Cain? I sure hoped not.

“There’s only one way to
find out if he can be trusted,” Edgar said. “Give us every member
of Grandfather.”

Cain grinned. He took off
his silver ring. “I can do better than that,” he said, dropping it
onto the table. It rolled around a few inches before falling flat
next to Mae. She took it and moved it around with her fingers.
“It’s very nice,” she said, setting it back onto the
table.

I gave it a closer look.
As I mentioned, it was silver, but there was one other thing I
noticed. It would’ve been impossible to see unless you were close.
A small letter ‘G’ was engraved on it. Beside it was what seemed to
be a tiny black hole.

“
Just before they arrived,
Cain spoke with Cornelius,” Belladonna said slowly, as if making
sure you got every word right. “Yes, Edgar, he could give us the
name of every single Grandfather supporter. But this . . .” she
pointed at the ring. “This is better.”

“How?” I asked

“It’s just some overpriced
ring,” Ashton smeared. “How is a ring going to help us?”

“Explain it to them,”
Belladonna said. Robert took out a phone and handed it to Cain.
Robert apparently had a phone too. Why did nobody tell me
anything?

“I had this ring made a
while back from a rich friend of mine,” Cain started slowly. He
looked at Belladonna who urged him to continue.

“
I’ve been against
Cornelius for a while. I brought up the idea to him that he give
every single one of his followers a ring just like this one. And it
. . .” Cain paused for a second, thinking. He looked at
Belladonna.

“He thought it was a great
idea for one reason,” Belladonna said. “Cain proposed to him that
each of the rings have a tracking device installed so that
Cornelius can keep track of his followers.”

I looked at the ring on
the table. If they all contained a GPS, that meant Cornelius could
track down all of the rings, including this one. I jumped out of my
seat and got right up in Cain’s face.

I snapped. “You’re luring
him here,” I said pretty loudly. People nearby went silent and
looked up at us. Ashton also realized the problem and was trying to
stand up, but failed because of his ankle.

“Sit down,” Robert
demanded. “We have nothing to worry about.”

“He’s luring Cornelius
here,” I growled. “This ring has a GPS in it. Cornelius can track
this one down.”

“No,” Belladonna
said.

I didn’t say anything.
Surely Belladonna knew what she was talking about. I stepped back
from Cain, who looked very frightened. I thought that was kind of
funny because he was a lot bigger than me. “What do you mean?” I
asked. “You just said they all have one in them so that Cornelius
can track everybody.”

“All except this one,”
Cain said. “I’m not stupid.”

“
I don’t
know about that,” Ashton said. “You
did
join
Grandfather.”

“Dammit, Ashton,” Edgar
said. “Listen to the boy.”

Ashton rolled his eyes.
Edgar, of course, noticed this. I could tell he wanted to argue
with him, but Ashton would have kept on going. He urged Cain to
continue.

“This one doesn’t have a
GPS in it,” Cain confirmed.

“And how do we know you’re
not lying?” I asked.

“See for yourself,” he
said, touching Robert’s phone screen, bringing it to life. He
swiped his hand a few times and clicked a few buttons without
touching the screen. Then, a map of New Dawn appeared. There were a
few hundred red dots scattered throughout the city.

“Cornelius gave them the
rings it appears,” Belladonna said.

The red dots moved around
slowly. Cain moved his hand to the bottom of the screen, and,
without touching it, he scrolled outside of the city to the
mountains.

“This is where we are
now,” Robert said.

“No red dots,” Cain said,
glaring at me. “Trust me now?”

I said nothing. He was
right, but I wasn’t so sure if I fully trusted him yet. Edgar
seemed to, probably because Belladonna did. But people sometimes
misjudged.

“You see,” Belladonna
said. “Cornelius now has access to view the location of them
all.”

“But what he doesn’t know
is that we have that access, too,” Robert said.

Edgar smiled. “Nice,” he
said.

“Yeah,” Belladonna said.
“This means that it’ll be easier for us to attack.”

“Which I believe we can do
this week,” Cain said.

Why on earth was Cain
telling us when we should attack? He had just gotten there. He had
no authority.

“What makes you say that?”
Edgar curiously asked.

“Well,” Cain started.
“They’re having a special meeting. Seven of the most loyal
Grandfather members will be there. They’re considered Cornelius’s
council. The leaders.”

“And we can find out where
they’re meeting with one of these,” Edgar said, looking at the ring
on the table. He picked it up and examined it.

“Exactly,” Belladonna
enthusiastically replied. “I think we should attack. Knowing their
location gives us the advantage of surprise. They don’t know we
know their location. And because of that, Cornelius won’t have an
army waiting for us. Which means that . . .”

“
We can attack the leaders
of Grandfather without a huge fight,” Edgar said in awe.

“
Exactly,” she said. “There
will be seven of them. We surprise them with fourteen of us. Take
them out.”

“Take out the leadership,
and there’s nobody for the followers to follow,” Robert
added.

It did make some sense. I
mean, taking out leaders meant that there would be nobody to lead,
obviously. Edgar seemed to disagree with this.

“That’s not true,” Edgar
said. “As long as members of Grandfather exist, there is hope that
they can rise again. That’s what happened before.”

We were all silent for a
few seconds before Belladonna spoke. “You’re right,” she said. “But
don’t forget, we’ll have access to each of their locations.” She
pointed at the ring in Edgar’s hand. “We’ll find them.”

“Once the system is back
to normal, we could have them tried in court,” Edgar
said.

Well, I had another
question. They were talking about just bombarding Grandfather and
killing them. “Why not take the seven leaders to court,”
I asked. “Why kill them?” I didn’t care what
happened to them as long as they were stopped. I was just curious
as to why we would kill seven and arrest the others.

“We’re not going to be
able to arrest the leaders,” Edgar said. “They’re going to fight
back.”

That made sense. Cornelius
definitely wasn’t one to just give up.

“You see,” Edgar said.
“We’ll defend ourselves and win. When they’re gone, we’ll present
the proof to the courts that Cornelius was the Grand Imperial and
that each of these red dots represent the members left.”

I understood. Once the
leaders were dead and proof was given to the courts, it would be
easier to arrest the others.

Cain zoomed out of the
map, revealing the entire country. There were red dots in all four
regions but not as many as in the capitol. “Good,” Edgar said when
he noticed it. “Grandfather hasn’t spread much outside of New
Dawn.”

“When do they meet?”
Marley asked Cain. “The seven leaders?”

“Friday,” he
said.

That was in two days. Wow,
I hadn’t been expecting it to happen so quickly. Cornelius had no
idea that the end was coming. But they just planned on killing him.
Honestly, after everything that had happened in the city, I didn’t
care if he was killed or not. I still don’t know if that makes me a
bad person. But what I did know was that I kind of wanted him to
stay alive if he was the only one to know the truth about my
parents. Yeah, I still hadn’t given up on that. But hey, you can’t
blame me.

“It’s finally come,”
Belladonna said, still excited. “Their time is finally coming to an
end.”

“Then another president
will have to be elected,” I said.

“Yes, of course,”
Belladonna said quickly. “Which could be difficult.”

Why?” Marley
asked.

“Because people are going
to have trust issues,” Mae answered.

“Right,” Edgar said. “I
listened to the radio this morning. City’s hectic. People don’t
like their homes being searched and people don’t like the damn
curfew.”

“I’d say it’s about half
and half,” Robert said. “Half don’t trust Cornelius while the other
half stand by him, thinking there’s no way he’s
involved.”

Man, peoples’ trust issues
were just going to keep on getting worse when the truth was
revealed about Cornelius. But Edgar seemed pretty optimistic, which
didn’t really match his personality.

“We’ll get through that,”
Edgar said. “What time’s the meeting?”

“Midnight,” Belladonna
answered.

Nobody said anything. I
was sure they were thinking about the same thing as I was: the
curfew. There was no way we could just waltz into the city past
curfew, unless we went earlier that day and found a place to hide.
But I had no idea where we could all hide. And even then, leaving
the hiding place to reach Cornelius would be difficult. There would
just be too many soldiers out there.

Edgar was the one to bring
it up. “How we going to do that past curfew?”

Nobody said anything at
first. Then, Robert spoke. “Didn’t say it would be
easy.”

“I knew it wasn’t gonna to
be easy,” Edgar said a bit annoyed. “I want it to be possible. Just
want to know how the hell we’re gonna get past the damn soldiers
scattered across the entire city.”

“That, Edgar,” Belladonna
started, “That’s something we have to figure out soon.”

Belladonna and Robert
didn’t stay much longer. They led Cain away, which was good. Ashton
still didn’t like him, even though what he had given us was really
helpful. Edgar, still annoyed, followed them. I assumed they were
going to plan. They were going to need to.

Ashton complained about
how he didn’t like having somebody who was a member of Grandfather
nearby. I just wanted to know if this Cain guy actually helped plan
the explosions. If so, that was just something I couldn’t overlook
or simply forgive.

“I don’t know,” I said.
“But I still think we should take them to court.”