Redemption (Enigma Black Trilogy Book #3) (8 page)

I waited for several minutes more, chomping at the bit as I listened to Becca and Colby make small talk while they put the rest of the groceries away. Time. I was losing precious, valuable time. Several minutes later, the noise in the kitchen died down to where I could only hear the sound of my own heart beating in my chest. Then, with my open palm, I gripped the side of the door as best as I could and attempted to slide it open. A small crack opened up between the door and the rest of the steel shelving unit, which enabled me just enough room to push my fingers into it and slide it open the rest of the way.

It was now or never. There was just one thing left to do.

I stood before the door to Kara’s room, rehearsing what I was going to say to her over and over again in my mind, finally coming to the realization that there were no perfect words to say and no perfect ways to say them. After all, was there ever really a perfect way to tell someone you’re leaving and not coming back? Given my past, I should be an expert on that particular topic; the words should flow easily by now. But they won’t because the truth is that no matter how many times and no matter how many ways you do it, saying goodbye always seems to reopen old wounds and the feelings you kept locked away in the dungeons of your soul.

As I stood at her door, I began to feel as though I was becoming detached from my body because I don’t remember feeling anything as I lifted my arm, formed a fist with my hand, and knocked on her door. Time passed, seconds most likely, but it all fell in slow motion like grains of sand from an hourglass. A moment later, after getting no response, I knocked again—and then once more, for good measure. Finally, Kara, her hair disheveled from sleep, opened the door just as I was about to bring my arm up to knock again.

“This had better be an emergency,” she said, rubbing her eyes, clearly irritated. “Honestly, Celaine, don’t you realize what time—” she paused, her eyes adjusting to the sight before her; me, clad in my suit, my backpack secured around my shoulders. “What’s going on? Why do you have that backpack? What’s in that backpack?” She flooded me with a barrage of questions that I did not want to answer in the hallway.

“May I come in?” I asked, holding my finger up to my mouth to prevent her from saying anything further.

“Of course,” she answered, her composure switching quickly from irritation to worry. She opened the door wider and allowed me to walk into her room. I’d been in her sleeping quarters—a room she often chose to crash in over her lonely apartment—numerous times before. Each and every time, it never ceased to amaze me how clean and orderly Kara kept things. I often wondered whether she was just really super organized or if she was secretly one of those crazed perfectionists who walked around their homes wearing rubber gloves, searching for the slightest hint of dust. “What is it, Celaine?” she asked, breaking my concentration.

“You know I can’t stay here,” I said without looking at her. “Especially after the events that transpired at the address and after Victor’s alteration of my statement today. I can’t work for someone I don’t respect, whose morals are so skewed that lying is perfectly acceptable to him just as long as his bottom line isn’t affected.”

“Then I’m afraid you aren’t going to be able to work anywhere,” Kara said jokingly.

“Kara,” I said, turning around to face her, “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” She shook her head. “I really can’t say that I’m surprised. Frankly, I’m shocked you held it together for as long as you have.” Kara sulked down on her bed and stared off into space. “You aren’t going to be able to pull this off, you know that, right?” she said after a long pause. “Victor will have you hunted down, he’ll—”

“Try and have me killed,” I finished her thought. “I know, and I’m prepared to face the consequences brought about by my decision because it’s one that I believe in. My life will be utter hell, but I’ll be happier because of it. If you had seen even an ounce of what Ian and I have witnessed, Kara, you—”

“And what about Ian?” It was Kara’s turn to interrupt me. “He’s going too, I presume?”

“No. Absolutely not.”

“What? You’re kidding. He turned you down?”

“Not exactly.” I sat down on the bed next to her, trying to avoid the invisible bullets her eyes shot at me.

“He doesn’t know, does he?” My silence was sufficient to answer her question. “And you aren’t going to tell him, are you?” she pressed on.

“I can’t ask him to put himself in that kind of danger. Too many people have suffered because of the decisions I made. Blake, Chase, Lucy, Jake, my parents.”

“How did your brother and parents suffer?”

“If I hadn’t forgotten my purse in the mall that day, if they could have just driven out of the ramp instead of waiting for me, maybe they would have avoided the blast. Maybe they would still be alive today.”

“Oh, honey, that’s not your fault,” Kara said, putting her arm around me. “You’ve been beating yourself up all these years because you think their blood is on your hands? How do you know the blast wouldn’t have happened before they had a chance to get out of the ramp? How do you know that you wouldn’t have been killed too?”

“I don’t.”

“Exactly. Look, you need to at least give Ian the choice. Put the ball in his court and let him accept the consequences that come his way.”

“No, that’s not up for discussion. His thoughts are too clouded by his feelings. He’ll—”

“Be heartbroken if you leave. Celaine, honestly, which do you think will hurt him more, choosing to leave with you and dying because of it, or dying slowly inside because you left him without giving him a choice at all?”

“Don’t guilt me into this, Kara. You aren’t going to change my mind.” I glanced up at her and noticed that she’d pursed her lips in a disapproving manner.

“Fine,” she said. “Don’t give him any choice at all, then.”

“Kara, please, understand why I’m doing this. I’m not cutting off The Epicenter entirely. I know there are good people here, people who truly believe in the cause that Victor presented to them. People who want to find and destroy The Man in Black and restore a sense of peace and order in their lives. You’re one of those people, which is why I’m going to ask a favor of you while I’m gone.”

She raised an eyebrow, her expression softening ever so slightly. “What kind of favor?”

“Victor is up to something. I know you know what I’m talking about. I know you’ve seen the changes in him, too.”

It was barely recognizable, but I saw Kara’s head nod as she processed what I had just told her. “I have,” she acknowledged.

“If we found out what exactly that is, I think we will have all the answers we need. Somewhere in his warped mind is the key to ending all of this. It’s our only hope of reclaiming what’s left of our lives.”

“And how do you propose I find these answers?”

“Right now, Cameron is Victor’s right hand man. Victor trusts him with everything. Cameron knows something. I’ve seen it in his demeanor. It’s tearing away at him and soon, very soon, he’s going to explode. You either need to find a way to get in Victor’s good graces or you need to somehow make Cameron trust you enough to betray Victor.”

“Wow,” Kara said, laughing. “That’s going to be next to impossible.”

“I don’t think so,” I said matter-of-factly. “Cameron is just like the rest of us. He has the same needs and desires.”

“Whoa, whoa, I am
not
sleeping with him!” she exclaimed, nearly falling off the bed.

“Come on, Kara, take one for the team.” I laughed, but she just glared at me, unmoved. “Look, I’m not asking you to sleep with him,” I said, clarifying my request, “although I’m inclined to believe he’d tell you anything you wanted to know if you did.” Kara relaxed a little and folded her hands in her lap. “Just make him feel like you care about him, like you accept him. Once you gain his trust, find a way to get inside Victor’s office. In there, I’m certain you’ll find some of the pieces to the puzzle. Then gather together everyone here who shares our mindset and take this place down from the inside out.”

“Okay,” she said, nodding. “I can’t guarantee how successful I’m going to be or whether I’ll accomplish any of the tasks you’ve just given to me, but I’m game to try and do anything that allows us all to finally begin to heal.”

I smiled as I wrapped my arms around her, holding her tightly one last time. My sister not by blood, but by choice. Tears welled in the corners of my eyes. In my head, I silently considered all the consequences of my decision, and the likelihood of this possibly being the last time I’d ever see her. “No matter what happens, you’ll always be my sister,” I whispered just loud enough for her to hear me.

Her body shook; a drop of water fell and struck my suit, sliding down its exterior. A tear. “I refuse to say goodbye,” she said. “Because that would imply that there’s a possibility I’ll never see you again. That’s not something I’ll ever acknowledge. So, I’m going to say see you soon.”

“See you soon,” I answered her, smiling.

“You’d better kick some ass out there.”

“I’ll try not to let you down.” With that, I let her body slide away from my grasp, stood up from her bed, and after a final glance back at her, walked out of her room.

“If I turn myself in, it would buy you all some more time to regroup and formulate a cohesive plan,” Marshall Leitner pondered. He stared out of the partially boarded window of an abandoned factory to which his small group of rebels had made a hasty retreat. Outside, soldiers stormed a bookstore—the rebel’s former hideout—just blocks away. An informant for the rebellion had made it to them with news of the raid only minutes before the first shots were fired and the door kicked in. Too close for comfort for most of them.

“Don’t say that,” Brad
, a former soldier turned rebel, said in response. “You’re the heart of this organization. If we were to lose you, I’m afraid what little hope we may have of winning this war would be vanquished, along with the rebellion completely.”

“They want me,” Marshall said, “and they’ll kill you all to get to me. Brooks wants to make an example out of everyone who has spoken out against him. If he were to have both Delaney and I in custody—if he were to execute us in public—he’ll most likely gain complete control over the country indefinitely. I’m the final nail in our group’s coffin.”

“Which is exactly why we need you alive.”

“All the people he’s killed while looking for me in just the last several days, it’s not worth their sacrifice. I can’t allow myself to be the reason for the slaughter of innocent people.”

The sky lit up, glowing a bright orange, as the bookstore was set ablaze. Other members of the rebellion slowly trickled to the windows along the side of the factory to catch a glimpse of the action.

“Look at them,” Brad said. “Each and every one of them depends on you. Even my own soldiers have grown to look up to you in the short time they’ve known you. Your death would kill more of them than Brooks ever could.”

Marshall nodded, still watching the mayhem unfold outside. “Then I will try and stay alive for as long as possible.”

I ran down the halls of The Epicenter, not bothering to look back; not because I thought it would change my mind in any way, but because I thought it would slow me down. When I first arrived here, I thought I would be making a difference in the world. Sure, I’d based most of my decision to come on my own selfish desire to be the one responsible for stopping The Man in Black, ultimately avenging my family’s murder. But at that point I hadn’t experienced even a fraction of what was really going on in the world. I’d allowed my own emotions to blind me to the pain around me, not realizing that there were others who were suffering just as much—if not more—than I was. That’s the funny thing with insight, it makes you completely change the way you look at things. Pain turns to healing. Despair turns to compassion. Anger turns to determination.

My feet hit the concrete of the garage, and the virtual fleet of vehicles was spread out before me. I knew I wanted something that was not only fast, but small and easily maneuverable. A motorcycle. That was my only choice. The lines of cars flew by me in a blur before I veered off to the right toward the line of motorcycles. It was hard to believe that I wouldn’t even have considered riding one of them almost a year ago, let alone sprinting to a cluster of them, trying to determine which one would make the fastest getaway.

And then I saw it. The motorcycle I’d ridden on with Blake the night my life changed forever. If that wasn’t poetic justice, then I didn’t know what was. I grabbed the bike’s handles and pulled it out from its place in the line. In a hurry, I threw my leg over its seat, nearly toppling it and myself over in the process. When I’d regained my composure, I found the keypad and began typing in my passcode. The screen on the keypad glowed green as it processed my number.

“Come on. Come on,” I urged it impatiently. Seconds later, a message appeared on the screen: Unauthorized. “What?” My fingers rushed to key in the numbers again. Perhaps I had hit a wrong number or missed one by mistake. But just as soon as I reentered my numbers, the same message appeared on the screen. “Shit,” I fumed, striking the exterior of the bike with the palms of my hands. “No, this can’t be. Why doesn’t my passcode work?” In an act of desperation, I began typing in the passcode again, only to be cut short by a hand forcefully tugging my arm away from the keypad.

“The least you could have done was say goodbye,” Ian said, anger, frustration and hurt all evident in the tone of his voice.

“Ian, I –Wait, how did you—” Anger rose from within me. I’d been betrayed by my sister. “Damn it, Kara.”

“Maybe you weren’t going to give me the right to choose, but she had no qualms about it.”

“You can’t go,” I said in desperation. The pain in his eyes was evident, which made my heart sink into the pit of my stomach. “If you go, you’ll be hunted down, if not by Victor, then by Brooks and his soldiers. Ian, your life from here on out will be nothing short of hell.”