Sovereign Hope (8 page)

“
Let’s just get you to your room. I bet you’re asleep on your
feet.” Agatha gestured in the direction Daniel had stormed off in.
I nodded, fully aware that I looked like a zombie. When we made it
back to the entrance of the hangar, Agatha flicked on her
flashlight. We walked to the first turning and continued straight
ahead down another corridor I hadn’t noticed on the way in. It
turned back on itself, and we were faced with two doors to the
left, their locations betrayed by a slit of weak light shining out
from underneath them.

“
The first is Aldan’s room,” Agatha told me, hooking another
left as the corridor snaked around again.

There were no
lights visible down this length of corridor, but when Agatha raised
the flashlight, the beam showed that it stretched on for at least
fifteen feet. At that point the light faded and blackness took
over.

“
I’m just here.” She clanged loudly on the first door. Its
deep, metallic echo vibrated off the walls like a drum. “This one’s
the bathroom.”

We walked
passed another three doors on the same side, one of which must have
been Daniel’s, before Agatha halted. She handed me the light so she
could rifle in her pocket, eventually producing a large bunch of
keys. After flicking through them for some time, she threaded one
from the large ring and handed it to me.

“
This is the only one, so don’t lose it.” Agatha placed the
small silver key in my hand. I slipped it into my pocket, feeling
some sense of privacy return with the promise of being able to lock
myself away.

“
I won’t wake you. Just come on out when you feel like you’ve
rested well enough, okay?” With that, Agatha pushed open the door
and flicked on the light then strode off, humming some soft,
lilting melody. It grew richer as the narrow walls sent it
traveling back to me.

I was alone.
The darkness closed in and I dashed through the open door of my new
room, slamming it shut behind me. The room was nothing like I’d
expected it to be. No uncomfortable metal cot. No bucket in the
corner. In fact, it looked nothing like a prison cell at all. The
walls were the same uniform grey color, although they were
brightened by three landscape paintings. They almost made up for
the fact that there was no window to allow the daylight in.

In the far corner, a huge king-size bed with an elegant,
scrolled mahogany headboard was made up with peacock-green silk
sheets. To the right of the bed were two fully stocked bookcases.
Was it sheer coincidence that I recognized all the authors’
names?
Probably
,
I thought, until I saw the dog-eared copy of
Dr. Zhivago
slotted in among the
horror and crime novels.
Mine, I
realized, running my finger down the cracked
spine.

I pinched the bridge of my nose between my fingers and turned
to sink onto the bed, catching sight of a television and a small
iPod dock sitting on a shelf at the back wall. A number of CDs were
stacked on their sides next to the player.
Probably mine too, or by my favorite bands.

Agatha had an eye for detail. Either that or they’d been
taking things from my house without me noticing. The first thought
was preferable. In any case, these people knew a whole lot about
me. And all I knew about them was that Agatha was kind and
comforting, and
he…
he was mean and hostile. And I’d be damned if I could get him
out of my head.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Lights Out

The smell woke
me. The room was so dark I had to touch my face to make sure my
eyes were open, but the darkness didn’t last for long. A small,
flashing patch in the corner of my eye twinkled into existence. At
first it was just a tiny glimmer of color in my vision, but it
quickly developed into something much larger. Tendrils of green and
blue and red swam across my eyes, undefined, like television
static. My stomach dropped. It was an uncomfortable sensation when
lying down, and I sat up to avoid being sick. It had happened
before.

Lilies. There
was no mistaking that smell. I swung my bare feet out of the bed
and flinched when they made contact with the cold concrete, but I
didn’t have time to locate the socks I’d inched off my feet in the
night. I needed to find my bag and take my migraine pills. Maybe if
I caught it in time I wouldn’t have a hallucination.

I fumbled my
way towards the other side of the room and located the light
switch, flipping it up. When nothing happened, I flipped it back
the other way, and then up and down, wondering why the room was
still unlit. A jangling, nervous feeling crept up on me. Had I
switched off the light switch before I passed out last night? I
couldn’t remember doing it.

My heart
started doing that thing—that stuttering, pounding thing. Had I
woken up blind? I found the door handle and yanked it open, hoping
to see the faint glow of light at the end of the corridor, but
there was nothing. Just emptiness. Surely I should have been able
to sense the close proximity of the wall on the other side of the
corridor. I couldn’t, though. A chilling breeze fluttered against
my face, suggesting a vast, abyssal space instead. Anything could
be out there.

The flashing
lights were all I had to cling to now, except the tendrils of
twisting color seemed to be evaporating like so much smoke. My
throat tightened. Tears of panic were already working their way
down my face by the time I found the courage to step out into the
space ahead of me. I’d stupidly left my bag in the hangar. What if
I couldn’t find my way back? It had only been two left turns last
night, but who knew how many other corridors there were out there
in the dark. A person could get lost down here and never find their
way out again.

I walked for
an inordinately long time without coming to a turning in the
corridor; I must have gone the wrong way, only the same thing
happened when I turned and walked back the way I had come. The open
door to my bedroom would have been a reassurance that I was still
in familiar territory, but my fingertips found nothing but smooth,
unforgiving concrete.

Five minutes
passed by before I eventually came to a bend, by which time my
panic had developed into full-blown terror. The colored, shifting
patterns in my eyes had disappeared, but the smell had intensified
until I was gagging on the rotten sweetness of it.

Still no
doors. Still no light. A frightened sob escaped my lips and bounced
off the narrow walls surrounding me. No, I definitely wasn’t lost
in a huge void. Now it felt as though I was trapped in a space too
small, too tight, and the walls were closing in. My breathing grew
shallower by the second. I was in a tomb; I was going to suffocate
to death in the dark, all alone.

I sank to the
floor, incapable of holding myself up any longer, and let out a
low, pathetic cry. The nausea came on like a wave, and without
warning I dropped to my hands and knees, my body bent double,
retching. Nothing came up.

Scrape.

I froze, my
stomach clenching, breath hitching in my throat.

Scrape.

The noise
reverberated down the corridor. It came again, the sound of flint
dragged across stone. Someone was out there. The hairs on the back
of my neck stood on end.

“
Hello?” My voice shook. There was no reply, only a break in
the thick odor of decaying lilies as something else drew near:
citrus, like soap. Something clean. I sank back onto my heels, the
blackness weighing down on me, suddenly knowing who was out there.
He didn’t say anything, but I felt him in front of me.

I hadn’t been
expecting the touch of his fingertips against the skin of my cheek,
though. The unexpected warmth made me flinch, and the contact was
snatched back in an instant. I gasped. In that second, when the
roughness of his fingertips had grazed the line of my cheekbone, I
had felt reconnected with the world. Now, with his touch gone, I
was cast back into shadow.

“
Daniel?”

This time when
he touched me, it was to pick me up and lift me from the floor. His
arms, circled around me, were strong, safe. The panic of the
blindness, the fear of being lost and alone melted away in seconds
to be replaced by such a strong sensation of relief that I found
myself inexplicably sobbing into his t-shirt. I couldn’t have
stopped if I wanted to. Instead, I folded into him and wrapped my
arms around his neck, clinging hold of him and the idea that I
wasn’t completely alone. The tears kept coming. Daniel didn’t
breathe a word.

Less than a
minute later, I felt myself being lowered. He’d taken me back to my
room. The mattress softly yielded beneath me as he set me down. He
was so close I could feel his breath, hot and sweet against my
neck. Then he was gone. The suddenness of his absence felt wrong,
but somehow I knew he was still there, standing at the edge of my
room.

It would have
been stupid to ask him what was happening. How would he know? It
made more sense to apologize, but the words wouldn’t come. I closed
my eyes. There was no use keeping them open; I was still completely
blind, without a glimmer of hope that my vision would return. Now
there was nothing but the exhaustion. It sank its claws in,
dragging me down into a sleep so dizzyingly deep that I suspected I
might never wake up at all.

******

She was lying
on top of the bed, her hair spread out in a black fan around her,
sleeping peacefully. Her long eyelashes looked like the drawn-on
kind you found on china dolls, and her lips and cheeks were kissed
with a delicate pink that made her look indescribably fragile. Her
fingers twitched like she was reaching out for something, then
curled back in on themselves, the way fingers do when they are
relaxed in sleep. For a frightening moment I thought she was going
to wake up. My palms broke out into a disorientated sweat, and I
couldn’t decide what to do: whether to jump up out of the chair and
disappear into the shadows, or stay and face her. It didn’t matter
now, since she’d visibly sunk into a deeper slumber, but the panic
was new and left me feeling worryingly out of control.

No, I decided.
I should go. I tossed aside the scrap of paper I’d been busying my
hands with and rose, heading for the door.

“
Hey, bro.”

The unexpected
voice had me instinctively drawing my fist back, ready to swing in
a heartbeat. I paused when I caught sight of the blond boy in the
doorway. He was leaning against the doorframe with his hands shoved
deep into the pockets of his jeans. There were splatters of paint,
green and blue, smeared up his forearms, and a few perfectly round
flecks of white speckled across his forehead and the bridge of his
nose. I kept my fist raised. Would I get away with hitting him,
claiming the guy had surprised me, now that we’d made eye contact?
Probably not.

“
What do you want?”

“
It’s wonderful to see you, too, Daniel.”

“
Cut the crap. You shouldn’t be here,” I hissed. I let my fist
fall, but my hands remained clenched. A moment ago I had been so
utterly lost in a sea of confusion, yet now here I was, submerged
head to toe in a feeling so familiar I considered it an old
friend.

“
There’s no need to be so angry,” the other guy pouted,
pulling his hands out of his pockets. He picked absentmindedly at
the paint caked around his fingernails. “I thought you might be
pleased to see me. It’s been a while, after all.”

“
Kayden, eternity wouldn’t be long enough.”

“
Ooh. Words hurt.”

I whispered,
“Not as much as my fist,” and stalked towards the door, shooting a
business-like glance over my shoulder at Farley, still sound asleep
in the tangle of her bed covers. I ushered Kayden out of the room
and pulled the door closed with a gentle click, enclosing us in the
impenetrable gloom of the corridor.

I could see
the other boy perfectly. My night vision was impeccable, and I knew
Kayden’s would be better. Just one of the benefits of being the
Quorum’s whipping boy. “Why are you here?”

Kayden blew on
his fingers then fixed a firm look on me. “They want to see
you.”

“
Now’s not convenient, I’m afraid,” I shot back, but the news
threw me off guard. The Quorum? Why the hell would they be calling
me to see them?

Kayden’s smile
twisted, like he’d swallowed something bad, but that didn’t change
the fact that the guy looked like a Greek god. Yeah, Kayden was
good looking. Even I could acknowledge that. Kayden didn’t seem to
realize the effect his near-perfection had on others, though. He
made normal people wary, subconsciously suspicious. I’d heard the
whispers too many times to count—genetically modified freak. Super
soldier. The truth was a little more alarming. Kayden smiled that
winning smile that made me want to knock his teeth down his
throat.

“
Sorry, bro. They didn’t send me out here to wait for your
R.S.V.P. I have to take you back with me.”

“
I’m not going anywhere with you.”

“
Fine by me. But they told me if you wouldn’t come, I had to
take
her
instead.” He gestured to the closed door at our side. My
blood ran cold.

“
You can’t.”

Kayden
shrugged his shoulders. “It’s one or the other, bro.”

“
Damn it, stop calling me that! I am
not
your brother. Fine. I’ll come
with you. Just leave her alone, okay. She’s not well.”