CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE #3
I covered his mouth, my chest heaving from the rush of emotion he stirred in me.
But that wasn’t why I hushed him. Footsteps sounded in the hall.
I snapped my gaze to the door, my heart pounding so hard it hurt.
It didn’t last long. Whoever it was never got close, the footfall fading away.
The warmth of Cas’s breath tickled my palm. I dropped my hand.
Cas cleared his throat. ‘The guards are probably just doing a tighter patrol while the cameras are down. But that ate up some of our time.’ He turned back to the safe.
I glanced at my watch, nerves threatening to explode. We had less than nine minutes, and we still needed to make it back outside.
The wall safe had another keypad paired with a biosig. Cas tried his birthday again. Denied. He scrunched his brow and entered a few more combinations. Pain pulsed around my heart, anxiety tightening my chest. We were so close.
‘That was your fourth try,’ I said quietly. ‘It might lock us out. Or trigger an alarm.’
‘I know.’ He sighed, pacing, before muttering different numbers under his breath.
Then he stopped and his expression softened.
‘Eyes forward,’ he murmured. ‘He left his old life behind on his eighteenth birthday.’ He entered the date, then pressed the thumb sleeve with the lifted print against the biopad.
The safe door opened with a satisfying click.
I exhaled, hope flooding my lungs.
Cas moved aside a few stacks of hundred-dollar bills and multiple passports. Beneath it all sat a thin stack of files, CONFIDENTIAL stamped across the front.
This had to be it.
‘Are you ready?’ I asked.
He didn’t respond. His face had turned rigid, fists clenched at his side.
He hesitated. When I reached for his shoulder with a comforting hand, he avoided my touch.
‘I’m fine. I’m ready.’ Carefully, he removed the first file and laid it on his grandfather’s desk.
‘Seven minutes left. Take as many pictures as you can.’
I snapped image after image as he flipped each page too quickly to stop and read.
He focused on the time, refusing to look at the files.
My hands shook with every click. Being a chem major was paying off.
I understood a lot of the reports, quickly scanning what I could without slowing us down. The shock made me numb.
Dominion knew of a cure for helical disease, and they’d known for years.
The dates of the report lined up with Apollo’s mom’s tenure. The disease wasn’t some parasite that couldn’t be removed. It could be extracted, and the host could survive the procedure. Dominion had chosen not to.
Before I could think of why, anger curled through me. This pain – my pain – was for nothing. I carried Cas’s disease for nothing. And Cas had …
I didn’t look at him. I replayed everything I knew about his experience with his pain.
He’d been so worried about addiction. Terrified of losing surfing.
All the while, research for a cure sat hidden in his grandfather’s office.
Albert Fox had everything he needed to heal his grandson.
He could heal so many. For what? Greed? More billions?
Instead, Pain Carriers were going underground or becoming addicted to the very pain medication Dominion produced –
‘You have it all?’ Cas glanced at me, anxious.
I nodded. His eyes were red, his vision most likely blurred by the tears he refused to let fall.
What would he do after he discovered the truth?
Whatever he chose to do with the knowledge would change everything – not only between us, but with his family, the possible futures for so many.
It hit me how much he was risking. For me.
We could change the world together, but only if he wanted to.
Ever since my interview with Mrs Meadows and the gala at the Zenith, I’d been waiting for Cas to act.
He’d done it, but I had one more thing to ask of him.
‘Good.’ He shoved everything back into the safe. ‘Let’s go.’
‘One more step.’ I held up the bugging device. We could do this together, or I’d have to find a way to do it by myself. Either way, I’d gain back what the Foxes had taken from me and so many others. ‘There might be more we can learn from his conversations.’
He frowned. ‘Where did you get that from?’
‘Does it matter?’
‘Seriously? You still don’t trust me?’
I almost laughed. ‘I think you know who I don’t trust. You and your family aren’t the same.
You’ve been saying that since we met. I trust the you who believes that.
The tighter you hold on to that … You aren’t the one I don’t trust. You’re the one listening to my voice, my pain.
I just need you to hear me one more time. ’
I waited, guarding my heart. This would be the moment he chose his family over people like me, used and abused by a system built against us. Blood is thicker than pain, thicker than helical disease.
His sighed and turned away, taking in the family photos, his grandfather’s accolades, the old map of Alta Bay. When his gaze met mine again, he shook his head.
And my heart sank so deep.
‘I’ve seen enough,’ he said. ‘And I’m over all the lies. Fuck it, let’s do it.’
I tried not to grin. I liked when Castor Cas proved me wrong.