Chapter Thirty-Five
The following evening, Allhan went to work even though he’d been told not to.
As he re-formed in front of the huge red barn that housed Vishous’s FT Headquarters, he zipped his hoodie up a little tighter to his neck against the cold—and decided he was never going to look at fastenings in the same way again.
Nope. Never.
Approaching the door, he looked up to the security camera, and immediately the lock was sprung for him. The second he pulled things open, the scent of pine boards mixed with a barely perceptible undertone of electrical components hit him, and it was strange. He felt like he was home.
The great bay of raftered space arched over the dozens of workstations, and as he started walking down the aisle between all the desks, he wondered whether any of the males and females sitting with their heads in those monitors ever looked up at what was above them.
It was such a nice view, row after row of the broad ceiling beams with their geometric angles meeting at the center line of the entire structure.
Leveling his stare, he focused on the far end, at the glass walls of Vishous’s stainless steel office. The panels were frosted, which meant the Brother had put the privacy filter on again. Or that it was still engaged from before.
Just as well. Allhan totally wasn’t supposed to be here, and he was hoping to get in and out quickly.
His desk was off in the rear corner, facing the wall. As he pulled out the rolling chair, he glanced back at the IT dream team Vishous had built up to precise specifications, just as he’d constructed the barn, and kitted out the sophisticated network of servers and custom web-based resources.
All to keep the Brotherhood, the fighters, and the species at large safe, organized, and getting what they needed on all levels.
Allhan had been working here for about five months. Tracking everything he saw. Assessing the infrastructures. Making recommendations for improvements, debugging laptops and computers remotely, checking for infiltrations and possible hacking.
From the start, he’d done the work to his very best ability. He’d also waited… patiently.
And then the invitation to go home and have Last Meal with Vishous had been presented to him—
A couple of males glanced up from their monitors, their brows raised with expectation like they were prepared to give him anything he wanted. There was some envy in their eyes, too.
If they only knew, he thought as he sat down and started the sign-in process.
While his fingers flew over the keys, he liked the fact that Vishous still adhered to the old school keyboard way of doing things.
There was something very satisfying about typing commands as opposed to the neural-linx technology that most of the human race used.
And personally, he didn’t like the idea of anybody potentially having control over his mind.
Not that he hadn’t fucked his own head up.
On that note…
The IP address of his particular connection to the internet was so impossible to isolate, it might as well have been air, but even still, as he back-doored into the Caldwell Police Department servers, he was careful to give himself a raincoated one that was easily discoverable.
And traceable right to one of the CPD’s own detective desks.
It wasn’t hard to do. During the day, he’d scoped things out on his burner phone, tapping on entry points, examining the structure of the city’s municipal servers and network.
He was not impressed with the rudimentary shit.
To the point that he wondered why humans didn’t take greater care to protect their information, especially around victims of crimes.
Then again, data on humans was a cheap commodity. They were tracked wherever they went, whatever they did.
Also, not his problem.
As he infiltrated the appropriate database and started his search, he kept expecting to be caught. Not by the CPD. He was just another member of their detective team, as far as they knew.
No, by someone here.
Allhan glanced over his shoulder again. Everybody was still hard at work, and given that there was no rap music bumping in Vishous’s office, he guessed that the Brother was not in there.
He turned his focus back to the monitor and continued his survey of entries. The reason he did not hide his tracks in terms of the internal systems at HQ, or do this on his burner, was because he couldn’t bear doing anything else shady.
All this activity would be logged in the work monitoring system for FT, and he was going to be totally honest if someone asked him what he was doing.
They weren’t going to like it. But at least he wasn’t adding to his list of transgressions.
And besides, no one was going to care about evidence seized at a human crime scene.
The lying began on the doorstep of Safe Place.
And the falsities that he spoke had been created the week before he went there.
He’d devised the backstory after departing the family mansion for the apartment he’d rented the night before he killed his father.
He’d been so busy getting his planning straight about Carmen and her future that he hadn’t had much mental space left over to figure out the identity he needed to assume.
The night that he decided he was ready had been warm. Muggy. Oppressive.
And had to hope he kept all the details straight.
That was the worry going through his mind as he got out of the back of the robo-taxi.
He waited until the car had K-turned around and disappeared before approaching the front porch of the Colonial.
It was such a lovely place, with kind, soft light glowing in the windows on all floors, and people walking from cozy room to cozy room.
The ugliness he represented was like a toxic cloud that followed him, and he tried to step lightly as he mounted the stairs.
Like that might lessen the impact of what he was going to try to do.
Standing at the door, he stared at the wreath of flowers that had been hung on the panels. They were silk. He couldn’t smell anything—
This was wrong. But unless he wanted to run the risk of slayers looking for his sister, he had no choice—
The door opened. “Hi. May we help you?”
Allhan took a deep breath. But nothing came out.
The female had long, dark hair and pretty eyes, and was wearing khaki shorts and a white polo with the collar turned down. Her smile was gentle, but her stare was sharp, as if she were assessing aspects of him that he not only couldn’t hide, but he didn’t know existed.
Dearest Lassiter, he could not do this—
“No, no,” she said as she reached out. “Don’t go.”
Allhan glanced down and realized he’d backed up all the way to the steps. If he went any farther, he was going to fall off and land on his head.
“You’ve come to the right place.” She smiled again. “My name is Bitty. I work here.”
He glanced over his shoulder. If only he could run down the lane, catch that car, and make this all go away.
“Would you like to come in?”
Except what about Carmen.
“I…”
The female—Bitty?—stepped aside and indicated the way into a foyer that was comfortable and welcoming. And from the interior, a scent. Chocolate chip cookies?
“Nothing will hurt you here,” she said softly.
Deeper inside, voices were going back and forth, females talking with animation. And there was laughter. And music, the soothing kind.
“I-I’m sorry.”
He dropped his eyes, and reminded himself that he had to bury his aristocratic accent. And the fact that his stutter was riding him hard was not artifice.
“Just come inside for a little bit. You don’t have to stay if you don’t want to. But at least we can talk?”
Allhan nodded because he didn’t trust his voice, and as he stepped over the threshold, he could feel more eyes on him. All he could do was stare at the floor.
“Hi,” another female said. “I’m Ilana, one of the social workers here.”
He couldn’t look at either of them, and suddenly, his head was blank. What the hell had he been going to say?
“Come over here,” the social worker murmured. “We can have an easy chat. Bitty will stay with us.”
The next thing he knew, he was in a small room with four armchairs set around a coffee table. Short shelves mounted on the wall at various levels held a collection of bud vases, decorative teapots, and embroidered sayings his jumpy eyes couldn’t translate.
“Why don’t you sit anywhere you feel comfortable.”
Well, that was going to be a long wait for all of them.
He chose the closest chair, and the timing was good. His legs felt like they were going to buckle under him. As the two females sat down, they arranged themselves comfortably. He, on the other hand, stayed perched on the seat.
“Can you tell us your name?”
“A-Allhan.”
He knew that it would be best to pick a pseudonym that was close to his given one. Using the second half of his name ensured that if someone called it out of the blue or when he didn’t expect it, he would respond by instinct.
“Okay, Allhan.”
He sensed the gentle smile that came his way rather than saw it because he just couldn’t look at either of them. For all his planning, he had ignored his own conscience, and the flare of self-hatred that arrived made him want to throw up.
Abruptly, there was a knock on the door, and a murmured “Come in.”
His nostrils flared at the scent of toast and eggs, and he had to look up.
A tray was put in front of him, brought in by a female with the same gentle face as the others.
“If there’s anything else you want,” she said, “just give me a holler and I’ll make it happen.”
Then the door shut again.
As he stared at the toast and watched the butter stripes melt, his eyes watered.
When blinking didn’t clear them, he reached out for the red and white gingham napkin that had been folded and placed under the stainless steel fork.
It was soft from many washings, and when he pressed it to his face, he smelled a delicate laundry detergent.
Hiding behind the folds, he struggled to rein in his emotions.
And failed.
The weeping was unexpected. Not part of his plan. Nothing he could control, however.