Chapter 24 Kaye #2
I crawl through the splintered frame, and for the first time, I’m truly not alone.
Inside, cold claws toward my bones with rigid frigidity.
It makes my muscles quiver under my skin, pulling the atoms of my being in every direction.
I knew coming here again would be different.
That I would return as the very thing I worked so hard to keep out of these hallowed halls.
The enemy. I just wasn’t prepared for how it would make me feel.
I creep like an insect along corridors that once were warm and open to me.
I keep close to the walls, scanning for security and cameras, but I needn’t have bothered.
Nothing seems to have changed. My picture is still on the wall, toothy grin, shaking hands with Vanall on the steps somewhere below me.
I put my hand on the earpiece to assure myself the connection is still there, but also to give myself a physical anchor.
Some part of me should have questioned it sooner, should have demanded to know what had been said about my arrest publicly, but I assumed someone would have to tell someone what happened to me.
A reporter or beat cop, or hell—a kid wearing Checkmate’s purple insignia.
“Has anyone questioned Checkmate’s disappearance?”
“People have been disappearing for almost a year, Kaye,” Zane replies. “One or two a month at first, but the group you were in had more than thirty. Did you notice?”
I had, but not right away. As he said, it began slowly, the reports of missing people in New Malcolm.
Like in all major cities people disappear all the time.
It seemed random at first. Different ages, races, socio-economic backgrounds, religions, and sexual orientations.
Nothing connected any one person to the next. They were just gone.
NMPD wasn’t worried.
Adults can come and go as they please, Police Chief Carrigan had said. We can look, but without evidence—a threat, a confession, a body—there’s nothing else we can do.
As days became weeks, then months, it became impossible to ignore. No one was coming back, and worse, no one was looking for them. So I did, and I saw all the things they wanted to keep hidden.
And then I became one of the missing too.
Mayor Vanall’s office could easily double as a film set for The Godfather.
It’s got a classic kind of art deco feel to it, with dark, rich colors, leather upholstery, and the musky-sweet smell of tobacco and whiskey in the air.
The mahogany of the desk and matching chairs is soaked with it, the patina of the leather darker and more luxurious for it.
My attention goes first to the wall lined with filing cabinets, the passage hidden there. The assassin could be waiting just beyond the wall. The structure appears solid. Immovable. Yet, as I reach my fingers to one of the metal corners, the whole unit sways.
Flinching, I move away. How could I not have realized what was happening sooner? Almost one hundred people gone in half a year or less, and I did nothing. Nothing.
On the wall behind Vanall’s desk, in a heavy gilt frame almost as big as I am, is the answer to our prayers.
New Malcolm celebrated its bicentennial four years ago with fanfare and gusto.
Parades and parties that lasted through night and bled into day, and enough ceremonies and handshaking to fill a politician’s campaign coffers for two terms.
The cherry on top was this. A gift from the New Malcolm Historical Society: a detailed map of the city’s growth, from the original city proper and the earthquake that buried it all, to the new infrastructure built on top, complete with utility grids and access points, color coded by phase of construction.
I smash through the glass, expecting to feel the cold bite of glass embedding into my knuckles, but it never comes. Shards rain down onto the antique runner but the material appears unscathed, perfectly encased in a smooth sheath of protection.
“This suit is amazing,” I admit, reverence lowering my tone.
“George is a genius. If anyone else knew she created this kind of tech, she would be funded for any project for life, but she hasn’t told a soul. She knew if people saw Charade decked out head-to-toe in her invention, they would trace it back to me. To our family.”
“Someday the world will celebrate her work,” I promise.
“I wish it were that easy, Kaye.”
He’s right. Things will never be easy for George, a Black woman in science.
There will always be people who want to stand in her way or steal her work, to make it impossible for her brilliance to be acknowledged.
Some may even want to harm her for it, for the ill-conceived notion that her excellence somehow threatens their mediocrity.
If those nameless, faceless men were here now, I can’t guarantee I wouldn’t incinerate them.
The crisp paper crumples in my fist.
Somewhere below, a soft sound rides the wind.
Ignoring it, I fold and store the map in my pocket and take one final look at Vanall’s office.
There are other treasures hidden within these walls, I can feel it deep in the marrow of my bones, and there’s no one here to stop me.
How long would it take me to search the nooks and crannies of these cabinets and drawers? An hour or two? More?
Zane’s voice filters to me as if he were the proverbial angel on my shoulder. “You aren’t alone anymore.”
“Vanall?” Maybe I should stay. What I wouldn’t give to see the look on his face—opening his door, smug and safe in his domain, only to find something else lying in wait. Someone he thought was dead. My rage blaze, heat building in my palms.
“And company. I count,” I hold my breath as he pauses, tallying. “Thirty CCP officers in full gear.”
“They know we’re here.”
Suddenly, I’m back in that dark place, smoke in my hair as I watch everything I worked so hard for burn. The infinite sting of cattle prods eating into my skin. Swallowed by that hopeless cell as the screams of my allies fill my ears, as they auction their deaths to the wealthy and amoral.
My heartbeat fills my ears, drowning me, down, down, down.
“Breathe, Kaye. Breathe.” Zane’s voice reaches into the void, steadying me. He breathes with me, counting. “In. Two. Three. Four. Out. Two. Three. Four.”
And it works. My pulse no longer thunders in my ears, and slowly I reclaim control.
I know what I need to do. “I have a plan, but it could be just as dangerous.”
The murmur in the distance has gone, replaced by the thunder of footsteps. Close. Too close.
“Thirty seconds, Kaye. Maybe less. Tell me what you need.”
“Keep talking. Distract me.” From the memory of Black Monarch clawing her way out that hole in the wall. From not knowing where it leads, or what waits on the other side.
The air immediately drops ten degrees once I’m inside. It carries a sweet taste that coats my tongue like rot, though it’s not stale. There’s ventilation, but from where? Whoever made this tunnel never meant for it to be used, and it shows.
Not that I can see in the pitch dark in front of me. No windows. No light. Black Monarch must carry a flashlight with her.
Taking a deep breath, I gather at the threads of power coursing through my veins, kindling that warmth and heat in my palms. When I open my eyes, there’s a dull, red glow emanating from my skin.
It’s not much, illuminating no more than a foot or two in front of my face, but the comfort of having some kind of guide in the darkness can’t be denied.
I turn, smiling, and almost step into empty air—a two-foot-wide hole in the floor surrounded by a metal lip. My heart catches in my throat, stomach plummeting. I stumble backward.
“What’s happening?” Zane asks.
The red glow from my palm does nothing against the complete blackness of the tunnel.
Something crawls along the edge of the light.
Something with far too many legs. At last I find a small, metal ladder set into the wall.
I try not to think about how deep it might be as I sling my legs over the edge. “How about that distraction?”
He clears his throat. “The first time I saw you, I thought I was losing my mind.”
“Is that supposed to be a compliment?”
“You were smart and fierce, powerful, and so damn sexy that I almost melted where I stood. You looked at me with utter loathing in your eyes, but I still wanted you. When we fought, each battle heightened that desire within me. I did hate you for that and so many other things. But hate could never encompass the complexity of what I felt facing you day after day. And I despise the idea of you alone in that passage thinking that.”
Rung after rung passes through my fingers, painted in light pink from my glowing hand, as I watch the outline of the entrance grow smaller and smaller.
If I thought I knew darkness before, it was nothing compared to this wholeness that swallows me.
It’s awkward work, this descent, with each step suspended in air, kicking until I make contact with the next solid surface.
All the while knowing that one wrong step could send me careening to the bottom.
“Would you have saved me if C hadn’t sent you that note?”
“Yes,” he hisses it, almost like speaking around a wound. “I was looking for you, Kaye. That has to be how C knew to get the information to me. I had informants looking for you for months before I received it.”
Months. “I was only in CCP custody for about a week before the auction.”
But I—or rather Checkmate—had been gone for some time before that happened.
Being a hero isn’t like other jobs. I couldn’t ask for vacation time or report off.
So I just disappeared for a little while.
I knew others would step in to pick up my slack, and I kept an eye out just in case anyone truly needed me to step in. That doesn’t mean I didn’t feel guilty.
My foot reaches for the next rung and is met by solid ground instead. Toeing the surface, I check for ledges, steps, or blocks before letting go.
Everything as far as the eye can see is cloaked in shadow. I can see where the ladder drops from the ceiling to the floor, but nothing beyond. No walls or lights to guide my way.
“There’s something I have to tell you, Kaye, about when you were gone,” he falters. “I did something—”
A band of strength comes out of nowhere, wrapping around my throat before I can react.
I scream, but it comes out as a choked burble.
My fingers claw at the arm around my neck.
It doesn’t give as I struggle, bucking and thrashing with my entire body against it.
I forget about the heat coursing through my veins.
Forget everything but fight or flight, life and death.
It all comes down to air, and the thing stopping me from getting it.
“Shh,” a female voice consoles against my ear. “Be still, Checkmate. I only wanted to say hello.”
Black Monarch.
I can’t catch a breath. Zane is screaming in my ear, but I don’t hear a thing. There is only that arm around my neck, her mouth against my ear.
I go limp in her grip. Instantly, the muscle banding my neck loosens and I’m able to gulp in a haggard breath of air.
“Good girl,” the assassin praises. “Stay just like that, hmm, my pet? And keep those lovely hands to yourself. This can be nice and easy.”
We take one step forward, then another, as she leads me along like a puppet into that blackness.
I can’t see her face. She must have some kind of night vision goggles or something.
I briefly contemplate resisting, but just as I’m about to act, I feel the press of something cold and sharp against my ribs.
“Don’t make me put a hole in your charming new suit.” She sighs.
“Let her go.” Zane’s tone is lethal in my eardrum. With her cheek pressed to mine, I realize she must be able to hear it too. She laughs, and it’s a light, tinkling sort of sound. She has the kind of laugh that makes people want her to laugh again, full of delight.
She nuzzles my ear, feeling the device without having to take her hands off. “You are full of surprises! Good evening, Charade. Care to play a game?”
“Let her go.”
Her lips move against my temple, and I can tell she’s smiling.
“Don’t you two seem cozy,” she practically purrs. “I’d love to know when that became a thing. Every. Sordid. Detail. I bet Vanall would too. How much do you think he’d pay me for that slice of information, Checkmate? More than he paid for your soul?”
Zane growls, eliciting another pleasant laugh from the assassin.
“Relax,” she trills. “This is more than enough payment for me.”
She presses me closer to her, my back flat against her chest and stomach. The hand with the knife makes a gentle swoop around my hip in the pantomime of a caress. I let out a squeak as that hand snakes to my stomach.
“What do you want?” My voice sounds hoarse and shaken, like it’s not even mine anymore.
“You came into my domain, Checkmate. Or did you forget?”
“I didn’t like what they did to you, pet.” She sighs, her breath skating softly across my skin. “Vanall and his friends at the CCP think they’re such big men, bringing poor little you down to their level. They didn’t like that you escaped, I can tell you that.”
I swallow. “Were you there?”
She shakes her head. “It never would have gotten that far. Could you imagine? What if I had stolen you from their little hall of horrors instead of dear Charade? Would you be mine now, or is he special?”
“I—”
“Shh.” Her fingers dig into my hip and I stifle a gasp. “I already know. Suffice it to say that they’ll pay for what they’ve done.”
We come to a stop. I can sense the wall in front of us even if I can’t see it. I wait, still and careful, as she searches its surface, her arm tightened once more over the sensitive column of my throat.
“Don’t let me catch you down here again, Checkmate,” she whispers into my ear. “Not unless you’ve come to play.”
Before I know what’s happening the wall opens and she thrusts me through, into the blinding light of downtown New Malcolm.
A door slams behind me, cars roaring past on the street.
Squinting, I look over my shoulder, but whatever opening I came from is well-hidden now.
I see only the cobblestone wall of New Malcolm’s oldest cemetery.