28. Jay
Jay
“Are we running?” I ask conversationally.
Sage looks at me and grins. “We are.”
“Cool. Where are we running to? Do you have another hidden bunker?”
“If only, but, no, we have a better place to hide.”
I fold my arms over my chest and stare out the windshield. “Interesting.”
Rolly studies me with a half smile, but then his expression gets serious. “Here to drop another bomb on us?”
“Ah, you know me so well. I am the door through which all the secrets live. All the information of the ages. People should get down on their knees and worship me. Mwahahahaha.”
“Sarcasm suits you,” Pix says.
“I know. I wear it like a custom-made suit. And look fucking hot as I do.”
Rolly giggles, but the rest don’t really respond.
There’s a tense silence, and then I lean forward, looking out the window, watching for the turn-off.
“Take this one.”
Blaze is obedient and turns on the indicator, waiting until the last minute to slow down and take the corner. It’s obvious that he’s got tactical driving training.
“There’s a city in about two hours. Go there.”
I sit back, closing my eyes, enjoying the feel of the car’s rocking movement. Time passes both slowly and too quickly.
“We’re here.”
I direct them to a school, and we park across the road from it.
It looks like any other. The school’s got a sign with some generic, easy to pronounce name, a fence all the way around, some government-issue buildings, a massive oval, and only a few sparse trees to shelter the kids as they are getting picked up.
It’s the crosswalk that I watch, hoping that I’ll see what I need to see.
“You going to tell us why we’re here?” Roseland asks tightly. “I don’t like involving children in this.”
“What do you know of Nightingales?” I ask absently.
“They are birds that sing.”
“Mmm, they are. That is exactly the point. That’s why he chose the name. Ten points to King.”
The tension in the car thickens, turns sharp and cold. I feel an almost painful desire to laugh, but there’s little humour in it.
“We are a Nightingale. One of seven children who are specifically stolen to be tortured and live and die at his leisure. Trained assassins. Father isn’t a single entity. He is legion. He calls the hired muscle and mercenaries he hires and converts to disciples his flock. But we are his songbirds.”
I can feel them staring at me, but they don’t understand. Not yet, but I see the dawning comprehension on Roseland’s face.
“Raven stole them, didn’t she? That’s why he’s hunting you so ruthlessly?”
I shrug. “My guess is yes. None of us are really sure what Raven is doing, but I managed to glean a couple of images from her memories, and this place and the two places the children are missing are in there.”
“Two places?” Sage asks sharply.
“There’s a place in town. An old lady and a child, a girl,” Rolly says. “Pix stopped me from killing them. You know, the ones that upset my Dove.”
“She made me promise not to tell anyone,” Pix says. “But I know the locations of several of the kids. Not this one, though.”
Everyone is staring at the omega. He just shrugs.
“Worst-case scenario, she dies. I was a backup. Protection for them and the world.”
There’s a different feel in the air now. For me, it’s frustration and a little bit of resignation. I guess a huge part of me doesn’t actually think we are going to survive the next couple of weeks. As soon as he gets hold of me, I won’t live long.
It’s inevitable.
No, it’s not. We’ve got a chance. With this pack, with our skills.
Daylight comes slowly, and Pix gets out of the car with Roseland. They talk to the teachers for about fifteen minutes and then come back and get in the car.
“So?”
“A little girl, aged seven, went missing three days ago. When they called the guardians, there was no answer. They called the police yesterday to do a welfare check. The whole family is missing.”
Blaze starts driving and leads us aimlessly around the city until he finds a service station where we can stop for gas. I get out of the car, stretching, and follow King into the shop. I grab a couple of things and then go into the toilet.
“You didn’t tell them everything,” Kestrel accuses.
I stare at myself in the mirror. “And you think it would be a good idea to tell them that? Should we tell them what we went through and what he made us do? Should we tell them what’s waiting for us?
That the next time he gets us will be the last time?
Don’t be stupid, Kestrel, they don’t need to know all that. They need to be focused.”
She growls at me, hating lying to the pack, but she’s not lying. I am. This is my choice, just like Raven chose to keep all that information to herself.
I can feel the shock of the others. We don’t remember everything yet, but I’ve shown them the door. They have to open it.
No, not they. It has to be Kestrel. She has to be the one to shove open the doors, the one willing to face the truth no matter how much it hurts. Our mind isn’t ready for the memories or the information yet.
It could make us or break us completely.
I blow out my cheeks.
They know about Bonnie and the Sandersons, he knows about the code they use and intercepted the calls and messages.
He found the Nightingales, tried to drug us, killed the old person, has been leaving dead birds.
The only way he could have gotten to the Sandersons is through a Nightingale. They wouldn’t have suspected children.
The only conclusion is that this is some sort of punishment. He’s not even trying to be subtle anymore.
We are outmaneuvered. We lost before we even started trying.
I close my eyes, trying to think like him.
Father likes pain, the ability to lord his intelligence and mastery over those he considers lesser, and he considers everyone lesser.
He converts people because he finds them disposable.
He wears the mask because he thinks he’s a god and touched with power and a greater purpose.
He would torment and cause fear…and he would…. My eyes snap open wide. Oh, no. I grab the handle of the door and rip it open, launching out into the car park. Pacing as I think rapidly, following from one feverish thought to the next.
I jog to the car and lean into the front window. “He will try to flush us out next. Through people we know or the places we’re hiding.”
“I don’t care about the houses,” Blaze says quietly. “And I am aware that my property has been destroyed.”
I look past him to Sage, who looks up as if he can feel my gaze. “It’s true. A house is just concrete and wood. People can’t be replaced.”
Says the serial killers.
Blaze purses his lips. “For me, it’s the memories. But he’s taken them all already. He can’t hurt me by taking anything else but you now.”
“The house at Marion Hollow is gone, too,” King says. “I just checked. It burned after we left.”
I feel the shock of my alters, but it’s far away and distant.
Pix does some searching and lets out a disgruntled sound. “The house we stayed in, in the forest, is gone, too. That’s the one you were talking about, wasn’t it, Blaze?” Pix shows us the photo of the gutted building. It’s just a black wreck now.
I close my eyes. “Right, nowhere to go. He’s saying he can touch us anywhere.”
Sage smiles. “We’re getting to him.”
“I’m sorry, what?” I ask, alarmed.
“He’s freaking out, so he’s playing his cards too soon.”
I shake my head because I can’t see it. “It makes absolutely no sense. Too fast?”
“He’s worried you’re going to vanish. How many of the Nightingales has he got back? What is happening that he is rushing? Something is going on, and his attention is divided. So, the question is…who is he? And who is missing that he is hunting for so badly?”
I stare at the alphas who stare back at me.
That’s information Raven has. But…I can help with some of it.
“You want to unmask him?”
“Oh, yes. Unmask him, hurt him, kill him. In that order.”
The sheer arrogance of it boggles my mind. I want to argue with them, tell them it won’t work, tell them that they will only succeed in getting themselves killed.
“It’s our only chance to be free,” Raven whispers in the chamber. The sound of her voice echoes into all the parts of us.
Freedom.
Not a dream of freedom but actual freedom. I won’t have to kill. Or hurt anyone. No more fear. A home, a family.
The yearning almost brings me to my knees.
“I want that,” I whisper. “I want all of that. Let’s do it.”
Blaze puts a hand on mine and squeezes. “Then hop in the car and let’s go find ourselves a swanky hotel to go and stay in, something with lots of cameras and noise.”
I almost ask why, but I’m distracted by the idea of fighting back. Raven’s been carrying this fight alone for so long, dragging us unwillingly with her, but this time, now it’s different. For the various reasons we all have, we all want to escape.
Not out of fear but out of a heart wish.
Family, freedom, the pack, love, the future, for ourselves.
“Okay, every detail. Jay. Tell us everything you know about the asshole known as Father,” Roseland says calmly in the voice I’m sure he uses when he’s talking to victims and getting statements.
“He wears a bird skull mask with not a single slither of skin showing. His gloves are expensive leather, they are soft, but he loves getting them bloody, pushing them into wounds.”
“Does he ever bite or use his nails?”
“No. Never. The bird skull is a raven, and it comes out from his face, but the black material is impenetrable and is skin-tight. I can’t see the shape of his face or his eyes, they are covered, too.”
Roseland makes a sound.
“Is there anything distinctive about the feel of the material or maybe a smell that is around when he comes close?” Roseland asks softly.
I close my eyes. “Yes, he always smells like disinfectant, but under that, there is this faint scent like rotting leaf litter.”
“Good job. Now, how does he move? Big steps, hand movements, stooped over?”
“He stands really tall with good posture; his shoulders are always back. His walk is tall and with confident steps, like he expects people to get out of his way. When he crouches, he rests his fingertips on the floor, but not his hand. In fact, he touches nothing with his whole hand, just his fingertips. He has three weapons. His brass knuckles, his whip, which is a steel rod wrapped in leather, that’s what he beat us with, mostly.
And he has a cat-o'-nine-tails that has metal balls on the ends, but he generally gives that to Brian or another of his trusted seconds to use.”
That doesn’t make the alphas happy at all, but Roseland doesn’t react.
“Good. That’s really good information,” he murmurs, writing it down. “Now, how does he speak?”
“Slowly, he enunciates things properly, like he’s trying to speak proper English, but it doesn’t come naturally.”
“Accent?”
“Yes!” I shout. “But it’s not there until he gets really angry; it's like it slips in and its thick. Instead of saying ‘my’ he says ‘may’. It’s a strange accent because I haven’t heard it around here before.
He drags the vowel sounds out, too. Father keeps his arms still, and when he uses them, it’s very elegant and fancy.
He doesn’t talk with his hands, he uses them for emphasis. ”
“Good. This is really good.”
“What about his clothes?”
“They are all black, the jacket is thick and always spotlessly clean, not even a hair or speck of dirt on it. His shoes are always polished, and they never have any dirt on the edges or the soles. He’s got big feet.”
“What about when he gets angry?” Rolly asks suddenly. “What is he like when he gets emotional?”
I sit on that for a moment, considering it.
“He’s explosive, dangerous, and he likes to talk really soft and nice.
That’s how you know you’re in trouble. He doesn’t shout.
In fact, he laughs, like it’s pleasurable for him to be this mad.
It’s the only time he will touch us either, and his touch is always soft, like a caress right before he hurts us. ”
“And-”
“But it’s when he gets upset that’s the strangest thing. He comes sometimes, and when he’s sad, he locks us in the manacles and just sits on the table and stares at us. He tells us that we’re bad people, and we need to be punished.”
“What happens after he does that?”
“That’s when he will leave us in the manacles. I’ve thought about it a lot over the years, and I’ve wondered if he feels regret during those times and wishes he could be different. Like leaving us there like that to die is his way of quitting smoking.”
“That is horrific,” King hisses.
“Sometimes we’re there for days. He always keeps us in warehouses, massive, abandoned places that are full of dust. There is never water or food, and it’s always cold. No lights. No people. No sounds of anything human. Different places each time.”
“He’d let you go for jobs, right?”
“Yes, but he kept tracking collars on us. They had various assortments of ways to hurt us. I remember the time he put a bomb on me. That was scary. I kept wishing it would go off and kill me. The names are the same, but we get replaced if we die or misbehave. There have been more of us than the seven that exist now.”
The air in the car gets cold and dangerous.
“Is that how he makes sure that you return? With the collars?”
I nod. “He didn’t really ever give us our freedom, it was just an illusion.”
“How did you escape, Jay?”
“We didn’t escape. Merle did. She’s good at escaping, and I believe she probably picked the chains he left us in. She would have run, and when she was safe enough, Dove took over.” I pause, taking a deep breath. “There is one other small thing you should know.”
I wait until they all look at me, including Blaze in their rear-view mirror.
“Yes? What is it?”
I smile slightly. “He has no idea about the alters.”
“What?” Roseland almost yelps. “How can he not?”
“He doesn’t spend enough time with us. He’s got his second-in-command to feed us and dress us up. To beat us. He doesn’t need to pay that much attention, and we don’t speak to Father very often, so he doesn’t know about us.”
Pix blows out his cheeks. “Then you are the secret weapon that is going to be his downfall, Jay. He can’t have power over all of you because what works on one won’t work on the other.”
I stare at Pix. “I’ve never thought about it like that.”
“That’s what pack and family is for, a different perspective and a whole new way of seeing.”