by Hart, Stella
“He could be playing you.” I swallowed hard, picturing hordes of armed men descending on the shelter, even though it was meant to be impenetrable.
“He’s not. He’s like all those other people in or around the society who have—or had—no idea what’s really going on. He thought the School was just a brothel.”
“He could’ve been lying.”
Elias shook his head. “He wasn’t. He realized there was something fucked up happening in Crown and Dagger before I did, and he’s risked a lot to help me in the past.”
“How so?”
“He’s the one who helped me with the DNA tests when I started to suspect stuff about my biological mother, and he came to me with his concerns when he realized my sample matched Camille Gorham instead of staying silent out of loyalty to my father. He didn’t have to do any of that that, but he did.”
I nervously picked at a chipped nail. “So you told him where we are?”
“No. I know there’s always a chance someone is gonna betray me, even those I’m sure are on my side. So I’m meeting him in Bennington. I’ll blindfold him and drive him here so he doesn’t know where the shelter actually is. If he wants me to trust him completely, he’ll agree to that.”
“What if he has some sort of tracker on him?”
“I’ll search him first, and I’ll make sure we’re not being followed. Don’t worry, I’ve got it covered.”
I exhaled deeply, relaxing back into my chair. “Okay.”
“All I want is for you to be healthy,” Elias said, glancing at my abdomen again.
“I know. It was just a shock hearing all that,” I said with a faint smile. “For a second I thought you might’ve invited the Devil right to our doorstep.”
He chuckled briefly. Then his expression hardened again. “Look, I know you’re really fucking scared, but if all the fear was removed from our situation and we were just a normal couple leading normal lives, how would you feel about the baby?” he asked bluntly. “That’s all I really want to know right now.”
I hesitated, picking at my nail again as I considered the question. “I think I’d be nervous, but also excited,” I began in a halting voice. “I mean, like I was saying before, I never wanted to get pregnant at this age, but at the same time, I can’t think of a single other person in the world I’d want to have a baby with. Only you. So I’d be happy because of that alone.” I smiled gently and shrugged one shoulder. “I know we’re too young by most people’s standards, but I think we’d figure out a way to make it work.”
Elias put his hand on mine again. “That’s exactly what I wanted to say to you, Doll.”
“Really?”
He nodded. “Yeah. Before this, I never really thought about having kids. I always figured I would one day, but this early… no way.” He paused for a breath, leaning closer as his hand slipped down to my knee. “But with you, it’s okay. No, better than okay. I can’t wait until I can show you both off to the whole fucking world.”
I smiled. “We’re lucky to have you,” I said softly.
“So we’re doing this? You’re not thinking about—”
I cut him off, putting a finger over his lips. “We’re doing this.”
“Good.” Elias slid his hand down to rub my stomach. “I know our situation isn’t exactly ideal, but our kid is gonna be better off than us in one major way.”
I raised my brows. “What’s that?”
“Two parents who genuinely care about him or her. That’s worth more than all the fucking money on this planet, don’t you think?”
“Yes.” I smiled again. “You know, for such a man’s man, you’re actually pretty sweet sometimes.”
His fingers moved up to my breasts, sliding under my shirt to pinch a nipple. “How’s this for sweet?”
“I take it back.”
He chuckled and pulled his hand away. “Drink up,” he said, nodding to the smoothie glass. “What are you working on, anyway?”
I picked up the glass. “I was just writing some stuff about Mellie,” I said between mouthfuls as I finished the drink. “All the things I remember her saying about Henry when he was still alive.”
As I spoke, my eyes fell on the first few words of the quote I’d written down moments ago. Somewhere in the back of my head was a sudden click, tiny but irrevocable. It grew louder, a resounding crack. My eyes widened.
“I just remembered some of my dream,” I said hurriedly before Elias had a chance to respond to my earlier words.
He frowned in confusion. “What?”
“I think,” I began slowly. “I might know how to take down Crown and Dagger.”
14
Tatum
Elias stared at me, eyes burning curiously. “Tell me.”
My stomach squirmed with excitement and daring. My mind was working overtime, flitting from one thought to another at the speed of light. I didn’t even know where to begin.
Finally, I took a deep breath and centered my brain on one thought. “We know one person can’t stop Crown and Dagger. Or even a few. They wouldn’t stand a chance. They’d be labeled a crazy conspiracy theorist, or worse, they’d be killed for trying. But it doesn’t have to be like that.”
Elias cocked his head to the side. “Go on.”
Raising my brows, I posed a question to him. “What’s the one thing regular people have that all the millionaires and billionaires in Crown and Dagger can never have, no matter what?”
“Debt?”
I rolled my eyes. “Apart from that.”
He shrugged. “What?”
“Numbers!” I said. “The elites in our society might have the majority of the country’s money and power, but there aren’t many of them. Not compared to the masses of regular people like me.”
“Ah.” Comprehension dawned on his face.
“That will never change, because the super-rich need millions of people below them in society. They need them to work for all their businesses and industries, so they can profit off their labor. But there’s always a breaking point.” I clasped my hands together in a pyramid on the desk. “That’s exactly why the third-level men in Crown and Dagger are so secretive. They’re afraid. If all the millions of regular people in this country found out what was really going on behind certain closed doors in high society, they’d reach that breaking point and rise up against them. They’d have to, because these men are literally enslaving, raping, and killing young women. Men, too. Like Henry. There’d be riots in the street until something was done to stop them once and for all.”
“True.”
“So they’re forced to operate in the shadows,” I went on. I was babbling and starting to repeat myself, but I couldn’t stop the words from tumbling out of me. “If they thought the general public couldn’t do anything to stop them, they wouldn’t even bother hiding the dark shit they do, right? But they do, because they know that no matter how much money or influence they have, sheer numbers will always win out in the end, and that’s what would happen if everyone found out the truth about them. They’d go down in flames. A hundred of them versus hundreds of millions.”
Elias wrinkled his forehead. “So what’s your idea?”
I drew a deep breath. “There’s one way to make sure the general public finds out exactly what’s going on. That’s what the start of my dream last night was about,” I said. I waved my hand at the page on the desk and continued. “Mellie said something to me about Henry once, when I asked if she was worried he’d ever speak out against the society. I guess it’s been on my mind a lot lately, enough to seep into my dreams. I even wrote it down earlier.”
Elias furrowed his brows impatiently. “What?”
“She said: ‘what’s he gonna do, call the New York Times?’ It seemed like a stupid idea, but it’s actually not entirely terrible, if you think about it.” I leaned forward. “I know the guys in Crown and Dagger probably have a ton of connections to traditional media sources and publishing companies so they can squash any negative p
ress, but lucky for us, times have changed, right? These days, most people get their news from social media sites like Reddit or Facebook, not official sources like newspapers. So if we can get an article to go viral online and make sure a ton of people find about what’s happening in Crown and Dagger, all at the same time, those people will start to rise up against them. Then other people will be forced to listen and act too. There won’t be anything those sick society assholes can do about it. They’ll all wind up rotting in prison for the rest of their lives, and everything they know will be stripped from them. Their money, their power… all of it. They’ll never be allowed to control anything ever again, let alone hurt anyone.”
Elias rubbed his chin, lips set in a tight line. He didn’t reply.
My mood instantly deflated. “You already thought of something like this, didn’t you?” I said quietly.
“Yeah. Sorry,” he replied. He patted my hand. “It’s a good idea. Maybe the only one that could work. But it’s missing one major component.”
I sighed. I should’ve known. I was so enthusiastic and exhilarated about the idea that I hadn’t thought it through all the way. Now I realized how premature that excitement was. The idea was obvious. Too obvious. Of course Elias had already thought of it and all the subsequent problems that might arise from it.
“What is it?” I asked in a small voice.
He tapped a finger on my page, near the quote from Mellie. “You wrote it down right here. Henry couldn’t have called the media and told them anything, because he had no proof. It would be his word against everyone else’s. It wouldn’t be any different for us.”
The tail end of last night’s dream suddenly flashed in the forefront of my mind: Mellie wearing a suit made of tinfoil to mock her dead brother, laughing about how everyone would’ve thought he was a crazy conspiracy theorist if he ever tried to go public with what he knew.
“Shit,” I said miserably. “You’re right. We have no real proof.”
“Yup,” Elias said, gritting his teeth. “And no one’s gonna print anything without any proof, let alone make it go viral.”
I slumped back in my seat. “What about your DNA tests?” I asked with furrowed brows. “You said they proved Camille Gorham was your mother, and she went missing in 1992. Surely if people found out she had a baby after that in 1993 and we had literal scientific proof of it, they’d listen to us when we told them why.”
“That’s just one minor inconvenience to the society, so they’d find a way to cover it up. In fact, now that I’ve taken off with you, I’m willing to bet my father has already made it happen just in case we ever decided to try that tactic. I’m pretty sure a few senior directors at the FBI are Crown and Dagger guys, so it wouldn’t be hard for him to manage it.”
Disgust pulled at my lips. “Ugh.”
“We need something big to take them down. Something so huge it’s undeniable. Something they can’t even try to cover up.”
“Yeah, you’re right.”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “I think the only proof that could really help us is in my dad’s favorite study.”
My brows lifted. “What?”
“He films, photographs, or records things so he can blackmail people with all the dirt he has on them if necessary. Take the hunts, for example. He has someone taking photos and filming all of that from the start, before the masks go on. So if a third-level member ever steps out of line or develops a conscience and tries to leave, he’s able to threaten the guy with that—proof that he participated in hunting a human. There’s more, too. He records literally everything, and he keeps files on all members too.”
My heart began to race. “Is there any way we can get to this stash of evidence?”
He shook his head. “Nope. It’s all backed up onto a portable hard drive in his study at the Lodge, and we can’t exactly go back there, can we? You’d be killed instantly if you tried, and I probably would be too. Even if he spared my life because I’m his son, he’d never trust me enough to leave me alone in the place again. Ever. So I’d never have the opportunity to go to his study by myself to find all the shit we’d need to send to the media.”
“Dammit.” I balled my right hand into a fist and tapped it on the desk. “God, there has to be some way….”
“If there is, I haven’t figured it out yet. But keep thinking, Doll,” Elias said. “You’re smart. Probably way fucking smarter than me, if I’m being honest.”
“I dunno. I feel pretty dumb right now.” I looked down at the desk as a cramp began to gnaw at my guts. I knew what had caused it. Stress.
“Don’t be ridiculous. The viral article idea is good. We just need proof, that’s all.”
I nodded slowly and forced myself to smile, trying to muster up some of last week’s determination and positivity. “That’s my new mission, then,” I said. “I’ll try to think of a safe way back into the Lodge. For you, anyway.”
“That’s my girl.” Elias winked. “I’ve been trying to do the same thing. Guess I just have to keep trying.” He glanced at his watch. “Anyway, I’ll have to head out soon. Dr. Paulson is due in Bennington soon. You’ll be okay here on your own for a while?”
I nodded. “Yes. Safest place in the world, right?”
“Right.”
He stood up. I followed suit, intent on giving him a hug. As I swept my arms up, one of them brushed against the empty smoothie glass and knocked it right off the desk. It shattered all over the floor, sending sharp slivers in every direction.
“Shit, sorry,” I said, getting down on my knees so I could start picking up the shards.
“Tatum,” Elias said sharply.
I looked up. He was staring at the floor, eyes wide and face pale. “It’s okay, it’s just a glass,” I said.
“It’s not that. Just stay calm, okay?” He held out a hand. “Come on, baby girl, I need to get you up.”
My brows furrowed. “Why? I’m fi—” The cramp in my abdomen suddenly turned sharper, almost knocking the breath out of me. “Urgh!” I grunted in pain and looked down, clutching at my stomach. Then I saw it, seeping through my pale blue jeans.
Blood.
15
Elias
Tatum grunted and doubled over as a scream tore through her. I gripped her arm to keep her steady as she clutched at her stomach, and then I looped an arm under her and picked her up. She squirmed and moaned in my arms, her eyes heavily-lidded.
“Oh god… am I losing the baby?” she choked out before closing her eyes and letting out another loud, wrenching moan.
“I don’t know,” I said in a low voice as I hurried out of the library and toward the medical wing. I didn’t know what else to say. I’d never been in this situation before. I’d never felt so fucking powerless and out of control.
I first noticed the spots of blood when she stooped to pick up the broken glass. Just a few little patches on the crotch of her jeans, but still enough to concern me. Then she was jackknifed by a severe cramp and more blood began to seep out, snaking down the inside of the right leg of her jeans, a dark red zigzag emblazoned against the light fabric.
“Please stop it,” Tatum bit out in my arms, her teeth clenched. “We only… we only just decided…”
She cut herself off with another wrenching cry and squeezed her eyes shut, the pain overwhelming her to the point where she couldn’t speak. I knew what she was about to say before that. She was going to point out how horribly fucking twisted this was. We’d finally addressed the tiny elephant in the room—the baby—and realized how much we both wanted it with each other, and now we were losing it in sticky crimson rivulets. It was the darkest irony either of us had ever known.
“Maybe this is normal,” Tatum whispered a moment later, her eyes fluttering open as I dashed down a long blue hall. “My mom… a few years ago she told me she had some spotting when she was pregnant with me. Maybe that’s what this is.”
This was a hell of a lot more than spotting. I didn’t tell her that. Instea
d I smiled faintly and nodded, gave her a few more minutes of hope. “Yeah. It’s probably that. You’re gonna be fine, baby girl.”
I reached the medical wing and set Tatum down on the first bed I came across. Then I put my hand on her forehead. “I’m gonna call the doctor,” I said. “But I’ll stay right here in the room, okay?”
She nodded. Naked pain flickered in her eyes. I wished I could transfer every ounce of suffering to myself so she never had to feel anything so terrible again.
I dialed Paulson’s number and stepped away from the bed so I could speak to him without Tatum hearing all my concerns and stressing herself out even more. He answered on the first ring. “Elias, are you on your way? I just got here.”
“Change of plans,” I said hurriedly. “I’m gonna have to give you an address so you can drive out here yourself. I think Tatum’s having a miscarriage.”
“What’s happening?”
“She started bleeding. It’s soaking through her pants. I don’t know what the fuck to do.”
“Okay. Try to stay calm, and send me the directions so I can come and help.”
“Gimme a second. Texting it to you now.” I put the phone on loudspeaker for a second as my fingers flew over the keyboard. “Done. Let me know when you get to those coordinates. I’ll have to come up and let you in.”
I heard the sound of an engine starting in the background. “I’m on my way. For now, where are the two of you?” Paulson’s voice was fainter now. Reedier. He must’ve put me on loudspeaker as he drove.
“I took Tatum to the medical center.”
“Good. She’s lying down, I presume?”
“Yes. What else can I do? There’s so much fucking blood. I’ve gotta stop it somehow.”
Dr. Paulson was silent for a few seconds. “Elias, if this is really a miscarriage, then I’m sorry, but there’s nothing you can do.”
My eyes widened. “It can’t be stopped?”