“Answer the question, Amery.”
“Because… because all FBI Agents have their kids microchipped. They are extremely paranoid about their kids being taken. For good reason, clearly.”
He ran out of questions. Lochie looked around, trying to make sense of something that didn’t make much sense. I wished he didn’t have to know any of it, including the parts I was just winging. If only the truth wouldn’t be so painful.
“Can we go now?” I asked again. The air was starting to blow with a cool breeze, reminding me how late it was. I longed to be curled up in my bed at home with my comfy pajamas and a good book. It seemed a world away now.
“Fine,” Lochie sighed. He started walking, not waiting to see if I was following or not. I was certain he knew I was lying about something. What I didn’t know was what part he didn’t believe. A whole lot of information had been thrown at him, I hoped he could handle it all.
I hurried to walk beside him. We had to cross campus to get to the student parking lot. It was a long walk through the lawns of the college.
As we turned the last corner and the lot was in sight, I noticed two casually dressed men starting to walk in our direction. It was like they had just parked and were on their way somewhere. The problem was, they didn’t look like students.
I slowed down. “Lochie, something’s up.” I grabbed onto his arm so he would slow down to match my pace.
I had met a lot of FBI agents in my lifetime, I was pretty good at spotting them even when they were undercover. And the two men coming toward us were definitely Federal Agents.
My mind raced for a rational explanation for them to be on campus. Perhaps there was a major incident in the dorms or something? Bad things happened all the time on college campuses, they were on the news all the time. There was no reason to instantly think they were there because of me.
And yet, something in the pit of my stomach told me I needed to get out of there and quickly. We were fast closing the gap between us. Another twenty feet and we would be directly in front of each other.
I squeezed Lochie’s arm and pulled him closer. “Those men are FBI, we need to get out of here,” I whispered. He nodded subtly. I pulled his arm sideways and let go, running as fast as I could across the pathway. Lochie was hot on my heels, and the additional pounding on the pavement told me the Agents were too.
I didn’t have a plan so I just ran. We needed to get back to the car but first we needed to gain some ground. Stopping to unlock and then climb into the vehicle would take time we didn’t have at that moment.
Running without a destination, I zigzagged every which way I could, hoping Lochie was keeping up with me. I checked over my shoulder, making sure. Of course he was there with me, he was a basketball player, I should have known.
I flew around a corner, not sure what was going to be there. On our earlier tour, we didn’t anticipate having to run away from anywhere besides the alcove.
We ran straight into a crowd of students. I hit the brakes, trying to avoid a collision with a group on the edge of the sidewalk. Lochie ran into the back of me, obviously having the same trouble. He had to grab me to stop my fall as I stumbled forward.
I quickly glanced over my shoulder, the Agents were still following. There was only one thing we could do – plunge into the crowd and hope we were lost.
It was slow going through the bodies. Half the people thought we were trying to push ahead in some queue and the other half were completely oblivious to us needing to get through. Lochie eventually took charge, stepping in front of me and grabbing my arm. He pulled me through the people, plowing ahead without looking back.
I quickly lost track of the Agents following us as we were swallowed up in the crowd. I knew they would be following us but now I couldn’t tell how far ahead we were. All I could do was hope we were gaining ground and that they were having more trouble than us getting through.
We eventually reached the other side of the group. Cold air rushed at me with sweet relief. Lochie let go of my arm, I could still feel his strong grip even afterwards. We didn’t wait around for the men to catch up. We started running again, looping around the building to double back to the parking lot.
We didn’t slow down until we were in his car and hurrying along the road back to Portview. On the desolate stretch of highway, I was still worried the Agents were going to find us. It wouldn’t take a genius to work out where we were going. If they had found us so easily at the college campus, there was no saying they wouldn’t be able to still track us.
“What are you thinking about?” Lochie asked, breaking the silence that had been with us since we left the lot.
“I was trying to work out how the FBI found me here,” I replied. Perhaps he would have some ideas? “I’ve never been to that college before, they had no reason to think I would be there.”
“Is your phone on?”
Ugh, why didn’t I think of that? I turned my phone on in case Jacob had to contact me before the meeting. I didn’t want to be waiting around if he had left me a message saying he was running late. I fished around in my bag, quickly turning the phone off. “I’m so stupid, I led them right to me.”
“It’s an easy mistake, don’t beat yourself up about it.” I wanted to, it was a rookie error doing that. Staying off the grid 101 said to keep your damn phone switched off or ditch it all together.
My biggest concern was what had I also missed? Was there anything I had overlooked that could now be putting us in danger? I went through a mental checklist, trying to make sure all the bases were covered.
I came to one conclusion. “We need to switch cars. Those Agents were coming from the parking lot, they might have your license plate recorded.”
Lochie stole a look my way. “I’m not getting rid of my car.”
“I didn’t say to get rid of it, we just need to use a different one. It’s not like I want you to set it alight or anything.” He seemed to calm down a little.
“Just because they have my license plate, doesn’t mean they’ll be able to find us,” Lochie argued. It was just like old times, perhaps I had dreamed the whole conversation we had earlier.
“The FBI will put a flag on your plates,” I explained, reeling off the process my parents had told to me. “Then every police officer in the state will be on the lookout for the vehicle, every camera will send up a notification of your whereabouts, and they’ll track us down with their guns ready.”
Lochie was no longer so argumentative. “I’ll call my buddy and we’ll borrow his car.”
“That will work.”
He grabbed his phone from the console and dialed, making sure to keep his eyes and attention on the road. I listened while he had a brief conversation with his friend. They agreed to meet and Lochie hung up.
We drove in silence again as I tried to remember everything Jacob had said. At least I had a name now – the Originals. It wasn’t very, well, original. They obviously lacked any imagination. The reasons behind the Originals’ actions didn’t concern me much. It didn’t matter why they were doing it, more the fact they had Lola and thought they could get away with using her as a bargaining tool. They thought they were above the law, all because they could say it was done in the name of protecting their race.
I didn’t care what your motives were, using a seventeen year old girl was not okay. Nothing justified hurting another human being and calling it acceptable in the interests of the human race. Nobody deserved to be harmed like it.
What kept sticking in my mind was their motto Protect Our Own. It too was a bit uninspired, they obviously didn’t put much thought into their marketing. That wasn’t the sticky part, however, I had heard the phrase somewhere before. The memory was teasing me, whispering to my brain somewhere in the distance. As much as I tried to grasp it, the thing remained just out of reach.
We met with Lochie’s friend, a guy I recognized from school. They were both on the basketball team and I often saw them hanging out together in the cafeteria. W
e took his car and dropped him home, leaving Lochie’s parked in a supermarket lot. If anyone found it, there would be nobody they could arrest for being with it.
We sat in the new car, Lochie looking at me expectantly. “So where do you want to go?”
Home would have been too easy. If we had lost the entire day waiting to speak with Jacob, I couldn’t waste the night too. I still had lots of work to do yet.
“We need to get away from your car,” I replied, thinking of the most immediate need first. “Can you drive for a bit?”
He nodded and started driving. I wished we had a destination but I couldn’t think of anywhere to go. The words Protect Our Own kept playing on my mind. They repeated over and over again, dangling in front of me like a carrot and beckoning for the memory to come back. I knew those words, I had seen them somewhere before.
We drove around the empty streets of Portview. It seemed like everyone was doing the sensible thing and were tucked up in bed. That was a luxury we couldn’t afford yet.
We passed a building I had seen at least a hundred times before. It stood on the fringe of the city center, and was an old building – the kind you would expect to house an old bank or post office. The white sandstone walls stood imposingly on the sidewalk, not inviting anyone inside.
But the impressive nature of the building wasn’t what I was thinking of. There was a symbol above the door, I had often wondered what it stood for. I even asked my parents one day when we were on the way home from running errands. They had told me and I thought they were so smart for knowing everything.
It was a nice memory, but more importantly, I could recall what the symbol meant. The circle within another circle that made up the symbol was believed to have been used in ancient Rome. It stood for the words protect our own.
CHAPTER 23
“Lochie, stop,” I said urgently. He hit the brakes, sending us both lurching forward at the sudden stop. “That building, it belongs to the Originals.”
“How can you be so sure?” He asked, looking at me with an intense stare.
“The symbol above the door, see it?” I waited until he saw what I was pointing at. “It means Protect Our Own, the motto of the Originals.”
“Are you serious?”
“No, I’m joking, what do you think?”
“That can’t be a coincidence.”
“No, it can’t be,” I agreed. “We need to get inside that building.”
“And how do you think we can do that?”
“I don’t know,” I replied, opening the car door. “But I guess we’ll figure something out.”
He said something but I didn’t quite catch it as I closed the door. Now was not a time for being logical and sensible. Now was a time to get Lola back and we weren’t going to do that by being too afraid to get out of the car.
As we crossed the road and approached as stealthily as possible, my eyes ran over the windows. It looked dark inside, I couldn’t see one light on either in or outside of the building. For all intents and purposes, it looked like everyone had gone home for the night. But if my gut was right, then there would still be some people left. They wouldn’t leave Lola alone and I couldn’t think of a better hiding place for her than their headquarters.
I’m sure it was no coincidence that their meeting place was in Portview. We were the center of the project with the Department located only two hour’s drive away. We were the hub of alien activity and I’m sure they knew it too.
“Can’t you walk quieter?” I whispered. Lochie’s footsteps sounded like stomping in the quiet.
“I have feet, so no,” he replied, a little tersely. I think he was over the whole thing as much as I was. And that was the Lochie that made sense to me, not the one being so nice and affable.
I tried to ignore his troll-like feet on the pavement and concentrated on the building. The door looked well secured and the windows were barred. We skirted around the wall. In a building that size, there had to be more than one entrance. And hopefully they wouldn’t be as security conscious of a backdoor.
The building stood on a corner block, commercial buildings on the two sides that weren’t streets. We were nested in the corner before we saw a ray of light. Trying to be as invisible as possible, I peeked over the ledge into the window. It was covered by steel bars and a sheer curtain, but I could just make out what was going on.
The room was full of people, all seated around a long table. They seemed to be discussing something deep and serious. Judging by the stern looks on their faces, it didn’t appear to be about kittens and unicorns.
My eyes fell on something lying on the floor. At first, I thought it was a rolled up rug or a pile of blankets. But in the next moment, I realized it was moving. And I would recognize that black head of hair anywhere. We had found Lola, she was there with only a wall to separate us.
“Lochie, look,” I whispered, pointing. He peered over my shoulder, audibly gasping when he spotted her. “We need to get her out of there. She must be so scared.”
“Well we can’t just wander in and ask them for her. In case you haven’t noticed, we are severely outnumbered.” Of course I knew that, I could do the math in my head. Two of us to at least a dozen of them were not good odds.
A thought started to develop in my head, one that might work or fail miserably. “I can’t wander in there, but you can,” I smiled, hoping my charm would be enough to convince him. Normally all I would have to do was say the opposite of what I needed him to do and he would do it. Now, in light of his confession, I didn’t know what it was going to take.
Lochie rolled his eyes. “What do I need to do?”
I ran down my plan quickly, it wasn’t exactly well thought out but he didn’t argue. We would try our best and hope lady luck was on our side. If worst came to worst, I would offer myself as a sacrifice so Lochie could get Lola out of there. A swap, that’s what the Originals wanted the entire time, right? They would have to agree to it if we didn’t have any other option.
I waited by the side of the entrance in the shadows as Lochie tried the door. When it didn’t open, he knocked loudly. Through the window, I watched as the people inside all exchanged worried glances before one of the men got up. He hurried to the door and swung it open. I pushed against the wall, praying they wouldn’t find me there.
“What do you want?” The man asked sternly, clearly not happy with the interruption.
Lochie didn’t skip a beat. “I want to join you.”
“This is a private meeting.”
“I want to help protect the human race,” Lochie replied. I never realized he was such a good actor. If I didn’t know he was putting it on, I would have believed him. I may even have welcomed him inside and declared him the king of the organization.
I couldn’t get a good view of the man’s face in the darkness, but I guessed he was thinking over the strange teenager’s sudden presence there. Lochie stood still, doing his best trust me look. He was such a good sport for doing it for me. If the Originals got a hint what he was really doing, they would have him tied up on the floor in two seconds flat.
“Who is to vouch for you?” The man finally asked. I hadn’t considered the organization might be a referral only membership. We were sunk.
“I don’t feel comfortable telling you that yet, I don’t want to risk exposing them,” Lochie said resolutely. “Not until we are in a more private setting.” He made a show of looking around, as if someone might be lurking and eavesdropping. I was, of course, but there could have been others.
The man sighed. “Come in. You’ve got two minutes.”
Lochie followed him inside, making sure to keep the door slightly ajar as he did. I instantly went into action. I grabbed the heavy door and counted to ten, opening it just a crack to see if the coast was clear.
They were standing at the front of the table, holding everyone’s attention. I crept in while they were looking in the opposite direction, heading straight for Lola on the ground. I almost crawled along on
the floor, trying to avoid being seen by everyone. It would only have taken one person to look around and the whole thing would have been over. I said I had a plan, I never said it was a good one.
Lola saw me and her eyes grew wide, I didn’t know whether she was panicking or happy to see me. I hurried along, spurred on by her discomfort. Besides the ropes chaffing on her skin, she looked relatively unharmed. There were no visible bruises but her hair was frazzled and her eyes were ringed in red. She obviously hadn’t been very comfortable over the past two days. I staved off the pangs of guilt, they would have to wait for later.
Across the room, Lochie was smothering the group with compliments, telling them how awful he thought the government was by working with the aliens. He was doing a good job, he had them in the palm of his hands.
Lola’s ropes were tied tight, I had to dig my fingernails in deep to pull them apart. I took the ones off her ankles first and then the ones on her wrists next. The rag around her mouth was last, the knot too tight to undo so I wrangled it down to her neck so she was free.
I helped Lola to her feet and tried to keep her crouched over. Her legs didn’t seem to be working too well, probably from being in the one position and blood deprived for so long. God only knew how long she had been lying there and she had no doubt been tied up since she was taken from school.
I led her back to the door, glancing at Lochie as we went. He continued talking, going on about the future of the world and how he wanted to protect his children’s children. It sounded like a whole lot of drivel to me, he was obviously grasping at straws to hold their attention now.
We only had to cross the space between the table and the door. Once outside, we would get to the car and Lochie would improvise some more to excuse himself from the meeting. Hopefully they wouldn’t initiate him in the meantime.
We started crossing the void, I was gripping Lola’s arm to help her stay steady. She was a bit woozy, it wouldn’t surprise me if they had been drugging her to keep her compliant. I knew what that felt like and it was similar to trying to walk around with your head in a fog. Every movement would be forced and well thought out – even walking.
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