She shrugs. “The people in the Timeline I collected it from are a bit literal. What can you do?”
“How many dosages does this contain?”
“I’m not sure, to be honest. I have two vials of the stuff. We can start small and adjust as needed. I ought to point out I’ve only ever read about its effects; I’ve yet to see them in action. Should I warn you that there’s always the possibility of overdose?”
I hand her the vial and press the button on my ear. Someone other than Mary has also been listening in on my interrogation attempts. “Have Rosemary brought into the medical wing and strapped down upon a bed. I plan on resuming my questioning within the next hour.”
A small hiss sounds before the A.D., otherwise known as Jack Dawkins or the Artful Dodger, answers. “Copy that, ARL.” As Van Brunt’s assistant, he’s been overseeing the housing for our two prisoners of war.
I take out the earpiece and stuff it in my pocket.
“Will you tell Finn what we’re doing?”
Victor’s brother and my partner, Finn Van Brunt, has taken over the Society’s day-to-day operations as his father recuperates from his horrific attack. I’m loathe to trouble Finn with anything right now, as he’s carrying many heavy weights on his shoulders, but as we’ve recently begun to build a meaningful relationship between us, I don’t want further secrets to be the norm, either. While both our pasts have skeletons not yet revealed, I firmly believe our present and our future have no room for such further deceptions.
“Of course.” And then, more wryly, “If I can lure him away from those meetings he’s been trapped in from morning to night these last few days, that is.”
“Poor man. You couldn’t pay me to deal with all those people.”
Once word got out amongst Society members and liaisons, Finn’s phone has rang constantly. Everyone has questions, even more have opinions. The task of putting out fires is not an easy one.
“Fortunately for Finn,” Mary continues, “Brom is coming home today. Man has his throat slashed, and what does he do? Insist upon convalescing at home as quickly as possible so he can continue working. Personally, I’d find myself a nice manly nursemaid and enjoy a bit of R&R, if you know what I mean.”
Once Victor determined their father was in stable condition, the Van Brunt brothers immediately drafted plans to bring him home to be tended to by specialists they hand selected from Timelines the Society has good diplomatic ties with. To bring in local doctors would risk Society secrets, something Van Brunt would never stand for.
Both my and Mary’s phones beep. Upon each of their screens reads the following message from the Librarian: Meeting in three hours to discuss latest wall findings.
An immense collection of photographs, newspaper clippings, book pages, and drawings from key stories were found taped and tacked upon the attic wall of the Ex Libris bookstore. It was a terrifying, infuriating monstrosity to gaze upon, as it is now assumed to be the key to unraveling Todd and Rosemary’s destructive plans toward catalysts and Timelines. Van Brunt contacted several people across various Timelines to crack its cyphers.
I motion to my phone, an object still so foreign to me. “I pray this is good news.”
“You and me both.” Mary checks the time. “Best go and inform Finn of what we’re planning. I’ll get the serum readied and meet up with you in about fifty minutes. Be prepared to kick some ass.”
I always am.
FINN IS, AS MARY and I correct assumed, entrenched in yet another meeting. Inside the Institute’s conference room is a group of a dozen or so men and women from various Timelines, hammering away at the younger Van Brunt with the same questions he’s fielded for days now: Where is Todd? What is Rosemary saying? What is F.K. Jenkins saying? Why can’t you find Todd? Are any Timelines currently in danger?
My partner handles them deftly, though. He is a smooth talker and has an uncanny way of setting even the paranoid at ease. When he notices me standing in the back of the room, though, he wraps the meeting up in just a way that has members and liaisons filing out with relief on their faces.
I shut and lock the door behind the last straggler.
“You,” Finn tells me, “are a welcome sight.”
As is he. My heart flutters as I take in his handsome visage. Tall, sandy-haired, and with the most lovely blue-gray eyes I’ve ever seen, I have been painfully attracted to Finn Van Brunt since the day I arrived at the Institute. I resisted the burgeoning feelings growing within me for months, reluctant to reopen my heart after the prophecies of Wonderland tore me apart from the man I loved and planned on spending my life with. And yet, when finally forced to face the truth, I could not deny the strength of my feelings toward my new partner.
He is good and kind and honorable. He is my north star after being lost for too long.
I make my way around the table, to the front of the large room. “Perhaps not so welcome. Rosemary is resisting answering my questions.”
This does not surprise him in the least. “Jenkins, too. Henry Flemming spent a good two hours earlier today beating his head against the wall. All Jenkins has to say is how he’s going to sue every single one of us and that he’s an American.”
Flemming is an older former military man who, like me, was sorely disappointed in how Society members stymied us from proper interrogation techniques. Old habits die hard, because irritation rose within me during the meeting in which we were told this. Me, the Queen of Diamonds, requiring permission to interrogate a prisoner of war the way I see fit? But then I remembered I am in New York City, not Wonderland. My position in the Society is not elevated above the rest, nor are its members mine to command.
That said, there was no mention of a restriction upon drug-induced interrogation.
“Do you have a few minutes to spare?”
Finn Van Brunt has the most delicious of smiles. “For you? Always.” He holds up a finger and then goes to turn off the light and to close the blinds on the windows facing toward the hallway.
I lift my eyebrows up in silent question. He has no shame, though. “It’s the only way to guarantee privacy.” To illustrate his point, his phone chirps until he places it on silent. “What’s up?”
“I will shortly be utilizing a truth serum of Mary’s to compel Rosemary to talk.”
It is comforting that my statement does not faze him. “What do you need from me?”
I reach out and finger the softness of the plaid shirt he’s wearing. I like these shirts of his. I like how they look both comfortable and inherently sexy on him. I like them even more on the floor of his bedroom. But this is not the time for such lascivious thoughts, not when there is so much else to be done. “Nothing. I just thought it best you know. I expect to have answers from her before the night is through.”
It’s his turn to reach for me. Exhaustion drips off of his lean body. While he slept in my bed last night, he arose before dawn and has been in constant meetings and status reports throughout the day. After years of such experiences in Wonderland, I know the feeling well and wish there is something I can do to shield him from such responsibilities.
“I trust you, Alice. I know you’ll do what it takes to get the job done. I wish I could be there, too, but . . .” He sighs quietly. “My afternoon is booked straight until the meeting the Librarian just scheduled to discuss the wall findings.”
I wonder what he would think of my old methods, cultivated when madness and I were close friends. I would not have hesitated to hang Rosemary by a foot upside down until she feared her leg would tear from her body and words spilled from her mouth. “Has there been a breakthrough?”
“I don’t know if I’d call it a breakthrough, but there’s been some movement.” His hands settle on my hips. “Let’s just say you and I will be leaving first thing in the morning for an assignment.”
“Is that wise, considering how Todd is on the loose?”
He tells me it is, and as I trust him, too, I let it go at that. Business must go as normal, accordi
ng to Society members. Whilst we must hunt the fugitive, members must also focus on our shared mission to protect all Timelines.
We are about to open the conference room door and enter the hallway when he stops. He turns to me, his lovely eyes achingly sincere. “I want to take you on a date when all of this craziness is over. A real one. We’ve kind of gone about this all backwards, haven’t we?”
One corner of my mouth lifts up. “Are you saying you’d like to court me?”
There is no playfulness to his face, no quirk to his own lips. My heart flutters at his seriousness. “Yes.”
He wants to court me.
Too many emotions rush around in a caucus race throughout my body. I have no doubts of Huckleberry Finn Van Brunt’s feelings toward me. I understood them two minutes ago just as well as I did this morning when I woke up and from the night before and from the day in Wonderland where he said, in not so many words, that he was falling in love with me.
I told him he was my north star, and meant it. He countered we are binaries.
He and I . . . We’ve never said those words, though, not the ones that truly spell out fragile, deep secrets of a heart and soul. Words so easily and yet unfortunately uttered by many, be it to express their appreciation of fried bits of potatoes to sports teams on the television. Words offered so frivolously about a variety of subjects and yet can be the most difficult, most painful, most meaningful, most cherished syllables we gift another person.
I have said these words before, to another man. Another man I still love. One I know, in the deepest confines of my heart, that I will love until the last breath escapes my body. A man who courted me in secret and then publicly in the face of astonishment, disapproval, confusion, and, in the end, prophesies.
I have willingly given the man in front of me my heart, though, whether he knows it or not. He now holds it in his hands, and while I pray he is my future, there is still a part of me that bucks in conflicted confusion and delight by this declaration of his.
He wants to court me.
And yet, as sweet and romantic as such a gesture might be, I require no such formalities. My affections for Finn Van Brunt have already solidified into something real and wonderful and meaningful. I reach up and touch his cheek. There’s neglected stubble there, and I rather like this, too. “What would we do on such a date?”
Before he can answers, pounding on the door brings with it the A.D. “There’s a call for you in the HQ, Finn.” And then, noticing how close we’re standing together, in the dark to boot, his rubbery grin slips down several notches. “You two wankers are at it again?”
I cannot count how many times my hand has itched to smartly slap this man’s impertinent face, but none perhaps as strongly as now.
My partner must feel the same, because his voice turns cold. “Your recent loss of money is making you into more of an asshole than usual, you know. How much did you have to pay Mary again?”
The A.D.’s beady eyes narrow toward Finn’s obvious displeasure. “That would be none of your business.”
“Except,” Finn says flatly, “it is, isn’t it? You made it mine.”
The A.D. and Mary made a wager some months ago on whether or not Finn and I would ever give into the feelings building between us. Granted, it displeases me that such an inappropriate wager was made in the first place, even by Mary (who, I ought to point out, cares very little for propriety), but it is vaguely diverting to see just how hard the A.D. is taking his loss.
“A friendly word of advice,” Finn continues. “My personal life is off-limits, as is Alice’s. Is that clear?”
A small jerk of a bitter nod follows. “Wouldn’t dare encroach upon the Queen and her boy toy’s business now, would I?”
Finn takes a meaningful step toward the A.D.; the man bolts out of the room. To me, he says, “This is like the tenth transmission today. I want to track down whoever spilled the beans about our captures and strangle him or her.”
“I would have never thought the Institute to be filled with such gossips.”
“Everywhere is filled with gossips,” he says dryly. “Except perhaps one of those monasteries where they’ve taken a vow of silence.”
I close the door once more, and there, in the darkened conference room, I steal a kiss from the man I’ve fallen in love with. Live sparks flare throughout my body as we press up against the wood, and I wish, wish oh so very much, that there was time for more. But there isn’t, of course. There are meetings to be had and villainesses to interrogate. There is still a fiend to bring to justice and a father and employer to welcome home. When we reluctantly pull apart, I like what I see, though. Finn’s lips are swollen in just a way that makes me want to ensure they stay that way all day, even when we are apart.
The door is opened. We reenter into stark, brutal realm of reality.
“Oh!” He snaps his fingers. “Before I forget, there’s this fundraiser the Society goes to every year at the New York Public Library in a couple weeks. There will be drinks, music, and dancing. I was wondering if you’d like to come with me?”
He is utterly adorable asking such a request, as if there was a chance I would reject him. “I would be honored to accompany you.”
Wendy Darling, the Society’s technology specialist, materializes before us, a pair of tablets in her hands, headphones ringing her neck, and a combined earpiece/mouthpiece upon her head. Her hazel eyes narrow as they track the slim length of space between our bodies. “The A.D. let you know about the transmission?”
Finn accepts one of the tablets she proffers. “Yeah. I’m on my way there now.”
“Since you don’t seem pissed, I take it he didn’t tell you it was—” She quickly bites her lip. Shakes her head. Adds, more softly, “It’s Tom.”
Tom. I wrack my brain for the name, only to come up with a brief mention of a Tom from Van Brunt and Victor shortly before we left for Wonderland. A Tom had called then, hadn’t he? Or at least contacted Van Brunt in some way. Finn wanted nothing to do with the matter, and when Van Brunt thought to persuade his son to speak to this Tom via his brother’s influence, Victor smartly put their father in his place.
For a moment, the three of us stand in the hallway before the tech hub of the Institute, unfamiliar tension taking the place of words. But then Finn clears his throat. “I’ll catch up with you at the meeting in a few hours. Good luck with Rosemary. If, by some miracle, I can escape these meetings, I’ll come up to help.” He leans forward and brushes a gentle kiss against my temple before heading into the hub.
As the door closes behind him, I ask Wendy, “When is Van Brunt scheduled to arrive?”
She taps on the tablet. “In about two hours. He’s already sent a dozen emails out this morning. That man is a workhorse, if you know what I mean.”
I do know. Being bedridden has not been easy for the Society’s leader. Finn’s phone has beeped incessantly with messages from his father during the last few days.
“Dr. Heidegger is with him,” she continues. “As is . . . Crap. I always forget his name. The dude that’s a surgeon but studies extraterrestrial microorganisms?”
I haven’t the slightest clue who she’s referring to.
She shrugs. “Dr. Watson wanted to come in, but he was delayed in his Timeline.”
Fair enough, even though I have no idea who Dr. Watson is, either.
“Brom is in good hands.” She utters this defensively, as if I’ve indicated otherwise, and it takes me aback. Before I can say anything, though, she mutters, “The A.D. wanted me to tell you that Rosemary’s waiting in the medical wing,” before walking away.
MY FISTS ARE ITCHING to punch something, I’m so pissed off.
Part of me wants to turn around and walk back through the door. The asshole would absolutely deserve it. Who the hell does he think he is? My message has never wavered. We are not friends. We do not talk. I will not forgive him, no matter how many times he may apologize or explain himself. His rationalizations are meaningless.
“Sometimes, being a leader means doing things you don’t particularly want to do.”
Isn’t that the truth. I’ve lived that for two days straight. And still, I can’t help the outrage pounding against my rib cage. I have over two-dozen Society members and liaisons within the Institute walls, desperate for answers. The Janeites have been riding my ass over multiple transmissions. Brom is scheduled to arrive within the hour. The Librarian has called a meeting to go over some troubling findings. And in between putting out fires, I’m supposed to go and do a rush order on finding an important catalyst. So obviously, this is when the asshole tries to get ahold of me.
A beep sounds, indicating the caller is still waiting, and it reminds me I need to send somebody into 1876/96TWA-TS and reclaim and reassign Society property. He doesn’t deserve it, and if he thinks it will somehow lesson my anger toward him, he’ll have a lifetime of disappointment ahead of him. How many times do I have to say it? When is it going to sink in?
Why won’t he let go?
I force myself to sit down in the chair facing the screen. I force myself to remember what my shrink used to tell me: “Violence gets you nowhere. Neither does holding grudges.”
Yeah, well, they’ve served me just fine over the years, haven’t they?
I finally tap on the button marked Resume Transmission. The picture wavers before his face comes into view.
Tom fucking Sawyer.
He blinks, his eyes filled with surprise. “Huck! I was worried you weren’t gonna come talk to me!”
That familiar twang of his plucks my still raw nerves. “What do you want?”
Like the selfish moron he is, he’s taken aback. “Huck, now—”
“Don’t call me that.”
The Hidden Library Page 2