Revenant: Black Rose Files Book 2 (The Black Rose Files)

by Ira Robinson

  Sam kept a hand on the ceiling, the rough stone rasping against the skin of her fingers and palm, steady as she peered at the camera. Her other reached up and touched the side of it.

  It was a thin film of plastic, but it held fast to the ceiling and abutted the fluorescent tube.

  "Let me out of here!" Was it able to pick up sound? She did not know, but it felt good to rail against it.

  A second later, she grabbed it in her free hand and yanked as hard as she could.

  It pried away from the ceiling without much effort, the cable snapped from the spot it was grafted in with a pop.

  She wobbled and huffed down onto the mattress, her legs dangling while she regained her composure. The camera hurt her hand where she gripped it, tight enough to nearly pierce her skin.

  She stared at it for a moment, her anger over being watched by some strange person in a place she did not know and was trapped in overwhelming.

  She flipped it over a few times, but there were no markings on it beyond a couple of scuffs. It looked home made, put together, perhaps, by someone who knew how to make it, but amateur.

  No wire came off of it that would lead the video to a monitor, meaning it probably sent it through some other means, attesting to the sophistication of it.

  Sam tossed it to the ground and stared at it for only a moment, resting against the dust covering the stone floor, before she brought her foot down on it. The plastic popped and the crackle of the lens was gratifying.

  She considered her options, minor reflections of the broken glass catching her eye, tracing the patterns of it while her mind swept through the possibilities. What could she do to get herself out of this?

  Could she break the bed apart and use it to help her pry the door open? It was an option, but the aching in her foot from when she kicked it attested he thickness of the thing.

  Maybe using pieces as a weapon? She might not have much time before someone noticed the camera being turned off and come to check.

  It was something, though, and, as she looked around to see how she could remove one of the legs, it was a distraction to keep the anxiety partially at bay.

  The screws were tightly hugging the metal; her fingers could not find ample purchase to spin them. She squeezed her teeth together while working, but nothing she did helped her get it to come apart.

  A noise caught her attention and she whirled around as the door opened. The light from beyond was dimmer than her own room, shadowing the outline of a tall man, his hand coming back down to his side.

  "Bart?" Her eyes watched him look her up and down. "What have you done? Where am I?" The anger streaming through her seethed through every word as the questions shot out.

  She stepped toward him, her hand pushing his shoulder, but he was not moved. He simply said, "Sit."

  "No! What the hell is going on! Answer me damn you!"

  He reached out his own hand and grabbed her wrist. "I said sit."

  She stopped moving, his strong grip more than she would be able to break. But she shook her head, defiance fed by the indignation over the way she had been treated.

  He read it on her face and used his strength to drag her to the bed and plopped her down unceremoniously on the mattress, her legs hanging over the side. "Don't make me say it again." He raised his brows as he stared into her eyes and waited until she finally nodded in compliance.

  Bart let go of her wrist and backed from her a few steps, watching for any moves she might do.

  Her nostrils flared as the rage continued, but she knew she could not fight him. "You'd better tell me what the hell is going on right now."

  Bart turned away from her and reached around the corner of the doorway. A clatter was followed by scraping as he drug a metal folding chair from the corridor beyond the room. He put it in front of the portal and sat in it, his breath huffing.

  "I'm disappointed in you," he said, his tone low. He kept under control despite the obvious displeasure on his own face. "Why do you never listen? Why do you do everything you can to make my life hell?"

  "Your life?" she spat. "You don't even have a clue what I've been through, but I'm making your life hard? Screw you, Bart."

  "Sure, that's the attitude you've always had with me, isn't it? Whatever Sam wants to do, Sam does, and damn anything anyone else has going on in their own lives." He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. His hands came together, squeezed so tightly they turned white. "Here you are, doing exactly what I tried to keep you from doing. If it were anyone but you, we would have had to do something drastic, but you've put us in a bad position here."

  "'Us'? What is that supposed to mean. Who's 'us'?" She glanced at the camera shattered on the floor. "Tell me what is going on!"

  "More than I can say." His breath chuffed out as he rolled his eyes slightly. "A lot more than even I will ever understand."

  Before she could do anything else, he said, "I asked them to put faith in me. I told them, if I could give you some things, that you would be satisfied." He raised his hand, interrupting her before she could prod him on who he was talking about. "They finally declared I could, but then you showed up. Damn it Sam, why did you have to do this?"

  "So tell me now." she said, putting her hands down on the mattress.

  He rubbed his palms against the dingy jeans he wore. "Just keep your mouth quiet and don't ask questions. It'll be better for both of us."

  He watched her for a moment but she voiced nothing, acquiescing for now.

  "I'm a member of a group called the Black Rose Society," Bart began. "Actually, our whole family has been, for a long time."

  Sam reached her hand up and ran her fingers across the rose necklace her mother had given her. "Why have I never heard of it?"

  "See? Questions. That's what I'm talking about. It's why you have never heard of it."

  She opened her mouth again, letting her hand fall back down. But he continued before she could say more.

  "It was decided early on that you were a risk. The Society has to remain a secret, and it's been well-guarded so far, but we have to be careful about who comes in. They did not want you in, because you've never seemed a 'team player' and that worried them." He sat back in the chair, letting his large frame rest into the cushion. "I argued against it, but maybe I was wrong. Sure seems that way lately."

  Her face scrunched as his words struck her. He tried to fight for her? He had not acted like he was on her side with anything, not for a long time.

  "This area has always been... troublesome." He scratched at his small beard with a hand, his eyes shifting away from her to a corner of the room. "Things happen here that are not normal, and the Black Rose Society was formed to try to keep it contained, in whatever way was needed."

  "Troublesome? What do you mean?" A flash of the bugs controlled by the shadow thing shot through her mind and she grew nervous. "Is that what I've been going through? 'Troublesome'?"

  "Something like that." He nodded, not catching the sardonic tone of her voice as he chose his next words carefully. "It's our job to make sure the public is safe, but also to do everything we can to keep things quiet." His nose twitched slightly. "We don't want people asking questions that we can't answer without freaking everyone out."

  "I wouldn't call what I've been doing freaking out." Sam's leg bounced up and down, nervous energy and anger still seething through her body. "It's been a fight for my life."

  "I know, and I've tried to protect you..."

  "How? By being an ass to me? You've known all along there was something real going on, but you convinced me it's all in my head." She hesitated for a moment as a thought crossed her mind. "Is that why you took the paintings?"

  She watched as he nodded slowly. "When I saw them and then the thing today, it all seemed familiar. I wanted to find out why."

  "Did you? Why have I been painting these things lately?"

  A small wisp of a man stepped from the corridor behind Bart. He was old, one she easily recognized as being Mortimer Howard, am
ong the most powerful men in town.

  He placed his hands on Bart's shoulders and said, "I'm afraid that's part of the problem."

  He turned to see Mortimer better and opened his mouth to speak, but the man squeezed his fingers against her brother.

  "It seems there are more connections here than we originally thought, Bart."

  Chapter 21

  "I can't answer that either, Sam."

  The corridor they traversed was longer than Sam expected, given the size of the building from the outside, but the stone walls and wood slats bearing them established they were still within its confines. While most of the supports were pitted with age, some they passed looked newer, replaced at some point in time.

  Mortimer Howard asked Bart to bring Sam to some meeting room before he walked away, saying nothing more about his intentions or what he meant when he intruded.

  Bart merely nodded and kept silent before the man turned aside, despite the questions Sam prodded him with. Once he got up and led her from the room down the corridor, his responses were non-committal grunts.

  There were a number of doors leading to other rooms in the hall, but none were open for her to peek into as they passed. The similarity to the barrier she faced when she woke gave her an idea they were more of the same, though she could not be sure. Were they bedrooms? Or holding cells?

  What did they have planned? What would they do to her?

  While the thought they would do her harm worried at her, she also hoped Bart would never allow such a thing to happen, despite his anger. She was his sister, after all. Whatever he was into here, that had to mean something.

  They kept a slow pace through the corridor, but when he stopped abruptly in front of one of the doors, she bumped into him. She made no apologies, backing away from him.

  It was closed and unmarked, the same as all the others they passed by, but Bart was evidently familiar enough with the place to know the difference. When he turned the knob and swung it wide, he stepped to the side and motioned her to step inside.

  While the building was ancient, the room she stepped into had been born into the modern era.

  Monitors covered a wall, their flat screens shoved into a checkerboard across the whole face of it. Each was on, and it took Sam only a second to recognize scenes from around town. On one, a downward view of the front of the police department she spent so much time in could be seen. Another showed the parking lot and building she was in now.

  Dozens of them, each with a different place, observing whatever activity was going on. Seconds later, many of them changed to others.

  A few consoles with buttons blinking took up another wall, along with two computers.

  The center was taken up by a large conference table, the lacquered wood reflecting the light bars above. Office chairs scattered around it, one of which was occupied by the only other person in the room.

  A book and some papers rested in front of the young woman, but Sam was still too far away to read them. The woman was not looking at them, either, nor did she seem to notice the opening of the door. Her eyes remained closed and Sam saw her lips moving subtly as she mumbled quietly to herself.

  Behind her, Sam glimpsed the paintings Bart took from her house, lined up against the wall.

  A push against her shoulder from Bart made Sam step further into the room. She glanced back at him before returning her gaze to the woman at the table.

  Some of her long bangs draped across her face, occluding her left eye a bit; the brown color set a stark contrast to her pale face. She could not have been more than twenty years old, but two scars peeking out from beneath the hair covering her cheek made her appear somewhat older.

  The clothes she wore reminded Sam of something a hippie might wear, the long sleeved shirt hanging loosely from her limbs.

  "Sit, Samantha," she heard from behind her.

  The woman across the table popped her eyes open and stared, the blue so light it was nearly white.

  Sam's brow furrowed as she stepped forward, her feet moving despite herself from the push Bart did once again. Reluctantly, she pulled the chair closest to her from the table and huffed as she plopped unceremoniously into it, off balanced in more than body alone.

  "Seriously, Bart, stop pushing me." He seemed immune to the glare she gave him as he stepped into the room, and sat near her.

  "Who are you?" she asked after a moment, gaining back some of her equilibrium. She glared at the younger woman, who had yet to take her eyes off of Sam.

  No reply, however. She merely focused on Sam, keeping her hands below the view of the table.

  Sam was discomfited under that piercing gaze and was about to call her out on it when another person came into the room, walking slowly through the door.

  Mortimer looked tired, his old body frail. The long cane he carried with him pounded against the stone beneath his feet with each step.

  While Sam had met him previous to this, she knew of him more by reputation than anything. His was one of the oldest families in town; the Howard's had been a fixture since its inception. Mortimer was the eldest of the family, patriarch to the wealth they had accrued.

  That alone made Sam nervous. But to have him be a part of all of this? Whatever it was? She did not know how to proceed.

  All eyes watched as he crossed the room to take the largest seat, coming to rest near the young woman who had finally torn her own gaze off of Sam to watch the old man. He eased himself down, using the table to support himself.

  "I'm aware you have questions, Samantha," he said as he recovered his breath. His voice was stronger than his body appeared. "We'll answer in time. But first, please, tell us how you came to paint those pictures."

  He pointed his hand toward the paintings behind the woman, and Sam's eyes unconsciously flicked to them. In that moment, she realized how much she really disliked them; they made her nervous, especially the one that she had seen move the night she composed it.

  What could she tell them? Bart had probably already explained how he came to possess them, and anything beyond that would make her seem crazy, she was sure.

  "Why should I?" she asked finally, defiance shoving its way out of her.

  Sam saw the woman's eyes dart back to her again and Mortimer seemed genuinely taken aback by the force Sam used the words.

  Bart was the first to reply. "Sam, we're just trying to figure all this out here."

  She stared at him as he raised his hand defensively.

  "Yeah? Think about how it is for me."

  "There are things going on that we really need to know before we can answer your questions, Samantha," Mortimer reiterated. "Please, do us this kindness, and we'll be more empowered to help you."

  His eyes, red with rheuminess, were nonetheless gentle, and although Sam did not trust him, or the situation she was in, her gut told her he legitimately believed what he said.

  Her stare drifted back to the paintings. They were grouped against the wall, with the light from above illuminating the strange lines and colors she used. She still did not remember actually painting them, at least for the most part, but she knew they had come from her own abilities.

  She tried her best to avoid looking at the one where the man in the hat moved, flickers of memory igniting inside of her. It, too, was formed by her hands, but was it only as a conduit for the thing?

  She twisted her head away from them, the surreality of staring them down in this strange place too much for her. She could not think straight or concentrate.

  She folded her arms across her chest, hugging them close to herself as she considered how she could begin to explain how those things came to be.

  "I don't really remember painting them," Sam started. "I would go to bed, the next thing I knew, I was in front of my easel with the paintings sitting there. If I didn't know any better, I would not believe I had done them."

  "When did it start?" Mortimer asked, bringing himself closer to the table as he leaned his elbows on the wood.

  Sam w
as not sure how much she should hedge, but eventually said, "Not long after the search for that little girl ended."

  He pursed his lips. A few seconds later, he said, "That was a terrible thing. You were a part of it? Out in the woods?"

  Even as he asked the question, Sam figured he already knew the answer.

  She nodded.

  "Did something happen while you were out there?" She saw his fingers tremble as the words came out. "Anything strange at all?"

  Sam glanced at Bart, who raised his brows and bowed his head.

  "I guess you could say that. There was a light that seemed to come from the ground."