Oversight (The Community Book 2)

by Santino Hassell

  “Then what are you doing here?”

  “Visiting the man in charge.” Jasper’s smile was sharp and vacant. “We’re working on a special project, and he likes his updates in person.”

  Special project. Was that project about Chase? Or Elijah?

  A stone formed in the pit of Holden’s stomach.

  “You had me at ‘special project,’” he said with a crooked grin. “Care to satisfy my curiosity?”

  Jasper cocked his head. “I’d recommend asking your father about that. Now if you’ll excuse me . . .”

  He slipped past Holden in the doorway to make his way to the elevator. They didn’t touch, but an arctic wind seemed to come off the man, and it sent a shudder sweeping through Holden’s body.

  Shaking himself, he entered the apartment and shut the door behind him. As always, the Payne penthouse looked like an untouched showroom in a furniture store. Beautiful, elegantly styled, but uninhabitable. Like a museum. Richard was in the kitchen preparing a meal, but everything was still unnaturally orderly. Not a stray towel out of place or a water stain on any of the stainless-steel appliances.

  “What’s going on?”

  Richard didn’t look up. “You’ve decided against announcing your visits, I see.”

  “I didn’t realize that I needed to make an appointment.”

  “It would be wise given I’m typically not here.” Richard stopped slicing a perfectly sliced onion and brushed his hands on a paper towel. “I’m only here because I had a meeting.”

  “With Jasper,” Holden said.

  “Yes. With Jasper.” Richard put his hand on the chopping knife and left it there as he scrutinized him. “What can I do for you, Holden?”

  It was a straightforward question but asked in such a tone of indifference, as if they were two strangers meeting for the first time in a doctor’s office, that a flip switched inside of Holden. “You can start by telling me why my mother is a zombie, where you’ve put my brother, and why you have Community henchmen following my friends.”

  “‘Your friends,’” Richard repeated. “Meaning Elijah Estrella?”

  “Yes. Elijah Estrella. The drummer for the Dreadnoughts, part-time bartender at Evolution, sometime lover of Chase, and my goddamn friend.”

  Richard moved his hand away from the knife. “What do you gain by being friends with an individual like Elijah?”

  An incredulous laugh burst out of Holden’s mouth. “‘Gain’? He’s my friend. I don’t hope to gain anything. And I’m not sleeping with him so you can hold off on that accusation, because I know it’s coming.”

  “It wouldn’t have been an accusation. In this case, it’s the only thing that makes sense. The only commonality the two of you have is that you’re in the Community and you’re gay.” Richard pushed the chopping board away and walked around the counter. Everything about him was precise and controlled. Inhuman. “What else could you possibly want with him, Holden?”

  “I already told you we’re friends. I could not care less about his net worth or the extent of his psychic abilities. Those things don’t mean anything to me. I’m not like that.” The unspoken I’m not like you hung in the air. They both knew he was thinking it. “What I’m attempting to grasp is, if you think Elijah is a waste of time and a useless addition to our community, why is he being followed?”

  Impatience gathered on Richard’s brow, the clouds of the brewing storm of his unleashed temper. It was never shouting with him. Richard Payne’s anger came like a blizzard that blanketed the person on the receiving end of his disapproval. Nothing but cold disgust and very quiet rage.

  “He’s being monitored because he knows more than he admitted about the situation with Beck. And lying puts him in breach of Community rules as well as labeled a suspect.”

  “Suspected of doing what? Keeping his mouth shut? Trying to stay out of it?”

  “Yes. If he had even an inkling that something was going on, he should have reported it. Instead, he followed your brother’s example and hid things from us. And at the moment, it’s unclear what else they may be hiding.”

  Holden’s hand slammed down on the counter before he could rein it in. “Are you really going to pursue this, Father? This ridiculous witch hunt to find a scapegoat for your fuckup? Because it was you who placed Beck here. You also missed the fact that she was a goddamn vampire because you were too worried about getting someone to spy on me.” He laughed, a harsh, ugly sound that echoed in the large kitchen. “What I can’t work out is why you sent her. Was it because she was sleeping with you and you knew she’d report accurately due to her loyalty, or was it because you thought she was basically a void, and had no other use for her beyond sex? That seems more your speed.”

  Unexpectedly, Richard laughed. A low, long chuckle that brightened his face and gave some life to the still apartment.

  “Holden, you really are fixated on how I view people without significant talent, aren’t you?”

  “Yes. I am,” he said directly. “I used to feel similarly until I realized that social hierarchy does nothing more than alienate members of the community and create people like Beck.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong, son. Our social structure didn’t create Beck. Greed did. And jealousy. She knew how we valued her gift, and she knew why power is so key to the Community thriving.”

  “I thought you created the Community to help people like Elijah,” Holden said. “And Chase.”

  “Initially we did, but change doesn’t stop there. We have to be proactive, Holden. And to be proactive we have to be on the inside.”

  “The inside . . .”

  “Yes. And we can only infiltrate the circles that influence this country by amassing psychics with real power. Psychics like the men and women Beck targeted, like your brother, and like the Black family.” There was a beat of silence where Richard leaned forward, brows lowered, and stared into Holden’s eyes as if he was trying to see where his interests lay, whether Holden was understanding this new mission statement, and likely wondering whether Holden would help. Are you an ally or a weak link? “For us to succeed, we need power and we need loyalty. And those who aren’t loyal, who aren’t honest and committed, serve as an Achilles’ heel to the entire organization. Their choices are to realign or to be gone.”

  A week went by with no sign of Elijah.

  His phone stopped ringing and went straight to voice mail, and the place he’d been renting on Airbnb remained in a state of chaos. No one had returned to tidy it, so Holden did when he checked in for the fifteenth time since Christmas.

  He folded each small article of clothing neatly and packed them away in Elijah’s purple suitcase, and then went about the task of sweeping up the broken knickknacks. Never having stayed in an Airbnb, Holden wasn’t sure how the damage should be reported. He didn’t even know who owned the apartment or how to get in touch with them. Surely there was a way to find the information online.

  Holden finished cleaning and looked around the small apartment. There were times like these when he wished that his ability was stronger. That he could do something beyond pick up vibrations of fear and rage and frustration as he swept away the evidence of the struggle. A postcog could hone in on those sensations and conjure an actual vision of the event. They’d be able to see who took Elijah. They’d know if he was okay.

  Stomach tightening, Holden sank down to the couch and pulled out his phone. He searched the building’s address on Airbnb and quickly found the corresponding ad. The weekly price was three hundred dollars—dirt cheap for the area—and it was being sublet by a woman named Kiara Arredondo. She described the space as artsy and fun, perfect for a traveling student or a tourist wanting to be in the heart of Manhattan in an apartment that was also . . . near Community Watch. There was a note stating “soon-to-be C members get a discounted rate! Message for details.”

  Holden reread the two lines several times before practically tossing his phone down on the coffee table.

  She was a psych
ic. Elijah had sublet the room from a member of the fucking Community.

  How could he have been so stupid?

  “Goddamn it, Elijah.”

  The apartment went from being a shattered portrait of whimsy and charm to . . . something else. A setup. A trap. Another honeypot used to lure in fresh new psys who’d somehow heard of the Community and were looking to put down roots in the city. How many places like this were there dotted around the city? The East Coast? Maybe even in the country? Just how far were his father, and the other board members, going to ensure they got first pick of newly minted Comm members with powers that would help them get a leg up in their bigger-picture plans?

  Holden hurried out of the apartment and jogged down the stairs of the building. There was a large chance he was jumping the gun. After all, Kiara could just be like him—someone who was loyal to the Community and who was trying to give back by helping less fortunate psychics who were looking to find a safe space where they could be open. Where they could belong. It could be altruism. Not part of a plot.

  After bursting into the frigid December air, Holden took deep gulping breaths that fogged up in front of him. The cold was abrupt after the ramped-up heat inside the building, but it helped to push aside his frantic thoughts and attempts to rationalize this growing conspiracy theory. Because even if that apartment was marketed to psys solely to provide room and board, it didn’t change that Elijah had disappeared from there, which was too much of a coincidence to be one at all.

  Holden sucked in another breath and shot Lia a text message: call me when you can. i think i know how they found Elijah.

  He waited a few minutes, standing in the middle of the sidewalk as a steady flow of harried New Yorkers rushed by in their wool coats and scarves, but she didn’t respond. The desire to share this information with someone else, to have a witness, consumed Holden to the point where his finger hovered over Six’s number. He brushed the screen with his thumb before slipping the phone back into his pocket.

  Why had that even presented itself as an option? They’d fucked around once. That didn’t make them confidantes. It didn’t make them anything. In the past week, they’d barely spoken—although that could have had more to do with Holden’s recent tendency to avoid the club than anything else. It was difficult to patrol the floors of Evolution and watch scores of intoxicated youths lose themselves in music and each other, while the ghosts of Holden’s past faded away. With each successful party and each night they reached capacity, Holden felt guilt instead of pleasure. The club might have been in an upswing from the depressed state of the past couple of months, but the people who’d made it special were all gone—the Dreadnoughts, the band that had initially been such a big draw in the early days. They were dead, or vanished, and he was still there upping cover charges and drink prices. Being a capitalist instead of a friend. Getting richer instead of mourning.

  Was it normal to feel this awful about having survived?

  There was no answer in his head or his heart, so he shelved the question and caught a taxi to the club.

  The New Year’s Eve party was in full swing when Holden entered Evolution. There was a line down the block, and Six was manning the door with a stone face and eyes as cold as the strengthening wind. He glanced at Holden once as he brushed by, but they didn’t speak. At this point, it wasn’t a surprise. Maybe he was done being cordial now that he’d gotten his dick sucked. Or maybe he’d learned of Elijah’s disappearance and was keeping his distance so as not to get involved.

  Unless he already was involved, which was why he was keeping his distance.

  There would come a point when paranoia ate Holden inside out. He knew it, but he didn’t know what to do about it.

  “We’re already at capacity,” Kamryn said after Holden stopped at the bar to grab a bottle for his planned night of isolation in the office. “It’s not even ten o’clock, H. That’s fucking nuts.”

  “Yes. We’re doing very well lately.”

  Kamryn curled her lips in an exceptionally dramatic stank face. “You seem really excited about it.”

  He flashed a faint smile. “It’s been a long year. You could say I’m feeling a little hesitant about the new one.”

  “Why? This is the perfect time to hope for a change in the tides or whatever the hell optimistic assholes say.”

  This time, he outright laughed. Leave it to Kamryn to be a bright spot in his otherwise dismal day. Week. Month.

  “Maybe there will be a change for the better. It would be hard for next year to be as catastrophically awful as this year.”

  “Yeah, I mean, ideally there will be no kidnappings or murders.”

  “Right.” Holden’s smile faded. He grabbed the neck of a bottle of bourbon and skirted the bar again. “Exactly.”

  “Sorry. Was that tactless?”

  “No. It was honest.” He held up his prize while nodding toward the spiral staircase. “I’ll be in my office if you need me. Six has everything in hand down here.”

  “He’s had everything in hand all week, H. You should think about giving the guy a holiday bonus.”

  “Maybe,” he agreed.

  Or maybe his father had already given Six one.

  Holden hurried upstairs and was thankful that people were no longer expecting his attention. In the past, he’d played the part of host instead of owner, moving from customer to customer to gauge the level of their enjoyment, whether drinks were coming out fast enough, and to make small talk with the regular psy folk. Now things were different. He didn’t want those close connections with people who might be at the club for purposes other than drinking, or were potentially being targeted by the Community for unknown purposes. The more distance between Holden and the people around him, the better. Except for Six.

  Being close to Six would be advantageous on so many levels—learning what Richard Payne truly wanted him to do at Evolution, whether Six had seen Chase or Holden’s mother at the Farm, or if the moment they’d shared had ruined any hope of Holden ever getting answers to those questions. After all, Six had claimed he’d been intrigued by Holden. That there was something about him that had drawn Six’s attention from the beginning. Had all of that been bullshit? Holden wasn’t used to being played. Especially by his own mark.

  With the bottle of bourbon open and the amber liquid filling a glass that likely had foregone washing for a couple of days, Holden slumped in his chair and stared at the computer monitor. It was the perfect way to check on the party without putting himself in the middle of the chaos of humanity, but he couldn’t focus on the dance floor or the bar. His eyes flit from camera to camera, hoping against hope that he’d catch a glimpse of Elijah. That all of this had been a nightmare, and the young precog had been safe all along. Or maybe that he’d faked an abduction to get the Community off his back. It was an absurd theory, but Holden was desperate.

  If this was real life, it meant that the Community wasn’t above kidnapping and punishing psys who didn’t fit their mold of a loyal and committed Comm member. It meant they weren’t above brainwashing. That they didn’t actually see any of them as real people with free will. Which made it even more likely that Lia was right, and that his father might have become a monster over time. Maybe even the rest of the board.

  It would also mean that Holden wasn’t much better than his brainwashed mother if he was completely frozen with fear at the idea of contacting local law enforcement and getting voids involved. If he knew anything about his father, and the Community, it was that involving outsiders was a sign of betrayal. That was how all of this mess had started. According to his father, he’d “allowed” the police to get involved with the disappearances. From that point on, he’d been saddled with a babysitter. Who knew what would happen this time?

  He tossed back a drink, let it burn down his throat, and slid his gaze to the mammoth bulletin board dominating most of the opposite wall. A year ago, Elijah had insisted on decorating the office. He’d said it was gloomy and depressing and that it ne
eded some life. What better way to put some life into a space than by filling it with pictures of himself?

  The bulletin board was covered by a collage of photographs—fifty percent Elijah with his cheeky grin, booty shorts, and various outrageously flashy shirts, and several more with him and Chase or the Dreadnoughts. All at the club, back before the vanishings and the deaths and the mysteries. Back when Evolution had simply been a happy place for queer psys who had been demeaned or dismissed by the rest of the Community. Because even in an organization full of freaks, they were still the fucking outcasts.

  He swallowed his bitterness and chased it with another swig of bourbon. It didn’t help. The discontent and suspicion, the fear and rage, were roiling together deep inside of him and feeding the part of him that knew there was something to Lia’s claims.

  Holden shoved back his chair and walked over to the bulletin board. He touched the pictures of people who had once been his friends, before letting his fingers hover over a snapshot of Chase at Coney Island. It was an old Polaroid and faded with time, but the moment was engraved in his mind. It had been one of the first trips they’d gone on as a “family,” shortly after Chase had been released from the Farm. He’d been so haunted as a child. Big gray eyes wide and guarded as he kept his smiles and words scant. He’d kept so much to himself that Holden had no idea how long Chase had known about the Black family—about the mother who’d fled the Community and the twin brothers who’d been stowed away down in Texas.

  Had he known all along, or had he learned just before contacting Nate?

  Nate . . .

  Out of everyone in the Community, and the Ex-Comm or whatever Lia had called it, it had been Nate and his void boyfriend who’d backed Beck into a corner. Although Nate had claimed his empath abilities were weak, he was the one who’d figured everything out and put a stop to it all. He hadn’t hesitated to investigate his brother’s death, and he hadn’t been cowed by any of them.