Taking Flight (Teen Paranormal Romance Series) (The Caged Series Book 3)

by Kellie McAllen

  Screw that. I was ready for some action.

  Anders had Guardian Ad Litem duty the next day, and I was itching to take a turn rummaging through his office. I saw the world a little differently than my brother, and I was sure there was something he was overlooking.

  I didn’t want to tell Griffin what I was planning, though, cuz I was worried he’d try to shut me down. I didn’t need him, anyway. Nobody paid any attention to us at all the last time we broke into Anders’ office. Nobody was even around that early. All I needed was a way in, and Lexus would help me with that. I started texting her as soon as she and Jaxson left the room.

  At 7am the next morning, she was waiting for me outside Anders’ office, looking like the world’s cutest secret agent in pink jeans and a gray, off-the-shoulder sweater. I never realized a bare collar bone could be such a turn on.

  I thought it was hard to ignore my desire for her before; now that I’d had her, I wanted her even more. I seriously needed more opportunities to be alone with her. I shook my head, trying to clear away the distracting thoughts, and focused on the mission at hand.

  “Wish me luck, babe,” I said, kissing Lexus and slipping inside as soon as she unlocked the door with her powers. Excitement raced through my veins like gasoline, and her kiss set the trail on fire.

  I used Griffin’s trick with the tape to cover the camera before switching on the lights then took a good, hard look around the office. The wood paneling and wallpaper were all very professional and dull as hell, but at least Anders had a few, cool model cars lined up precisely on his bookshelves. I recognized a Plymouth GTX, a Shelby Cobra, and even a Cadillac Eldorado and nodded in appreciation. They weren’t important, though, so I resisted the temptation to check them out and focused on the computer instead.

  I wasn’t as good with computers as my brother was, but I knew more about hiding shit. I poked around Anders’ computer, looking for anything new, but I didn’t see anything besides the files that Griffin had already swiped.

  The Google Chrome icon winked at me from the corner of the desktop, and I clicked on it more out of curiosity than anything else. What did the enigmatic Mr. Grant like to Google?

  His bookmark list was a mile long with a million, boring-sounding pages, and I wondered if Griffin had checked them all out. I doubted it; that would take forever. I scanned the list, looking for anything that sounded interesting, but there weren’t any pages titled, “Location of Missing Specials Discovered,” or, “Top 5 Bad-Guy Secrets Revealed.”

  I was about to start clicking on them anyway, just in case, but I got a better idea instead.

  I hit Control/Shift/T, and the last tab Anders had closed popped open. It was porn, and I smirked at the Asians in skimpy school-girl outfits theme he obviously preferred. Another hit pulled up Amazon, and I checked his recent purchases but didn’t see anything like stun guns or handcuffs or books on how to be an evil mastermind.

  A few more clicks brought up tabs with articles like, “New Tax Rules for Schools,” and, “The Year’s Best Mutual Funds.”

  Another click brought up his email, and I skimmed through, but it all looked like boring work shit. The most interesting thing was a thread between Anders and a guy selling an old Trans Am. Geez, this guy really needed to get a life. I hoped I wouldn’t be that boring when I got to his age.

  I was just about to give up on Anders internet history and start exploring the office more, but I decided to hit the keys one last time. When the tab opened, my eyes bugged out, and I sucked in a loud breath, but I was too stunned to release it.

  On the screen were eight different video streams. Each one was focused on a jail cell.

  My lungs finally let go of the breath I was holding, and I pulled the chair closer and leaned in to try to make out more details. There were people in the cells. Who the hell were they?

  Was Anders some kind of perv who got off on watching bondage porn and had found a dark web source for it? Or was he a warden monitoring these prisoners? How twisted was it that I was desperately hoping he was just a pervert?

  There was no sound, but I wouldn’t have been able to hear it over the sound of my pulse pounding in my eardrums. My heart was rattling my ribs like they were prison bars, and my fingers were shaking too much for me to control them. I jerked the mouse so the cursor hovered over one of the videos and eventually managed to click on the button to make it full screen.

  There was a woman in the cell brushing her hair, her hands making stroke after stoke down the long, bronze strands. I’d never seen her before in my life, but I knew who she was instantly.

  Sweat broke out on my forehead, and I swiped it away with a jerking hand, shoving back my hair from my face like it would help me see better. But the image didn’t change, and the woman who looked like a grown-up version of Lexus dropped her brush and put her hand to her mouth to chew on a fingernail.

  A weight fell on me, and I dropped my head and let my hair cover my eyes, trying to pretend I hadn’t seen that, hoping when I looked up again I would realize it was all a crazy mistake and none of this was really happening.

  This was what we wanted, though. We wanted answers. We just never expected them to be this ugly.

  After a few more seconds of denial, I sucked in a deep breath and lifted my head, straining against the invisible weight that fought to keep it down. The woman had laid down on her cot and was reading a tattered paperback.

  I minimized the window and clicked on another one, but I didn’t recognize the man on the screen, nor the next one, but the third man was tall and lanky, with raven black hair and delicate features. He was pacing the cell with long strides, his hands in his pockets. I winced and quickly shrunk the window.

  There were only a few screens left, but I couldn’t bring myself to enlarge them. I stared at the tiny windows, playing Eenie, Meenie, Miney, Moe with myself over and over, trying to work up the nerve to click on one of them.

  Finally, I closed my eyes and clicked, and when I opened them, a boulder tumbled down onto my chest, collapsing my lungs and driving out the oxygen. I slumped back in the chair, and tears started pouring from my eyes like a leaking faucet, blocking out the image of my mother. I covered my face with my hand and let the tears turn into sobs that wracked my entire body.

  I wanted to kick something, throw something, pound my fists into something till the pain went away, and I stood up and raised my shaking fists, looking for something I could take out my anger on, but a tiny part of my brain started hollering that I couldn’t leave any evidence of my snooping. Instead, I stomped around the office, yanking my hair with my hands and screaming silently, my body curling over in agony.

  What the hell was going on here? Why were these people being held prisoner? Was Anders their captor, or just a sadistic co-conspirator? Where were they being held, and how long had they been there? The questions took over my brain, dampening the anguish, but I kept pacing, trying to work out the answers.

  On the fourth trip around the office, I was starting to feel a little calmer, and I suddenly noticed that my pounding footsteps sounded different in one spot than they did everywhere else. Desperate for the distraction from my racing thoughts, I dropped to my knees and rolled up the rug till I got to the spot. There was a square on the floor where the wood had been cut out and laid back down again, and near the edge was a key hole.

  I stuck my finger in the small notch and tried to lift the panel, but it was locked, of course. Where were the keys? I rushed back over to Anders desk and started yanking on the desk drawers, looking for a key ring. When I pulled on one drawer, I heard the familiar rattle of metal, but I couldn’t see any keys.

  I quickly remembered how Griffin and Jaxson said there was a locked compartment in Anders’ desk that they hadn’t been able to open. My fingers pried uselessly at the edges till a nail ripped, and I shoved my hand in my mouth to muffle my yelp.

  Shit, I was way too worked up to think rationally, but if I didn’t find the answers now, it’d be three more da
ys until Anders was gone again. I didn’t even know if the door in the floor led to a secret prison, or just to some extra storage space. I just wanted it to be the answer we needed. I had a bad habit of acting impulsively, but I couldn’t risk any mistakes this time. I’d tell the others what I’d found, and we’d make a plan. The key to the drawer compartment, and maybe even to the access panel, was probably on Anders’ keyring. Maybe we could swipe his keys and break in when he was busy doing something else.

  I quickly shut the desk drawers, making sure the stuff inside didn’t look like it’d been hit by a tornado, then laid the rug back down over the access panel. I went back to the computer and used my phone to take a picture of the screen, making sure the URL was legible, then closed all the tabs before closing the browser.

  The fact that the video feed was accessible online and not just on Anders’ computer was a plus. I was sure he did it that way to avoid leaving any evidence on his hard drive, but it meant I could show it to the others without having to break into Anders’ office again. Maybe we’d see something helpful if we watched it for a while.

  My gut clenched at the idea of watching these innocent people like a sick, twisted voyeur, even if we were trying to help them. But suddenly it dawned on me, I didn’t know for sure they were innocent. What if they were criminals, and Anders was the good guy? I hated to think that my parents were bad people, but how well did I really know them? It’d been a decade since they’d abandoned me and my brother, and we were barely old enough to remember them.

  I couldn’t worry about that right now. I’d figured out what had happened to them, now I needed to find them. I’d decide later if they deserved their fate.

  21

  My face sank as soon as I saw Phoenix’s. He shut the door behind him quietly and tried to smile at me, but it was obviously forced.

  “How bad is it?” I whispered, taking his hand. The skin was clammy, and it stuck to mine as he squeezed.

  Phoenix gulped and looked at me, emotions warring across his face. “Let’s go find Griffin and Jaxson.”

  I texted Griffin as we climbed the stairs and told him to meet us at Jaxson’s room. He joined us as we waited for Jaxson to answer our knock.

  “What’s going on?” Griffin asked, his eyebrows knit together.

  I shrugged, and we both looked at Phoenix, who wouldn’t take his eyes off the door.

  Jaxson opened the door, looking more disheveled than I’d ever seen him. He wore baggy, grey pajama bottoms and nothing else. My eyes drifted down to the smooth, firm planes of his chest, and I forced them back up to his face. His normally sleek hair was tousled, and he shoved a hand through it to move it out of his eyes.

  I expected Phoenix to crack a joke about Jaxson’s appearance. The fact that he didn’t told me just as much about the news he had to share as his tortured face did.

  “Shouldn’t you be ready by now? It’s almost 8,” Griffin asked.

  Jaxson rubbed his clouded, blue eyes with his knuckles. “I had a late night. What do you want?”

  Griffin and I looked at Phoenix. “I have some news. I think you better sit down.”

  Jaxson gave Phoenix a weird look but backed away from the door, letting us into his bedroom. Jaxson, Griffin, and I perched on Jaxson’s rumpled bed, but Phoenix started pacing, his heavy boots stomping out the rhythm of his anxiety.

  “So, I did some snooping. I went back to Anders’ office this morning.”

  “By yourself?” Griffin said.

  Phoenix rolled his eyes at him. “It was fine. Lexus played lookout.”

  Griffin frowned but didn’t bother to argue with him, sensing that was the lesser of our worries.

  “I decided to check out Anders’ internet history, see if I could find anything.” Phoenix’s pacing got more intense, and a bead of sweat appeared on his forehead.

  “And?” Jaxson said after several more seconds of silence.

  Phoenix stopped pacing and looked at Jaxson’s desk. “It might be better if I just show you. Can I?” He pointed at the laptop.

  Jaxson nodded, and Phoenix tapped the touch pad, bringing the computer to life. He clicked on the browser, then pulled out his phone and opened a photograph. His eyes darted back and from the phone to the computer as he typed in the URL, one letter at a time. When he was done, he took a big breath and looked at us nervously before hitting Enter.

  “Holy shit.” Griffin jumped up from the bed and moved in closer. “What is that?”

  “It’s our parents,” Phoenix said in the quietest tone I’d ever heard from him, and he enlarged one of the video windows so we could see the occupant.

  Griffin sank to the bed, shaking his head as he stared at the face of his father on the computer screen. “He looks exactly how I remember him.”

  Phoenix nodded. “Mom, too,” he said, opening another window.

  “My God, Phoenix. They’re alive!” Griffin rubbed his face and looked again.

  “Lexus, I think this might be your mother. She looks just like you.” I squinted as I stared at the screen, trying to make out the details, but tears filled my eyes, distorting my vision. I’d never seen my mother, at least, not that I remembered, but Phoenix was right. There was no mistaking the face on the screen. It was all the parts of me that I didn’t share with my father. It was like déjà vu, recognizing a total stranger.

  “Jaxson, I think this might be your father.” Phoenix opened another window, and Jaxson scrunched up his face and shook his head.

  “But I just saw my parents last night. I made Anders take me to them. My parents are alive and well. I don’t need to worry about them ever again.”

  The twins and I whipped our heads around simultaneously to stare at Jaxson. Why had Anders suddenly given Jaxson what he’d been so adamantly denying? And why did Jaxson’s voice sounded like a recording?

  “So, this isn’t your father? Cuz he looks just like you.” Phoenix pointed at the tall, lanky man with raven black hair and delicate features.

  Jaxson reached out and stroked the screen with two long fingers. “But, Anders brought them to me last night. They were with him. They’re alive and well. I don’t need to worry about them ever again.” His voice grew softer with each word, and he cocked his head in confusion.

  The rest of us darted our eyes back and forth between us, freaked out by Jaxson’s strange behavior.

  “Then Anders is the one behind this.” Phoenix’s voice echoed in the silence of our distress like the long, heavy toll of a bell.

  “Where is this?” Griffin eventually whispered.

  “I don’t know, but while I was snooping, I found an access panel in the floorboards. Does this place have a basement?”

  All eyes turned to Jaxson, who was still staring at the screen like he was having a mental breakdown. The attention finally distracted him, and he swiveled his head towards us and nodded.

  “The access door was locked, but I bet Anders has the key,” Phoenix said. “We just need to get it away from him.”

  22

  I’d never skipped school before. This mundane realization popped into my head as I stood outside Anders’ office, about to commit a B & E with my brother instead of attending 6th period. Go big or go home, I guess.

  Phoenix and I were supposed to be in Conduit class, which was a private tutoring session with Jaxson since we were too ignorant about our kind to attend class with Specials our own age. But our alliance with Jaxson had not changed his unwillingness to tutor us, and besides, Jaxson was busy playing lookout while Lexus distracted Anders.

  My mind alternated between anticipation that this day would change our lives completely, and doubt that we would find anything. I wasn’t sure which one I was more worried about. In between, random thoughts like the skipping-school thing popped up, just to prove that my brain could worry about several things simultaneously.

  I slipped into the cool, dark office and made my way to the camera in the corner, taping over it the same way I had last time. For a brief moment, I wo
ndered if my brother had remembered to do that when he snuck in here yesterday. What if he hadn’t, and Anders had already seen footage of Phoenix snooping in his office? What if he’d already set a trap and was just waiting for us to walk into it? A million worrisome scenarios played out in front of me.

  “Phoenix, did you tape the camera yesterday?” I whispered, unable to dispel the worry.

  He rolled his eyes at me. “Yes, Mother.”

  I sighed and returned to my previous level of anxiety.

  Once the camera was taped, I flipped on the light and glanced around the office. Everything looked exactly the same as the last time. I scanned the top of the desk, looking for Anders’ keyring, but the surface was tidy, with only a few stacks of paper and some office accessories. My sweaty hands left damp fingerprints on the surface. I started opening drawers when I didn’t see his keys, my jittery hands knocking against the contents as I rummaged.

  Phoenix dug through a drawer and pulled out a fob with one, lone key on it. I shook my head. “That the spare to the Camaro.”

  He frowned and dropped the key back in the drawer, shutting it with his hip, a little too loudly. I winced and scowled at him.

  “I got it!” he whispered a few seconds later, this time holding up a large keychain with several different keys on it. The small pieces of metal sparkled like a dozen golden tickets, and jangled like the sound they play in movies when a fairy waves her magic wand.

  Phoenix dashed around the desk and dropped to his knees, rolling up the edge of the rug till he reached a wide crack in the flooring. One more roll, and I could see the access panel. Was this innocuous-looking door a portal to another world, one where my parents still existed? I wasn’t sure I was ready for the answer.

  Phoenix flipped through the keys on the ring, rejecting one after another. “Car key, house key, padlock…”