by Penny Cavan
The door to the administrative offices wasn’t even locked. I rolled my eyes as I slipped into the room and shut the door behind me. There weren’t records stored here, but there were files on the counter behind the desk. Bingo. I pulled a small device from my bag and set it on the table, grabbing the first file and setting the papers into one side. I pressed a button and page by page, the papers fed through. Sophie told me it was called a scanner, and she had adjusted the storage to be able to hold a thousand pages of information, more than enough for what I would find in the office. It was actually rather boring, loading paper into the small device, replacing it in its folder and replacing the folder where I found it. It left me plenty of time to look around.
I decided it was a woman who worked here, based on the neatness of the office and the tube of lipstick that I found in the top drawer. She wasn’t married but kept a ring in the desk that she could slide on if men got too obnoxious. Probably a smart move, considering that the workforce here was primarily male and likely without manners. She had nothing personal on her desk, and I saw two versions of feminine handwriting, which made me think that perhaps the current woman who sat here was new. I sat in the chair and looked at the information in front of me. There was a calendar at the bottom. I pulled the tablet from my bag and snapped a picture. The flash caught a paper that was a slightly different color. I set the tablet down and carefully moved things so I could read the paper I had found.
It made me nauseous when I realized that the paper was a record of the Hollows that had come into the fort in a “shipment” as if they were property. It recorded their names, where they had come from, their ages, and who had reported them to the government. I added it to the scanner and replaced everything, sliding the scanner back into my bag and heading towards the door. Just on time, I saw the flash of a light as the guard patrolled this floor. His footsteps headed away from me, and I waited until the light disappeared into the stairwell before leaving the room. I headed down just one floor and settled in to wait for Midas.
He met me there right on time, and I nodded. “Everything go well?” I asked, and he smiled. I studied his face, noting the lines of tension. “What is it?”
“Later,” he said, and I nodded.
“I know where Addy is,” I told him. “This way.” Silently, we opened the door and headed down the hall. I studied the doors looking for R-13, the room where the manifest had said Addy had been placed. “Here,” I mouthed, stopping outside of the room. I handed him my bag and pulled the lockpicks out again. This lock was a little more complicated, but I still had it open quickly. We both slipped into the room and shut the door behind us. I had to quickly stuff my fist in my mouth to stop myself from making noise.
Addy was spread out on a cot, a thin tube leading from one arm up to a bag. She had been changed from her dress—a purple one that was her favorite—into a long, shapeless shirt. She was pale, but her chest was rising slowly. I dropped to my knees next to the bed and shook her shoulder. She didn’t move. “Addy,” I whispered, shaking harder. “Addy, it’s time to go home. Your mom is looking for you.” My voice was thick with tears.
“Harlow,” Midas said, setting his hand on my shoulder. “We need to leave. Take the bags.” He helped me to my feet and handed me both bags. He took the bag of clear liquid that the tube was attached to and set it on Addy’s chest before scooping her up. “You need to hold it together for me, okay Harlow?” he whispered. “You’re going to be the one to get us out of here. You can fall apart on the drive home.” I took a deep breath and nodded, turning towards the door.
We made it as easily to the first floor as we had made it to Addy’s room. We moved slower and Midas had to be careful not to hit Addy’s head or feet against the walls. We ran into a problem when we got to the first floor.
“Where you headed?” one man called down the hall. Midas and I froze, exchanging a look.
“Out for a smoke,” a second man called, and he sounded as if he was right outside the door we were standing by
“I’ll join you,” the first man said. “It’s not like anything ever happens here.” Metal jingled and the door opened.
“Hurry up, then. It’s cold out tonight.”
We waited until the door closed before breathing. “What do we do?” Midas asked.
“We could wait until they come back in and head back on their rounds,” I said. “It only takes about five minutes to smoke, ten if they’re talking while they do it. Or we head for the south west door, but that makes it a longer walk back to the car.” Midas nodded and sat, settling Addy in his lap.
“If it was just us, I’d say for the south west door, but we have her too,” he said, nodding to Addy. I nodded and sat next to him. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, letting myself settle into the quiet. Midas wrapped an arm around my shoulder and I leaned my head against him.
“Tell me it’s going to be okay,” I said softly. He kissed my hair.
“It’s going to be okay,” he said. I picked up Addy’s feet and set them in my lap so I could slide closer to him. If I closed my eyes, I could imagine us sitting like this with a child of our own one day. The slam of the door made us both jumped slightly, but we tried not to move as we listened to the men go on their way. We waited another few minutes for them to clear the hallway before slowly standing. I took Addy so that Midas could stand. He scooped Addy from my arms and nodded for me to lead the way. I cracked the door and peeked out. Seeing no lights, I opened the door the rest of the way and held it for Midas. Twenty feet down the hallway to the door, then fifty yards until we were safe in the forest. After that, we had to walk a mile back to the car, then fourteen hours back to the city. I hoped that Addy could make it.
I almost cried when we saw the car. David had his head tipped back against the headrest, asleep, while Cameron was tapping the steering wheel. He turned to look at us when we came through the trees. “Cameron, we need to hurry. If we can make this drive back in less than ten hours, you would be a godsend.” He nodded, turning the car on. I jumped in the back and took Addy. Midas was barely in the car when Cameron slammed down the gas and we took off.
I kept Addy cuddled in my lap the entire ride home, telling her all the stories I could think of. I even told her about the turtle in the pond, making up a story about how he chased me around. It wasn’t completely out of the realm of believability. I promised her that I would show her the turtle when she woke up. Midas chuckled every so often. Talking was the only thing that kept me from breaking down completely. We stopped only for the drivers to fuel the car and switch places, each one driving as fast as they could.
It was just before dinner when we arrived back at Aita’s. David pulled the car into a covered space and jumped out. He took Addy so that Midas and I could get out, but Midas quickly claimed her back with a glare. Cameron helped me down as I rolled my eyes. I threw both bags over my shoulder and grabbed Midas’s arm. “We don’t have time for the two of you to compare dicks,” I told him. “We need Sophie.” Cameron opened a door to a passage and flipped a switch turning on lights down a corridor.
“This will take you to the main house. The code on the other end is 1485,” he told us. “Good luck.” Midas and I started a slow jog down the corridor.
“Mine is bigger,” he told me.
“Really? That’s what you’re concerned about right now?” I panted.
“She’s coming home with us. I don’t care what Aita wants.”
“State the obvious, Midas. I just don’t know the price it’s going to take.” I looked back at Addy, who, if anything, seemed paler.
“Whatever the cost, I’ll pay it.”
“Don’t tell Aita that,” I said with a slight smile. We came up on the door, and I punched in the code Cameron had given us. “We need one of these tunnels,” I told Midas.
“We have one already,” he said calmly before stepping through and shouting for Sophie. We were in the entrance hall, I noticed, as I closed the door behind me and found it wa
s covered by a particularly bizarre painting of a man with a mullet and a tiger. “Sophie!” Midas hollered again.
“Don’t get your knickers in a twist,” Sophie called. She came from a side room, her blonde hair haphazardly tied back and glasses on her nose. Her eyes widened when she saw Addy. “What happened?” she asked, running over.
“She’s already been drugged with whatever they give them,” I said. “Can you help her?”
“I can try,” she said. “This way. How long has she been like this?”
“If they took her straight to the facility, maybe 26 hours, but I don’t think they would have made the trip for one child, so probably less,” Harlow told her. Sophie led us down three halls and to a science lab.
“Set her down here,” she said, moving some things off a table. “Good, you didn’t cut the IV.” She turned to a cooler and flipped through some bags there, muttering to herself.
“Would it have been bad if we did?” Midas asked, brushing back a bit of Addy’s hair.
“You could have killed her,” Sophie said distractedly. “Fluids, good. That’s step one. We’ll worry about nutrients later.” She grabbed a tall stand dragged it over, hanging the bag from the top. She unscrewed the old bag from a point in the tube and screwed the new one in. “If we caught it early enough, we can keep her alive while I figure out how to counteract the drug. Let me see the research you got.”
“Sophie, what’s going on?” Aita said walking into the lab. I barely spared him a glance, watching Addy closely as I handed the bags to Sophie. “You saved the girl,” he said with a sigh.
“Grow a heart,” Midas snapped, and I rolled my eyes.
“Boys, this is not the time to fight. Sophie, can you teach me how to take care of her?” Sophie poured the bags onto another table, grabbing the flash drive and scanner. She popped a small plastic card from the scanner and headed over to a big computer. She pulled a small box off the desk and put both in, opening a folder on the screen.
“What do you mean, take care of her?” Sophie asked, turning towards me.
“She’s coming home with us,” Midas said.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Midas
Aita just shrugged at my announcement, moving to the computer. “Fine. What did you get for research?”
“Do you two realize how much work caring for her is going to be?” Sophie asked, checking Addy’s pulse. “She’s essentially a living doll right now. She can’t take care of herself. I’ll need her nearby as I work on an anti-drug, and even to figure out what kind of drug this is to begin with. It’s around the clock care.”
“So, you move in,” Harlow said easily. “There’s more than enough bedrooms and we can get whatever equipment that you need to study this. Plus, Ameliya is an amazing cook.” Sophie rolled her eyes.
“What about security?” she asked. “We’re talking about going against everything our government stands for.” I laughed. “Okay, maybe security isn’t your biggest concern, but it is one of mine.”
“Nothing gets on Midas’ property without him knowing about it. Some kind of spell tied to gold, I asked once, but it got really technical and I just nodded and said okay,” Harlow said, making me laugh with actual humor.
“What’s this?” Aita interrupted, picking up the picture frame. “Who collected family portraits on an information gathering mission?” I strode over and took the frame.
“This is Craig Gunther,” I said, pointing out the man in the photo. His arm was over the shoulder of a laughing woman, with a small child blowing bubbles in front of him. “He’s older than when I knew him, but he used to work for me in my research labs.”
“Why does that name sound familiar?” Harlow asked looking away in confusion.
“The last time I saw Craig, he was working on a project to modify crops to need less water. It was actually going rather brilliantly. Another scientist of mine, Elsa, finished the project. It’s been one of the biggest successes of my lab, and Elsa went on to work on a way to refresh the nutrients in soil to produce better yields. She heads up her own lab now.” Sophie looked interested.
“How did she do that?” Sophie asked. I started to answer, but Aita interrupted.
“Talk shop later, get back to Craig.” Sophie punched his arm and he looked at her incredulously. “We’ve got an important mission, Sophie, you can talk about crops after we find out who has been killing the Hollows.”
Harlow looked at me, her eyes wide. “Midas wasn’t Craig working with Allan?” she asked.
“He was. Before the crops project, Craig was working with my lead scientists on a drug, we called it a serum, for medical purposes. It was a paralytic. It didn’t work.”
“He died,” Harlow said, staring at me in confusion.
“We thought he did, in a car accident. Everything was too burned to truly identify the body in the car.”
“You think he faked his own death?” Aita asked.
“Well, clearly he’s alive. But he would have had to have help. I just don’t know why,” I said, turning the frame over and setting it down when I really wanted to smash it to a million pieces.
“Probably money,” Aita said bitterly. “It’s always money in one way or another. It does give us a place to start, though. Who turned Craig Gunther?”
Epilogue
Midas rolled his eyes at Sophie, talking a mile a minute while writing a list of necessary supplies for Nigel. She had agreed to move in so that he and Harlow could care for the girl while they were waiting to find a cure. Nigel was nodding, his eyes wide, shellshocked by the petite blonde. David, one of the drivers from the fateful rescue, was carrying in several bags, asking for directions to whichever room the scientist was staying in. One of the maids caught him and directed him.
Midas took the stairs by two and strode down the hallway to the room where Addy lay. Sara was with her today, reading a story to the girl. A tube trailed from the back of her wrist and one from her nose, providing the nutrients that would keep her alive. Sophie had also taught them all how to move her to avoid what she called bedsores. Sara looked up and smiled at him, tears in her eyes. Midas nodded. He wasn’t going to give up until Addy was running around again.
He looked for Harlow in her usual spot in the library, but she wasn’t there. Nor was she on the terrace, but from the height, he saw a glint of her golden hair down in the garden. He laughed freely and headed for the stairs at the end of the terrace.
Harlow heard him laughing and shook her head. She was elbow deep in weeding for Ameliya, doing the chore in exchange for some chocolate dessert called brownies. It felt nice to be outside, with the sun on her hair. She sat back on her heels and wiped an arm over her forehead, leaving a streak of dirt.
“You know, we could hire someone to do that for you and Ameliya,” Midas said, stopping next to her.
“What would I do with my days if I didn’t have chores to do?” she asked, smiling up at him. “You’ll go back to work at your office, I’ll help with Addy, but what else am I to do with my days?”
“Whatever you want, you are the mistress of this house.” Midas pulled her to her feet and gently dragged her to the gazebo. She grinned, following him. “You could start by filling out the staff. Some more maids, maybe a man to help with the harder stuff. A gardener or two.”
“Okay, okay,” Harlow said, laughing. “I’ll work on building up the staff.” She kissed him and pushed him back on one of the benches. “You’ll have to make it worth my while,” she said, pulling his shirt from his pants and dropping to her knees. He nodded, spreading his legs so she could fit between them. Her hands nimbly unfastened his pants and pulled his cock out. She kept eye contact with him as she pumped her hand once, then twice, a wicked grin on her face.
“Midas!” Sophie called, irritated. Both Midas and Harlow groaned.
“Maybe the first thing the gardener can do is enclose this gazebo with some kind of plant so we can hide here,” Midas ground out.
“Midas, I can se
e you! I need you to come talk some sense into this assistant of yours!”
“Sir, I’m being perfectly logical! She’s the one being obtuse!”
Harlow looked up at Midas and smiled. “If this is what having children is like, we’re waiting a few years.” Midas leaned down and kissed her.
“Deal,”
“Midas!” two voices called out.
“I’m coming!”
About the Author
Penny Cavan is a southern California born, New England raised, current Midwesterner. She lives in Ohio with her three cats, embracing the fact that the rescue of her new kitten puts her in crazy cat lady land. She works too much (at Motor Vehicles, no less) so writing is her escape from the real world. She loves history and Netflix and can often be found listening to a tv show while she writes. She’s always loved history and has been rewriting myths since high school.
Also By Penny Cavan
Midas Touch
Face of Stone (Coming Soon)
Bringer of Death (Coming Soon)
Writing as Penelope Cavanaugh
Kensington