by M. A Casey
I went to my bag to find my cargos and a t-shirt, my family also started looking for a change of clothes. I grabbed what I needed and headed to the toilet while Ian followed me, still carrying his gun. After going to the toilet, I splashed myself with water everywhere I could, trying to freshen up, then I got changed. As I walked back to the lounge I noticed the table where Davis was that had our mobiles on it, mine was flashing with a message. I leaned over to take a look as Ian grabbed my shoulder and pushed the gun into my back.
“Keep walking,” he yelled at me.
As he pushed me further into the room, I tripped over.
Zeke reached for me while Emin lunged at Ian, yelling for him to leave me alone. Ian saw him coming and hit him hard with the back of his hand, the gun still clenched in his palm. Davis stepped in putting his gun in Emin’s face, and we all froze.
“You are all going to go back to the lounge. You won’t move unless I say so,” he said carefully making eye contact with all of us.
We all moved back to our seats, no-one taking their eyes off the guns, which were still pointed in our direction.
Emin wiped the blood from his mouth, grabbed his clothes and went to clean up. Everyone else took turns of going to the toilet and getting changed, making sure they didn’t stray when being escorted back and forth by Ian. Emin threw Zeke some of his things so he could change too. Then we sat down and picked at the last of the biscuits while we waited for Spencer.
It was another two hours before we heard a car pull up out the front. Davis went to the window to see who it was. I suddenly felt sick in case it was Tyler coming to check on me. The last thing I wanted was someone else caught up in this mess. I relaxed and knew Tyler was safe when I saw Davis turn to Ian and nod, signaling Spencer had arrived.
I thought he would be taller and that he would have arrived with more men, but he came on his own. He looked tired and broken but as soon as he saw us, he composed himself and focused on the task at hand. He was a short man with sandy blonde hair that was starting to thin from his forehead. He wore a suit but it was badly crushed and, his tie was crooked. He talked quietly to Davis and straightened himself up before he spoke to us.
“Good morning Knox, thank you for being patient until I got here,” he said walking to the center of the room commanding all our attention. “Of course, if it wasn’t for your little escape plan, we wouldn’t have your whole family under house arrest would we?”
“I assume, now that you've arrived, they will be free to leave,” my father said hopefully, although we all knew the answer to that one.
“I'm afraid not,” Spencer said shaking his head. “Your decision to make a run for it has meant we've had to change our plans a little.”
“Now, I think it is time for introductions don’t you?” He said walking towards us.
“You have become acquainted with Davis and Ian no doubt,” he said holding an arm out to them.
“This of course is Evelyn,” he said nodding towards mum. “I must admit, I was surprised to hear you were with your husband. I was to lead believe you were separated.” He waited for a response, but she didn’t say anything, just looked at him blankly, so he turned around again.
“And you must be Emin,” he appraised him from head to toe but soon looked away once he found Emin glaring at him.
“Which means this is the famous Hayln.”
He stood right in front of me, staring. I couldn’t tell from his expression whether he was jealous or disgusted, but he was so close I could smell that he needed a shower more than I did. Zeke put his arm between Spencer and I, Spencer took a step back, frowning at Zeke.
“And who is this?” He gestured.
“His name is Ezekiel Banner,” Davis said showing Spencer his license. “He was hiding upstairs when we arrived, he seems to know what's going on.”
“Well Ezekiel, I'm afraid you will have to stay here for the time being until things are sorted out,” Spencer said as he walked away with Davis to talk about something out of our earshot.
They had been gone a little while, but when he came back he seemed pleased about something. “That’s an impressive laboratory downstairs Knox, I think it will do just nicely.”
“Were staying here?” Dad questioned.
“It does solve quite a few problems,” he said rubbing his chin with his thumb and finger.
“Although we will have to get some extra security including cameras and apparently there is nothing to eat here, but that will be sorted out shortly.”
“Now Knox, I expect you to provide Davis with a list of what you will need in your lab, to achieve our goals as quickly as possible. You have a lot of…. well let’s call it motivation here now, so I wouldn’t try anything unless you are happy to see one of your loved ones hurt.”
My father looked sick, we were all going to have to stay here until he could adapt his chemical strain of DNA to an adult host. And they were going to use us his incentive.
“Now, Davis and Ian will be setting up cameras throughout the house. This means nothing you do will go unnoticed. But on the plus side once set up it will mean you are not restricted to the lounge anymore, which should make things a little more comfortable.” He nodded to Ian who walked out the front to the van to start unloading their equipment.
“Ethan and Hayln will be expected to work in the lab during the day, the rest of you cannot leave the house so you will have to entertain yourselves, within reason of course.”
Ian brought in a trolley full of electrical equipment including cables and screens. He left them with Davis and headed back to the van for more supplies. Spencer watched him leave again and then seemed to smile to himself.
“So if you can just be patient a little longer we can get you all settled back in,” he continued. I watched him closely, he seemed to be getting smugger by the minute.
“Now, I promised you all some food didn’t I,” he said watching me, for some reason he was assessing my mood while I was assessing his.
I could hear Ian talking to someone outside and wondered what Spencer was about to do. He seemed to be anticipating something.
“I had a friend of mine get a few things together for you, and it seems he has arrived.”
I looked to the doorway, and felt every bit of air get punched out of my lungs in a second. Tyler was standing with Ian, with groceries in his arms.
Betrayed
“You must have wondered how we found out about your planned escape from the benefit.” Spencer said arrogantly.
I stood up, but couldn’t stay on my feet, Emin put his arm around me to prop me up. I wasn’t taking my eyes off Tyler, but he wouldn’t look at me. I felt dizzy as an angry heat took over my body. My best friend ruined the only chance my family had of escaping these men. Could that actually be true? The danger we are all in now is his fault.
Spencer seemed to be enjoying the moment, obviously knowing how close I thought Tyler and I were. I wanted to run at them and hit them with every bit of force I could muster. But I didn’t, I knew a gun would be pointed at me now without even checking, and my family would be ready to restrain me.
“Let me introduce you all to Tyler,” Spencer started again still savoring the moment. “Of course, you all know each other, but what you don’t know is I met Tyler about five years ago when I found out he was Able Crowson’s son.” He looked to my father to assess his reaction. He was understandably stunned.
“Yes Knox, Hayln isn’t one of a kind, Tyler was created in exactly the same way.”
This rattled me of course, but not enough to ignore the betrayal I felt.
As if sensing my anger had reached another level, Tyler gestured to Spencer that he would take the groceries into the kitchen. He moved around me with his head down to avoid my stare. Just as I was about to lunge at him, Emin secured his hold on me, sensing my next move. Spencer smiled smugly, and I heard Davis and Ian sniggering from where they had started to set up the monitors.
Spencer drew his attention back t
o my father who was looking confused.
“Have you put it all together yet Knox?” He asked
“Able lied, he was the one who broke into my house?” He answered in disbelief.
“No, he told you the truth. He never knew Tyler existed, not even in the end.”
“Then who?” Dad said shaking his head.
“Your lab assistant, Amy Mason.”
“Amy?” My parents looked at each other baffled like that was the last name they thought they would hear.
“Yes, she was an exceedingly bright women - bright but also extremely lonely,” he said.
“She made some assumptions about what you had achieved here in your home laboratory – assumptions that turned out to be correct. She wanted a child and felt her time was running out, so she took a chance on what you had created. She came here and took the sample she needed, she also made copies of your notes but left the originals so you wouldn’t be concerned. From there, she replicated your work and implanted the embryo into herself and then let nature take its course.”
“But why did she come to you?” Dad questioned.
“Once she had her baby, she destroyed all the evidence and lived a normal life with her son. But she fell ill just over five years ago and couldn’t support him anymore. That's when she sought me out. I agreed to help her with her medical problems and provide everything her and her son needed, as long as she would let me assess Tyler’s abilities and run some tests. She agreed, and we've been working together ever since. Although unfortunately, Miss Mason only survived another twelve months after that. Once she passed away we appointed an old colleague of mine Maive Weston as his guardian, she helps us assess him on a daily basis.”
Aunt Maive too, I thought to myself shaking my head. Even she was part of this treachery. I noticed then that Tyler had returned to the room but only just stood in the doorway behind me.
My father still had more questions, and I wanted to hear the answers so I decided to wait to confront Tyler.
“So if you have Tyler, you have what I have. Why do you need me, you could have perfected this on your own,” my father pleaded with him.
“Believe me, we have tried. We had a highly respected scientist spend the last five years trying to do just that without any success” he explained.
“That’s what I have been trying to convey to you Spencer, this may not even be possible!” My father said, completely frustrated.
“I don’t believe that Knox, the scientist who I have been working with could barely believe what you have achieved up to this point. And with your brilliant daughter here to help you, I am sure success is just around the corner.”
“And then you will just let us all go – just like that,” Emin questioned with disbelief.
“I have given your father my word Emin, you are going to have to trust that.”
We all knew the truth of the situation, whether we do this or not the chances of us surviving this were slim.
“Now I think it’s time to get back to the task at hand, we will need your list Knox. You have one hour.” Spencer walked over to Davis, and they went upstairs pointing out places to put camera’s I assumed.
I turned on Tyler, I couldn’t hold this in any longer. He finally looked at me, and then turned away. He was trying to move past me to leave the room. No-one stopped me when I put my arm up to grab his shoulder and spun him around.
“I may have been stupid enough to believe you were my friend, but I am not going to let you walk away until you hear what I have to say,” I screamed at him.
“Hayln you don’t understand, I didn’t have a choice,” he said desperately.
“You always have a choice Tyler. You didn’t have to pretend to be my friend. You didn’t have to hang out with me. You certainly didn’t have to invent that you wanted to be my boyfriend.”
He started to interrupt me, but I wasn’t finished.
“You let me pour my heart out to you countless times about my mother, when you already knew why she left us all along didn’t you? And you knew what it was doing to me.” Tears started fill my eyes, but I blinked them away. I didn’t want to waste tears on someone who feigned being my friend.
“It’s true, they made me enroll at your school to observe you, but everything else was genuine Hayln, you have to believe me. You are the only real friend I have too, it nearly killed me not telling you the truth.”
“Why didn’t you then? When I told you how my father created me, you could have said you were just like me.”
“You don’t argue with Spencer Hayln, why do think I was desperate to stop you from trying to escape at the benefit – I knew what he would do to you.”
We were pacing around each other. He seemed frantic to have me understand, and I wanted him to feel some level of the betrayal that I had stewing inside of me.
“You know how dangerous these men are, yet you hand both me and my family to them on a silver platter?” His head fell knowing nothing he had said to me made any difference. “You also know what they want from us Tyler, can you live with yourself knowing that they have that power in their hands?” I shrugged and shook my head. “Well, I guess you won’t have to worry about that too much, since they won’t let us live anyway.”
“Don’t talk like that Hayln,” he said almost in a whisper, looking over at Ian.
“Do you really think they will let us walk away after this Tyler? They killed your father.” I said putting my hand on his shoulder, forcing him to look back at me. “I hope you can live with the fact that your actions might have just killed us all.”
It was like my words had just punched through him, he was wounded and broken. He took a deep breath.
“No Hayln, if this is anyone’s fault it’s your fathers,” he said as he straightened to hide his pain. “If anyone dies, it will be on his head.”
He moved away from me quickly, glaring at my father as he went upstairs to find Spencer.
My legs gave way under me now, and I slumped to the floor. Zeke came over and lifted me to the lounge, I felt numb. I looked at my father, both Emin and Mum were with him, he knew there was truth in what Tyler said – we all did.
“Dad we need to get that list together alright,” Emin said trying to get us all to refocus. “Mum you help him write it down, we will figure this out, it’s not over yet.”
Mum was right, Emin was strong, he always had been, but it is easier to see under these circumstances. He came over to the lounge and sat next to Zeke, keeping his voice low so Ian wouldn’t hear while he was concentrating on his wiring.
“I was wrong about this place being bugged,” he whispered to Zeke. “Have a look at their wiring, they will only have visuals on each screen, no sound. When we are allowed upstairs, I'll need your help on my computer – if it still works.”
Zeke nodded, he seemed to be on the same train of thought as Emin, but I wasn’t. I just felt betrayed, there was no other word for it. Betrayed by my father, for not telling me the truth all these years, and betrayed by Tyler, who I believed was my best friend. If you had asked me a week ago which two people I trust the most in the world, I would have picked both of them – some genius I turned out to be.
Dad finished the list and left it on the table, and Mum asked Ian if she could go to the kitchen to make some sandwiches. He was hungry, you could tell, but his better judgment told him not to leave any of us alone at the moment.
“It’s fine Ian, I will keep an eye on Evelyn,” Spencer said as he came back down the stairs.
He gestured for her to go ahead of him into the kitchen. As she stood he reached around under his jacket and pulled out his gun. Seeing him point the gun at my mother made me shudder.
“Just a precaution I'm sure,” he said politely as he followed her into the other room.
The rest of us sat and watched Davis, Ian and Tyler turn our home into Fort Knox (no pun intended). I went to sit with my father as Emin and Zeke watched every move the men made with their equipment. From what I could see d
isplayed on their screens, they had a camera in every room, including the bathroom, but Emin was right they had no sound.
My mother brought two trays of sandwiches out to us. She left one with Spencer and his men, and we kept the other. We ate quietly while we listened, trying to hear what they had in store for us. It seemed they were nearly finished with the surveillance cameras and once they were, Spencer and Tyler intended to leave together to get my father’s supplies for the lab. I felt a little better knowing I wouldn’t have to look at Tyler much longer.
My mother and Spencer took the empty trays back to the kitchen, while we watched Ian and Davis test their surveillance system. Ian walked around the entire house, he was never out of sight on the monitors. Every last inch of this house was now being watched night and day.
“Well, you can see from the screens we will be watching you all,” Spencer said sounding pleased with himself.
“Tyler and I will be going now to get your supplies Knox. You and Hayln have a big day tomorrow.”
He took the list off the table and tucked it into his jacket. Tyler was already standing at the door, I knew he wouldn’t look back now, he wanted to get away from me nearly as much as I wanted him to leave.
“I suggest you all take the opportunity this afternoon to clean yourselves up and have a rest. You will be in expert hands with Davis and Ian, and as long as you all behave yourselves no one will get hurt,” he warned.
He spoke quietly to Davis who nodded at his instructions and then left.
“You can go to your rooms now, but remember we will be watching. If we think anyone is going to cause trouble, you will all be back in this room before you can count to ten,” Davis said, making it clear he was back in charge.
“I think the camera in the bathroom is a little extreme, don’t you?” My mother said sounding appalled.
“No, Mrs Knox, I don’t,” he responded with his arms folded.
She huffed to herself as she grabbed her bag and went upstairs. We all followed taking our suitcases with us. I unpacked my bag and looked around my room, I was happy to be home. I took my photos from my bag and put them around my mirror, all except the one of Tyler. I put it back in the photo album.