Dorian made his way to the couch, rubbing his gritty-feeling eyes.
“Where are they?”
“What do you mean?” Dorian asked, lying down.
“The files are gone!” Henry choked out. More frantic than usual, he ran through the suite, ripping out drawers and throwing things out of them.
Dorian closed his eyes and flinched at the loud clatter.
Suddenly, Henry’s hands shook Dorian until he opened his eyes. “Where did you put them?” Henry demanded, a mortified tremor in his voice.
“I didn’t touch them!” Dorian said, frustrated already by the mere fact that he was talking.
“Did you bring anyone back with you last night?”
“No… I don’t know…” Thinking made him ache. “No…” Dorian shook his head and watched the doctor’s face grow red.
“So, they’ve been stolen!” Henry snapped. “Who could have taken them?”
Dorian grabbed his head and closed his eyes. “Uuuuh… I don’t…” Trying to reflect on the severity of the situation, he sat himself up. “They have to be there, Doc. No one knows the combination but you and me.”
“Go. Look!” Henry snapped, rushing around the couch and into the open space of the suite.
Dorian sighed, forced himself to his feet, and followed the doctor into the middle of the suite. As he took in the trashed area and the open, empty safe, reality sank in.
Henry’s face turned red and he began to snarl. Then he gasped in pain and made his way to the island where he shakily grabbed the countertop. He took a few deep, relaxing breaths, loosened, and turned to the actor, his teeth clenched. “Think. Who could have taken them?”
Dorian puzzled over it, trying to fight past his excruciating headache. There had definitely been a girl, he concluded. But she had been a simple thing, incapable of such thievery. Who could want those files? No one in them was truly exceptional besides— He groaned. “Van Helsing.” He thought they had moved fast enough to shake the brute off track, but Van Helsing must have followed them into the city. They should have been better prepared.
“Van Helsing?!” Henry roared, taking a step forward. “What have you done, Dorian?! You told me we were safe from him! Now look! If you hadn’t insisted on enjoying a party, we’d still have the files!”
Dorian could feel his own temper rise. “That party was important, Jekyll. You have no idea—”
“Important?” the doctor snarled. “Those files are important, Dorian! How could you—!” He gagged and crumbled forward, trembling violently. Sweat beaded down his face as he tried to fight against his contorting physique. But when his body relaxed and straightened, it was Hyde who faced Dorian. The crazed man stood silent for a long moment as his wild eyes glared at Dorian, nostrils flared, jaw clenched.
Dorian straightened up a bit. “So, what—”
The small man closed the gap in a second. “IDIOT!” he howled. The back of his hand flew across Dorian’s face with a strength that belied his size, sending the actor flipping backward over the couch. Dorian tried to recover, but Hyde snatched him up and threw him down into the coffee table, shattering the glass. The pain sobered the actor up, but Hyde didn’t release his grip. “What have you done?!”
The star muttered unintelligibly in an attempt to respond. He knew Hyde had power but nothing like what he had just been subjected to. Dorian finally found his voice. “I-I’m sorry, Hyde! That party—you of all people should know it was important that I—”
“Then you should’ve let me in the room—given me the files! Van Helsing is the last person we want to have them!” the creature barked.
Dorian tried to fight off his embarrassment about his lapse in memory and let out a chuckle, hoping it would hide his nervousness. “Hey, it’s just a few files. Henry’s name isn’t on them, and I’m sure he made copies. So, no big deal, right?”
“Henry has a file on you, too!” Hyde sneered, giving the actor a jerk before releasing him. He stepped away, over the glass shards, and began pacing. “For all Van Helsing knew, you were just a benefactor, but if he reads those files and finds out you conducted the experiment on yourself, that changes the game! He’ll try to exploit the whole thing to make you look bad. He may even make you exploit yourself before you even know it! He’s worked with you before, Dorian! He’ll know what we’re really doing—and why!”
He roared in frustration, sending Dorian scrambling to his feet. The actor took a few quaky steps back and let out a cough, now all too aware of the seriousness.
Hyde snarled at him. “No wonder the Order never let you in!” he ranted. “Wait until they hear! They’ll probably kill you before Abraham can make all your connections public!” He stopped and thought. “No, maybe he’ll work faster. No telling with Van Helsing.”
In an attempt to save his skin, Dorian suggested, “Maybe it wasn’t Abraham.”
Hyde stopped and smiled a wrinkly, crooked smile, glaring at the actor. “And maybe they disappeared by magic.” Then he continued pacing. “Of course it was him! We just need to figure a way out of this.”
“Maybe…” Dorian gulped. “Maybe it’s time to move our plans along. I know it’s soon, but maybe that’s what we need right now.”
“No, right now we need to dispose of this Hester woman!” Hyde snapped. “If the authorities find her, they’ll find evidence that Henry lied in his statement about the type of experimentation and he’ll become a target all over again. And if Henry gets pulled down, you bet your hide I’ll make sure you go with him, Dorian Gray! Forget illegal experimentation! They could charge you with attempted murder! You know what that could mean? The chair, Dorian! No, Hester Prynne needs to be annihilated—and fast! Then we’ll worry about fixing this Van Helsing mess.”
There was silence.
“We need to do this ourselves. The Order doesn’t have to know.” It was no question.
“No need to bother them,” Hyde agreed, calming. “They would refuse to do business with us if they saw us as failures for losing control so quickly. We’d be cast off.”
“So, who’s going to kill her?” Dorian wondered.
“We can’t risk Henry,” Hyde mused.
Dorian sighed. “But you’ll risk me.”
Edward huffed a laugh and gave him a dark look. But then he stopped suddenly. “Wait, not you,” he chuckled. “What if we told the Order that we had had a successful specimen to show them—a woman by the name of Hester Prynne who was looking to become a new member, perhaps—but Abraham killed her before we could get her to them, then we’d have a clean slate to start on.” He grinned and rubbed his chin with his cracked fingers, another thought coming to him. “They’d be practically desperate for our business if they found out Abraham tried to stop us.”
“But if he has the files, he’d know what a threat Hester is, so wouldn’t he try to kill her anyway?” Dorian wondered.
Hyde frowned and stood still, eyes trained on the carpet. “I don’t know.” He mulled it over in silence for a moment. “There’s the possibility that we’re anticipating his plan; he’ll snuff a great power out before the Order can witness it, ruining your chances of redemption with them and ruining everything we’ve tried to create. Or…”
“Or?” Dorian tried.
Hyde hummed a note. “Then it could go the other way: Abraham will know that we want to snuff Hester out, do anything to protect her, and get her and her power out into the public eye, exploiting both yourself and the poor doctor—and you, being as close to the Order as you are, cannot risk that. They’ll come for you and finish you before you spill any secrets.”
Dorian’s knees grew weak at the thought. “I would never—”
“You would,” Hyde spat.
Ashamed, Dorian’s gaze fell.
Letting out a sigh, Edward’s body loosened. “If Abraham kills her in quiet, we may still have a chance with the Order—especially when they realize who I am. Perhaps we can orchestrate Prynne’s murder to be a bit…” A faint smile cracked
across his lips. “…louder.”
Dorian grinned as well, happy to know he had such an esteemed person as Mr. Edward Hyde on his side. Perhaps the Order would consider the actor once more. “When can you have things ready?”
“Everything can be ready by tonight. I’ll contact an Order associate who can be here by then so they can witness it all.” Hyde chuckled. “Then the hunt will commence.”
—
Suzette lie sprawled over the couch, her exhausted limbs wanting nothing more than to catch a few more hours of sleep, but her mind was too loud to allow such a thing. The silence of the suite helped relax her turbulent thoughts. Lady Augustine had left early in the morning, mentioning something about setting up other living accommodations for Suzette and Jack, since it seemed Suzette would need to be in the city longer than intended. Jack had agreed to go along with the elder, not too keen on the idea of running into a hunter whose motives were still unknown.
What the heck am I going to say to this guy? Suzette thought about most of the files stacked neatly under her coat in the bottom of the hotel closet and wondered if Van Helsing would find them easily if she gave him the opportunity to look around. What did he even want with the files? Maybe she could convince him to look at them but not take them. Or maybe she could convince him to work with her. She wasn’t quite sure what she would do. Regardless, she was glad she had the opportunity to sit and think about it since both he and Hester had run off.
The memory of the uneasy incident was engraved in her mind; the mighty hunter hoisting the woman up, the both of them glaring awkwardly at each other for a few seconds, doing absolutely nothing. But it couldn’t have been that simple. There had to have been more to the event. Suzette wondered if Abraham would tell her what had happened. She was curious as to when she’d see him again—and how. Would he swoop her up off the street again? Would he walk into her room when she least expected it? I wouldn’t be surprised if he just appeared out of thin air.
A chill shivered her out of her thoughts and she got up to turn on the fireplace. After it roared to life, she turned to grab a blanket from her room.
Abraham stood near the bedroom door, his giant arms folded across his wide chest.
“There you are,” she said.
He gave her a quizzical look. “You’re not surprised to see me?”
She chuckled. “No. So, what took you so long?”
Her frowned. “Your friend, Jack. He did a poor job of wiping the video evidence of you getting back up here in your little costume. I had to go behind him.”
“It took that long for you to do that?”
“No,” he answered blandly, walking up and sitting himself down on the couch. “I had other things to attend to.”
“With Hester?”
He sighed. “More or less.”
“So, did you find her?”
“No.”
Her fingers twiddled with the bottom of her shirt as her curiosity burned. “What did you see?” she asked quietly. “When she grabbed you and told you to look at what you’ve done, it looked like she was showing you something somehow. But what?”
He scratched the back of his neck, his eyes trailing away from her. “You don’t want to know.”
Jack’s research on the serial killer crept to the forefront of Suzette’s mind. “Did you have to take some time to recover? Is that what really took so long?”
His brows knit together as his gaze snapped back to her. “Huh?”
She tried to piece it together herself. “All of Hester’s victims died from cardiac arrest. I’m assuming whatever you saw sent your body in a kind of free-fall?”
Abraham grew pale and took a moment to answer. “Yeah, that’s what took so long.”
“So, what did you see?”
His jaw slacked. “My sin. All of it.”
She hesitated at his quiet answer, watching as his foot bounced against the carpet and his eyes fixed on the coffee table, lost. It was like he was about to fall back into the moment. The thought of seeing every wrong thing you’ve ever done… Well, it could drive someone insane. Suzette shivered at the idea. When the thought passed, she straightened her back and let out a cough, trying to set a new mood. “Well, thank you for taking care of the video. That was…nice.”
Abraham’s expression—more like a slight twitch of the face—was something resembling confusion as he met her gaze.
She was unsure of how to proceed after the compliment. “Maybe you can show Jack how to do it properly when he comes back with Lady Augustine.”
“They won’t be back.”
Her heart stopped. What did he know that she didn’t? “Why not?”
“The old lady already got you and Jack real uppity apartments across from each other on the upper-east side,” he explained. “She left with Jack to go back to her house. Something about getting his new paperwork.”
Relief washed over her. “Oh. Wait, how did you—?”
“Do you really want to know?”
She thought about it for a moment and shook her head.
They were quiet for a while as they both waited for the other to say something.
“The files,” he said, breaking the silence.
She nodded and walked into the kitchen where a single manila folder sat on the counter. She picked it up and sighed, ready for a fight. When she walked back out, Abraham stood facing the fire, coughing a little. When she drew closer, he turned and held out his hand.
But she held the folder firm.
Then he saw it was only one file and he glared at her suspiciously.
“Why do you need them?” she asked—not angry, not sarcastic, but honest and curious.
He sighed, annoyed. “I want what you want. The end.” He said it matter-of-factly. “I know your intentions are good, but you’re very new to this and I can’t afford those files getting into the wrong hands.”
Her heart swelled at his knowing of her good intentions. They were finally getting somewhere—at least, it seemed that way. “Abraham, that’s why I—”
“How’d you know my name?” His face turned red, but she couldn’t tell if it was embarrassment or anger.
She glanced down sheepishly at the folder and back up. “That’s practically all that’s in here.”
His jaw clenched as she wiggled the folder between them and he reached out for it. Without looking, she tossed it behind him straight into the fireplace. She watched his guarded eyes follow the file then return to hers in question.
“You don’t want to exist and I’ll respect that,” she said. “However, I feel that instead of working separately toward the same thing and getting in each other’s way, we should try to work together.”
Abraham’s eyes trailed back to the fire. “You don’t want that,” he warned.
“I do, actually,” she said. “I don’t know how you’re living now, but maybe you can even move in with Jack—”
His harsh laugh cut her off as he leaned against the mantle. “It’s dangerous to stay in one place for too long.”
“Then perhaps you can crash at his place on some occasions,” she continued, unfazed. “Sleep on a couch. I’ll make you meals and bring them over. I’d planned to do that for Jack anyway; one extra plate isn’t going to kill me. Besides…” She chuckled to herself and let her eyes trail up to the ceiling. “I’ve been told I’m a pretty mean cook.”
He glared sideways at her, studying her, waiting for the truth to come out. “Why?”
“I want your help,” she answered sincerely.
“No, why are you doing this?” he demanded, turning away from the mantle and facing her fully. “All of this? You’ve put your whole life aside just to help a bunch of people you don’t know. People who’ll never know you. Why stick your neck out like that? What’s in it for you?”
Suzette stepped back at the unexpected question. For a brief moment, she remained silent, contemplating how much she should reveal. “I get to help people. That’s all I need.”
He
gave her a look of disbelief. “That’s really all?”
If he wants to trust me, it’s best he know. She let out a sigh. “That’s really all. It’s difficult, but that’s what keeps me going. Because, you see, I didn’t plan for things to happen this way,” she said quietly. “I knew the whole chemical thing happened for a reason, but I wasn’t quite sure where it would lead me. When things in my life went a little crazy, I realized that God was making my path clearer—sort of forcing me down a road that I thought was a little silly.” She shrugged, trying to hide her embarrassment and remorse, trying to fight away memories of her family and Dante. “So, I decided it was best not to argue. God took people out of my life to protect them and set new ones in it to help me. I really couldn’t argue.”
Abraham silently studied her for a long time, clearly questioning everything. The quiet left her feeling self-conscious. Finally, he turned and glared back into the fire. “How many copies did you make?”
Confused, she asked, “Huh?”
“My file,” he responded. “How many?”
“Oh, only a thousand. I plastered them all over town. Even made a few poster-sized ones.” She smiled.
He gave her a look over his shoulder. He didn’t think it was funny.
“Zero, Abraham,” she said.
But he just continued to stare through narrow eyes, unmoving.
“Please just trust me,” she whispered.
“Why do you want my help so badly?” he interrogated.
“Because you know what you’re doing,” she said, crossing her arms.
“And?”
She shifted. “And I don’t.”
His head titled slightly and he opened his mouth to speak before pressing it into a hard line. He could sense something in her again. Something that went beyond the surface. Something deeper that drew him in. The longer he watched her shift her weight back and forth on her legs, the more he realized she needed to say more. “And?”
She sighed. “And because I don’t know what you’ve done or what you’re capable of, so I’d feel better knowing you were on my team.”
Blind World (The Onyx Fox Saga Book 1) Page 35