Inside

by Kyra Anderson

  Sean’s entire body went cold and he felt his stomach twist sickly. He heard the tone in Dana’s voice and he knew that the leader of the Commission of the People had just found a target. His mind scrambled, trying to think of any way he could keep the Sandover family, particularly the daughter, out of Dana’s grasp. He looked over Lily’s school picture, seeing the resemblance to her father and the light hazel eyes that clearly ran in the family.

  “Dana,” Sean said seriously. “Why do you want to know about his family? Why are you so interested?”

  Dana turned onto his side, smiling lazily up at Sean.

  “It’s time for a reunion.”

  “You want them in the Commission? You don’t know anything about him.”

  “On the contrary,” Dana chuckled. “I know him very well, possibly better than anyone. And I need to get to know this Little Lily Sandover as well.”

  He rolled off the bed and half-skipped to the other side of the bed to grab his clothes hurriedly while Sean stared after him.

  “Why?” he demanded.

  Dana leaned on the bed, bringing his face close to Sean’s, pecking a quick kiss on his lips.

  “Because I just found out I have a niece.”

  Collecting Data

  Sean slowed as he neared the curb leading to the house that the Sandover family would soon occupy. The car slowly turned into the driveway, slowly driving toward the garage door. With a quiet click from the back seat, the garage door in front of him began rolling up, allowing him to park the car inside. He turned off the car, not looking in the back seat even as another click sounded and the door closed behind them.

  Once the garage was closed behind them, Dana got out of the car. Sean was a little more reluctant and watched Dana walk around the front of the car, smiling and tapping the hood of the vehicle to tell Sean to get out. The head of security heaved a heavy sigh and pulled himself out of the driver’s seat, walking around the car as well to the door leading into the house, which Dana had already unlocked.

  The empty house was silent, but Sean could not stop the feeling that they were intruding in someone’s home.

  He recalled various phone calls and meetings over the previous days where Dana was sure that the house was put in front of the Sandovers so that they would choose to live there. He also tried to take comfort in the fact that the two of them had been there three times previous. Once for Dana to inspect the house and be sure that he was pleased enough with it to more-or-less give it to the Sandovers. The second time, he had brought in a locksmith and building inspector to be sure that he knew all passages of the house and had duplicates of all the keys. And the third time they were there, Dana had installed cameras through the house, hidden carefully among the molding on the ceiling of the living rooms, kitchens, and hallways.

  Sean had accompanied Dana to each visit, as he always had, but that time when they walked into the vacant house, it was not completely empty. The first shipment of the Sandover’s boxes had been unloaded into the front living room of the house and Dana was so desperate to see the boxes that he had been obsessively watching his phone the entire day, waiting for the notification that the boxes had been delivered.

  He had even ended the meeting early when he heard that the boxes were in the house, just to drag Sean out to the house for the fourth time.

  Sean watched as Dana eagerly moved to find the boxes, waiting for him to be out of sight before he turned and walked up the side stairs to get to the guest suite. Being sure to stay close to the door so he could hear Dana should the head of the Commission decide to find him, Sean pulled out his phone and navigated to the Commission’s security mainframe, putting in the appropriate codes to access the cameras they had placed in the Sandover house.

  There were two folders of cameras, one for the old house in the Western Region and one for the house Sean was standing in. He clicked the folder for the Central house and scrolled through the different frames, being sure that there were no cameras in the bedrooms that Dana could spy into. When he did not see any cameras in any bedrooms, he stepped further inside, glancing around the crease where the walls met the ceiling to be sure he could not spot any of the tiny cameras.

  He had fought with Dana for hours about spying on his long-lost family. Dana wanted to know everything about the Sandover family, as he had not seen Thomas since the politician was only eight years old. But Sean told the former experiment that he needed to be respectful of the family. Dana wanted every inch of the house covered in cameras so there were no blind spots, but Sean finally won the battle, though he was not entirely sure what it was he said that swayed Dana.

  Sean also checked the bathroom, searching for cameras.

  With a small sigh of relief, he lifted his phone to scan once more through the available cameras and be sure there were none he did not know of. When he had checked each one, he closed out of the folder, but stopped when he saw the folder leading to the cameras that had been secretly installed in the Sandover’s current home. For a few moments, he looked at the address, and then his finger gently pressed the screen.

  The twelve cameras that had been set up in the house and including Lily Sandover’s bedroom--Sean had had no say in the cameras going into their old house as he was not around to personally threaten the men who installed them. Sean flicked through to see the Sandovers packing up their kitchen. He watched them for a few moments, feeling his heart sink when he saw the mother’s smiling face and the father joking with his daughter.

  He knew that there was no way for the family to know what waited in Central. They had no idea that their move to the new capital city had already been orchestrated and would lead them directly into the hands of a dangerous predator. Sean wanted to believe that he could protect the new family, but he also knew that when Dana set his sights on something, he would not give up.

  He continued to watch the Sandover family, wishing there was a way for him to change their fate. He had no idea exactly what Dana had planned for the family, but he made a promise to himself that he would do everything in his power to protect them.

  “Look who’s nosy now…” a voice chuckled at the door.

  Sean jumped, looking up to see Dana leaning against the door frame, smiling at Sean with his arms crossed over his chest.

  “I don’t understand why you needed cameras installed in their old house,” Sean said seriously. “That was a big waste of money and resources, considering that they’ll be here in less than a week.”

  “No need to worry,” Dana assured. “I didn’t use any Commission money. This was all out of pocket.”

  Sean rolled his eyes, watching as Dana came into the room, stalking forward slowly.

  “You don’t plan to hurt this family, do you?” he asked, his voice quiet, worried about the answer.

  “Hurt them?” Dana said, pretending to be offended. “What kind of man do you take me for?”

  “The non-human one,” Sean said seriously.

  Dana smiled darkly, causing the hair on the back of Sean‘s neck to rise. He had just excited the leader of the Commission of the People, which was something that he had not intended, nor wished, to do. Dana reached forward, pretending to straighten the lapels of Sean’s suit jacket, though he did not release the fabric.

  “You are worried for that family…” Dana said, honey coating the edges of his voice. Sean disguised the shiver that ran through his body as a heavy sigh.

  “I am your head of security,“ he said matter-of-factly. “My mind is always on how to keep anybody I can safe. That’s why I’m good at my job.”

  Dana’s fingers tightened around the lapels of Sean’s suit and he gently pushed the taller man backwards until his back hit the wall.

  “Do you mean to keep them safe from me?”

  “… if need be.”

  Dana tilted his head to one side, as of curious about what Sean would do, even as he had him pinned against the wall. His hands flattened against Sean’s chest, which slowly descended until they rested
of the waistband of his pants. He glanced down once before looking up with a smile. Sidling closer to the larger man, he began to open Sean’s belt.

  Sean grabbed his hands, shaking his head. “No.”

  “I never took you as a voyeuristic type, Sean,” Dana said, continuing to undo Sean’s belt. Sean’s hands tightened on Dana’s wrist and he tried to pull the hands of the Commission leader away. “But I suppose that is part of your job…”

  As in his hands continue their work, Sean continuously made an effort to push them away. However, Dana’s unusual strength showed itself and he grabbed Sean’s wrists, pinning them to the wall as his body pressed against the taller man’s.

  “Dana, please don’t,” Sean pleaded.

  “You always end up enjoying it in the end,” Dana said seriously.

  Sean turned away, trying to escape, but the head of the Commission of the People would not let him, keeping his body pinned tight against the wall. Understanding that there was likely no escape, Sean closed his eyes and waited for Dana to do whatever he wanted.

  “Open your eyes and look at me,” Dana instructed.

  “If you’re going to do this,” Sean started, his voice barely quivering, “then I don’t want to see it. I hate it when you do this and you know that.”

  “…the cameras are only meant together information,” Dana said, suddenly changing the topic and causing Sean to open his eyes. He looked at Dana, confused by the abrupt change. “You should understand as someone who is tasked with my security that gathering information on people who will be close to me is the most important part of surveillance and safety. As much as I would like to say I know these people, I don’t. I don’t know my own family. I was certain that I would never see my family again. So, yes, I may be a bit overzealous putting the cameras in the house, but I must gather information on them. I must get to know them.”

  “There are less invasive ways,” Sean insisted. “Just talk to them like a normal person would.”

  “I wish I could,” Dana said. He, once again, began sidling up to Sean and the taller man closed his eyes, hoping that Dana would get distracted enough to leave him alone. “But as you know, I make people extremely uncomfortable.”

  “All right,” Sean said sharply. “I apologize for spying on them. I apologize for doubting that you went against my wishes and put cameras in the bedrooms. But just as you must gather information on the Sandover’s because you do not know them, I must also gather information on you by double-checking what I believe you have done. It’s the only way that I can properly anticipate what you were likely to do.”

  Dana’s large, cat-like smile made Sean’s blood run cold. “So you’re gathering information on me?”

  “…I’m sure no matter how much I gather on you, I will never understand you.”

  Dana’s smile somehow became wider, seeming to contort his face into an inhuman sight. His hands once again returned to Sean’s belt.

  “Well, then, why do you think I’m always doing these things to you?” he said. “I’m just…gathering information.”

  Unfortunately, Sean had been unable to distract Dana and had been the victim of his attention in that very room of the new Sandover house. When Dana was finished toying with his head of security, he left the bedroom and went back downstairs to the front living room. He looked over the stacks of boxes, reading over the handwritten notations on the cardboard, seeing boxes full of books that he could only assume did not belong to Little Lily.

  He saw a box labeled “framed pictures” and immediately walked to it. Carefully opening the box, he moved the bubble wrap out of the way and began looking through each framed picture. There were some pictures that he recognized from his own childhood and there were new ones of Lily when she was a baby, when she first started school, and their first formal political dinner together. There was an entire chapter of his life that he had missed out on—the chapter of his little brother’s oddly-normal life.

  He glanced through every picture, trying to take in everyone’s face and expression, trying to transport himself to the moment that the picture was taken so that he could feel he had experienced it with this family.

  Sean slowly walking into the living room with his head down, distracting Dana for a split second before he decided to pack up the box of framed pictures and keep looking through the other packed belongings of the Sandover family.

  “…they’re going to know that someone was in here going through their things,” Sean said quietly. Dana silently wondered to himself if Sean was going to mope all day just because Dana decided to have a little fun.

  “I doubt it,” Dana said. “I may not have brought a tape gun, but I can fold the box tops closed. I doubt that they’ll realize that anyone was going through their things.”

  Dana came across a secondary box of framed pictures that he opened while Sean stood against the wall, watching Dana, too exhausted and ashamed of what had occurred earlier to even try and pull the leader of the Commission of the People out of the house.

  Dana was looking through the pictures of his little brother’s wedding, surprised at how handsome his younger brother had grown to be.

  And then he came across a picture of Lily sitting on a rock by a river, her shoes nowhere to be found, her purple sundress standing in sharp contrast to the gray of the rock as she turned the camera and smiled, clearly enjoying whatever day and whatever trip they had been on when the moment was captured on film.

  Dana could see the strength of her spirit in that picture. It was clearly a candid picture, and he could see something in Lily’s expression that he had long forgotten within himself. He had to wonder just how much Lily was like him. He had been unable to see how Tommy had a grown-up, but he was sure that after his capture, his formidable father had become even more adamant about Tommy joining the political arena to regain some of the lost reputation of the Sandover family. He was sure that Tommy was not like him at all, but it was likely that the strong spirit of the Sandover family lived on in Little Lily.

  Danas sat on the hardwood floor of the living room, pressing his back to another stack of boxes as he held the framed picture in his lap, looking over every detail, losing himself and his wonder of Lily’s strong spirit.

  He was ready to test the true strength of that spirit.

  Breaking Point

  Sean was staring at the wall, his mind surprisingly devoid of thoughts despite the storm raging inside his entire body. There was so much pressure in his chest, in his veins, in his skull, that he was sure he was about to drop dead at any moment.

  It was a feeling that had become very persistent over the previous few weeks. At first, he had attributed it to the two-year anniversary of his sister’s death—he always got a little emotional around that time of year.

  But in those few weeks, thinking about his sister, visiting her grave…he began to realize just how thin his armor had worn.

  The day his sister had died, finally succumb to her illness, had been a horrible day. What he hated most about recalling that day was that the memory of walking into the hospital, of going to his sister’s room, of signing the paperwork to agree to end life-support, and watching her body being wheeled away, was blurry, as though his brain had been unable to commit it to memory. However, the memory of Dana calling into his office and telling them that the hospital needed see him right away, the feeling of Dana’s hand resting on his shoulder when he came to collect Sean from the hospital after his sister had passed away, Dana saying he would pay the remaining bills for the hospital, and the night following her death, where Dana had sat silently while Sean broke down at his feet, sobbing and crying from emotions too deep to understand…those memories were painfully clear.

  Dana had invaded everything. Even the most traumatic memory of his sister’s death was overshadowed by the looming figure of the leader of the Commission of the People.

  Sean had been a military man before joining the Commission. The only reason he had joined the Commission was because b
oth of his parents had passed away, and his sister suddenly discovered a brain tumor that was in operable and fatal. He had needed the money to pay for her medical bills and had a former military buddy who heard that the Commission was looking for security detail. The position paid good money, and Sean figured that he could find it in him work in the Commission so long as it made him able to pay for his sister’s care.

  His sister’s growing medical expenses, including when she had finally needed twenty-four-hour care was the only way he was able to get through most of his days in the basement of the Commission. He was able to turn a blind eye to the experimentation, to the prisoners in the holding cells, to the constant affairs and mental torture that occurred within Dana’s office. He had been able to turn a blind eye to it because he had to for the sake of his sister.

  But the day she had died, reality came crashing down on him. Sean had been so good at his job that he had been able to take over the position of head of security once Lucas had died from the uprising of experiments led by Mark. Sean had not intended to be so good at his job and had hoped to work quietly so he could slowly fade away once he had the money needed for his sister. When she died, Sean realized that he was now the head of security, which meant that he had no way out.

  He had broken down at Dana’s his feet because he was terrified of the world he was locked in. He knew there was no way out of the Commission. The only way out was death or becoming an experiment. Being so close to Danna, he knew all too well that the leader would have no qualms about experimenting on Sean when he finally got bored of him.

  Once he had buried his sister, Sean was able to put up a mental barrier that allowed him to continue his job, keeping blinders on, focusing only on the job. But in the quiet evening hours, when he was granted leave to go to his room and sleep—which was becoming a less-common occurrence—he would become overwhelmed, hating himself for not doing something to stop the psychopathic leader of the Commission of the People.