The elevator was large, but the soldiers pressed in on me from all sides. As the buffed metal doors spread open on the fourth floor, Mitch shot me a glance that was hard to read. He looked angry, but I was guessing that he was just warning me not to tell them anything about Justin. I quickly looked away as the soldiers marched me down a long hallway with a line of open wooden doors. Admins sat at desks just on the other side of each doorway, and they all studiously ignored us. We headed to the end of the hallway, past an admin, and into a room with a familiar man waiting behind a wide, mahogany desk.
I felt a moment of déjà vu as I took the seat across from Justin’s father, Mr. George Roberts, CEO of the Hawthorn Group. We always seemed to be sitting a desk away from each other as my world flipped on its end. The thought brought me no comfort.
Mr. Roberts was a large man, built like a linebacker who’d let his body mostly go to fat. He had a handsome face with some faint wrinkles. His hair was dark, like Justin’s, but had gray wings around his ears. He looked up at me through thin-rimmed glasses and tilted his head as his hands threaded together on his desk. “I’m so sorry to bring you in here, January.” He raised a hand in the air and gave a good-natured smile to the guards in the room. “If you’d give us some privacy please?”
They seemed to be expecting this as they didn’t so much as hesitate to close me in with Justin’s father.
“You probably want to know what’s going on.” He pulled off his glasses, folded them up, and set them on the desk.
I fisted my hands and said nothing.
He seemed to take my silence for assent, and he pulled out one of his desk drawers, taking out a tablet that he pushed my way. “From our interactions, Miss January, I know you’re not going to believe me, and that’s okay. You’ve been through a lot.”
I couldn’t help but glare at him at that.
He ignored it. “What I’m showing you here is classified information. Now, I’m not going to ask for any nondisclosure agreements from you, but Justin’s reputation might never be recoverable if you share this evidence. I’d like to think that my son could still be helped and go on to lead a meaningful life, so I’m leaving that in your hands, my dear.”
Leaning across the desk, Mr. Roberts pressed the screen of the slick, black tablet, and a movie played. The feed was split screen with half of the video black. A severe up-close angle of Justin’s face filled the other half of the screen, showing under his chin and up his nose. He was unmistakable. To one side, there were lines of drawers. It was hard to see from this angle, but they looked like file cabinets.
“This was taken from his phone camera late last night.” Mr. Roberts swallowed hard. “The Hawthorn Group was growing suspicious, and so they hacked into his phone.” His voice was tight as he said this, and I couldn’t help but notice that he said the word “they” instead of “we.” It made me think that Mr. Roberts wasn’t part of the mission to spy on his son.
The video feed shook as Justin lifted the phone closer to his face. The half of the screen that was dark before showed a form with a list of names. It looked like a genealogical family tree connected through an intricate web. On one corner, I clearly saw the name Holter before the camera moved to another paper. This paper was a medical record for someone named Marisa Garner. Under her name, it said Alphastrain Blood XNFSB, and then there was a long list of blood tests.
“If you could fast forward to two minutes and thirty seconds, my dear. Those are confidential records.”
I did as he requested, and the video flashed through form after official-looking form, and I pressed play again when the video got to the two-and-a-half-minute timestamp. When the feed ran, I was staring at the split screen with Justin’s face filling half and a photograph with my own face filling the other half. It was a record I’d seen before, my Jane Doe record from the morgue. On it was the information about my injuries from being hit by a truck.
Next, Justin flipped to a police report about a missing Jane Doe body from the morgue.
“I didn’t even know they did an investigation,” I whispered.
The whole thing was mostly a blur to me. I remembered the note and the feel of cold cement on my bare feet. But in the days that followed, I couldn’t even recall which morgue I had stumbled out of or the path I’d taken home.
“We monitor all of the police records. The moment irregular activity was flagged, our contacts in the department handed over the investigation and removed all records of your death.”
Several more records had Jane Doe on it from the morgue and police station, including a witness statement from the morgue attendant who’d found my body missing. Why hadn’t I even thought about all of this paper trail? I knew that wasn’t the point, but that was what was running through my head until my mind came to a full stop at the next record. On the screen was a very official-looking form that said in bold letters: this grants unconditional lifelong legal guardianship of January Renee Moore to the Hawthorn Group, under the custodianship of Sebastian Holter, as per S-15 Unclassifiable. It was dated one week ago.
I paused the video and looked up into Mr. Roberts’ brown eyes. “What does this mean?” My voice sounded dead and cold. “You think you own me?”
“Oh, no … not, no.” Mr. Roberts chuckled and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “That there is a formality only, but we were required to register you as a supernatural creature the moment that we knew your identity and had sufficient proof that you’re no longer human. The Hawthorn Group do have to follow laws, just like every citizen of the United States of America. The Hawthorn Group … well, let’s say that we could be considered a branch of the United States government—unofficially, of course. But when we locate a hostile or dangerous supernatural creature, we are required to take official responsibility of them.”
I gaped at him. “In what world am I hostile and dangerous?”
Mr. Roberts’ eyes widened, and he stammered, “Well, of course you’re not, but you have the potential to be.”
“Well, so do you.”
“Honey …” he shook his head, “All this means is that according to the government, officially …” He made air quotes. “You are now the responsibility of this organization for the remainder of your life. This actually protects you in a lot of ways, because if you ever got into trouble with the authorities, they’d immediately hand you over to us. And all we want to do is protect you. It’s just paperwork.” He waved a thick hand through the air. “It doesn’t change anything. Your mother is still your mother.”
It changed everything.
“I’d like to point out that if the Hawthorn Group wanted to conceal this from you, they could have easily edited it out of the video.” He reached across the desk and pressed play.
After my records, Justin copied the medical records of Mitch, Patrick, Richard, Susie, Zack, and Braiden. Each paper felt like a punch to the gut. They had phone numbers, addresses, family member names. And that same word—Alphastrain. Though on their forms the word wasn’t followed by a long stream of letters, instead it only had one letter: H. The last was Justin’s medical record, and it had the same words, Alphastrain H.
“What the hell?” I whispered.
“Just watch, sweetheart.” Mr. Roberts rubbed the bridge of his nose again, the skin turning red and raw under his fingers.
On screen, Justin set the phone down and quickly moved around the room. He pulled open cabinets and slid files inside. He looked at his phone and pressed the screen a couple of times before he slipped it into his pocket, and both sides of the screen went black. Eight seconds of darkness passed on the feed, and then Justin lifted his phone to his ear, so half of the split-screen showed his dark hair and the other half showed the inside of a metal stairwell.
“I got it,” my father said loud and clear through the recording. “And everything’s been arranged. Wipe this phone of all of my information. We know how to contact each other, and I don’t want you to get caught before we can extract you. Does she know about thi
s?”
“No,” Justin said on the other end. “And I’m not going to tell her until I absolutely have to.”
“Good. That’s good. I’ll get back to you with the date and time of your extraction. I can’t keep them back for much longer. The academy is going to be attacked. I’m part of the plans for it now, but I’m not sure how long that will last.”
I knew something incriminating was coming. Why else would they show this to me? But I didn’t expect this. Just one week ago, Justin had been willing to flee the country when he realized that vampires knew about my existence. What had changed? Had my father reached out to Justin and proved that he wanted to help?
“Maybe this isn’t what you think,” I whispered. “Maybe Justin is trying to save us all.”
“Boy, would I like to believe that, Miss Moore.” Mr. Roberts sighed. “I expected you to doubt the evidence—as I did this morning when this was brought to me, so I have proof. Do you want to see it?”
“Sure,” I said, my throat feeling dry.
Mr. Roberts laid out evidence bags with forms that had fingerprints dusted on them. He showed me surveillance video clips that caught Justin going into the file room and leaving through the stairwell. He even showed a clip of Justin mouthing the words: absolutely have to.
“They set up a second set of surveillance cameras.” Mr. Roberts rubbed a hand down his face, and for the first time since I sat across from the man, I really looked at him. Dark circles ringed his brown eyes, and the sclera of his eyes were bloodshot and red. “This information was gathered by a special unit of the Hawthorn Group that was formed without my knowledge. When it was brought to me last night, I insisted that we let my son attend school while outside experts validated the evidence. Two hundred Hawthorn Group soldiers surrounded the school.”
I shook my head. “No. Then how did a vampire scion get in to attack me early this morning?”
“The Hawthorn Group has come to the conclusion that Justin arranged for that scion to put your life at risk to create enough chaos to escape.”
“Well, they’re wrong.”
“I know.” His lips pulled into a straight line. Mr. Roberts regarded me with a meaningful look that held a trace of pity. “But that’s how it looked to them. The soldiers arrived just after the attack. There was a reasonable amount of confusion. The Hawthorn Group soldiers believed that he was in the school, but Justin had entered the dorms with you. From there, he slipped out, escaped, and vanished.”
I shook my head. “It didn’t happen like that. He walked away from me in broad daylight, heading into the parking lot.”
Mr. Roberts inhaled deeply, his wide chest expanding. “There are many who also believe that I helped him by delaying his arrest and creating this opportunity to escape. Powerful people believe that and … I take no pleasure in telling you this, my dear. By tomorrow, I do not believe that I will still be CEO of the Hawthorn Group.”
Shit.
I wasn’t looking at a man who was trying to trick information from me. I was looking at a father who was desperate to find his son before it was too late. Come tomorrow, Mr. Roberts would be replaced with someone who would likely have no interest in protecting Justin as well as apprehending him.
“The only thing that I know isn’t going to help you find him. I didn’t even tell Justin.”
Mr. Roberts nodded. “Anything might help.”
“Two Sundays ago, my father approached me when I stepped away from my friends.” The words felt wrong, like I was betraying someone by saying them out loud, but they were the only thing I had that could vindicate Justin in some small way.
“You didn’t tell anyone?” Mr. Roberts’ brow creased further. “You didn’t call for help?”
“It happened really fast. He dropped a note at my feet and left, and I read it.” I swallowed hard. “He said that he remembered me, and he couldn’t protect me from what was coming. That’s all it said.”
“Did he tell you what was coming?”
I shook my head.
Mr. Roberts leaned in. “Now, January, this is really important. Did your father give you any means to contact him?”
“Nothing. I didn’t know what to make of it. But Justin told me that I could trust Blackburn Academy and that I’d be safe there. I trust him—he’s earned that from me. So, if he’s working with my father, it’s either because my father tricked him or …” I trailed off, knowing that what I was going to say next might be too far.
“Or your father is working against the vampires,” Mr. Roberts finished for me. “I would love to believe either of those scenarios, honey, I really would. But Justin didn’t only send over your records to the local vampire king. He sent over his mother’s, aunts’ and uncles’, friends’, and cousins’. Justin released personal medical files and home addresses of the highest-ranking members of the Hawthorn Group. If this was some plan to go against the nightstalkers, on your behalf, presumably, why would he give them all of that information?”
“He gave his own information.” I shook my head. “It doesn’t make any sense.”
“It doesn’t.”
Justin’s words played through my mind. He told me that what he was doing at the Hawthorn Group had nothing to do with me. Had he been working with my father this whole time?
As if Mr. Roberts plucked the question from my mind, he said, “I’m sorry to tell you this, but your father is by no means a nonaggressive vampire. In the close to twenty years that he took over as the king of Brightside’s nightstalkers, the population of nightstalkers has swelled, and human casualties have tripled.” Mr. Roberts gave me a direct look with his bloodshot eyes. “I hope you’re not considering him as anything other than a villain.”
I didn’t know what I was thinking about my father. It just seemed like there had to be some kind of mistake here. Either Justin was bad, or my father was.
Justin had once complained that I gave everyone the benefit of the doubt but him. It had been true. And he had proven himself my ally and protector in every way. I owed him the benefit of the doubt— and just the once, I’d give it to him.
My mother’s voice echoed through my mind. People will always screw you over if you give them a chance. I slammed my eyes closed and stuffed the voice down deep in my mind. “No,” I whispered, “Justin told me that my survival depends on trusting you guys to keep me safe from my father.”
“Well, in that he had it right, sweetheart.” George Roberts leaned into the desk. His eyes watered as they met mine. “We know that Justin spent some time with you just before he left. Did he pass on any information that might help bring him home safe before I’m relieved of my job?”
Even though I didn’t trust this man sitting before me, the raw panic in his eyes made me almost wish I did. “As far as I knew, he was working for the Hawthorn Group, not against it. He wouldn’t tell me what he was working on.”
Mr. Roberts didn’t respond; he just watched me as the clock on the wall ticked the seconds away. “There’s nothing at all you can tell me?”
“I can’t think of a single thing that would help you find him.”
It wasn’t a lie. All I could think of was a place to start, and that was figuring out what secret Justin uncovered about Sebastian Holter last night. Justin said it was likely the reason behind why Sebastian committed the act that gained him the nickname Prime Evil. My guess was that Justin had discovered something in these files that shed light on Sebastian’s past crimes. And there was one word that I repeatedly saw in those files, and that was Alphastrain. I hadn’t noticed the word on the first few medical forms, but near the end, it was on every single one.
“Can I see the evidence again? Maybe it’ll spark something,” I suggested, but Mr. Roberts shook his head.
He pulled the tablet away from me and stored it in his desk drawer. “Sebastian is expecting you upstairs for your internship.”
The words made my gut twist into a knot, but I refused to show that on my face. I stood, nodded, and headed out of
the soon-to-be-ex CEO of the Hawthorn Group’s office.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Sebastian didn't ask me a single question about Justin, not that night or early Saturday morning. Both sessions, Sebastian immediately told me to punch a bag. Every time my fist slammed into the leather, a pressure gauge above the bag showed a number. Sebastian leaned against the wall, typing into a tablet and only peeking up at me intermittently. My fist landed again and again, and the impact ricocheted up my arm, almost painfully. And yet, I wanted more, more pressure, more impact.
A chain of thoughts kept cycling in my mind. Sebastian Holter committed a crime so heinous that everyone in this world considered him the epitome of evil. Blackburn Academy and the Hawthorn Group covered up that crime and swore everyone to secrecy on pain of death. Justin learned why Sebastian committed that crime. The very next day, Justin was proclaimed a traitor and fugitive of the Hawthorn Group, and evidence cropped up that he betrayed everyone who might want to help him. From what I could tell, the evidence against him was legit. Mr. Roberts had experts from far and wide validate it. But it was all too convenient.
I struck and struck again, imagining that I could punch through the bag.
"All right, let's break for blood," Sebastian said.
"I'm not thirsty for blood," I said between blows. "I don't need it."
He pushed off the wall. "And why's that?"
"Because I need it about once a week."
"Well, we're not here to measure what you need to survive."
He stepped closer to me, almost to the leather bag, and damn, I wanted to redirect my punches right into his chiseled face.
"We measure the effect that blood has on your performance. Right now, your blows are landing heavier than they ever have before, and I want to see if blood affects that."
"My blows are stronger than ever because I'm imagining that I'm punching your face." I slammed my fist into the leather, and a puff of dust spouted from one of the seams. "I am not your fucking property."
Hunter Trials (The Vampire Legacy Book 2) Page 14