Lauren and Olivia went to work, removing the largest boulders from the top of the pile and setting them down at the edges of the tunnel. Within minutes, both girls were sweating, and Lauren took off her sweater to tie around her waist as they continued on. As they widened the gap that Henry had created, a loud crack echoed from above. Olivia dropped the rock she was holding and reached out to stop Lauren from taking another one from the pile.
“The whole tunnel is going to cave in if we go much further,” she explained. “Henry, can you make it through there?”
“Going to have to, aren’t I?”
“All right. Send Nicole through.”
There was the sound of boots scraping against the wall as Henry boosted Nicole up. Her face appeared in the gap that Lauren and Olivia had cleared, covered in soot and dust from the cave-in.
“Take this first,” she said, shoving a black backpack toward Lauren. Lauren caught the bag and hoisted it onto her own back.
Nicole reached out, wriggling her upper body through the opening. Olivia and Lauren supported her weight on their shoulders and gently tugged her forward.
“Don’t drop me,” Nicole ordered as her waistline cleared the gap.
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” grunted Lauren. “God, Nicole. How much do you weigh?”
“Aren’t you an athlete?” Nicole bit back. “Engage your core or whatever it is athletes do.”
With one last pull, Olivia and Lauren towed Nicole to their side of the blockage, tumbling backward at the sudden lack of resistance. Pebbles and dust rained down on top of them, but thankfully, the rock wall held firm.
Olivia brushed her hands off on the legs of her pants. “Henry? We’re ready for you.”
It took all three women to pry Henry from the gap, but in a few minutes, the foursome stood together on the same side of the passage, shaky but intact. Nicole hauled Lauren into a fierce hug.
“I’m so glad you’re okay,” she murmured into Lauren’s shoulder. “When Henry told me the Raptors had caught on to you, I was really worried. And your dad—”
A nauseating jolt rocked Lauren’s stomach at the reminder. She disentangled herself from Nicole’s grip and led the way down the tunnel back toward the basement. “I’m fine. I’ll figure it out.”
Nicole looked worried but didn’t push it. As they followed behind Lauren, she extended her hand toward Olivia. “I’m Nicole. Thanks for rescuing us.”
“No problem,” said Olivia, giving Nicole a firm shake. “I’m Olivia. Er, Hope. You know what? Let’s just stick with Olivia.”
Henry chuckled from the back of the group. “And what am I supposed to call you?”
“Ma’am.”
Everyone laughed, and Henry executed a mock salute in Olivia’s direction. Lauren took point as the tunnel narrowed, lowering to her hands and knees to lead the group out of immediate danger.
“Nicole, have you heard from Wes?” asked Lauren.
“Not since the cave-in,” replied Nicole, worry coloring her tone. “Do you think he made it out?”
“The tunnels that lead out to the sewer are reinforced,” said Lauren as she worked her way through the passage. “They were the first ones built, so the earlier Raptors put a little more thought into them. The other passages were added later for emergency purposes, but obviously whoever dug them out weren’t quite as dedicated as the original Raptors. Wes’s tunnel should hold up just fine.”
Nicole was quiet for a moment, and they all listened to the soft patterns of their hands against the tunnel floor as they moved forward. Then Nicole said, “I can’t lose him.”
“I know,” said Lauren. “Believe me, I know. But don’t panic just yet. Let’s get out of here first. Then we can go find Wes.”
They reached a quandary at the narrowest part of the tunnel, where Henry’s belly couldn’t pass through. Olivia ventured to the basement and returned with a crowbar. As she hammered at the walls, widening the gap little by little, it hit Lauren again that she had no idea who Olivia really was. Olivia, however, didn’t give her much time to ponder it. With one last blow, she obliterated enough rock for Henry to squeeze through. They were home free after that, arriving tired and sweaty in the basement of Research Hall.
Before Lauren could even stretch out her aching limbs, her cell phone chimed. Across the room, so did Olivia’s. They glanced at each other then checked their messages.
“What is it?” asked Nicole.
“We’ve been summoned,” replied Lauren, wrinkling her nose at her aunt’s familiar phone number. “The Raptors are meeting off campus in the morning. My aunt must be worried. This is the second full meeting in a week. I would assume it’s to discuss how to progress after what is sure to be considered the worst blow in Raptor history.”
“Are you going to go?” questioned Henry. He reached up, his fingers grazing the low ceiling of the basement as he stretched, then bent over and touched his toes.
“We have to,” answered Olivia. “It will be suspicious if we don’t show up.”
“Well, I’m afraid we can’t stick around to see what happens,” Nicole said. She planted her hands on her hips, looking around the basement for an exit route. “I hate to be so persistent, but there’s still a chance that Wes is buried beneath a pile of rubble. And we have to get the charter back to the farmhouse before anyone realizes it’s missing. Did you two come in through that window?”
Nicole found an empty crate, stacked it against the wall, and hopped up to the basement window. When Lauren followed her out, Nicole was halfway across a nearby parking lot, jogging steadily toward the edge of campus. Lauren sighed. As if she hadn’t run enough already for the evening.
“Where are you going?” she asked, catching up with Nicole.
“Back into the sewer, if I have to,” puffed Nicole. She had already slowed down quite a bit. Unlike Lauren and Olivia, she’d spent more of her time at Waverly in the library rather than performing on a sports team.
“I’m going with you,” declared Lauren, though she shuddered at the thought. “I owe you, Nicole.”
“You don’t owe me anything, but I’ll take all the help I can get. If Wes—”
“If I what?” called another voice.
Nicole screeched to a halt as Wes materialized from the shadows, covered head to toe in black ash but grinning from ear to ear. They ran to each other, and Wes swept Nicole up in a giant bear hug.
“Must be nice,” muttered Olivia in Lauren’s ear as they watched the heartfelt reunion. Lauren nodded in agreement.
“What happened to you?” Nicole asked Wes, wiping ash from his face with the sleeve of her shirt. “Why didn’t you answer my texts after we got separated?”
“Lost my phone.” He brushed Nicole’s hair away from her face and planted a kiss on her forehead. “There was a lot of damage on my side. I couldn’t get back to the sewers. The only way out was up.”
“Through the library?” Lauren asked incredulously.
Wes gave an exhausted nod, still holding Nicole close. “In all honesty, I wasn’t sure I was going to make it. The fire was still going strong. This definitely wasn’t an accident. Someone planted a bomb.”
“The questions is who,” pondered Henry. He massaged an eyelid with the pad of his finger, working dust away from it. “I think we can safely rule out the Raptors. Why would they destroy their own clubhouse?”
“Maybe a third party?” suggested Olivia. “BRS has pissed off quite a few people, including a few of their own kind. It wouldn’t surprise me if someone finally got sick of being taken advantage of.”
“Did you get the charter?” asked Wes.
“Sure did,” said Lauren. She shucked the backpack off her shoulders and handed it to Nicole.
The conversation reached an abrupt halt when a group of students passed by, on their way home from the accident at the library. Henry pushed Wes and Nicole into the shadow of the trees, out of sight. At the same time, Olivia pulled Lauren into a tight hug as though she were consolin
g her. When the students had cleared out, Henry cleared his throat.
“We need to get out of here,” he said. “Olivia, make sure you get to that meeting. I still want eyes and ears on everything the Raptors do or say. Lauren, you too. You’re in this now. Whatever the two of you do, you can’t let Flynn know that you’re working with us.”
“What are you going to do?” asked Olivia.
“I need to contact the agency,” replied Henry. “The charter should allow us to finally bag the Black Raptor Society. At the very least, we can legally investigate Catherine Flynn.”
“Is this it?” asked Lauren, looking around at the group. “Do we actually have a shot at taking down the Raptors?”
“Don’t jinx it,” muttered Nicole.
“We’ve still got a long way to go,” agreed Wes.
For a long moment, the five of them stood in resolute silence, considering their next steps. As they traded long looks with one another, a weight settled in the middle of their circle. It was an obligation to continue forward, and with five people on their team instead of just one, Lauren felt infinitely more confident about the possible outcomes.
“Let’s head out,” said Henry.
The ride back out to the farmhouse was less tense than the one on the way into Waverly. We were the only car on the road, the headlights of the truck piercing the darkness of the night. In the front, Henry and Wes chatted with relative ease about our next steps, though Wes was still coughing up black ash and spitting it out the window every so often. I rode in the back, my legs stretched out across the bench seat, with the BRS charter open on my lap. I flipped through its delicate pages, careful not to tear through any names. Essentially, the charter was a history book but with far more personality than any textbook I’d ever studied from. I recognized most of the signatures from my research into the Black Raptor Society and made a mental note to look up those that I hadn’t seen before. Now that I had the society’s complete membership list in my lap, it was obvious how far the Raptors’ reach had stretched. It was a family tree with innumerable branches, some larger than others and closer to the trunk, others petering off into less noticeable entities. Overall, I had to fight not to be impressed by the clan that the Raptors had managed to create.
Henry parked the truck at the end of the drive, not wanting the engine to wake up Natasha, but when we padded up the porch steps and slipped into the dimly lit interior of the farmhouse, a table lamp suddenly clicked on.
Natasha sat awake and alert on the white sofa in the living room, the lamp casting sharp shadows across her already angled features.
Henry, Wes, and I froze by the front door. A sense of impending doom settled over me, but not the intense kind that came with the territory of outing a secret society that was threatening to kill us. No, this felt like being fifteen and getting caught for sneaking back into the house after curfew.
“I brought the boy into the house,” she said by way of greeting. “It was too cold to leave him in the barn.”
“All right,” said Henry. “Is he secure?”
“Secure enough.” She stood up, wrapping her shoulders with a spare blanket from the couch, and approached. “How did it go?”
“We hit a few hiccups,” replied Henry. He peeled the BRS charter from my hands and offered it to Natasha. “But here it is.”
But instead of accepting the charter, Natasha hung her head, hiding her face behind her hands. “Oh, God. You know, I was really hoping you wouldn’t pull it off.”
“Um, excuse you?” I said, confused. Of all people, Natasha should’ve been one of the most relieved. After all, the whole reason she had faked her own death in the first place was to escape from Catherine Flynn’s manic influence.
Natasha placed a hand on the charter, fingering the edges of the leather covering before flipping directly to the page with the burn marks through Anthony Costello’s name. “I can’t let you turn in Catherine Flynn.”
“Why?” demanded all three of us at once. Henry retracted the charter, holding it close to his chest as though afraid Natasha might confiscate it from him.
Natasha took a deep breath. “Because I murdered Catherine Flynn’s husband.”
33
A blanketing silence fell over the foyer of the farmhouse. It was so still and quiet that I could hear the muffled jingling of the dogs’ collars as they wandered in from a side room to investigate who had arrived at the front door. Henry was at a loss for words, gaping at his wife. I took the reins.
“You killed Harrison Flynn?” I asked Natasha.
“In self-defense,” she replied. She spoke solely to me, keeping her eyes on mine. “You asked me yesterday what happened between me and Catherine Flynn. The truth is that I had already told you during our spat in the kitchen. She tried to kill you.”
Details of that conversation floated to the front of my mind. Natasha claimed that she’d handed me over to my aunt in order to keep me safe.
“That wasn’t the whole story,” Natasha went on. “Catherine didn’t come to fetch you herself. She sent her husband, Harrison. He was Anthony’s best friend at Waverly, and I think Catherine knew that I would take it particularly hard if he was the one to murder Anthony’s own daughter.”
She wandered away from the front door and into the living room. Like a moth to flame, I followed her. I needed to hear the rest of her story.
“I knew that Harrison was following me,” Natasha continued as she sat on the edge of the couch and rested her head in her palms. “So when he finally caught up with me, I was prepared. I meant to shoot him through the shoulder or the leg. Some non-vital part of the body.” Her voice broke, and her shoulders began to shake. “But he hesitated. I miscalculated, and the bullet went through his chest instead.”
“That’s why you’ve been in contact with Flynn,” I said, finally understanding. “She’s been blackmailing you, hasn’t she?”
“When I left Harrison, he was still alive,” Natasha said. She wiped her eyes on the blanket, leaving a wet stain on the red and green flannel. “I called 911 and ditched my phone, but that night, I couldn’t help but call the local hospital from a payphone to check on him. A member of the society answered—they have people everywhere—then patched me through to Catherine. She told me that we were square. I had something on her, and she had something on me, and if I ever dared to report Catherine’s business with BRS to any police force, she would turn me in for the murder of her husband.”
I placed the BRS charter on the kitchen counter and walked over to the sofa, leaning over the back of it to rest a comforting hand on Natasha’s shoulder. She held on to my fingers. “It was an accident, Natasha,” I reassured her. “Like you said, it was self-defense. It wouldn’t matter if Flynn turned you in.”
“Well,” interjected Wes as he settled into one of the stools at the kitchen counter. “If you had reported it thirty years ago, you would have had a better shot at getting off without any consequences. Then, there would have been a record of defensive wounds. It would’ve been pretty obvious that you were trying to protect yourself and your child. Now, there’s no definite proof of what happened.”
At last, Henry removed himself from the snow mat near the front door and sidled hesitantly into the living room to join the conversation. “Wes might be right,” he said, rounding the coffee table to sit next to his wife. “But that doesn’t change what has to happen next. The Bureau will back me up, Natasha. This has been a long time coming, and who knows what could happen in court, but we’ll get through this together.”
“No, no, no,” said Natasha. She pushed Henry’s hands away as though she couldn’t stand the contact. “You don’t understand. No one puts the Black Raptor Society down. It’s not possible. If you turn in Catherine Flynn, she will find a way to murder all of us.”
“We’ve gotten this far,” I said. “Besides, I’m not the only one in this room to have evaded the Raptors on multiple occasions. This is the closest anyone has ever been to overthrowing the societ
y and this is the most backup we’ve ever had. You didn’t hear Flynn’s niece talking about it. Flynn’s nervous. She knows we’re closing in on her.”
Natasha remained silent, tucking her feet beneath her and pulling the blanket up to her chin as if it would act as a shield from the Raptors’ influence. I pressed on.
“Think about what life would be like if we were rid of the Raptors,” I said quietly. “You could stop running. You and I could get to know each other again. We wouldn’t have to worry about breaking into secret clubhouses or stealing private property or nearly being blown up.”
“Blown up?” she said, her voice cracking. She turned on another lamp, squinting at us through the dusty light. Wes looked the worst, but I knew that Henry and I weren’t exactly winning trophies for cleanliness either. Natasha’s eyes widened.
“It doesn’t matter. We’re safe now,” I said, patting her blanketed shoulder. “My point is that if we can put Catherine Flynn in jail, there won’t be any more of this crap. Isn’t that what you want? To live a normal life?”
Natasha sniffed. Henry handed her a tissue from the side table, which she used to blot her nose. “I’ve been dreaming of a normal life for over thirty years.”
“This is your chance at one,” I said. “Henry is going to put word in with the Bureau, and then the Raptors will be as good as finished. Right, Henry?”
“Right,” he said gruffly. He made a second attempt to hug his wife. This time, she gave in, resting her head against his broad chest. “For now, though, I think it’s best if everyone got some sleep. It’s safe to say we’ve all been deprived of a good eight hours these past few nights.”
“Weeks,” corrected Wes.
“Months,” I jumped in.
“The point is we could all use some shut-eye,” said Henry, squeezing Natasha tightly. “Let’s regroup in the morning.”
Together, we headed upstairs, splitting up in the main hallway. Natasha and Henry said goodnight, disappearing into the master bedroom, while Wes and I made ourselves comfortable in the spare room. We showered first, rinsing off the reminders of what had occurred that evening, then fell into bed. I snuggled up to Wes, inhaling the scent of the cedarwood body wash that still lingered on his skin, and wrapped an arm around his waist. I sighed contently, and within a minute, I fell asleep.
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