by D. N. Hoxa
For a second, I almost felt like he was going to…I don’t know, pull out a gun and shoot us dead, maybe?
He didn’t, thankfully.
“Which one?” he asked, looking from me to Adrian and back so fast, he was making me dizzy.
“Excuse me?”
“The door. Which one of you opened the door?”
What the hell? I looked at Adrian. Did he know what this guy meant? Adrian shrugged.
“What does it matter who opened the door?” What a stupid question to ask.
Suddenly, the man smiled like I’d told him exactly what he wanted to hear.
“Please, take a seat,” he said, waving his hand at the armchairs. “We’ll be right with you.”
And just like that, he sat down and began to type away on his computer. He didn’t give me any bad guy vibes, but he wasn’t a good guy, either. Just something in between, like most people. Did I really want to sit down and wait for God knows what to come find us in this strange place?
“Come on,” Adrian whispered, nodding at the armchairs. He’d already made up his mind. I took in a deep breath and followed. What was the worst that could happen, right? I mean, the man could have thrown us out. That he was asking us to wait was a good thing. It meant I would maybe get an answer to at least one of my questions.
The armchair was very comfortable, but I still felt like I was sitting on needles. I didn’t like not knowing what to expect. How was I going to be prepared for whatever was coming?
This had been a mistake. I wasn’t ready for this. What was I going to say when they asked me what I was doing there?
I jumped to my feet and looked at Adrian. “I think we have the wrong address,” I said, widening my eyes so he knew not to comment but to get the hell out of there as fast as possible.
He didn’t have time to reply or even stand before the double doors behind the desk opened.
Too late. We were too late.
When I turned around, I saw a woman, just a few years older than me, walking to us with a folder in her hand. She wore a white shirt and a black skirt, like those two colors were the only ones to exist in that place. She smiled when she saw us and only nodded at the guy behind the desk before walking straight to us. Her skirt was too tight for her to hide a gun in there, but the shirt was loose enough to hide knives. That was okay, though. I had knives of my own.
“Hello!” the woman said, her voice high pitched, her fake smile kind of scary. Her black hair looked like satin falling around her shoulders. How the hell did she get it to look like that? “Welcome to Trappers, Inc.” Well, if I’d had any doubts about where we were, that did it. “Which one of you opened the door?”
Come the fuck on. “Sorry, is that some kind of an inside joke around here?” I looked at the guy behind the desk, who was so focused on us he didn’t seem to even blink.
“No, miss, no joke. I assume it was you?” the woman said, that freaky smile still on her face.
“Yes, it was me. So?” What did opening a door have to do with this?
“Glad to hear.” She opened the folder in her hand and grabbed a silver pen from it. “Your name?”
Shit. I was definitely not prepared for this. “Cece Mathers,” I said the first name that popped into my head. I didn’t know who these people were, so I wasn’t going to give them my real name.
Then she looked at Adrian. “And?”
“Uh…Alan Murdock,” he said. Wow. If there was one person on earth who was a worse liar than me, it was Adrian. We sucked at this so badly.
The woman wrote down the names on her folder and closed it again. “Well, Ms. Mathers, Mr. Murdock, I’m Emma Gillard. If you could, please follow me.” And she turned around for the white doors again.
“Hold on a second,” I said because going deeper into the building with that woman didn’t seem like the brightest idea. “I’d like to know a few things first. Like, what is it that you do here?”
A bit surprised, the woman nodded. “We will answer all of your questions inside. Please.” She waved at the doors.
“Can’t we talk here?” It was as good a place as any.
“I’m afraid we can’t do that, no,” the woman said and held my eyes like she expected me to turn around and run away.
“We’ll be there in a second,” said Adrian, and he grabbed my hand and pulled me to the corner of the room. Emma Gillard was not happy, but she didn’t object. She stood by the doors and waited.
“What’s the matter? Why are you hesitating?” Adrian whispered.
“Because we don’t know who these people are. We don’t know what’s in there.” I didn’t like not knowing.
“That’s why we’re here, isn’t it? Come on, there’s two of us. If they try something funny, we’ll just leave.” He sounded so confident, but it didn’t rub off on me.
How could it? I didn’t know what to expect, but I had a general idea. The name said it all—Trappers. I’d spent my whole life thinking my dad and me were the only ones who even knew about demons, and I had a feeling that it was all going to change. I’d always known he kept secrets, but I’d wanted him to be the one to reveal them to me, damn it.
The truth was, he never would because he wasn’t there. He was dead. And I could walk away from here now and never look back, but could I live not knowing what Trappers, Inc. even was?
No, I couldn’t. I’d just have to suck it up and deal with whatever was behind those doors.
“Okay, let’s do it. But if something goes wrong, we get the hell out of here, okay?”
“Hey, don’t worry.” Adrian offered me a smile. “We’ll be fine.” Maybe he was right, but if he hadn’t been there, I’d have chickened out and left minutes ago. For that, I was thankful to him.
We turned around and walked over to Emma. My palms were sweating, itching to hold the knives in the back of my waistband, but I resisted.
“Shall we?” said Emma, but she didn’t wait for a reply. She opened the door and walked inside, leaving us to follow.
The corridor ahead was narrow, with only two doors across from one another, and an elevator at the very end. The colors of the gold-framed paintings on the wall breathed some life into that building. Maybe they knew what colors were, after all.
Emma took us all the way to the elevator and called the car up. She held onto her folder with both hands and looked at the floor, never saying a single word. The urge to just ask her where she was taking us was strong, but I swallowed the words. Adrian was right; we were going to be fine. No reason to freak out just yet.
The car was big enough to fit twenty people inside, so I didn’t feel like suffocating as we went down. Adrian never left my side. I’d already gotten used to him being there with me. Was that a mistake, too?
We went only a floor below, but according to the panel in the car, there were three underground levels in that building. Not a very good sign. They were trying to hide something, and I wasn’t sure I’d like what it was.
When the doors slid open, I held my breath, expecting them to reveal a fucking army. Instead, we were in square room with four doors around, all of them closed.
“Right this way,” said Emma and led us to the second door on the left. I hoped there wouldn’t be another corridor or elevator because there was only so much I could take. I hated the suspense, and the beads of sweat on my forehead proved it.
She pushed the door open, and we heard laughter. No corridors or elevators—just a spacious room with lots of colors in it. The bright overhead lights made me squint my eyes until they adjusted. Two people were already in there, the ones who’d been laughing until they saw us. The girl looked to be younger than me, and the man was probably around thirty, if not more. Their smiles froze when we walked in. They were definitely surprised, and they didn’t even try to hide it.
It was an office of some sort, though it felt like there were three separate places thrown into one. The man’s desk was closest to the door on the left, and he had baseballs in glass boxes all over
it. Crumpled pieces of paper, two empty cups, piles of documents and three staplers—seriously, who needs three staplers?—were just a few things on his desk. In the middle was the girl. Her space was completely different from the man’s, with lots of color and lots of pictures glued on the wall behind her. She seemed to be into rainbows because she’d even painted the back of her computer screen like one. Lots of frames on her desk, as well as stick-it notes of all colors, which made you wonder how she even had space to type.
“Right over here,” said Emma, going behind the only empty desk in the room. Hers was white, clean, with everything in its place, and no colors whatsoever. She pointed at the two chairs in front of her desk. To sit, we’d have to turn our back on the other two strangers, but no matter how uncomfortable that made me, I had no other choice. We’d made it this far. I’d be damned if I left without figuring this out.
“I’m going to take your information, and then I’m going to take you to our Chairman. I won’t take too much of your time, I promise,” Emma said, opening her folder again.
“Actually, I’d like to take your information first before meeting anybody else,” I said. There was no point in delaying this any longer.
“Which one?” the rainbow girl behind us asked. She stood up from her desk and slowly came closer to us with her arms crossed in front of her.
If I had to guess, I’d say she wanted to know which one of us had opened the door.
“I’m working, Caroline,” said Emma under her breath.
“My money’s on the boy.” The man had also left his chair, and he came closer to Emma’s desk, too.
“Are you kidding? It’s the girl. It’s always the girl,” said Caroline with a grin.
“So?” the man said, looking at us like he really expected us to answer him.
“Guys, please!” said Emma, very irritated. “I’m working!”
As if they cared. “Come on, Em. We haven’t had newbies in forever. Don’t be such a bitch,” said Caroline, and she sat on Emma’s desk. She probably knew how much Emma disliked that, but she didn’t give a shit. It almost made me smile.
“It’s you, isn’t it,” she said, looking right at me.
I sighed. “I opened the door, if that’s what you’re asking.” Why was still a mystery to me.
“Hi-five!” Caroline shouted and offered her hand. What the hell was I supposed to do, leave her hanging? I couldn’t do that, especially when she felt…nice. Kind of warm and fuzzy. One of the good ones, definitely.
“Get off my desk, Caroline,” said Emma. “Right now.” It was a warning, and Caroline knew it. Her smile slipped, and she moved away from the desk but didn’t go back to hers.
“So how old are you? And who’s this guy?” The man nodded at Adrian.
“That’s enough!” Emma shouted and slammed her hands on the desk. Good for her. Didn’t think she had in her, to be honest. “I’m working here, and you should be doing the same.”
“We are. This is work, right, Ray?” said Caroline.
“It definitely is. Let me fill out the form for the girl, and you can do the guy,” Ray said with a grin, reaching for Emma’s folder, but she pulled it away, and looked at him.
Just…looked at him. And Ray slowly stepped away and went to sit behind his desk without another word.
Then she turned to Caroline, but Caroline threw her hands out. “Okay, okay, I’m leaving. Just chill.”
What the hell?
“Okay, someone needs to tell me what the hell is going on, or we’re leaving,” I said through gritted teeth. I’d had enough of this bullshit. I stood up, too, just to prove my point.
“It’s not my place to tell you anything—just to get your information,” said Emma, trying to compose herself, but I didn’t care.
“Or we could just ask your friends,” said Adrian, turning his chair around. “You’d tell us, right?”
“I woul—” Caroline started, but Emma cut her off.
“All right, fine! I’ll tell you, just…sit down,” she said, pointing at the chair. I didn’t like orders. In fact, I was half a second away from sitting on her desk, just to spite her, but I wanted the answers more, so I took the chair.
“What is Trappers, Inc.?” I asked Emma. “And why the hell does everyone keep asking about the stupid door?”
“Because you wouldn’t have been able to open it, if you weren’t like us,” she said with a sigh that sounded like regret.
My brows rose, and I fell back on the chair like she’d punched me. “Elaborate,” I demanded, and if she didn’t, I was getting out of there, fast.
“Well, like the name suggests, we call ourselves Trappers. We’re trained fighters and we hunt down bad guys, Ms. Mathers. This is our headquarters, and that’s all you’re going to get out of me. If you could just let me do my job for a change, I’d take you to the person qualified to answer your questions, and if you don’t like that, you can just leave,” Emma said in a rush.
Leave? Now?
No way in hell. She basically described me. My dad had called me a trapper, I was a trained fighter, and I hunted down bad guys. Well, demons, but they were bad guys, too. I looked at Adrian, who was slightly less surprised than I was, even though we’d both suspected something like this.
“Go ahead, ask your questions,” I said to Emma, and she smiled.
“Right then.” She put her folder in front of her again, and grabbed her pen. “So how did you find Trappers, Inc.?”
Thirteen questions later—and thirteen lies for answers—we were about to leave the office to go see the chairman, the guy who was going to finally give us answers. Emma asked us about everything, from our mothers’ maiden names to the names of our schools, and we both lied. At least I thought Adrian lied, too. I had no clue what his mother’s real maiden name was.
“Nice meeting you, Cece and Alan,” said Caroline, waving her hands at us while we left the room. “I hope I’ll see you again, soon!”
I was going to say the same, but Emma shut the door real fast. I didn’t know what her problem was, but I was glad I wouldn’t be talking to her again. She took us back to the elevator and another level down. I felt a bit more at ease now that we’d gone over all the questions, and I’d actually met some of the people inside that building. Caroline and Ray hadn’t seemed all that bad.
When the doors of the elevator opened, I felt like we’d stepped into a different place altogether. The lights were low, the floor was covered with a dark red carpet, and there were tall tables with flowers on them in two corners of the room. Two wooden doors were ahead, complete with golden handles. It was definitely not what I expected.
Emma walked to the door on the right and knocked twice.
“Come in,” someone said, and she stepped to the side. With a tight-lipped smile, she waved at the door and returned to the elevator without a word.
“Ready?” asked Adrian, and I nodded. I was definitely ready to get this over with.
Adrian opened the door.
The yellow light in the ceiling made everything look vintage—the red furniture, the golden decorations, the two statues of naked women on either side of the wide room. The mahogany desk stood smack in the middle, not as messy as Ray’s, but not as tidy as Emma’s. Adrian stepped inside, but I couldn’t bring myself to move. I was frozen, and it wasn’t because of the man standing behind the desk with a cigarette between his fingers, the smoke impersonating a cloud over his head. It wasn’t even that the room seemed to have come right out of a horror movie, where bad guys took people to kill them.
It was the picture on the desk, the biggest one of the three, and the only one facing the door.
The picture of the man behind the desk right beside my father.
“Cece?” said Adrian when he saw I wasn’t moving. Air rushed into my lungs. My muscles twitched and I feared I was going to collapse, but I gritted my teeth and took my eyes off the picture.
Don’t blow it, I repeated to myself over and over again. I needed to act
cool. These people didn’t know who I was—exactly why all I’d told them were lies. My father was in that picture, a much younger version of him, in fact, and the only way I was going to find out why was by going in there and talking to the man behind the desk.
It took all of my willpower to walk ahead and shake the man’s hand while pretending that nothing was wrong. I didn’t look at pictures of my dad. It hurt too much. I hadn’t seen his face since that night about a year ago, when I got drunk and took out one of mom’s albums because I’d needed to cry. I’d needed to get it all out.
“Welcome, Cece and Alan,” said the man, offering us the velvet chairs by his desk. Adrian dragged them so we’d sit facing him, and when I sat, it felt like the weight of the world had lifted from my shoulders. “I just received your questionnaires from Emma.” He waved at his computer screen to his side. “Let me just say I’m very glad you found us. My name is Elton Maine, and I’m the Chairman of Trappers, Inc.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Maine,” said Adrian. “We’re glad to be here.”
The man smiled like he was genuinely happy. “So, tell me, how did you find out about us?”
“I already told Emma that. The reason we’re still here is because we want some answers from you for a change,” I said. Half my mind was focused on keeping my eyes off the picture that was barely a foot away from me. I couldn’t look at it again if I didn’t want this man to figure out who I really was, at least not yet.
“You told Emma how you found our offices, but you didn’t tell her how you heard about us,” Maine said. “And I’m afraid it’s…difficult to give you answers. What we do here is…complicated.” Lots of pauses between his words. What he meant was, he didn’t know how to tell us anything without knowing what we knew first.
I considered my options, but I didn’t have the patience to think the whole thing through. My whole body was shaking, and I just wanted to get this over with fast.
“Trappers hunt demons. At least that’s what I’m told. Is that what you do here?” I already knew the answer, but if I’d misread the whole situation, this man was going to send us packing in the next minute.