I felt a lump in my throat. I took in a deep breath.
‘Yes,” I replied, my voice a little uneven. “I really do care about him.”
At this, a grin couldn’t help but form on Arwen’s lips. “So… do you care about him as much as Heath?”
I rolled my eyes and shoved her in the shoulder. “Heath is nowhere on the cards now anyway,” I muttered, realizing how many days in a row I’d gone without thinking of Heath even once while in Lawrence’s company.
“What do you mean?” Arwen asked.
I groaned internally. I really wasn’t in the mood for discussing Heath when my mind was so utterly consumed by Lawrence. Then I remembered that Heath had wanted to keep his whole celibacy and leaving for the Hearthlands thing a secret until next year.
“He’ll tell you next year,” I replied.
“What do you—?”
Arwen stopped short as a sharp click came from her lap. We both glanced down at the pendant she had been fiddling with. To my shock, the bottom quarter of it had detached from the rest… like a cap. And where the bottom casing had been was what looked like…
Oh, my God.
I grabbed the jewelry from Arwen and stared at the thin metal protruding from its bottom half. A thumb drive. It was a thumb drive, hidden within this odd-looking, rectangular necklace.
“What did I do?” Arwen breathed, gazing at the object. “I think I pressed that small jewel in the center.”
I tried pressing the small, round transparent gem myself, firmly, and indeed… it gave way, pushing downward.
It was a button.
This pendant was a camouflaged thumb drive.
Urgency coursing through me, I grabbed Arwen’s hand. “Take us to my bedroom!”
We might not be returning this necklace to Georgina’s room so soon, after all…
Grace
I was in such a hurry to get my laptop started, I almost dropped it as I removed it from its case and planted it down on my desk. I slotted the necklace thumb drive into the side of my machine before waiting for it to start up. I hurriedly navigated to the right place. This USB device contained a single folder titled “FOEBA”.
“Fo-ee-ba,” Arwen muttered, staring down over my shoulder at my screen.
I opened up the folder to find it filled with dozens of small files whose names were just a jumbled string of numbers and letters. I tried to click on one, but got a popup message informing me that I didn’t have any program installed on my computer that could open it. The extension of these files was… strange. Certainly not any type of document that I had ever had to open before. I ran a search on the file type to see how to open it, but not even a single search result came up.
“Seems this really is an uncommon type of file,” I murmured. I scrolled down the list of files, frustrated. “Ugh.” I looked at Arwen. “Any idea how we can get these open?”
Arwen shrugged. “I can’t just magic them open. This requires the expertise of a computer hacker, not a witch.”
“Do we have any hackers on the island?” I wondered, more to myself than to Arwen. I began thinking over all our residents. Eli was smart and could figure most things out by himself, but even if he was here, he wasn’t a real whiz at computers. He knew how to work them, but he was by no means a hacker.
“You could ask Jason,” Arwen suggested.
Jason was Anna’s oldest son. He worked in the IT department at school and was basically the go-to guy whenever we had a problem. But although he could set up and maintain our school computers, I doubted he could deal with complex problems like this. Still, he was the only person I could think of right now. Our island wasn’t exactly filled with tech experts, many of the residents being hundreds of years old…
I closed my laptop and tucked it beneath one arm. Then Arwen vanished us to the townhouse Jason shared with his vampire wife, Lara. Jason had been turned into a vampire when he was just a boy—when the island had been under the shadow of the black witches, his parents had believed that he might be at risk of being targeted due to his mother being an immune. Once all was safe again, Jason had taken the cure and turned back into a human in order to grow up. When he’d reached the age of twenty-one, he’d resumed being a vampire, along with his girlfriend at the time, Lara.
Luckily, we found Jason at home. He led us through to the kitchen. I planted my laptop down on the counter, pointing to the USB device, along with the list of files.
My heart sank immediately when I saw the clueless expression on his face. “I’ve never come across this type of file before,” he said. “So I don’t want to get your hopes up. Have you already tried searching for information about this file type?”
“Yes,” I said. “I can’t find anything.”
Jason sat down in front of the laptop anyway and fiddled around with the files a bit. He tried various back-door methods, such as trying to force the files to open with another program… but nothing worked. That strange list of files remained unreachable. Even more bizarrely, he realized that we couldn’t even make copies of them to keep a back up.
I exhaled in frustration as Arwen and I left Jason’s home after thanking him for his time.
“There’s got to be a way to open these!” I said.
“Maybe it’s some kind of hunter technology,” Arwen suggested.
I froze. That would make sense. That would make a lot of sense. I felt stupid for that not occurring to me in the first place.
“But then how do we ever open them?” I asked, still hopeless. “We have no access to hunters.”
Arwen stalled in the cobblestone street. “Well, I suppose we could… get access to one.”
I turned on her, my eyes narrowing. “What exactly are you suggesting?”
A dark smile curved her lips. “Something my mother wouldn’t approve of.”
Grace
“What is your idea?” I asked Arwen, frowning at her.
Her smile broadened. “I guess to answer that,” she began, “I will have to let you in on a little secret.”
“Hm?”
“Well, my solution relates to something that Brock and I discovered before we, ahem, officially started dating.”
“Huh? You guys were seeing each other before you told us?”
“Yes.”
“For how long?” I asked.
“Uh… a bit… Anyway.” She reached out and took my hand. “It’s best I just show you what I’m talking about.”
The next thing I knew, the Vale had vanished around us, and a few seconds later we had appeared in a cluster of bushes lining a white sandy beach. Not one of The Shade’s beaches. Evening rays of sun touched my skin. “What on earth—”
Arwen, still holding my hand, pulled me out of the bushes. I gazed up and down the length of the beach. It stretched for several miles in either direction, lined with swanky clubs and expensive-looking restaurants. On the far end on either side were high walls, sectioning off this stretch of beach.
“This,” Arwen said, pointing to the clubs and restaurants, “is Latimer Beach, Hawaii. Where only the most privileged come… and that includes swarms of young hunters at the end of the working day.”
My jaw dropped. “Are you serious, Arwen?”
“Yep. Brock and I made a habit of slipping out from our parents’ homes on weekends to go on, uh, late-night adventures together. That’s when we discovered this little gem.”
Now it was my turn to smile. I couldn’t believe they’d been so crafty. Although anybody could freely exit The Shade’s boundary, very few people were granted automatic entry. Arwen, being Corrine and Ibrahim’s daughter, was one of them. And it seemed that she was already putting that privilege to good use…
“How many times did you come here with Brock, then?” I asked. “Go on, confess.”
She paused, feigning thought. “Maybe three times.”
I scoffed. Yeah, right. That probably meant more like ten.
I fixed my eyes back on the buildings. There were quite a few he
re, over twenty-five in total.
“So do the IBSI members just, like, come along and patronize all of these places?” I asked. “Or do they have a specific spot?”
“The Checkered Dog,” Arwen answered immediately. “That’s where Brock and I spotted most of them, still in their black uniforms. It’s almost like it’s reserved for them, there were so many.”
“And they come every night?”
“I don’t know about that,” she said. “But when Brock and I would come here on the weekends—sometimes—they were here every time. Given that today is Friday, and it’s nearing evening, I’d say there’s a pretty good chance we will see some hunters if we stay.”
I blew out a breath. “Okay,” I said, trying to order my thoughts. “But what kind of hunters exactly? We need somebody from the IT department.”
“Yes,” she replied. “Ideally.”
I rubbed my temples. “But how would we know who to target? And, heck, even if we had a hunter singled out, how would we take them away without getting noticed?”
Arwen laid a hand on my shoulder, grinning like the Cheshire Cat. “Well, that’s where your feminine charm will come in handy.”
“What?” I spluttered.
“I suggest that we wait among these bushes until the hunters arrive. Then wait a few hours more, until they’re fairly tipsy… and that’s when you will slip in.”
My gut twisted. Oh, no. I didn’t like this. I really didn’t like this.
“And then do what?” I asked reluctantly.
Arwen giggled. “Lure one of them out, silly! What else?”
I heaved a sigh. “Okay, well… say I even managed to lure one out”—using my nonexistent skills of seduction—“where would I lure him to, and then what?”
“When you walk out of the building, you will take a right turn and just keep walking toward this end of the beach. I will be watching the entrance, and I’ll swipe the two of you as soon as I feel nobody will notice.”
Oh, man.
I looked my friend over. She was much more naturally seductive than I was. I imagined that the moment she stepped inside, any single hunters would be drawn to her like a magnet, and then she’d just have to pick one… But I obviously couldn’t, and wasn’t about to, pass the buck on this one. This was on me. I was the one who wanted to get to the bottom of this mystery. And I was the reason Arwen was here.
“Okay,” I murmured.
“I would come in with you,” Arwen said, “I really would. But with so many hunters all in one place, if there is a special alarm around somewhere… I had better keep my distance.”
“Yes,” I said. “So, any ideas about how exactly I will go about this?”
“Let’s return to the Sanctuary first.”
She vanished us back to her living room.
“First of all,” she said, “you will need to blend in.” She led me to her bedroom and pushed me to sit down on the end of her bed. “And that means,” she went on, “you should wear the same uniform as them, and you should also have a badge like theirs.”
“Wait a minute, are you suggesting that I pretend to be a hunter?”
“Yup,” she replied bluntly.
Arwen’s idea had just reached a whole new level of insanity.
“How can I just pretend to be one? And why don’t I just go like some regular chick on a night out?”
“Well,” Arwen said, planting her hands on her hips. She reminded me so much of her mother when she did that. “There’s no way to know exactly what’s going to happen. It could very well be that you would be at a greater advantage going as yourself rather than in the guise of a hunter. But I honestly think that going as a hunter will help. For one thing, it will be easier to gain their trust.”
I supposed that was true. “But just some random IBSI member? What if they start asking me questions that I can’t answer? Plus, I’ll have to hope that none of them recognize me.”
“We’re not in the Philippines,” Arwen said, “so hopefully you won’t see any of the ones you came across during the trip to The Woodlands… but I mean, it’s up to you.” She shrugged. “If you feel uncomfortable about this, then obviously don’t do it.”
“No,” I said, gritting my teeth. “I’ll do it.” Somehow, I will figure it out.
“To avoid people expecting you to answer questions,” Arwen said, “you could simply say that you’re brand-new. That you literally just arrived and tomorrow is your first day… Wait here.”
She left me alone in the room and returned about ten minutes later, carrying plain black pants and a black polo-neck top, along with a badge clasped in one hand. She set the clothes down next to me and then handed me the badge.
It had the official IBSI logo stamped on one side and scrawled across it in bold font read the name, “Ronda Clarkson.” Beneath it, in small writing, was, “Assistant to the Chief Dish Sanitization Technician.”
What the…
I couldn’t help but smirk. “There’s no way that’s a position.”
“You are most likely right,” Arwen replied, smirking along with me. “But it doesn’t matter. Remember, you need to target drunk guys, and the Checkered Dog has dim lighting anyway. Even if they do look at your position, you can just say it’s a new position that was created just for you if anybody questions it. But honestly, I don’t think they will… They’ll be too busy looking at your pretty face.”
“Augh. All right,” I said, even as I felt everything but all right. “Let me change.”
Arwen chuckled as she left the room. I took off the T-shirt and jeans that I’d been wearing and pulled on the black clothes. Then, looking at myself in the mirror, I pinned the badge to my chest before letting my hair down. I began running my fingers through it to tidy it up.
“Can I come in now?” Arwen called.
“Yeah.”
She walked in and stood by the mirror with me. She twirled a strand of my dark brown hair around one finger. “I think you should definitely keep your hair down.”
“Right,” I murmured, grimacing.
Arwen took over getting me ready. She pulled out some hairspray and fixed my hair into loose curls. She also applied a touch of makeup—some bronzer and blush, and a coat of mascara.
“Now,” Arwen said, taking a step back and admiring her work, “you just need to get rid of that scowl.”
Grace
We left The Shade again and returned to Hawaii. I couldn’t help but feel a sense of foreboding as we peered through the bushes toward the darkening stretch of beach. Hawaii hadn’t exactly spelled luck for my family in the past. A beach like this had been where my father and aunt Rose’s misadventures had all started.
I found myself wondering where that beach was—where they had gone to a party and Rose had met Caleb. For all I knew, it could’ve been this very one, now revamped and renovated decades later.
I tried to push my uneasiness aside. I wasn’t naturally the superstitious type. Just because things had gone wrong for them didn’t mean that they would go wrong for me.
“People are already arriving,” Arwen said, pointing to the checkered blue and black building.
So they were. More so than at any of the other buildings on this stretch so far.
“I guess we’ll wait another hour or so… then it’s probably fine for you to go in.” Arwen’s gaze moved to the waves. “In the meantime, shall we take a walk? I’ll make us invisible and we’ll stay away from the buildings.”
“Yes,” I said, not even thinking about it. These bushes were definitely not the most comfortable place to wait, especially with the myriad of creepy-crawlies that were beginning to come out for the night.
Arwen made us invisible and we emerged on the sand. We moved to the waves, keeping our distance from the crowds, as Arwen had recommended. Once the sounds of people chattering in the clubs and restaurants increased in volume, Arwen suggested that it was time.
She nodded toward the Checkered Dog. “I’ll wait around here and keep a close
eye. All right?”
“Yep,” I said, my throat tightening.
I immediately marched away from Arwen and made a beeline for the club’s entrance. I didn’t want to prolong this a second more than I had to. I just wanted to get it over and done with.
I was surprised to see that there was no bouncer or security guard waiting at the entrance of the building. Perhaps, since the place was so frequented by hunters, they didn’t see the need to station them outside this particular establishment.
I walked in through the shiny glass doors, and, keeping my eyes ahead, moved straight to the bar. I seated myself on a stool at the far right end of the counter. A trio of men sat on the other end, all dressed in black, and toward the middle was a man and a woman, a couple, talking in low tones. Everyone else lounged around on couches or at private tables.
Swiveling on my stool, I scanned the room as discreetly as I could. I was quite taken aback at how big this place was from the inside. I had underestimated the size of it. It didn’t even look half full, and I would’ve guessed that there were at least fifty people here already—the majority of them clearly hunters.
“Excuse me, ma’am. Can I get you anything?”
I turned behind me to see a young man wearing a blue apron, looking at me expectantly.
“Oh, some water, please,” I mumbled. My throat was feeling terribly dry.
He filled a glass with water and handed it to me. I swiveled back around to continue surveying the room, but this time as I twisted, I realized that I’d already attracted the attention of someone. Another young man. A very good-looking young man. His physique was that of a fighter—tall, broad-shouldered, with a thick neck. He had dark, focused eyes, and cheekbones that could cut diamonds.
I was sure that this guy must work in their defense department—calling it “defense” was kind of a joke now, of course.
But I needed an IT person. Which meant that I had to get rid of this dude as quickly as I could. I panicked as he approached, as I tried to think of what I could tell him.