Chapter Ten
For a week straight no one would talk to me except when Gabe took out my stitches. Nor would they leave me alone for that matter. The phone calls from Braydon were the only chance I had to talk to anyone. Even they were strained. I had confessed about going outside and he blew his top at first. It took him ten minutes to calm down enough to let me talk.
I understood the dangers of being outside, I really did but they didn’t have to react this way. I had put on my suit, had the vest on with the hood up, had a nine millimeter weapon and two blades with me. It’s not like I was defenseless. But until I promised and offered to sign a contract in blood that I wouldn’t do it again, no one would believe me.
After nine days, everyone left me and went about doing whatever is they were doing before all of this happened. Boredom kicked in real quick. I had already cleaned the entire apartment, had lunch prepared and in the fridge, worked on my latest suit, and watched as much television my mind would allow. I thought I would lose my mind had I not looked over, spotting the envelope Dad had wanted me to read.
I still couldn’t bring myself to open it. No matter what I just couldn’t do it. I didn’t want to face the fact that he was gone. But sitting here staring at it gave me another idea; one that would make sure of someone’s safety in the future.
I grabbed my regular laptop, my software laptop, notebook and paper. I set everything up on the coffee table so I could sit in the floor in the light of the sun and work. It was at that moment, I was glad that Braydon grabbed my notebook from Dean’s, and I had managed to get the rest from the house.
As I was booting the computers up I went over to the box of nova’s and opened the lid. I turned a red striped one and a gray striped one and listened for the click. I pulled open the small hidden drawer at the bottom of the wooden box and retrieved the four small containers.
“What are you doing?”
I hadn’t heard his voice in a few weeks and him coming in on me this way made me jump and almost drop the glass containers.
“Oh my God, Shayden, what are you doing here?”
“Glad to see you too,” he replied giving me a cheeky smile.
I rolled my eyes at him. “You nearly gave me a heart attack. But seriously what are you doing here? I’m glad to see you and all but it’s not exactly safe.”
I watched as he dropped his duffel bag beside the door. His shoulders slumped but he had this look of worry on his face.
I hated seeing my cousin upset. We were so much alike that if he was this upset on the outside then it was ten times worse on the inside. I looked at him. His blue eyes were the exact same color as mine. His hair black, but darker than mine, more like Dad’s only he didn't keep it cut short like Dad's. It wasn't a long as Zavier's but it was enough to hang past his ears. In this instant he reminded me of Dean. Shay was tall but with his shoulders slumped he looked shorter. He didn't look as intimidating either. Shayden is a very muscular man, but he just seemed defeated right now.
“Yeah I know. I was attacked.”
I put the containers on top of the box and ran over to him. I grabbed his arms and started doing a search. He grabbed my hands and tried to get me to stop but he knew better. It didn’t matter that he was at least a foot taller than me; he gave in and let me make sure he was uninjured.
“Oh my God, Are you alright?”
“Yeah, they just showed up this morning. Mom thought they were from the academy and let them in. When I got up and went downstairs, one of them tried to get me from behind. Luckily they hadn’t hurt Mom and she was able to make it to the secret tunnel in the fireplace. So she was able to get to safety while I dealt with them. They weren’t very intelligent or challenging for that matter.”
“Oh Shay, I’m so sorry. This is entirely my fault. They’re after me.”
“No Rissa, it’s not your fault. Whoever these douchers are should have figured out by now that they’ve messed with the wrong crowd.”
What he said made sense. Whoever this was just kept sending people after us. Out of all the ones I faced only one was a decent opponent but then again I was weak and hadn’t trained in over a year. Why would they do that?
I was beginning to think that whoever it was had sent them on purpose. That they were trying to trick us into thinking they were amateurs. One would only do this when they were waiting to move in for the final kill. Usually, when they had everyone gathered they wanted dead.
My heart started pounding in my ears. This wasn’t good. I don’t know of anyone else they would want gathered besides the ones here now. This meant they wanted us all dead, including Dean. I needed to tell him. If Dean was taken out then all heck would break loose and the assassin’s would go into hiding, leaving the people out there to defend themselves against those monsters.
“Hey, what are you working on?”
“Uh, it’s a special type tracker.” I was distracted to say the least, so when Shayden begin looking over my notes in the notebook I wasn’t paying attention.
“Sounds complicated but also like it would work. I could use a distraction from all this Rissa. Can I help?”
I stood there thinking. I had to decide, did I want to talk to Dean now or finish this experiment and talk to him once I had it done. I knew that if I finished it now, I had a better chance of protecting everyone. But the nagging at the back of my mind wouldn’t lessen.
“Come on. Let’s get to work on this.”
I let him pull me over to the table. I grabbed my phone and sent Dean a quick text telling him I needed to talk to him later but until I did the school needed to be under the most extreme lock down possible. That meant all security cameras’ going, outside and inside, the motion sensors going in all rooms that didn’t have someone in them, and special locks on the doors from the inside.
I heard the automated voice go over the loud speaker that the school was being put in complete lock down and relaxed as I looked back over at Shayden. He rolled his eyes at me and went back to the notebook.
“I need to program the microscopic microchips to go along with this. That means that after we build the program for them, we have to manage to get upstairs to the lab to use the equipment to actually put the program in the chips. After that, we need to come back and build the main program to track everything before we implement the microchips.”
Shayden nodded to me and began writing things down on another sheet of paper. “So who are we going to try this out on?”
“Me, first. After we know it works, well then,” I let the sentence hang in the air as I looked over at Shayden.
He gave me a look like I was crazy then I watched the twinkle appear in his eyes. A slow grin spread across his face.
“Okay, I’ll do it. Under one condition.”
I looked at him and waited for him to finish. I had an idea of what that one demand would be.
“I get to do Lorik’s.”
I busted out laughing. Shayden would go along with anything just to torture Lorik. I don’t know what the two had against each other but it was always a contest.
Shayden is as good as I am when it comes to computers so it didn’t take us but a couple of hours to build the program and put it in the computer and on a disc. Our only problem was going to be getting from here to the lab without getting caught. Dean had already warned me about leaving this room and I knew with Shay getting attacked, he wasn’t allowed out either.
I leaned back against the couch and tried to think of a way to get us up there. When I lay my head back against the cushion the ceiling tiles came into view. I couldn’t stop the grin from plastering my face. This would be fun.
“Give me a lift,” I told Shay as I stood and looked at the tiles. He glanced up and his eyes widened. Yeah, put the two of us together and they should know it’s bound to cause trouble.
Shay grinned and put his hands together to make a cup I could place my foot in. He lifted me enough that I could climb onto his shoulders and push aside one of the tiles. I looked
around at the darkness between the floors. There was just enough room to crawl but we were hung up on another problem.
“The tiles won’t hold us. We’ll have to come up with something else.”
Although I said this out loud I had done it because it was at that moment I remembered Braxton was watching. If he thought we were going to do it, Dean would be here in a matter of seconds to stop us.
“Come on.” I grabbed Shayden’s arm and pulled him toward the kitchen. I whispered my plan to him and went back in the living room for my newest suit and one of Dad’s for Shayden to wear. I went back and was glad to see he had held onto the disc and microchips so at least I didn’t have to make one more stop.
Shayden went to the bathroom to change and I slipped mine over the tank top and boxer shorts I already had on. I went into the hallway by the door and waited for him.
He stepped out and looked at me. He reminded me so much of Dad. Tears threatened to spill out as I looked at him. I took a deep breath, got control, and made sure he secured the disc into a part of his suit magnets wouldn’t reach. The last thing I wanted was for it to erase everything we had just done.
“Get ready. You’re in for a wild ride,” I said grinning at him.
I held my palm out and slowly adjusted the dial and watched as his body began to lift off the floor. His eyes widened and I thought he would panic at first but then he laughed like it was the best thing he had ever done. I watched him lift the ceiling tile and then I grabbed two flashlights from the kitchen drawer before adjusting the other dial and levitating myself to join Shayden.
I had to admit this was pretty awesome, as long as I didn’t accidentally hit the dial and send me or Shayden slamming into the concrete between the floors.
We used the concrete instead of the tiles to move us forward. I knew it was a slow journey but it wouldn’t be as bad as getting into trouble. We made our way all the way to the end and over as far as we could. That was where the stairwell was located. At least this one was. The others would have put us too close to Dean’s office or one of the guys.
I moved a tile and jumped down, trying to be quite. It had brought us out onto the third step. I slowly moved the dial so Shayden could lower himself to the step. We hurried up the stairs and stopped at the top when he heard Dean talking to someone. Braxton had alerted him already.
Shayden used the banister and launched himself up to the ceiling and through one of the tiles. I had to hurry. I knew he had a joist to hold onto, if he didn’t over shoot it.
I didn’t have time to fix the tile when I got up in the crawl space because Shayden was hanging upside down in what was supposed to be the woman’s bathroom. It had been shut down and I didn’t even want to imagine what would be crawling around in there.
I tried to hold back the laughter at seeing Shay’s feet up in the air against the concrete. I knew if Dean heard me, he would figure out a way to get up here to us.
I helped him up and had to bite my lip and cover my mouth to keep from laughing at him. His face was blood red and his hair was standing on end. If I had a camera I would have gladly taken that shot and posted it all over the internet.
After finally calming down and dodging his attempt at swinging at me, we made our way to the lab. I pulled the tile off and glanced around the room. It was clear. I lowered Shayden first then myself. We rushed over to the computers to boot them up.
Dean had several computers made just for programming microchips. They were used to make weapons, trackers, and bomb detecting key fobs. It was the only way I had to program these. I couldn’t afford to purchase the equipment and didn’t need to as long as Dean had these.
We inserted the disc and placed one of the containers in the tray. After removing the lid, we started the program and watched as everything uploaded onto the nine microchips.
Each set had different features they were to do. As long as I kept them separate when using them, there shouldn’t be a problem with how things go. And as long as there isn’t any damage done to them while inserting them, I wouldn’t have to worry about it stopping my heart once they were put into place.
We managed to program all four sets, each with nine in them, and put them away. I knew Braxton had told Dean where we were but he had made no attempt to check it out. If I knew Dean, he was downstairs waiting for us in the hall hoping to catch us in the act.
We hurried through the crawl space, fixing the tiles back as we went, and made it back to the room without a problem. We both dropped down from the kitchen ceiling, laughing and walked into the living room only to find Dean sitting on the couch.
His legs were crossed at the knees, his arms were crossed over his chest, and his lips were pursed. Yeah, we were in for it.