Darkhaven

I sulked at Dad for another two days. Rather, I pretended to sulk so he wouldn’t realise I was nervous. When I finally sat down to dinner with him, my mouth felt like sandpaper. He thought I was quiet because I still hadn’t forgiven him, but I found that I wasn’t entirely sure about that. I was definitely still mad, and he had a lot of making up to do, but the feeling of betrayal seemed to fade as we chatted about menial stuff over his special parmigiana with bechamel sauce. He hadn’t put up much of a fight for me, but his hands probably had been tied by his job. If the government believed me to be caught up with terrorists, as Sean had suggested, his own loyalty would have been questioned if he had actively defended me. And if he’d believed it, well. Maybe he’d wanted answers too.

‘So is there a boy in your life?’ Dad speared a cherry tomato with his fork, fixing me with a beady eye. He had an odd way of knowing things.

I shrugged. ‘Not really.’

‘Aha! That’s a yes.’

Damn it. I scowled.

He laughed. ‘It’s all right, I don’t need gory details. But I hope he’s good enough for you.’

‘He might be too good.’

‘Not a chance.’

I stabbed at a tomato with my fork. It slipped out from under the prongs and slid to the other side of the plate.

‘I don’t think anything will come of it,’ I said dismissively as I pinned the tomato down with the flat edge of my knife and pierced it. The tomato exploded, splattering me with juice and seeds.

‘Ah well, you should focus on finishing school first.’ He passed me the serviette holder. I took one and dabbed at my shirt.

After a moment, I decided to jump in. ‘I…’ My resolve was shaky. I couldn’t find the words.

Dad’s face softened to concern. ‘Are you okay, Gabby?’

I dropped into my calm place. Don’t think. Just talk.

‘I’ve been having a rough time,’ I admitted. I tried to not crumble into tears. I hadn’t realised it was so true until I said it. Dad reached across the table to offer a comforting hand. I kept both of mine clasped under the table.

‘I remember things,’ I said softly. ‘Things I was meant to forget.’

He nodded with understanding. ‘It’s okay,’ he pitched his voice to match mine. ‘You don’t have to do anything. You’re my daughter. I thought I was doing the right thing.’ He sighed. ’I see now I was wrong, and I’m sorrier than I can say. I want you to know that. You can do whatever you want with this. I’ll protect you.′

I nodded and gritted my teeth. No backing out. ‘I know. I want to help. The woman, she asked me questions. I think I can answer her, now.’ I raised my eyes to meet his. ‘Can you take me in to give her my statement?’

‘You don’t have to go in. You can just tell me,’ he offered.

I shook my head. ‘I was very rude to her. It was a strange night. I’d like to do it properly,’ I said, trying to sound like I was being polite. He set down his knife and fork and leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers as he considered.

‘It might not be safe, and I’m not sure how far I can intervene in there.’ He chose his words carefully, but I understood the meaning. He might be on my side, but the Taskforce definitely wasn’t.

‘But I’m going to cooperate. It’ll be fine.’

‘It’s a risk.’

I shook my head. ‘This isn’t just about me telling them what I know. This is also about me trying to find some answers. What’s happened to me is going to change the course of my life and have an impact on what I do after school. The woman I spoke to knew something about me, I could tell. I feel like I can make some sense of my life if I do this. It’s my only shot at figuring things out. Please, Dad.’

He looked slightly taken aback at my address. ‘You feel like your life doesn’t make sense?’

It never had. I stood in the doorway with a pair of woolly slippers while everyone else fastened their heels and went dancing. I didn’t mind – slippers were comfy – as long as I had some other purpose. And now, with the truth about my mother within reach, I felt like the jigsaw might come together. Of course, Dad didn’t know that I knew about Luci. I wondered if, somewhere behind his concern for my safety, he was also worried that he’d be unmasked, that I’d figure out he’d lied to me about her.

I held his gaze, and after a long moment of internal deliberation, he relented. ‘Fine. We’ll go in the morning. I’ll write you a note for school in case we’re late. If you’re okay with missing classes this close to exams,’ he added hopefully.

I rolled my eyes. ‘Nice try.’

I felt smug right up until my head hit the pillow. Dad’s concerned face swam behind my eyelids as his veiled warning echoed in my ears. Keraun’s they could do a lot worse than shoot you rolled around in my head, and pretty soon I was imagining being locked in a musty cell with no windows or doors that even Keraun couldn’t weasel his way into, slowly desiccating for lack of food or water but unable to die.

I lay awake for what felt like hours, twitching at every tiny sound, trying to follow Donovan’s meditation techniques. Keraun’s dark voice in my head only grew louder. I pressed my pillow up around my ears. An ambulance wailed somewhere in the distance, but I jumped as if it had careened straight around the foot of my bed.

Breathe. Just breathe. Liam’s words for when I was too wired to feel intuitive. I focussed on my heart rate as the siren faded away, slowing the alarmed beating down. I sank into my calm place. Here, there was no sense of dread. Uncertainty, yes. Perhaps an unsatisfying outcome. But I didn’t feel afraid for my life, or anyone else’s. It was good enough. I drifted off to sleep.

***

Early in the morning, after I managed to choke down some toast, Dad ushered me into the car. I tried to pay attention to where we were going, but my mind kept wandering to what I planned to say to Luci, and after we left the freeway, I became lost in the maze of traffic lights and constant turns. I figured it didn’t much matter. Darkhaven was tracking me.

Dad slowed the car as we approached a multi-storey building in a half-developed industrial area. The building was an ugly collection of glass and steel, with pieces of red sheeting stuck all over it at abstract angles. Everything on the block was like that, all with high-security gates and cameras on the building corners like little antennae, although none of the surrounding buildings had the height of the one we approached. I started typing a message to Keraun as we drove through the metal gates, but my phone had no signal.

I climbed out of the car, squared my shoulders and followed Dad through tinted glass sliding doors. Our footsteps echoed around the vast space. The floors were a white tile that I recognised from my last visit, sparkling under the skylights. The only piece of furniture was a sweeping, stone-topped reception desk, also white, with a single black telephone on it and nothing else. Mirrored glass filled the wall behind the desk. The only other features were a door marked with an emergency exit sign and an elevator. No people to be seen.

‘The ground level is mostly vacant space. Only the security staff are down here. The offices and storage are on the upper levels,’ Dad explained as we took the lift to the second floor. He used a swipe card to press the button.

‘How many levels are there?’

‘Four, plus the podium.’

I thought of the long climb up the stairs when Keraun had busted me out the first time. ‘But that’s just what you can see above ground, right?’

He gave me a sidelong glance, but the doors slid open and he didn’t answer. The corridor before us was still wide, but it felt claustrophobic after the bright expanse of the podium, even with the glass walls all the way along it. We walked past another reception desk, this one cheap black laminate. Behind it stood a man in a black suit, appearing to casually read a file, but there was nothing casual about him. He gave Dad a barely perceptible nod. I kept my eyes forward, but the man’s watchful eyes tickled my neck as I followed Dad to an office at the end of the corridor. The floor was unfamiliar, and I guessed I must have been on a different level last time, where the internal walls were not panes of glass. All the offices were empty. The silence weighed on my ears.

Dad ushered me into an office, and I realised why it felt so claustrophobic: the internal walls were the only glass. There were no outside windows. Where I would have expected a view of the city, the street or at least a car park, there was a panoramic photograph of a long, white-sand beach, turquoise waters shimmering under sunlight the room had never seen.

Dad went to let the Taskforce higher-ups know I was here, saying he’d see me when I was finished giving my statement. I sat on the surprisingly comfortable sofa under the photo print and stared around the room. There was a desk, but it had nothing on it either, just another telephone. After a quick glance through the glass wall to be sure I was out of the sightlines of the suit, I snuck around to the other side of the desk and perched on the chair behind it.

I slid open the top drawer. It contained a cursory stationery collection: pens, a ruler, a pocket calculator. The second drawer was devoted to a lined paper pad and blank envelopes. If someone worked in here, they made a point of being tidy, but my gut said this was all for show. The third drawer didn’t even open. Nerves tingling, I got up, tucked the chair back under the desk and returned to the sofa, not a second too soon. Another black-suited figure came around the corner, pushed the glass door open and sauntered in. Unlike the guard, this man’s jacket was unbuttoned, and his tie was removed for a casual look. Probably just for the purposes of meeting me – I could see the tie poking out of his jacket pocket.

Sean extended his hand to me.

‘Miss Whitehall.’ His voice was friendly. ‘I am glad you finally came in.’

I didn’t shake his hand.

‘Can I see Luci?’ I asked, crossing my arms. Where had Dad gone?

Sean wheeled the desk chair around and sat opposite me. He held a clipboard stuffed with pages. ‘Ms Douglass is unavailable. But I can take your statement,’ he offered, smiling. ‘She will contact you, if she needs more information. Can you start by telling me about the afternoon at the park?’

His light blue eyes watched me, the colour of the ocean on the wall, but without the sunlit sparkle. His face was encouraging, yet wary. He wanted me to trust him. He didn’t trust me. Well, then. I sat back on the sofa. ‘I’m only speaking to Luci. That’s why I’m here.’

He kept his patience. ‘She is sorry she can’t meet you today. But it was short notice.’

‘I’ll wait.’ Patience and stubbornness were the same thing, most of the time.

‘She won’t see you, Gabby.’ He shifted, crossing his legs, and knocked the clipboard with his knee. It slipped out of his grasp and onto the floor between us. Papers swept across the carpet to my feet. I almost didn’t move – he could pick it up himself – but then I realised I might be able to glimpse what was on it. I reached down and collected a few pages, but Sean grasped my wrist and took the papers out of my hand before I could read what was on them. He smiled coolly, holding my gaze. I shivered and pulled away.

‘Let’s start over. I’m Sean Richards. We can shake hands later.’ He chuckled as if he’d just made a joke. To stop myself from actually doing it, I imagined rolling my eyes as he continued.

‘I know you are in your final year of high school. Your mother died when you were a baby, and your dad took a year off work to care for you. When he had to go back, your uncle stepped in and offered to care for you while he was away.’

I folded my arms again. ‘So you have a file on me. None of that stuff is exactly state secret.’

‘Sure. But I’m not trying to uncover secrets. I just want to get to know you better. So, ask me something. We can trade questions, if you like.’ He leaned forward, resting his arms on his knees, the clipboard safely tucked away.

‘What, do you think I’m five?’ I cringed as I said it. It sounded childish.

‘I’m trying to be nice, Gabby.’

My nerves jangled as my intuition called out his lie. I tried to keep myself anchored in my calm place, but Keraun’s words kept floating back into my head. If you get out. I had to find Luci and get out of here. Panic rose in my brain and words fell out. ’Well, that’s too bad, ‘cause I’m not. Here’s a question for you. Did you know my mother didn’t die when I was a baby?’

Something flickered across his face. I realised, too late, that I’d just given away my position. Now he knew why I was here, and he hadn’t known that before. He’d probably thought I was just another Eventer – he’d had no idea that I was Luci’s daughter. I tried not to let my mistake flash across my face.

’I’m waiting for an answer, Sean,′ I over-emphasised his name, pretending that I’d meant to tip my hand, and it didn’t matter. Sean didn’t buy it. He stood.

‘We know a lot of things, Gabby.’ He pulled his tie out of his pocket, buttoned his collar and started tying the strip of black fabric around his neck. ‘We know Cecelia Wilson needs top marks in her final English exam to get into medicine. It would be such a shame if one of the examiners marked her down. We also know Zenna Robinson is struggling with depression. Her family doctor is taking care of her for now, but I am friends with a very talented psychiatrist. He’s always keen for a referral. Obviously we know you’re not at the library until seven o’clock every day, and we know that your uncle doesn’t know you’re not there. Alex’s bosses aren’t aware that his niece is part of an illegal genetic mutation experiment with government fugitives. He might not have told you that he’s up for a big promotion next year. So, I hope you’ll reconsider my offer of a quiet chat. It could all work nicely. We need someone with your … abilities.’

Panic bubbled in my gut. I kept my lips pressed together and shook my head. Sean leaned down closer to me. His tie swung in my face.

‘All right, you don’t have to join me. I’ll make you a deal. All you have to do is tell me where Darkhaven is, and I’ll leave you alone. I’ll ensure no one bothers you – or your loved ones – about this again.’

His insincerity prickled against my intuition, even as he offered me exactly what I’d wanted since all this started: to remain an Eventer, to keep my friends and for everyone to be safe. No more torture with Donovan. She could deal with Sean herself. But then Stephen’s gentle gaze brushed my memory, accompanied by Liam’s tinkling chuckle as they sat and watched fairy-wrens play in the fountain while black cockatoos squawked from the treetops. I stood to glare evenly at Sean. He stood too, pinning his tie in place. We were almost the same height.

‘Screw you,’ I said.

Tie straight, he picked up his clipboard and pulled open the door.

‘You will help me, Gabrielle. Soon,’ he added, giving me a final look. His eyes were flat. The door swung shut behind him. I watched him disappear down the glass corridor and into the elevator.