Читать книгу Hunter - Sydney Robinson - Страница 11

Chapter Five

The hot shower that morning felt like the best thing to ever happen in Angel’s life, at least as far as she could remember. The water drenched her hair again as she stood under the torrential downpour coming from the showerhead. Angel was so tired; she hadn’t gotten much sleep last night before her adventure and got none after it. She had only just made it to her room when the bell went off, and she had to quickly grab fresh clothing as to make it to the bathrooms and showers before anyone else noticed that she was sopping wet.

Scott had been right. The extreme emotions were gone now, but the smaller ones were still there. And she could feel the larger ones on the horizon just waiting to break free again already. Angel was already planning to try again at the end of the month. Shutting the water off, she dried and changed before heading out into the hall. Angel had no idea what to do with her wet clothes from last night, knowing that if she threw them down the shoot, someone would become suspicious. At the moment, they were in a messy ball shoved into the bottom drawer of her shelves, along with the knife.

Angel quickly towel-dried her hair before tossing her towel into the shoot and making her way to the entrance hall for PT. When she got there though, something was off. Seven Elites stood in front of the door and formed a ring around the students who were filing in. Angel made her way down the stairs to the growing crowd of people.

In a normal situation or location, Angel felt people would have been talking among themselves, trying to figure out what was going on and why everyone was there. But this was not a room full of ordinary people. To everyone in the room, except for Angel, this situation brought no questions and didn’t strike anyone as out of the ordinary. So what if the higher-ups chose to gather around them today? It was not their position to question their actions.

Once all the students had gathered in the room, a short two minutes after Angel entered, Jaroslav moved from his position near the top of the stairs. His voice echoed through the room as he spoke, causing everyone to focus on him.

“Last night, one of our students was killed on the grounds. We are unsure if the murderer is still among us. Because of that, the Council has opted to forestall calling in Elites from other outposts as well as from the field to deal with this. It is now on your shoulders to find the person responsible for this.” Jaroslav turned to a woman standing at his side. She passed him a tablet, and he began to read from it, “As follows is a list of temporary teams put together by the Council. These teams are meant to mimic the teams you would be placed in as a Prosworme.”

Jaroslav read off the names, and slowly the room filtered out as groups of people moved to different locations in an attempt to come up with some plan of action. Angel stood in silence. Someone had died last night, murdered by an individual who was potentially still among them. Angel looked around the room, searching for two individuals in particular and waiting to hear either of their names. Jaroslav was halfway down the list when Angel heard her name, followed shortly by the one name she was hoping to not hear—Erik.

The said boy slid into place behind her. With the crowd clearing, finding people in the hall became that much easier. Erik placed a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t turn around,” he ordered, his voice cold and calm. Angel moved her head so he was no longer talking into her ear, but he growled, “What did I just say?”

Angel stopped and stood still. Jaroslav’s voice in the background was now fading into a muffled, muted sound. She could feel Erik standing behind her; he was so close that his chest brushed her back with every breath he took. The weight and heat of his hand was like a vice grip on her shoulder. She could tell, because it was his left hand holding her right shoulder, that he stood almost perpendicular to her. This position did not give him much leverage over her and could almost be interpreted as a sign of good faith. However, Angel had known him long enough to know that nothing Erik did was ever for the gain of anyone but himself. Lucky for her, though, someone else was paying attention to them and saved her from whatever it was Erik had planned.

“All right, looks like we are a team then. Should we get moving or maybe stay here? Bet all the good planning locations are taken by now. Oh! Wait, I know, we could…” The voice of Chase cut through the silence that had formed around Angel and Erik like a knife through soft butter. Angel had always wondered if there was something wrong with Chase mentally, considering that he was always so hyper and peppy even when none of them seemed to display emotions. Erik shot Chase a glare that shut him up and pushed Angel out of the entrance hall, expecting Chase to follow them.

They had entered the hall that led to the lower west wing of the school, located under Angel and Erik’s room. The only real room on this floor, aside from classrooms, was the armory room. Angel cast a glance back at the bookshelf that blocked the entry to the old staircase (almost the exact same as the floor above). Erik caught her looking back and pushed her down the hall with more force.

The armory door was located to the right almost as soon as one began down the hall that led to the back of the school. This placed the armory directly underneath the higher-ups’ rooms. Chase moved in front of them and opened the door only to find another team in there already.

“Ah, guess we will be moving on,” Chase muttered, slowly shutting the door.

“You do that,” one of the boys commented before the door was shut. He was older than them, and Angel had no idea who he was. But just with the short glimpse of him, Angel had gotten warned to stay far away from him.

Grumbling to himself, Erik cocked his head toward the next closest room. “Try this one.”

Angel pulled the door open and walked inside. The room was empty, so she climbed onto the desk located in the front of the room and looked at Erik expectantly. Chase pulled a seat over and sat near the desk she was sitting on, while Erik remained standing but made his way over to the barred windows. Angel wondered for a moment if he noticed the bars or not as they sat in silence for a several minutes.

When she had finally had enough of the quiet, Angel broke the silence. “So what’s the plan?” she asked.

Erik looked at her and then back out the window before replying, “There is no plan.”

“What do you mean?” Angel asked, confused. She was trying to hide her emotions, but it was getting more complicated by the moment. Ashlee was out there somewhere, having killed Kelly at some point last night, and all Erik wanted to do was sit there. “Why aren’t we coming up with one then?”

Chase, who had been sitting quietly, probably waiting for orders or just lost because he was out of his element, spoke up, “I’m all for a plan, but we don’t have a target.”

“Yes, we do,” Angel insisted, standing now.

“And who would that be, the mystery killer?” Erik asked, moving toward Angel in a confrontational manner. “For all we know, this is just another test from the Elites. No one actually died. They were just trying to see how we all react.”

Angel moved so she was standing toe to toe with Erik and growled out, “Of course we know that someone is dead. Did you not notice that someone was missing this morning?”

“How am I supposed to keep track of all the Recruits here? It’s not my job. It’s the Guardians’.” Erik’s cold response shocked Angel, and she took a step backward. His green eyes were cold, and he looked as if the death of someone who was once a classmate meant as little as rain falling from the sky. Angel had never noticed how emotionless everyone here seemed to look; she never really noticed how little anyone cared about their fellow Recruits.

“Kelly died last night,” Chase commented. Both Angel and Erik cast him a look to find he was standing and looking at a tablet that neither remembered him having earlier. He looked up at the two, his eyes almost alight and molten. He passed the tablet to Erik first as he spoke, “Her body was found this morning in the back field.”

Angel took the tablet and came face-to-face with Kelly’s dead body. Her green eyes were open, staring into nothingness, and a bloody gaping wound was on her throat, which had been slit. Angel closed her eyes, struggling to calm her heartbeat and her rage at what Ashlee had done. As she did so, Angel could feel Erik’s eyes on her.

“So what do we do?” she asked, passing the tablet back to Chase.

“I told you, nothing,” Erik commented.

Angel glared at him. “It was confirmed that a classmate was killed. You have your orders from the higher-ups to find her killer, and still you plan on doing nothing?”

“We don’t know who her killer is.”

“So we find them.”

“It doesn’t work like that,” Erik commented, running a hand through his short black hair. “We have to wait for them to reveal themselves.”

“He’s right,” Chase added. “In all this chaos, the murderer will be anxious, looking to get away before they are found. And if everyone else in the school is calm and collected, they will stick out. We just have to wait for them to make a move. Shouldn’t that be rigor mortis?” Chase’s attention had returned to the tablet on his lap. Erik seemed to be ignoring him, and Angel paid no mind to the more energetic boy.

“But how will we know that if we are stuck in this room?” Angel protested, turning her back on Erik to look at Chase.

“Because the murderer is in the room,” Erik whispered into her ear. “Because I watched two people leave the dorm last night, and only one returned before the morning bell, soaked through as if they had fallen into the river on the far side of the field, which is close to where Kelly’s body was found. And I know that individual is far better at distance killing than hand-to-hand. I’ve seen her fight Kelly.”

“You think it was me?” Angel asked. She was fighting to keep the panic from her tone.

“Prove me wrong,” Erik challenged.

Angel was about to respond when she noticed something outside the window. From their position, they were looking at the back hill behind the field. And between the trees, she could see something black moving, carrying something metal because of how it kept shining in the light.

Ashlee ran up the side of the hill as quickly as she could. Her employer was not impressed. This was supposed to be a simple mission, and the girl was supposed to be easy to find. However, there had been two girls with similar description, and Ashlee had bet on the wrong one. She should have hidden the corpse better. Leaving the girl in the open like that was asking for trouble.

Her departure this morning had been delayed. She was hoping to have been gone before the school could be alerted or the body was found, but she had no such luck. She just had to get up the side of the hill into the forested valley on the other side, and from there, she would be able to radio for her pickup. No matter what those stupid Hessians tried to do now, she was home free.

A sharp pain raced through her right side as she fell to the ground. Her body was spun to the left as she rolled down the hill a few feet. Ashlee landed on her back and looked up at the sky in confusion. Breathing began to become more painful, and she began to feel cold. Ashlee moved her right hand from its place on the ground and moved it to her side. When she lifted it up, it was covered in blood. Ashlee began to laugh as she heard the sound of footsteps approaching.

“You know, for a moment there, I actually thought I’d underestimated you,” Ashlee called out between gasps of air, turning her head to the side, expecting to see that black-haired boy from her dorm room. He had been such a pain throughout this whole mission; he was far too observant for his own good. And he was always getting in her way.

Who she saw though stopped her laughter. It wasn’t the irritating boy. No, instead it was the other blond girl, the one with the scar. Ashlee had seen her several times talking to Kelly. But how did this girl find her? Unless…

“It was supposed to be you, wasn’t it?” Ashlee asked, looking at Angel. She tried to crawl away, but the pain in her side caused her to fall to the ground, not to mention the blood loss at this point. “You’re the one he was looking for, his daughter. You can’t even break the memory blocker. All you do is blend in. You don’t have any special talents. There is nothing special about you.”

“Stop whimpering. Why did you kill Kelly?” Angel growled. She had a sniper rifle on her back, but in her hands was a pistol.

Ashlee smiled at her. “It was my job. I was assigned to seek out the Rouge threat to the Hessians. Don’t ask me why. If anything, having a Rouge in their number will cause chaos for them anyway.” Ashlee laughed. “You don’t know, do you? That’s why he wants you so badly.”

“What are you talking about?” Angel asked.

“A war is brewing that you have no idea about, and you are in the center of the mess that is starting it. I hope you’re not afraid of the dark,” Ashlee commented, letting herself sink back to the ground. “Well then, come on, do it. Follow your orders and kill me.”

“That’s not why I’m going to kill you,” Angel growled, bringing the pistol up to aim. “I’m going to kill you because you killed my friend.”

“Remember this well, Angel, Hessians have no friends. You are all just pawns to them.” Ashlee smiled as she looked up at her executioner.

Angel pulled the trigger, and the bullet pierced through Ashlee’s skull. A searing pain raced through Angel’s head, and she collapsed to the ground.

“I told you this wasn’t going to work, Mortis. You’re going to have to come back for her. She needs the proper training,” a woman’s voice said, pleading with Mortis. Her voice sounded as distorted as usual when speaking through a voice enhancer.

“They’ll kill her?” a male—Mortis, probably—asked.

“The Hessians aren’t that observant. They believe the girl is Sal’s, and so does she. Besides, I’ll be there to keep an eye on her,” the woman said again.

“I hope you’re right.”