[REND] B2. 14.2 - Friends and Secrets

[Author’s Notes: We’re back to Erind’s POV. This chapter starts after Deen leaves the front of Erind’s room and enters the elevator to go back down.]

“There’s no one there…” I said, closing the door behind me.

Kelsey stood in the middle of the living room beside the coffee table, her scales standing like the fur of an agitated cat. Her eyes glowed swirls of purple. There was a barely noticeable shimmer around her as she stepped forward, fists raised as if she were ready to box someone. Bitch had had her forcefield on.

“Hey, hey! Don’t use your powers!” I waved my arms. “Calm down. Just calm down. Maybe you were imagining things?”

“He’s not there anymore,” Kelsey said, lowering her arms. “I wasn’t delusional. I sensed that there was someone like you on the other side. Two artificial Cores. Yours… and whoever was stalking along the hallway.”

I tensed my cheeks for a moment, pissed that a new problem might have cropped up. “You were saying that it felt different?”

“Yep. Different from your… aura? I can’t put it into words quite well. There’s nothing I can compare it to, as if a new sense. Your Core has this recognizable vibe—recognizable to me, anyway. We’ve spent hours together.”

I tilted my head. “Uh, and then?”  

“This other aura’s feel is different. I’m sure that it’s another Core, okay?” Kelsey started to speak faster. “I just know it. Artificial or not, my instincts told me there’s that… whatever it is, out there… and it wasn’t you. I thought that you were setting me up. I-I thought that the guy was going to bust down the door and attack me.”

“I wasn’t setting you up,” I evenly said, though my blood boiled. I didn’t want to get accused of something that I didn’t do—that was my thing to do to other people. Also, my stuff was this close to getting smashed. It would’ve been a pain to explain to Mom that my condo got demolished days before her arrival. “Why would I want my condo to get destroyed in a fight?”

“I don’t know! I wouldn’t suspect that this is a trap for the same reason.”

“It’s not a trap.” I held out my hand, signaling for a pause. “Let’s slow down and analyze this. You sensed some guy with a Core outside the door. He left as I was returning, and passed by again after I entered the room. Let’s list who it could be. First guess—Dario.”

“Dario,” Kelsey also said at the same time.

“He doesn’t know where I live,” I said. “Easy for him to find out, though. If not him, then who? If Reo or Everett, they would’ve come here at Dario’s behest.” Behest—I finally used this awesome-sounding word. The day was a lot less ass.

“Or an unknown person with a Core from the Professor’s organization,” said Kelsey. “We can lump them all together into the ‘Dario’ category. Who else?”

“What about Myra? Maybe she somehow got a clue that I’m hiding you? Hmmm… Probably not. She would’ve immediately barged into this room.”

“My sister would’ve definitely done that.”

“That leaves Deen. But why would she even come here?”

“To check up on you since you didn’t come to class,” Kelsey said. “She’s worried about you, and so on. Does she know where you live?”

I nodded. “She’s been here before. Uh, twice. But she would’ve messaged me if she were coming. If she wanted to surprise me… Well, she might do that. It’s just all weird, if that’s really the case.”

“It’s either Dario, other people ordered by Dario, or Amber Deen. Now, onto the actions of our guy. Why did he come up here only to walk away? And why did he come when you were about to return? If this were Dario surveilling you, he would’ve seen you go out—” Kelsey gestured at the paper bags I brought “—to buy those. He has plenty of time to come up here, to lockpick his way inside, and search this place or install hidden cameras.”

“Search here, huh?” I looked around. Nothing seemed to be out of place, and I didn’t recall anything suspicious in the past few days.

Not that I was hiding anything important here. The only sort of incriminating stuff was my corkboard with all of my planning. I had hidden it in my room, but it wasn’t hidden enough from someone really determined to find stuff. I should write my notes in code or something.

“Should we look for hidden cameras?” I cringed at the thought that someone was peeking at my eating habits.

“Too late to do that now,” Kelsey said. “If there were any cams, they would’ve already seen purplish yours truly staying here. Anyway, I don’t think this is Dario. He wouldn’t have gone up after an hour or so that you’ve spent buying clothes and food.”

“More like an hour and a half,” I said. “But I get your point. Dario doesn’t even have a reason to spy on me, beyond checking up on the progress of my Core or something. Like, I very much doubt he suspects that you’re here or that I’m Adumbrae. Uh, well, maybe I might’ve acted suspiciously during our last meeting, but I don’t really know.”

“Someone spying on you wouldn’t act this way is what I’m getting at,” Kelsey said, pointing at the door. “They won’t stand out there for a few seconds, leave, come back and stand for a few seconds, and leave again. What would that achieve?”

“They might have a machine that detects Adumbrae from several feet away,” I suggested with a shrug. I didn’t really believe that it was Dario, even if the scenario was plausible. “The Professor’s secret organization could’ve invented something like that, a short-ranged bioscanner. Or they have some guy with a Core that gives the power to sense Adumbrae.”

“That still doesn’t explain the odd sequence of events.”

“Are you saying that our mystery person is Deen?” I asked, trying to be nonchalant. At the back of my brain, part of me cursed like a sailor because this was very plausible. Dratted boats and sails—I didn’t know how sailors were supposed to curse.

“She came by to visit.” Kelsey ticked off her fingers as she narrated her proposed sequence of events. “She sensed something was wrong; an Adumbrae was nearby. She hid when you came. Probably wondered what the heck was going on. Stayed outside to eavesdrop or debate with herself if she’d knock. And then, she left. Does her power involve detecting nearby Adumbrae?”

“No…” I sighed. “But her ability might’ve warned her about you.” Gabe would’ve definitely warned Deen about Kelsey, who was ready to fight a supposed enemy. Kelsey’s theory fit what had happened. It’d also explain why our mystery person went to my room when I was about to return and not much earlier—it was all just a coincidence.

“If not Amber or Dario,” Kelsey said, pacing, “your cop friend could have snitched on you to the BID.”

“Sgt. Hall isn’t my friend, and I want him to pass along word about the PCM to the BID—they’ll look into the PCM. Not me. I really don’t think this is them. Too quick to take action right after I meet with Sgt. Hall. Also, the BID doesn’t have artificial Cores.”

“That you know of.”

“The easy way to trim our list of suspects is to ask the front desk if someone who looked like Dario, or Deen, or maybe Sgt. Hall passed by.”

A couple of minutes later, I was back at the lobby, talking to Front Desk Lady. Did ‘lobby’ and ‘lady’ rhyme?

I recognized her face, and she certainly recognized mine, given that I had been living here for several months. But I couldn’t recall talking to her since I had moved in. Mom took care of the rent, papers, and stuff. Yep, I was definitely a strong and independent woman.

I didn’t have a picture of Dario. Nonetheless, Front Desk Lady swore that she didn’t see anyone fitting his description. She also didn’t see Tower Cop return after our meeting; it was really kind of hard to miss him.

“This girl,” Front Desk Lady said, tapping the picture on my phone’s screen. “I saw her. Not too long since she left. Really beautiful, isn’t she?”

Front Desk Lady pointed to a picture of Deen.

Fucking fudge cake! It really was Deen! Did she realize that I was keeping Kelsey? What did her stupid Guardian Angel tell her? Not much, probably.

“Is she a model? An actress,” asked Front Desk Lady. “I feel like I’ve seen—oh, someone’s calling you.”

Deen’s name flashed on my phone screen. I immediately answered the call, turning around to check if she was outside the building. I couldn’t see any blonde bitch through the glass walls.

“Oh! Hello, Erind,” Deen said. She must’ve parked her car nearby.

“Hey, Deen,” I said, walking away from the front desk. “Um, sorry for not replying to all your messages. I was sleeping…” There. An outright lie. Was she going to call me out on it and expose that she had been lurking outside my room?

“Take all the rest you can,” Deen said.

Coward, I thought. Then again, she ran away instead of confronting me about why her Guardian Angel warned her away from my room. What could she be thinking right now?

Deen asked me when Mom would come. I answered truthfully. She then made a comment that I was living alone, which would affect my mental health. Sure, whatever. She was checking if I’d admit that I had someone over. This meant that she didn’t consider that I had a newly-hired Adumbrae maid. She might eventually find out if she continued to snoop.

I turned on my auto-conversation mode while my brain worked in the background, wondering how to stop Deen from returning here. Maybe I should just make up a story that a cousin came to visit. There’d still be the question of why her Guardian Angel blared an alert. I’d think about that later.

“Are you free to meet tomorrow?” Deen asked. “We can have lunch at W&V, this new artisanal bakery that has just opened. I’ll share the notes I took in class today.”

Baiting me with pastries? It might’ve worked if I hadn’t drunk two whole bottles of sweetened milk tea earlier. “I-I’ll see if I feel better tomorrow.”

Returning to my condo, I unpacked the groceries I bought so that Kelsey could prepare our lunch. It was weird to have a monster walking around here, but I could more easily tune her out than if she were human. How fascinating.

Kelsey had no choice but to rely on me—I was her only chance of a cure. Somewhat of a cure. Could Myra rip out her Core to give to Kelsey? Myra might be willing to try. I shouldn’t let them meet.

I searched the internet for any recent happenings that might explain why the BID agent had to urgently fetch Tower Cop. Man, that hugeass, four-armed agent stressed me out so bad that I had to drink another bottle of milk tea. Tower Cop for the save. Kudos to him. It appeared that he was keeping his promise of shielding me from the investigation. I had thought of killing him when the BID’s focus would be on the PCM, but it might be better to have Tower Cop around.

And if I kept him alive, I had to warn Myra and Reo that I painted targets on their back. To be fair, they were already in Tower Cop’s sights through no fault of my own. Still, they needed to be ready for Tower Cop investigating them in relation to the PCM.

Of course, I wasn’t going to tell them what I did. Myra and Reo would get angry at me. Mental note to make up some story for our next meeting. I had more pressing concerns for now.

“Nothing,” I muttered, browsing through local news sites. They might not have had time to post it, or the BID shut them down.

Social media, it was. I wasn’t sure what to search for on Snippet, so I just typed ‘killed’, ‘dead’, and ‘PCM’. No way I’d expressly search for Adumbrae attacks. My guess was that another Adumbrae escaped the PCM holding tunnels and killed a bunch of people. That’d be an emergency that’d rouse the BID.

I scrolled through a bunch of new posts that were gaining traction on Snippet. Isolate to La Esperanza. There must be something here.

“Is this a PCM building?” I saw a picture of the front of an office. Its door was ripped off its hinges. The person who shared it mentioned that a PCM building was attacked by a monster. He went inside and found dead bodies. I checked the comments.

The page suddenly refreshed. And the post was gone.

The BID was watching Snippet.

“I’m right…” I said, rocking my chair back.

“Right about what?” Kelsey asked from the kitchen. Her monster ears were quite keen.

“An Adumbrae attacked a PCM building at Sereno Circle. Several people were killed. This Adumbrae must be one of the—”

“Did you see it on the news? One of the what?”

“Saw it on Snippet. I was going to say that one of the PCM’s captured Adumbrae must’ve escaped, as you did. But… this probably isn’t the case. If the Adumbrae had some semblance of control, he would’ve hidden instead of attacking a PCM office in the city. And if he had lost his mind, he would’ve just rampaged outside wherever bunker he came from.”

“Oh, fuck!” Kelsey dramatically dropped the spatula. “This must be my sister!”

“You’re probably right.” My fingers danced across my keyboard as I imagined myself a hacker in a movie. But instead of controlling multiple screens, I was just searching on Snippet for other clues.

Kelsey was behind me. “Myra must be looking for me. We have to stop her!” Kelsey shook my seat. “The BID will—”

“They already know about her. At least, they know about what’s going on. They’ve been deleting posts on Snippet.”

“Call Myra! Tell her to—”

“Stop shaking my chair, alright? If I call her now, while she’s killing people, I’ll be a person of interest. Let me try Johann. Dammit, I don’t have his number. I’ll call Deen.” Instead of the usual ringing, there was a different tone followed by a message. “Huh…” I looked over my shoulder at Kelsey.

“What is it?”

“I got sent to voicemail. If Deen doesn’t want to be contacted, then she—”

“She had turned off her phone.”

I nodded. “There’s trouble. She may be on her way to help Myra.”

(Author's Notes: Erind is suspicious that Deen was lying to her. Deen is suspicious that Erind is lying to her. Drama all around. And this is really like the misunderstandings of a drama sort of movie. But we'll have to put that on hold because we're heading into the final conflict of Book 2, which is Myra's predicament. Thank you for your continued support!)