The Forbidden Trilogy(238)

Before she could speak, I interrupted her thoughts. "I'll kill my father. Then you'll have your revenge."

She didn't back off, but she didn't interfere either. "I won't be responsible if you fail. No one will come to rescue your team."

My team had followed me over to the tent and crowded in around us. "Then stay out of our way." I turned my back on her to address my friends. "Arm yourselves. We're going in."

Drake and Darren took rifles. Gary found a grenade launcher and stocked up on ammo, while Robyn and Mary chose pistols. Toby reached for a machine gun, but Drake swatted his hand away.

I'd stayed in Lucy's thoughts, to keep tabs on their situation as I handled Simmons. Lucy still had the cameras looped, so if they could get in quietly, no one would know, not even this Beleth, who, for whatever reason, hadn't raised the alarms himself.

As we started to head out, I stopped and spun to face Simmons. With my finger on her chest I hissed at her. "If you do anything to jeopardize our mission, I will expose your plans. I will expose who you are. Then... I will kill you."





Chapter 111 – Man in Black



Tyler Miller sat in his small command station, overseeing the gate. He scanned the screens in front of him and clicked through the different cameras. Everything looked fine.

Ned patrolled below, looking out for people sneaking around near the walls. It barely ever happened, but every now and then some stupid kid, or a few teenagers, would get curious and see if they could climb the gate or hop over it from a tree. Never worked, but couldn't let the little bastards get away with trying it, either.

He propped his legs up on his desk and noisily slurped his large cup of coffee, glad that at work, his wife couldn't bitch at him for being too loud. A man should be able to drink a damn cup of coffee however he wanted. How else was he supposed to cool it down?

His favorite part of the job was the time it gave him to write his novel. All the other guards hated the boring night shift, but like most writers, he was a night owl. He also liked that it gave him a reason to sleep all day and avoid his wife.

The blank page of his notebook stared at him like a living thing. Oooo, that's good. I should write that shit down. He grabbed his pen and made notes, then returned to his novel. Sal, his main character, had to get past a large wall. He tried climbing a tree but fell and busted his head. Tyler described the head wound in exquisite detail, sure that his readers would love that. He sure knew how to paint a picture. He used up three whole pages of tiny writing on that one bit, proving that the jerks in his community college class didn't know shit about quality writing.

Footsteps outside his door alerted him to his boss, Mac, a big guy who walked like the weight of the world rested on his shoulders. Oooo, I need to remember that too.

Mac pushed open the door. "How are things?"

"Good." Tyler scanned the screens again, left to right, clicking through the cameras. Same pattern each night.

Mac sipped his own coffee, but somehow made less noise than Tyler. "Okay, don't screw up tonight. Tomorrow's going to be big."

Hell, yeah, big. Tyler was up for promotion and would finally be able to buy that sweet laptop he'd seen at Walmart. No more pen and paper for him—though he did secretly crave the sound of a typewriter as he pounded out the greatest novel ever. But no one used typewriters anymore. He heard he could buy an app for his computer that would simulate the sound of one, which could be cool. He'd have to look into it.

Mac walked out, grunting about something or other, and Tyler relaxed and looked up at the sky. Being in the mini tower gave him a nice view of the stars. He loved the quiet of the night and feel of the breeze. He pulled out his notebook to describe the night, an exercise one of his teacher's had taught him.

Ned, the night patrolman, called out from below, ruining Tyler's mojo.

Damn! He usually had more peace.

"Hey, I got something here."

Shit. Tyler hoped that something wasn't trouble. He looked down and saw a girl standing by Ned. "Hold on, I'm coming down."

He descended a cramped set of stairs and opened the door. Ned and the girl looked up at him. She had brown hair and blue eyes. Something in his lower regions tightened as he thought about how pretty she was, but fraternizing with the patients here would get his ass booted for sure, so he kept it in his pants. Mostly. He might make another exception for her.

She shook as if scared, and stared at him.

Ned grabbed her arm and pushed her forward. "I found her wandering around." He paused, as if expecting a response. "I should bring her in."

Tyler looked her up and down and licked his lips. "She try to get over the wall?"

"Yes." Ned nodded. "She... um... was climbing a tree."