Thomas had already continued speaking, in spite of my disturbance, and it took my brain a moment to catch up with him in the conversation. “The building is an original, which is why it’s perfect! Lots of things were built and then torn down in the early days, so this place is practically a relic. The security around it will be antiquated at best. I also managed to get eyes on the facility, and there’s only a handful of guards!”
“Inside?” Owen asked.
“No—all of my intelligence says that they are outside. I got a hold of the shipping invoices from the past year, and it helped me narrow things down considerably based on who signed for them. There are several buildings on the property—five, to be precise: two warehouses and three office-like structures. Now, I’ve managed to narrow the location of the surgical laser to one of these two buildings here. Most of the shipping manifests indicate that medical supplies are being kept in a specific office in this building, while in the warehouse, they’re being housed between aisles A and D. It was the best I could do.”
“How do you know all this?” I asked, cutting in.
Thomas faltered, his mouth working up and down. “I… I have a thing that… that I use…”
He floundered, looking to Owen for support. Owen patted him on the shoulder and I found myself frowning again at the tender support Owen was giving him. “It’s okay, Thomas. Violet should know better than to ask a magician to reveal his tricks.”
I gaped at the admonishment so casually leveled at me, and for a moment, I felt my temper boiling up. I wasn’t trying to cause problems; I was just curious as to how he got his information. Until I reminded myself that it ultimately didn’t matter—as long as I could get what I needed to help Viggo.
I smiled at Thomas. “Owen’s right. I’m very sorry, Thomas. This is excellent work.”
Thomas eyed me dubiously for a few seconds, and then nodded with a huff, turning back to Owen.
I didn’t know what the deal was, but it was clear that Owen was indulging Thomas, and I intended to ask him about it later. Owen and Thomas were already bent over going over the plans, so I had little choice save interrupting them and risking antagonizing Thomas further, or being patient and seeing what the plan was.
I decided on the latter, and busied myself like the others with cleaning the clothes that we had brought in and then taking a shower.
Hours later, after examining every angle, we had come up with a rudimentary plan. More than that, though, I began to be more understanding of Thomas’ weird mannerisms. A part of that, I admitted, was because Owen was right—he had a keen strategic mind that worked far better than the five other minds in the room. He had a knack for seeing the angle, and his ability to process numbers in his head was fantastic—he’d pitched and thrown away dozens of ideas, all based on some hidden formula for success that was buried in the recesses of his brain.
The other reason was because I began to notice how he looked at Owen from the corner of his eye. There was something hidden behind his gaze, an affection that I recognized on an instinctual level: Thomas was deferring to Owen for everything. He only listened attentively to him, focusing solely on Owen and his ideas.
Suddenly, a lot of his mannerisms clicked in my mind. He was a beta. Betas were males who were less aggressive, and tended to defer to whomever they felt their alpha was. Only betas were allowed in Matrus, alphas being considered too dangerous. But in Patrus, being a beta was not a good thing. They were bullied and beaten by alphas. Some elected to undergo a re-education program, but many of the subjects committed suicide during the process, unable to cope with their own existence.
I wasn’t sure whether Thomas had undergone the re-education program, but it was clear that he had suffered a lot at the hands of the alphas, given his jumpy nature and childlike malevolence. It made me feel sorry for the smaller man, or at the very least, sympathetic. No wonder he had joined up with the Liberators—he had a grudge the size of both countries toward Patrus.
Looking around the table, I realized that we all did. Maybe not directly, but if I looked at it through the lens of a Liberator, then both countries had done one thing or another to harm their people. And, if I was honest, I had a grudge against them too—not just for myself, but for every male and female they had wronged over the years with their tyrannical dictates and legislations.
9
Violet
Even though I knew that waiting was the longest part of any mission from my experience with Lee, this wait was really getting to me. I waited three whole days for Owen to announce that we were ready and if he hadn’t told us the time had come for action on that third day, I felt I would have gone off the hinges on the fourth.