RecruitZ (Afterworld Series) (22 page)

Preston stood in front of me with a stone-faced expression, his arms folded in front of him.

“Was the story of your sister and your mother true?” I asked.

“Everything I told you was the truth. I just didn’t tell you everything,” he said, his voice carrying the strength I craved. “Listen, you can go at this alone. Walk away. I’ll never contact you again. Or you can join us as we try to ascertain what’s going on. And in all honesty, I haven’t seen anyone with the kind of inner strength that you have. Our organization needs that. Needs you.”

“Yeah. It seems like it,” I scoffed. “Do you plan on giving me my notebook back?”

“Sorry about that,” he replied. “They’re taking copies.”

“Of course they are. I’m guessing they snatched it while we were moving the truck?”

He nodded. “I gather so.”

“Do they or you have more answers than me?” I asked, feeling my anger begin to diminish only slightly.

He was silent for a beat and stood up, taking a step toward me. “Answers? No. Access? Yes.”

“What do you mean access?” I asked.

“We’ve been able to infiltrate certain agencies and organizations, sometimes with only one or two members, but it’s better than nothing.”

“So TRAC?” I asked.

He nodded, and heat ran up my cheeks. “You knew TRAC was involved in some way?” My voice rose with every syllable.

Preston shook his head and reached for my arm. I didn’t move away as his fingers clasped around my forearm, anchoring me in place.

“No. We didn’t know that until our incident.”

“If that’s what you want to call it.” A shudder ran through me as I remembered back to the warehouse and Preston hanging from the ceiling.

“We still don’t know who all is involved. We have two informants with TRAC, and we also have one stationed with Barrell’s Security, TRAC’s main competitor. They are one of the other main security contractors the government hires, but they have a primary focus on private security. Neither informant had run across anything that had led us to suspect either company.”

“So how does the MHA facility work into all of this?” I asked. “You obviously have something planned or we wouldn’t be here.”

He nodded, letting my arm slip from his grasp. “True. Would you come down for dinner and we can discuss it?”

“Alright,” I muttered, grabbing a hoodie from one of the bags. Standing by the window had gotten me chilly, and my hands were trembling. But that might not have been because of the temperature, maybe the company.

“Rebekah, I’m sorry for misleading you,” Preston’s voice rumbled. His eyes set on mine.

I knew he was, but I shrugged and moved past him.

Walking down the hallway on my terms, as opposed to being dragged along the hardwoods, allowed me to take inventory. There were seven doors in front of me. I glanced behind me and saw another three doors.

“How many bedrooms?” I asked.

“There are eight bedrooms on this level, one closet and a bathroom for the three bedrooms that don’t already have an attached ensuite,” Preston answered. “So you have nine ways to escape from the top floor, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

“I don’t know what gave you that idea.” I stepped down the stairs, leading into the hallway that was next to the dining room and kitchen. The wonderful smells of garlic and onion drifted through the air, and I got annoyed with myself for noticing. It wasn’t like this was a warm and fuzzy homecoming I was entering into.

Walking into the kitchen, I spotted Braden grabbing a container out of the fridge, and Emily stirring something in a pot on the stove.

Preston cleared his throat, and Emily quickly spun around, wiping her hands on the nearest kitchen towel. She gave me a sympathetic smile and bit her lip as she waited for Braden to say something.

I took a seat at the far end of the table. I wanted to keep my distance.

“Rebekah, we never meant to cause you harm. We all apologize, but we all agreed that this was the best way…the only way to ensure our safety,” Braden said. He glanced over to the counter, and I followed his gaze to Gavin’s folder.

“Do you mind if I take that back?” I almost growled.

“Not at all. We’ve added it to the database,” Braden said, completely unfazed.

“And what does that database do?” I questioned, getting up to grab the folder, but Preston brought it to me. “Thanks,” I said, tucking the folder under my curled fingers.

“We’ve got database administrators working on finding leads from all of the oddities we collect.”

I had the thumb drive in my pocket that showed all of the researchers. Had Preston already handed over those files somehow?

“We’ve got several teams working on the ambient computer data, where fragments of information often end up. Kind of like waking up information in the dead space of computers,” Emily spoke up. “Our goal right now is to preserve, identify, and extract what information we can from families who have had loved ones killed by this new breed of zombies.”

“Do those families know?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

“No. Most do not,” Emily confirmed. “There’s no reason for those people to trust us, and we can’t jeopardize our operation.”

“So you’re already building this organization on secrets and lies,” I said, realizing that my fingernails were digging into the dining table.

“Remember when you said that you hoped we’d be able to find someone who would be able to find the link between what Gavin and Sophie were researching?” Preston asked, his voice softening from earlier.

“The nuclear fusion stuff. Yeah. I remember.”

“Well, these are those people. The network that has been established is the best shot we have at cracking the code,” he replied.

“You hope,” I said, raising my brow.

“Yeah. You’re right, Rebekah. I hope that we can find out the connection before it’s too late. Before more people are killed,” Preston said flatly. “What’s going on here takes more than just one mind.”

“As much as I believe in technology, I also don’t trust it. My gut tells me the answers we’re looking for will only be found in person, somehow,” I said. “Not just burying ourselves in data.”

“We’ve got a map of that MHA facility that Preston drove you by. One of our TRAC members was stationed there a few weeks ago, and he mapped out the layout and got it to us. All of the security personnel are rotated every two weeks from whatever job they’re stationed at. Marcus obviously doesn’t want anyone getting too comfortable, seeing too much,” Braden said.

“Then that confirms my suspicion. Why else would Marcus worry about keeping his teams on the move. He doesn’t want any of them staying around long enough to stumble upon anything. That’s my guess,” I said.

“We think you’re possibly right about that,” Preston confirmed, glancing at Braden.

“Our hope is that nothing more than getting help to the folks who need it within those walls is what’s being focused on at MHA,” Emily said. “But our informant couldn’t confirm or deny anything inside of those walls. Every hallway was as silent as a ghost town. The patients’ rooms were all secured and every window was blacked out. There was medical staff on each floor, but he never saw them attending to patients.”

“Are you saying they’re not treating patients?” I asked.

“We’re saying we’re not sure there are any patients,” Emily said, her eyes dipping to her hands as she fought back tears. “But there is activity. Buses do go there. Shipments are received.”

“Then what would they have done with all those people?” I asked, angry as I thought back to all of the people who needed help, counted on getting help, through the MHA. Family and friends thinking they’re helping loved ones only to never hear from them again.

Emily walked over to the stove and turned off the burner. She grabbed the top plate and began scooping up a noodle dish of some sort.

“So we need to go in,” I said, leaning back in the chair. I pushed Gavin’s files away, clearing a spot for the plate.

I caught a shadow of a smile on Preston’s lips as he helped himself to the dinner.

“It sounds like you’re coming around to our side,” Braden said, laughing.

Emily placed a plate of steaming pasta in front of me, and it smelled delicious.

“Or you’re coming around to mine,” I said, twirling my fork in the noodles. “Now when can we get started on a preliminary run?

“We’ve got some reconnaissance we can share with you from images we took using a homemade drone. We thought it might be nice to get a bird’s-eye view of the grounds, in addition to the map our guy managed to draw out, so you can familiarize yourselves with the buildings you want to stake out.”

Emily sat down at the table with her plate of pasta and looked over at me. “I’ve been able to capture a vague timeline of their activities, which we can use to get you in and out as quickly and safely as possible.”

“We’ll do a run-through beforehand,” Preston said.

“Alright. When do we want to start?” I asked.

“Tomorrow,” Preston said, “before the next rotation of security is implemented. TRAC will change out the new security personnel two days from tomorrow.”

“Better get on it,” I mumbled. “We’ll look at the footage after dinner?”

Emily nodded.

I looked around the table at Emily, Braden, and Preston and wondered if what we were planning was a death wish, or if we’d actually find any answers. And if we did, what would we do with them?

Preston flipped on the lights to the basement, and I followed him down the stairs. A light flickered overhead, and I held onto the railing as I walked behind him, matching his quickened pace. It was damp feeling and hard to see much in front of Preston. It was only a little after six o’clock in the morning, but I was wired.

“You have a nice little arsenal at your home,” Preston said. “But this is an entirely different level.”

We reached the bottom of the stairs where we both stood in a little four-by-six room with a metal door directly in front of us. Preston pressed a code into the keypad and the door clicked open.

“Shouldn’t I be privy to that information?” I asked.

“Not until I’m sure you don’t want to shoot me,” he laughed.

“Very funny,” I said wryly. “After a good night’s sleep of nearly four hours, I actually understand why you did what you did. I don’t approve of it, but I understand.”

Preston pushed the door open the rest of the way, and an overhead light switched on, revealing a weapons room that looked as if it belonged to a SWAT team or, maybe more fitting, a TRAC team.

“You already have your Glock 17 with you so I think you should take that too,” he pointed at a compact pistol hanging on the wall among many larger handguns. It was like Toys-R-Us for gun enthusiasts. I grabbed it off the wall and ensured it wasn’t loaded, showing Preston the empty chamber.

“It’s a CZ 75 Compact SDP. Good backup gun for you,” he said, as he grabbed himself a pistol and examined it before placing it on the counter in front of us. “Let’s just hope none of us will need to use it today, considering we’re only scouting out the place.”

“No kidding,” I said, grabbing a case of ammunition. “What do you think we’ll find?” I began sliding the bullets into the magazine and watched Preston as he did the same. He was wearing all black, including a knit cap, and his stance was assured as he handled the weapon. The way his hands worked along the metal caught my attention, and I didn’t want to look away.

“At this point, I’m not even sure. It’s not like I think we’ll go into this facility and have an epiphany about what TRAC’s up to, but I’m hoping there’ll be some sort of clue that might point us in the right direction.” He caught my gaze as I continued to watch him and I blushed. A slight twitch of his lip as he fought a smile only made it worse. “You?”

“Same. I guess I’m making it more personal. I’m hoping I’ll see something that will relate to what Gavin was researching or…” I stopped and shrugged. “I don’t know.”

He nodded and slid two clips of ammo into his back pocket and I did the same. “If everything goes well today, we’ll be in there tomorrow, and maybe, we’ll start to get some answers.”

I bit my lip and tried to round up my courage. It wasn’t necessarily my business, but I had a concern. I wasn’t sure how to bring it up so I decided to be direct.