The Shattered Dark

“Make them long minutes,” Naito says, setting off across the clearing.

Long minutes, I think as I jog after him. Not a chance. The fae have good internal clocks when things are calm, but when they’re waiting on the shit to hit the fan, they’re as impatient as two-year-olds. We’ll be lucky if we have five minutes before he comes in after us.

Miraculously, Naito and I reach the door of the main lodge without any hiccups. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a set of keys. He selects one, then slides it into the lock.

“You have a key to this place?” I ask quietly.

“No.” He grabs his dagger, then, keeping it safe in its scabbard, he hits the end of the key with his pommel three times.

It’s so fucking loud, but I don’t see any movement from inside. A quick check to my right, and the other two buildings look quiet and still as well. So why do I feel like we’re being watched?

It takes another two knocks for the key to turn. I have no idea how he did that, but I just tighten my grip on the strap of my sketchbook as Naito pushes the door open. Once we’re inside, Naito goes straight to an alarm pad. He reaches up to type in the code, but freezes, his finger hovering above the buttons.

“It’s not on,” he says.

My heart hammers in my chest. “We need to know if the serum is gone.”

He nods. “This way.”

I follow him through the main room of the lodge, though it’s hard to see that this place was once a resort. Only a wet bar in the back corner, the wide, thick wooden beams on the vaulted ceiling, and the huge stone fireplace toward the front of the room indicate its history. The rest of the area is taken up by long, plastic tables. On top of them are about a dozen flat-screen computers. They look out of place here, especially with the piles of old books in the back of the room. They’re in tall stacks on the floor and on a sofa pushed up against the wall. I read one of the titles as we pass by, Grennan’s Guide to Faery, and want to laugh. The fae are nothing like the winged creatures little girls dream of meeting.

Naito moves into a smaller room in the back of the lodge, but I pause in its doorway, looking back at the computers. The screens are black, but they’re plugged in and, if the little green lights are any indication, they’re on.

I walk to the nearest one. Move the mouse.

A box pops up, asking for the password.

I type in “vigilante” because, yes, I’m that uncreative. Plus, I’m stalling. Thinking. The details of how to make the serum might be on the hard drives. What other research could be here? Is it worth taking with us?

“Hey, Naito,” I say, entering the next room.

“What?” he asks, but I don’t answer immediately. He’s standing in front of a safe, twisting the knob to the right, back to the left, and back to the right again. And again when it doesn’t work. But that’s not what’s caught my attention. This room has been converted into a laboratory. Beakers are held in metal clamps, petri dishes sit beneath microscopes, and plastic tubing runs between bags of clear liquid and glass flasks. In short, this room looks like a fully equipped medical lab minus the sanitation.

“McKenzie?” Naito stops what he’s doing to look at me.

“Do you know the password for the computers?” He acted like he could disarm the alarm with a code, and he obviously has at least some hope of guessing the combination to that safe, so maybe his father is overconfident and hasn’t changed any of the vigilantes’ codes.

Turning back to the safe, he says, “I might be able to guess it, but it’ll take too long to…Finally.”

He opens the safe.

I move forward, trying to see inside. “Is the serum there?”

He’s shuffling through some things. Papers, stacks of money, more papers. He shakes his head. “No. It’s not here.”

Damn. “Is that the only place it could be?”

Naito closes the door, slips something into his waistband. A gun. I hate guns. It’s not just that they’re lethal and that one of them killed Kelia, but it feels like a bad omen to see this one. This break-in has gone well so far, but that could change in an instant.

“This is where it’s most likely to be, but no,” Naito says. “My father could have put it somewhere else.”

His gaze sweeps the room. We don’t have time to do a complete search of the compound—Aren’s probably already losing patience—but we need to be sure we’re not leaving it behind.

“I think Lee’s already been here,” Naito says. His mouth is pinched. It’s his fault. There’s no denying that. His grief blinded him, and he made a decision that could cost us the war.

But I can’t find the will to be angry at him. Instead, I say, “We should get out of here.”

He nods.

“But we can’t leave the research here,” I add. “Find a match or a lighter or something. We’ll burn the place down.”

God, I sound like an arsonist, but we have to make sure we don’t miss anything that will allow the vigilantes to easily reproduce the serum.

I leave Naito to search the lab and head back to the main room. The wet bar catches my attention. There could be a lighter there, and alcohol is flammable. Some of it is, at least.

Ducking behind it, I start rummaging through the bottles. Most of them are red wines, mostly Pinot Noir, but there’s some vodka and rum, too. Those might fuel a fire. If I can find a matchbook.

There’s a shallow basket behind one expensive-looking bottle, but it contains nothing but old corks, a simple corkscrew, and some pocket change. Nothing to start a fire with.

“Did you find any…” Naito’s voice fades out, and he tilts his head to the side. That’s when I hear it, too, a whirling, clicking sound. I look to my left, where a staircase leads down to a lower level.

“Basement?” I ask quietly.

“Yeah,” Naito whispers.

We should just leave—everyone knows not to go into the basement when unidentified sounds are coming out of it—but Naito’s already heading that way. I mutter under my breath and follow him.

The basement isn’t a dark, gloomy hole. It’s brightly lit and is being used as an office. File cabinets line an entire wall, and a shiny, executive-sized desk is set up in the room’s center. On the end of that desk, a laser printer spits out page after page. It’s responsible for the sounds we’re hearing, and as we reach the bottom of the stairs and turn toward it, a hand reaches up to grab the newly printed documents.

It’s Lee. He’s sitting on the floor, hunched over a tablet computer. He doesn’t read the pages that just printed; he clenches them in his fist. He hasn’t noticed us yet. His attention moves back and forth between the tablet and the mess of papers that are strewn all around him.

I glance at Naito. His jaw clenches. The barrel of his gun dips toward the floor.

His gun. I didn’t see him take it out, but as I watch, he seems to regain his resolve. He reaims at Lee’s head.

“Naito,” I whisper. Something is obviously wrong with his brother. Lee’s eyes are puffy, bloodshot, and he’s pale.

Naito lets out a breath and lowers his gun all the way. “Lee.”

The other human ignores him.

“Lee,” Naito says again, more emphatically this time.