An Hour of Need Read online

  The graduation was due to take place in a large marquee among the Academy’s training grounds. Of course, my father had given me his word he’d be there on such a momentous occasion. But as I tried to fast-forward to the graduation ceremony, again, I drew a blank. I couldn’t remember anything past the morning I was preparing to leave for the event.

  It was as though a wide chunk of my memory had just been blotted out… wiped.

  But… Grace.

  That name was feeling more and more familiar to me by the moment. I experienced another tickling at the back of my brain. Tickling that was turning into an itch. Grace. Grace.

  I stared at her pale, anxious face.

  And then I remembered. Previously the blank in my memory had stretched from my graduation day up until I woke up in one of the Chicago HQ’s labs… but now, I recalled waking up in a different place… before that.

  I’d opened my eyes in an unfamiliar hospital room, with two strange women hovering over me. One middle-aged with tanned skin and chestnut-brown locks, and the other… yes. The other had been this girl. Grace. Though she’d looked very different then. She had looked like a normal, healthy young woman. Not like this sickly whitish creature.

  The girl in front of me, Grace, was saying something to me now, but I wasn’t comprehending. Her words didn’t reach my brain as my eyes panned down to the notebook in my hands once again. This time, I began to read. Urgently, hurriedly, as though it would vanish from my grasp if I did not absorb the small, neat handwriting fast enough.

  Wave after wave of déjà vu began rolling over me.

  I knew the story unfolding over these notebook pages. The story of a girl—a kind, pretty girl—who had volunteered her days to assist a sickly boy bound to a wheelchair. A boy who had been sharp and snappy with her when he’d had no right to be. While she had remained attentive and patient. While she had lain in bed at night worrying about what the next day would bring for him. While she had looked for opportunities every minute of the day to bring a smile to his unhappy face. While she had defended and sheltered him during the most vulnerable time of his life.

  This was a story of selflessness without conditions, of giving without bounds. A story of hope in darkness. Of strength in pain. Of friendship in strangers and… maybe even something more.

  But the story ended too soon. Far too soon. The visit to the graveyard should have been only the beginning.

  My hands shaking slightly, I raised my eyes to meet the girl’s. Grace Novak’s. Her turquoise irises glistened as she gazed back at me. Hope surged behind them. Hope and relief.

  I couldn’t help but take in her ill appearance once again. Her pallid skin, her unnaturally protruding veins. I could practically feel the chill emanating from her body, even as we sat apart.

  “Grace…” I breathed. “What happened to you?”

  A weak smile formed on her dry lips as I spoke her name. She replied in a choked whisper, “The tables turned between us, Lawrence.”

  Grace

  No words could express the relief I experienced on witnessing Lawrence’s remembrance. On having him look at me again like he knew me, like I was not an unwelcome stranger. When he spoke my name, I could hardly contain my emotions.

  I almost didn’t want to ruin this moment of reunion with him by informing him of what had happened to me. I wanted to wait just a few moments longer to relish this feeling of reconnection before marring it with horror.

  But Lawrence’s brown eyes were penetrating. He was demanding answers. And time was slipping through our fingers.

  He moved closer to me on the bed and raised a hand to my face. The sensation of his fingers—warm fingers—brushing against my cheek sparked an unexpected longing deep within me. I realized more than anything right now, I just wanted to hold him. I wanted to feel close to him again, to close the gap that time had wedged between us.

  “God, you’re freezing cold,” he whispered, drawing his fingers away. “Grace, tell me what happened!”

  “I was bitten,” I replied in a strained voice. “Bitten and infected by two Bloodless.”

  “Bloodless?” he repeated, disbelieving. “Wha-How could you have been bitten by—”

  Because I was an idiot… an idiot who went looking for you.

  “After our visit to the graveyard, you suffered from a fit and lost consciousness,” I replied. “We returned you to The Shade where you went downhill fast. In addition to your legs, you lost control of your arms. Then your father showed up.” I felt sick to my stomach just thinking about Atticus. “He came to collect you, saying that he could heal you, and that if we didn’t hand you back over to him, you would die.” I paused to clear my throat, realizing just how dry and rough it had become. Noticing my discomfort, Lawrence rose from the bed and whipped to the cooler with supernatural speed, but of course, he found it empty.

  I glanced at him sheepishly even as he eyed the empty glass bottles on the other side of his bed.

  “Yeah… used them all up,” I murmured. While we were on the subject, I couldn’t help but ask, “Why on earth do you sleep like a dead person?”

  He looked like the last thing he wanted to discuss right now was his sleep. “It’s just… related to my, uh, transformation. The supplemental drugs I take affect me in weird ways.”

  I wanted to ask how he ever woke up, in that case, or whether waterboarding was a common method resorted to by his father, but as he reseated himself next to me, it was clear his mind had moved past the subject.

  “Continue,” he pressed.

  “So we handed you over to your father, and that was the last we saw of you,” I went on, recalling the aftermath of Lawrence’s departure. How I had stood on the jetty, watching his father’s boat sail away into the distance. The hollowness that had gripped me…

  “After you left, I was restless,” I said. “I just couldn’t leave things as they were… our investigation unfinished. So I-I continued on the path we’d begun and, well, that’s how I wound up in so much trouble…”

  Now I had the unsettling task of dealing with his request for details. But I didn’t have the time or energy to go through every gory detail of the story now. Maybe I would have a chance to tell him later.

  I had to communicate the essence in as short amount of time as possible and I figured I already knew the best place to start, even if it was the hardest…

  Drawing in a deep breath, I steeled myself. “Lawrence,” I said, eyeing him steadily. “I don’t know how much you remember about your mother’s death, but I have very strong reason to believe that it was not an accident.”

  His eyes bulged. “What?”

  “I’m convinced your father had your mother assassinated.”

  As he did a double-take, I hurried to explain about our discovery of FOEBA and all that had happened that led us to this conclusion. He was utterly speechless by the time I had finished my summary, all color drained from his face.

  He clutched a trembling hand to his forehead, rubbing his temples before looking back at me, his face once again contorting with disbelief.

  “Look, Lawrence,” I breathed, reaching out and laying a gentle hand on his forearm. “I don’t expect you to believe or accept everything I’m telling you now. I don’t expect you to believe that your father murdered your mother. But one thing is an undeniable fact. For whatever reasons, the IBSI want the Bloodless to continue flourishing. The organization”—or more specifically your father—“is sitting on a cure to the Bloodless infection. They are stifling it. And I strongly believe that the reason you have been felling a certain type of tree here is because it has something to do with the antidote.”

  Lawrence suddenly shot up and darted to the window. Gazing out at the whirling green smoke, he hissed a curse. “This gas…” he whispered. “It’s designed to destroy trees.”

  “What?”

  Lawrence exhaled sharply. “Assuming everything you’ve told me is accurate and none of your assumptions are misplaced, then my father has just
let loose a toxic gas to weaken the trees.”

  I battled to express my shock and confusion. “Wha—? Why? H-How? B-But you’ve got these glass building things up in the trees! You’re living up here! Why on earth would he do that?”

  “The weakening is a gradual process,” Lawrence explained. “The gas starts by drawing out moisture, shriveling up the leaves and killing them. The trunks and branches take longer to deteriorate—a few days. Dammit! That’s why I was surprised when I realized he had unleashed it. I thought that we were going to try to avoid harming the natural environment of Aviary as much as possible while we worked to create a clearing for a new ‘defense base’. The gas was only supposed to be a backup method for clearing trees, if we really started running behind on schedule. But now… all this means that he is planning to pack us up much sooner than anticipated.”

  “Oh, no,” I gasped. I staggered to the window next to him, gazing out at the swirling vapor. “Lawrence, we’ve got to…“

  My voice trailed off as Lawrence’s attention shifted to the door. And then I realized why. Footsteps thudded in the corridor. It sounded like they were headed in our direction.

  Before I could react, Lawrence kicked my backpack beneath the bed. His hands clutched my waist. He swept me off my feet and planted me down onto the bed. Then he lowered himself directly on top of me, his legs intertwining with mine, his elbows slightly propped up on either side of my head to create a small enclosure beneath him for me. His right hand slid down to my legs and curved them more at the knee—to make them less visible beneath the blanket, I assumed, more molded to his own form. My face level with his chest, he grabbed a pillow and positioned it above my head—and beneath his.

  I would have mentioned that my father and Horatio could slip me away until the footsteps passed—whoever it was might just be traveling by this way with no intention of actually coming inside. But Lawrence had been too quick.

  Now I lay sandwiched between his tense body and the mattress, trying not to breathe. His heartbeat, so close to my ear, quickened as the footsteps stopped outside his door. There was a click, then the sound of the handle turning. The door glided open and someone entered.

  I supposed that from his or her angle by the door, it would look like Lawrence was simply lying on his stomach, if in a slightly odd elevated position. Hopefully not odd enough to draw notice.

  There was a pause; I imagined whoever had entered was eyeing the bed. Then a voice spoke quietly. Atticus’ voice. “You awake, Lawrence?”

  Lawrence didn’t respond, though I felt his biceps tense on either side of my head.

  Atticus crossed the room and stopped again. A dull thud. It sounded like he’d laid something down on the dressing table. Then he was heading back to the door. He paused again by the doorway before stepping out, the door shutting smoothly behind him.

  Lawrence remained deathly still until Atticus’ footsteps had disappeared. Thank God the man hadn’t paid much attention to the empty bottles of water… or the damp patches on his son’s bedding.

  Lawrence shifted slowly, propping himself up higher on his elbows to glance down at me. Our gaze met. His lips and cheeks were flushed, his brown eyes alert and glistening with nerves.

  “You okay?” he mouthed, breathing heavily.

  I nodded.

  His legs untwined from mine. He raised himself off me completely and climbed off the bed. His eyes settled nervously on the door again before returning to me.

  He reached down a hand. I gripped it, his strong fingers closing around mine. He pulled me to sit upright—something that was becoming more and more of an effort to do by myself. My back and butt felt thoroughly wet now from the sheets, hardly helping with my already diminishing temperature.

  I glanced at the dressing table. A gas mask sat on its surface, along with a note.

  “What does it say?” I whispered.

  Lawrence picked it up. “‘You will need this to step outside from now on. And a change of plan: we will be packing up sooner than expected. Buzz me tomorrow.’”

  Anxiety returned to me full force. “The trees,” I gasped. I could only assume this meant Atticus had decided to wipe them all out in one blow.

  I staggered to the window, pressing my palms flat against it and gazing out hopelessly. “Is there no way to stop this gas?” I whispered, recalling how quickly my father, Horatio and I had witnessed it spreading through the area. I wouldn’t have been surprised if by now it had reached all the surrounding jungle for miles and miles.

  “Not that I know of,” he replied. “I mean, it’s been released already. There’s no calling it back.”

  Oh, no. No, no, no.

  My father cleared his throat behind us. As Lawrence and I turned, he and Horatio had manifested.

  “Wha-What on earth…” Lawrence exclaimed. His eyes darted to me in confusion.

  “Meet my father, Benjamin Novak,” I said, realizing that I had never introduced the two before. “And this is one of our jinni friends, Horatio Drizan. They’re the ones who helped me inside here… Sorry, I lied to you about my entrance through the trap door. While I was still a stranger to you, I didn’t think you could handle seeing them.”

  Lawrence eyed them one after the other.

  “Apologies for the intrusion,” my father said briskly, stepping forward and reaching out a hand. Lawrence shook it uncertainly. “But on the most urgent matter of the trees,” my father went on, “we witnessed the IBSI smuggling them back through the portal. They were loading them into a cargo ship. Many of them. So they’ve taken a stock. You must be aware of that, surely, as one of the main showrunners here?”

  Lawrence nodded. “Yes, uh… my father wished for us to keep some. He didn’t give me a clear explanation as to why. Just said to transport some back. We loaded up a cargo ship bound for Sri Lanka. The IBSI has a base there, though it mostly serves as storage for weapons and other large equipment.”

  “Sri Lanka,” my father repeated, wetting his lower lip. He looked to me. “Then maybe not all is lost, Grace. Even if, as Lawrence indicates, these jungles will be ruined, they’ve kept aside a stock of the trees. A large stock. I’m sure it wouldn’t be impossible to figure out how to either hijack the ship on its way to Sri Lanka, or reclaim some of the trees once they reach there… So this is not our main problem. Our main problem is we still don’t know how these trees factor into the Bloodless antidote. We need the formula.”

  “Clearly Lawrence has no idea what it is,” Horatio said, raising his brows at Lawrence as if for confirmation.

  Lawrence shook his head, frowning. “No. The first time I heard of FOEBA was only this evening, from Grace.”

  “Atticus has—” I choked mid-sentence. To my horror, I spiraled into a coughing fit. Drops of blood sprayed from my mouth, staining my palms and the gray carpet. Shocked, Lawrence raced to fetch a tissue. My father gripped my shoulders and sat me back down on the bed. Lawrence bent over me, dabbing the blood from my lips.

  “Christ,” Lawrence murmured.

  I closed my eyes tight, taking a moment to breathe in deeply. The last thing I wanted right now was to descend into another fit in front of Lawrence.

  “What my daughter was about to say,” my father whispered tensely, “is that your father has—or at least had—your mother’s files cracked open on his laptop. Those files must contain details of the antidote, or the IBSI would not be so bent on guarding them. Lawrence…” My father rose to his feet, leveling with Lawrence eye to eye. “We need your help. Not only Grace, but the world needs your help. The IBSI is sitting on a way to eradicate the Bloodless problem, a problem the organization supposedly works day in and day out to solve. Clearly, it’s all just a front. They’re using the presence of the Bloodless as an excuse to maintain their iron grip over the government. Think about it. Without the prevalence of Bloodless, what can they actually offer? They have hardly proven effective at combating other supernatural creatures. Bloodless are the only species they’re fully capable of prot
ecting humanity against—with their mutants patrolling borders. The Bloodless are the primary reason why the world believes they need the IBSI so much.” My father reached out and clutched Lawrence’s shoulder. Gripping it hard, he went on, “You’re on the inside, Lawrence. As inside as a person can get. You are the son of the IBSI’s leader. If you don’t uncover and expose the truth, nobody will… You need to finish what your mother started. You need to take up her mantle and fight. You need to make sure that her death was not in vain.”

  A chill silence descended on the room as my father finished.

  Lawrence’s face had turned ashen, gray. My heart went out to him. This was all so much for him to take in within the space of an evening. Hearing that his mother had been murdered by his father was enough to shock anybody into a stupor, not to speak of all the other bombshells we’d dropped on his shoulders.

  I also feared for him. I feared what would happen should he take my father’s words to heart—should he become a rogue agent in the IBSI, betray his father and embark on a mission to expose to the world what his mother and her accomplices had attempted to reveal. What if he met with the same fate as her before he ever managed to accomplish it? I didn’t doubt for a second that Atticus would target Lawrence if he was given reason to suspect he was a threat.

  One thing was for certain. This would be a dangerous game, should Lawrence begin to play it.

  I suspected such thoughts were going through his mind. He backed away from my father, his hands balling into fists, and roamed slowly about the room. Horatio, my father and I didn’t speak a word as we let him mull things over.

  Then Lawrence returned to where we waited on the other side of the bed. He drew in a deep breath as he stopped before my father. But, even as he addressed him, his eyes fixed on me. “Mr. Novak, I will do all that I can to get to the bottom of this. I… I have only your and Grace’s word to go by that my father is indeed responsible for all that you have charged him with. But one way or another, whether you are right or wrong, whether or not he did indeed murder my mother, I will not rest until I uncover the truth… The full truth.”