A Fork of Paths Read online

  Heaving a deep sigh, I shuffled backward on the mattress until my back hit the wall. I wrapped myself in the wool blanket. Although the temperature was moderate in this room, I was still recovering from the cold outside. At least I felt a little less tense now that I was on my own again. For the first time, I realized that I was starving. My stomach ached. I had to hope they’d give me something to eat later.

  I leaned my head against the wall and stared out of the glass door at the tank of merfolk, perfectly positioned for me to have full view of. To my discomfort, they were all glaring at me. There weren’t even curtains or a blind I could pull across the door for some privacy.

  Their grotesque features twisted as they made faces at me, as though I was the one responsible for imprisoning them in the tank.

  Great, I grumbled to myself. Just the creatures I wanted to be staring at all day.

  Ben

  I’d followed River off the submarine, stayed close to her in the helicopter, and then accompanied her and Mark to her new room in the hunters’ lair. Throughout the journey, I’d been paying close attention to anything that could possibly give me an idea of where we were. I’d even found myself looking for license plates in case any of them gave me a clue. Frustratingly, none of the vehicles possessed them. Either they were new vehicles still awaiting plates or the hunters had some special pass from the government that didn’t require them to obey laws like everyone else.

  I imagined that the impressive facility had also been funded by the government. It all looked brand new—I doubted it had been standing for long. It didn’t take long for me to figure out this was some kind of research center, and this suspicion was only verified once we entered the courtyard filled with a myriad of supernatural creatures.

  Now that River was locked in her room, it was time that I left her to have a look around. I guessed that nobody would bother her again for at least an hour, since many of the hunters had just arrived back from a long journey and would probably be busy settling back into their own quarters.

  Moving closer to her bed as she leaned against the wall, I couldn’t help but move my lips over her forehead before I left the cell.

  I’d tried to pay attention to my surroundings on the way to the courtyard, but this place was winding like a maze. I might get lost if I wasn’t careful. And it wasn’t like I could stop and ask someone for directions. To start with, I remained in the same building as the courtyard, although as it turned out, there wasn’t much else of interest here. Mostly I found large, empty meeting-type rooms with long tables and projectors, and on some of the lower levels, there were what appeared to be hunters’ residential quarters. There were hunters around, but I didn’t find any conversations of relevance to eavesdrop on.

  Before passing through to the next building, I decided to explore outside. Something told me that with my unearthly speed, it might be faster than continuing my attempts to eavesdrop. During the flight, I’d been looking out of the helicopter alongside River, hoping to see a nearby town. I hadn’t spotted any, but the windows had been small and provided only limited vision. With hindsight, I should’ve stuck my head right through the wall of the aircraft.

  I left the building where River was being kept and headed to the parking lot. Passing the many vehicles, I was most interested in the road that branched off in the far corner of the lot. It wound right through the mountain range. If anything would lead to a town or village, surely this road would.

  And so I followed it, racing as fast as I could. It led me through the sprawling mountains, sometimes rising, sometimes descending, and I was beginning to grow impatient to see where it led. I felt nervous about how much time was passing. I had no way of telling the time, but I guessed it had been fifteen minutes. I had already managed to travel so many miles, I’d lost all sight of the hunters’ base up near the peaks. Still, I could see no signs of civilization. Just an endless blanket of snow.

  After half an hour, I even considered turning back and returning to my original plan of eavesdropping until I found out the location. I didn’t have time to burn. I didn’t know for sure if the hunters were telling the truth that they didn’t want to kill River, and I wasn’t willing to take the risk. I needed to urgently get help from The Shade.

  I was on the verge of turning around and heading back to the hunters’ lair when the universe finally threw me a bone. Looming on the horizon was another road. A much larger road than the one I’d been following. I even spotted a couple of cars trundling along, their metal exteriors glinting in the sunshine. The landscape was also beginning to flatten.

  I hurried forward until I reached the road. I looked left and right for a sign post, but saw none. What I did spot, however, about two miles to my right down this highway, was what appeared to be a grand hotel… and as I approached nearer, I realized that it was a ski resort.

  “Bluesky Peaks Resort,” read the sign nailed across the large building, complete with the symbol of a pair of skis. A large American flag flowed in the breeze, erected directly in front of the resort. I guessed that meant we were still in the United States. Some comfort at least. I’d feared that we might have traveled further.

  Now, I just needed to remember the name of the resort. It wouldn’t be difficult for whoever I found in The Shade to locate it. A simple internet search should bring up the exact location of the place. In fact, as I looked more closely, I noticed a website address nailed in smaller letters just beneath the main sign. Being situated right next to this main highway, it was also close to the road that wound through the mountains to the hunters’ lair. I hadn’t noticed any other roads branching off from that track, so the journey from here should be fairly straightforward.

  I committed the name of the resort into my memory, along with the website, and then I didn’t have another moment to lose. I returned to the winding road and followed it all the way back to the hunters’ parking lot.

  I needed to turn my thoughts to how the heck I was going to make it back to The Shade in any reasonable amount of time. Jeramiah wasn’t there to play the Pied Piper for me anymore.

  But first I wanted to check on River one last time. I had no way of knowing exactly how long I’d be gone, and although I would be even more powerless to help her hundreds of miles away, I needed to see that she was okay before I left. I hurried back to the courtyard and arrived outside her door. But when I peered inside, she was gone.

  River

  I was beginning to feel bored out of my mind. The hunters might have kept the cells clean and decent, but the lack of anything to do in them was torturous. What did they expect their prisoners to do all day? Nothing, I guessed.

  I would’ve killed for a book to read. Or anything to help take my mind off time passing… and the crude gestures the merfolk had started making to me from their tank. I guessed that they were just as bored as I was. I glared daggers back at them for lack of anything else to do. In the end, I retreated to the bathroom and stepped in the shower, pleased that the water was hot. I found the shower comforting, and I would’ve stayed there for a lot longer if I hadn’t heard keys being inserted into my cell door. As it clicked open, I leapt from the shower and grabbed a towel, wrapping it tightly around me. I opened the door just a fraction to see who it was.

  My eyes were met by Mark’s icy blue ones. I quickly shut the door again.

  “What do you want?” I called. Truth be told, I had expected him to return sooner.

  “I’d like you to come with me.”

  I shouldn’t have expected anything less cryptic from him by now.

  “Okay,” I muttered. “Let me get dressed.”

  I fumbled around in the bathroom, looking for my clothes before realizing that I had left them on the bed outside. Dammit.

  “Uh, would you hand me my clothes?” I called to Mark through the door. “They should be on the mattress.”

  I opened the door again, just wide enough to thrust out my hand. A few seconds later, he had planted my clothes into my palm and I pulled
them in through the door before closing it again behind me. I hurriedly dried myself and got dressed. Glancing in the mirror, I realized for the first time how wrecked I looked. I had dark shadows under my eyes and in general looked like I hadn’t had a wink of sleep in days. I gathered my hair above my head and wrapped it in a tight bun before leaving the bathroom.

  Reentering the main room, I took in Mark’s appearance properly. He was wearing a change of clothes, and whereas he’d had a shadow of stubble around his sharp jawline before, now it was shaved clean. His black hair was combed back neatly, and he smelled of minty aftershave.

  He wasn’t holding a gun this time, although I was sure that he was armed with one—perhaps attached to the back of his belt.

  I frowned at him. “Where do you want to take me?”

  “To our lab,” he replied, eyeing me steadily.

  Lab. Recalling his assurance that the more I cooperated, the better off I’d be, I moved to the door and stepped outside.

  I wanted to ask what exactly they wanted me in the lab for, but I was fed up of asking questions only to be brushed off with non-answers. I guessed I’d find out soon enough what they wanted from me. Maybe even too soon for comfort.

  Even now, Mark didn’t bother to bind my wrists. It showed how small a threat the hunters had come to see me as, though I supposed that this could only work in my favor.

  He gestured toward the exit of the courtyard and indicated that I follow as he began heading toward it. We entered an elevator and embarked on a journey out of this building, along countless corridors and half a dozen glass walkways, until we arrived outside tall, stark white double doors on the ground floor of a building about a mile away from the one that held the courtyard. Mark flattened his thumb against a screen fixed near the handles. The device beeped, and the doors drew open as gracefully as curtains.

  I stepped into a vast laboratory. The length of the tables that lined the stark white walls and the amount of sleek, state-of-the-art equipment they had in here was breathtaking.

  “This is just the ground floor,” Mark commented as he led me deeper into the room. Perhaps he’d noticed the awed expression on my face.

  Mark stopped us in the center of the lab and pulled out a phone from his pocket. He dialed a number, his eyes falling on me as he waited for whomever he was calling to pick up.

  “Jocelyn, I’m on the ground level.” He spoke into the receiver. “We’re waiting for you.”

  He hung up.

  We stood for a few moments surrounded by the eerie silence of the lab before the sound of footsteps descending a staircase came from the far corner of the room. The set of doors swung open near a table of burners and out stepped a short, mousy woman with wide-rimmed spectacles and a tiny frame. Donning a dark blue lab coat, she hurried as she spotted us, the short heels of her shoes clacking against the sleek white floors.

  Arriving next to us, she exchanged a knowing glance with Mark before reaching out to take my hand. I hesitated, glancing at Mark.

  He nodded encouragingly. “Go with Jocelyn. She’ll return you to your room once you’re done.”

  Once I’m done with what?

  I looked at this new Jocelyn woman untrustingly, but allowed her to lead me away all the same. I cast one more glance over my shoulder toward Mark as he left the room before the woman led me up a staircase. We climbed a single flight and arrived on the first floor—just as large and impressive as the one beneath. She led me across it toward a long, heavy black curtain that was sectioning off a portion of the lab. She parted the curtain and led me through it. I found myself staring at a row of treatment beds with more alien equipment crowded around them. She indicated a bed in front of it and nodded, smiling faintly.

  “Make yourself comfortable,” she said.

  I doubted I could make myself comfortable in this lab even if she presented me with a king-sized bed to stretch out on, but I did my best to acquiesce. She perched herself on a stool next to the bed and planted her foot down on a red button, which made the bed tilt upward slightly, until my back was at a forty-five degree angle.

  Then she switched on a bright fluorescent lamp that hung directly over my face, apparently designed to blind a person. I was forced to close my eyes, bright spots swirling in the backs of my eyelids.

  I couldn’t see much of what she was doing after that, but I felt her probing my body with cool metal objects. She planted what felt like a stethoscope against my chest, then I felt bands around my upper arm which tensed and squeezed—apparently taking my blood pressure. An unpleasant rounded object covered with some kind of ice-cold gel roamed my neck, and it seemed to be giving off some kind of micro-electric current, as I felt an unpleasant stinging in my skin. Then, without asking for my permission, she rolled up the bottom of my shirt, revealing my bare lower abdomen. Using the same freezing cold gel-coated instrument, she ran it over my stomach, causing shivers to run through my body. I bit my lip, tensing.

  “What are you doing?” I grunted.

  “Just a few tests,” she said lightly. “Nothing to worry about.”

  It grated at my nerves the way she talked to me like I was a child. I couldn’t help but wonder if she had a gun near her as she sat examining me. Though even if she didn’t, and I managed to overpower her and escape, where would I go? Heck, I didn’t even know that I could leave this laboratory. It had required Mark’s thumbprint to enter, and it might not be possible even to exit this place without another authorized fingerprint. I guessed that I could try to drag Jocelyn along to the door and force her finger against the device… but then what? I was still in the middle of nowhere. I would likely freeze before I ever found help, or more likely, they would catch me first. I pushed away the fantasy of escape. If they didn’t let me go voluntarily soon, I would have no choice but to attempt it… but when I did, I needed to have a good plan. Otherwise I would only find myself in worse trouble.

  My focus returned to Jocelyn. She had finished freezing my stomach with her probe, and had hopefully put the damn thing away. She had now moved to my feet where, for reasons I couldn’t fathom, she had begun digging her fingers against pressure points in my soles. I wanted to squirm away from her. I was ticklish down there.

  “So, Jocelyn,” I said, trying to avert my attention from the way she was touching me. Still, I kept my eyes closed to shield myself from the blinding light. “What do you do exactly?”

  “I’m a scientist,” she replied, “and a doctor. Depends on which day of the week it is, really.”

  “A scientist and a doctor of what?”

  My question was met with silence.

  I blew out a sigh. Why was I even still bothering to attempt to get some serious answers out of these people? They were all as tight-lipped as each other.

  Neither of us spoke for what felt like the next ten minutes. Then, to my surprise, her stool scraped and she switched off the horrid lamp.

  I opened my eyes to see her standing by my head and looking me over with a gleam of contentment in her eyes. She clutched a pad of paper in one hand which was filled with scribbled notes, though she was holding it at such an angle that I couldn’t read them—no doubt a conscious move on her part.

  “How old were you when you were half-turned?” she asked.

  I felt bemused that still, nobody had bothered to ask my name.

  “Seventeen,” I replied.

  An unnerving smile formed on her thin lips, the satisfaction in her expression intensifying. “So young,” she said. “Good.”

  Although curiosity burned inside me, I didn’t even bother to ask her why that was good.

  She placed her notepad on a nearby table and settled her pen on top of it. “Right,” she said, straightening and rubbing her hands together. “We’re almost done. I need you to do just one last thing for me, all right?”

  No, it’s not all right, but, of course, that was a rhetorical question, wasn’t it?

  She reached into a drawer and pulled out a thin plastic tube. “Go to the b
athroom and fill this with your urine.”

  My lip curled. “I don’t need to pee.”

  “No problem,” she said briskly, even as she planted the tube into my right hand. “We can fix that.” She moved over to a sink and, filling up a glass with water, returned and handed it to me. “Drink up.”

  I raised the glass gingerly to my lips and began to drink. I was actually thirsty, so I didn’t object to topping up on water but… I hated being asked to fill up a tube of urine for anyone—even my doctor back home in New York—much less for these despicable hunters. Still, I had no choice.

  I swallowed down three cupfuls until I felt the need to go. I spent as little time in the bathroom as possible doing the deed, and then returned to Jocelyn.

  “Perfect!” she exclaimed, eyeing the tube of pee like it was liquid gold. “All right. I’ll escort you back to your room.”

  She stowed my urine sample away in a drawer before leading me out of the lab. I was right in assuming that the place was locked from the inside too—Jocelyn had to plant her thumbprint onto a screen.

  As we wound our way back to the courtyard, I muttered without even bothering to hide the irritation in my voice, “So are you satisfied with whatever tests you were doing?”

  I’d said it out of annoyance rather than actually expecting a reply, but this time, she did choose to respond.