Page 60 of Twisted Empire

17

Elias

“I still don’t quite understandthis plan,” Dr. Paulson said, a frown wrinkling his forehead as he stared at me from across the table. We were in one of the cafés on the Ark’s ground floor, sipping on black coffee. “You said the evidence you need is in your father’s study at the Lodge. Why can’t I just go in and get it for you? No one suspects me of anything. You could just tell me the code to his door and his safe, and I could grab it for you.”

I sighed impatiently. “You don’t work there, and you’re not a society member. People will get suspicious if they see you wandering around. They’ll know you don’t belong and you’ll stand out like a sore thumb, especially with the festival being over, because there’s nowhere near as many guys for you to try and blend in with.”

“Perhaps, but it still seems easier if I do it. If anyone asks why I’m there, I could say I was asked to work there while the Finishing School is being rebuilt.”

“No.” I shook my head. “Like I said, it’s too risky. My father might see you when you arrive, and he’d know you were lying about working there. That’s if the guards even let you past the gate. Besides, Tatum is right—it’s a two-person job. We couldn’t just send you in alone. What if my dad decided to go into his study while you were in there rifling through his safe? You’d be dead before you hit the ground. There needs to be a second person distracting him for as long as it takes.”

He rubbed his chin. “I suppose so. This still seems very dangerous, though.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Look, Paulson, you’re the reason I started suspecting all this shit was going on in the society. You wanted me to look into it and I did. You were right; it’s a fucking viper pit down there. So do you wanna help us or not?”

He held one hand up. “Of course. I’m just pointing out the enormous risk. There’s so many things that could go wrong.”

“Going back to the Lodge is an enormous risk no matter how we do it, considering there’s practically a bounty on our heads right now. This is actually the safest plan I can think of,” Tatum interjected as she entered the room. She’d been up in the apartment for the last several minutes, changing into a thick jacket and her old bloodstained clothes from the other day.

There was a ring of fresh red marks around her neck. The marks would soon bloom into bruises. She’d done it to herself, wrapping her hands around her neck and squeezing until she could barely breathe. Makeup was too much of a gamble, she told me. It could rub off, and then the jig would be up.

Paulson looked at her. “You’re absolutely sure you can handle this? You don’t want to rest for a few more days?”

She smiled bravely. “I feel fine. The bleeding has totally stopped now. I checked while I was upstairs.”

“All right. I’ll get everything we need from the medical wing and storage cupboards,” the doctor said, grudgingly rising to his feet. “What about a contingency plan if this all goes wrong?”

I shrugged. “There isn’t one. This has to work or we’re screwed.”

He shook his head and let out an exasperated sigh. “I’ll be damned,” he muttered. Then he left the room without another word.

Tatum glanced at me. “It’ll work out fine,” she said, rubbing her red throat. “It has to.”

“I know.” I jerked my head toward the door which Paulson had just stepped through. “He’s just a nervous kinda guy. He’ll stop worrying as soon as Greer’s article goes viral and he’s praised by the whole world as one of the major heroes in all this shit.”

“True. He’ll be rolling in cash from interviews. Plus women will be going gaga for him.” She bit her bottom lip. “You as well.”

“He can have ‘em all. You’re the only one I’ll ever want.” I wrapped my arms around her and squeezed her ass, making her mewl with surprise.

Dr. Paulson returned several minutes later with a small bag of supplies. He pulled out a small plastic baggie packed with cream-colored powder, a pocketknife, a couple of screwdrivers and a tiny pair of pliers. “Here, Tatum,” he said. “You need to cling to this stuff for dear life. The plan is dead in the water without it.”

“I know.” She unzipped the jacket and tucked the baggie beneath the tight band of her bra on her right side. The small tools went in the sides of her underwear. I lifted my brows at that, and she shrugged at me. “It won’t be that uncomfortable. It’s not like I’ll be awake for most of it.”

“True.” I held a cell phone and a mini USB cable out to her. “One last thing.”

She took the phone and cable and slid them into the side of her underwear as well. Paulson peered into his bag to double-check he had everything else we needed. Then he nodded. “Let’s head out.”

We left the shelter and made our way to the back of the van. I’d already cleared it out so that nothing remained but the mattress. “This is where you’ll put her?” he asked, glancing at me as Tatum lingered a few yards away, ensuring everything was still tucked in tightly.

I nodded and beckoned to her. Paulson held up a needle and looked down at her as she lay on the mattress. “I’m going to give you the sedative now. At this dosage and with your size, it’ll last around five hours in your system. Until then, you will be unconscious and unresponsive. Your heart rate will be slowed so it will be difficult for someone to find a pulse unless they’re an expert. Hopefully, that’s enough.”

She smiled bravely. “Yeah. Hopefully,” she echoed.

“Any last words?”

Tatum shook her head. Paulson rolled up the left sleeve of her loose, bulky jacket and located a vein. As he injected her with the sedative, I held her hand and squeezed tight.

Seconds later, she was dead to the world. With the massive bloodstains on her pants and the red marks around her neck, it looked like she was actually dead. I leaned down and kissed her forehead.

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