Page 76 of Haunted Prey

I flinched at the noise. “Hope no one heard that.”

“If they do, they can tattle on me all they want. If they try to stop me, I’ll put a boot in their face like I did this door.”

I tried to stifle my laughter as he pulled me inside. “Micheal is going to kill you.”

“Like I said, boot to face. Honestly, I think I can take him.”

We laughed like a couple of teenagers as we turned down a passage.

There were several doors on either side so we tried one on the right first. Inside we found a study, with bookshelves lining one wall and a desk in the center stacked with files. On the other wall was a bulletin board with several pictures. As we maneuvered into the room, Emery went over to a lamp and clicked it on. Surprisingly, it worked, shining low light around the room.

My eyes drew to the pictures on the board first. Most were the faces of people. And children. Some of them, I recognized.

I edged closer to the photo of Emery beside his sister. Beside her name, the word “Deceased” was scrawled in bold letters.

There were several other photos like it, each marked with “Deceased.” A few were labeled “Missing,” and others read “Institutionalized.”

“Micheal had been searching for everyone for a long time,” I said. “He’d been keeping track.” Just like I had wanted to do when I first learned about the warehouse. Micheal had already been two steps ahead.

“He was the one who found me in the hospital and brought me here,” Emery said as he came to stand behind me. “He’d known about me being in St. Agnes for some time…he thought I might be too far gone. Too fucked up, a lost cause. Till I did get out and he brought me here after I got pulled from the river. Probably thinking a dangerous nutjob like me would at least make a good revenge warrior. He wasn’t wrong.”

I turned from the board and looked over at the files on the desk. I turned one over and saw it was a record on Dom and Leslie. Information from the foster care system, piling how they were sold to the Martel company and where they ended up after. Hospitals, juvenile detentions centers, brief stays at foster homes, the streets, then into a life of crime and gangs. Criminals for hire to mafias and corporations, while heading an organization of car thieving, weapon trafficking, and hacking.

I slid their file aside and found Cassidy’s. According to her record and several dates, she was the first one Micheal found. She too ended up in an institution after the Martel company was done with her. She had a bad stint of drug addiction and street-walking until she went to rehab, likely with Micheal’s help. Then she went to school and into the police academy.

There were more records on the others, even Emery. It was all here. Only they accounted for the before and after side of Project Redbird. Not the during. Not like the records I’d found in my father’s safe.

Together, they gave all the details one needed for their story.

They just needed someone to finish it.

As I shut one of the files, I heard Emery open another door behind the desk. He grunted as if impressed. I turned and saw the door lead out to a balcony that overlooked the church below.

“Nice view,” I said as I craned to see.

“Not a bad place…” Emery mumbled. I gave him a curious look as he shut the doors.

We left the room and checked the next one at the end of the hall, only finding a small kitchen with a little window. Emery appeared uninterested and went for a door across the hall. Dim red light broke into the passage as he opened the door and poked his head in.

“Here we are.” He pushed open the door, stepping aside so I could enter.

I arched a brow at him as I slipped past. When I turned to look around the room, my eyes widened.

Like the community room downstairs, Micheal had also renovated this side, turning the space into a private apartment.

A bed sat all the way to the left wall, neatly made with a dresser and small end table on either side of it. A black couch and a few seats were positioned in the center of the room stationed in front of a large, circular stained-glass window. Heavy curtains were hooked to a metal bar above the window to give one privacy. On our end was a table and a couple of chairs next to a three-way dressing mirror which took up the right wall.

I moved further inside, noticing the high ceiling and single light hanging above. There was also another doorway beside the mirror leading into a bathroom. On the opposite side of thecircular window was a fireplace, with a TV above it. The place was mostly bare, with nothing on the smooth stone walls and a single red and black rug on the floor. It appeared clean at least, but it didn’t look like anyone had been inside in a while.

“Micheal has good taste,” I said, moving toward the window. Outside, I could see the narrow street below with a couple abandoned houses across the way. Beyond them were small patches of woods and more houses. Way out in the distance, I could just make out the city. “It’s beautiful,” I whispered, letting my fingers trail over the glass. “I wonder if he plans to restore the rest. Or he could make it into something new…”

Emery hadn’t said a word. I noticed it had grown darker, and realized the white light from his flashlight no longer pierced the room. I peered over and saw him standing by the door, now closed with him blocking it. I hadn’t heard him shut it. And something told me it was also locked. His face was the only thing I could see, bathed in red, the rest of him lay in shadow, his eyes glowing in the dark.

“It’s perfect,” he said.

I turned to face him, pressing my back against the glass as his intense gaze kept me in place. He was so still, I could feel the tension that now filled the room.

“Perfect?” I repeated softly. I knew that look he gave me. I felt the heat rise up my throat and face from that look, my heart fluttering.

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