Page 168 of Broken Omega

Fantastic. We’ve just been surrounded.

Brooke rolls her eyes and crosses her arms under her chest.

The guard is talking to someone, checking for instructions.

I can’t help wondering if it’s Marissa, or another guard.

He comes back, clipping the radio communicator onto his belt.

“Okay. If you have any weapons, it’s advisable to surrender them before you enter the building. They will be detected on entry, and you’ll be penalized for lying to an academy guard.” He pauses, glancing from Brooke to me and back again.

“We don’t have any weapons,” I tell him.

“Follow me. We’re taking the side entrance. Mrs. Sawyer will meet with you in the ballroom.”

He walks off at a fast pace, making us rush along to catch up.

There are several guards stationed outside the front entrance, which looks to be locked down for the night. There are several more around the side and in front of the garden.

It feels like overkill, but I guess that’s the point.

Nothing’s getting past this many armed guards.

It would be crazy to even attempt it.

The guard walks us up the stairs to the entrance, where two other guards hold the doors open for us. I feel my nose tickle a little right before we walk inside, but the sneeze doesn’t come.

I think the metal detector that’s now set up right inside the doors shocked the tickle away.

“Wallet, phone, keys, watch, jewelry,” the guard who led us in says, holding out a plastic tray.

Brooke shakes her head. She doesn’t have any of those things. She didn’t get out of here with her purse. I feel a bit weird about handing over my wallet, keys and phone, but I’m not getting a choice.

I drop them into the tray.

“Step through,” he says, motioning to us to go forward.

Brooke goes first, looking like she does it every day. She turns to wait.

I walk through next. Nothing.

The security guard puts the tray behind a desk where another guard is stationed. He puts his gun into a second tray and passes him it before he walks through the detector after us.

“Straight ahead,” he tells us.

“My wallet—” I start.

“You’ll get your personal effects back afterwards.”

Right. Sure. Brooke shrugs at me. I take her hand as the guard opens the door into the ballroom.

It’s partially dark inside, with only the front row of overhead lights on. A desk sits straight in front of us, behind which a woman in her eighties with wispy, cotton-candy white hair and a death glare like I’ve never seen in my life appraises us as we’re brought over to her by the guard.

He leans forward and whispers something I don’t hear.

Nodding, she shoos him away with a flick of her wrist.

He leaves, and we’re closed in the large room with the old woman.

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