Max Collins - After the Dark

Nodding, they fell into line and paraded up the stairs, their eyes everywhere — another wave of guards, coming up behind them, would be a bad thing...

There were six bedrooms on the second floor and, Max supposed, probably an equal number on the third floor, though she had never been up there. Using hand signals, she sent Mole and Alec on upstairs, while she and Joshua checked the rooms on this floor, starting at the end farthest from Lyman Cale’s bedroom.

They found nothing — no further guards, no guests, no Franklin Bostock — and had just arrived outside Lyman’s door when the other two came down from the third floor and signaled that they had struck out up there as well.

They fanned out, Max in the lead again, Alec and Joshua on either side behind her, Mole off to one side, watching their backs.

Max opened the door. Stepped in.

Lyman Cale still lay in the bed; if possible, he seemed even smaller, as if he’d shrunk further, a withered rind lost in a white nightshirt, cables coming in and out of him, keeping Logan’s uncle alive, technically at least — as the surrounding monitors and gizmos attested.

Franklin Bostock — again in a black blazer, white shirt with no tie, and gray slacks — stood on the far side of the bed near Cale’s head. He appeared calm, and their entry into the room seemed to barely register on him.

Alec and Joshua came in and spread out again behind Max.

“Thought you’d be back, Ms. Guevera,” Bostock said, his voice detached, even cold.

But Max’s voice was frigid. “Ray White.”

Bostock looked up at her, unimpressed. “What of him?”

“He was an eleven-year old boy.”

Bostock shrugged. “You know what they say about omelets.”

“Is that what the boy is to you? Was to you? A bro-

ken egg?”

“You’re a soldier, Ms. Guevera. All wars have their casualties. I imagine you’ve cut quite a swath through my men, coming this far.”

“Wars? Casualties?” She took a menacing step forward. “Those things I know about... I also know about atrocities. Why? Why an innocent child?”

She took another step, and a small caliber pistol revealed itself in Bostock’s hand.

And it was pointed at the head of Lyman Cale, not that that comatose figure had any realization of it.

“Take another step,” he said, “and there will be another casualty in this war.” A smile spread, like a terrible rash, across his bland face. “You might make it before I blow Lyman’s brains — what’s left of them — all over this pillow. But I doubt it.”

She just stood there.

Bostock’s eyes met hers. “You’re still considering it, though, aren’t you? Go ahead. Make your move — you may find me a more formidable adversary than you might imagine... And then you can explain to Logan Cale how you got his uncle killed.”

The thought of what had happened to Seth because of Logan flitted across her mind, and in that moment what this sadistic son of a bitch had just said triggered an epiphany in Max.

Logan wouldn’t have intentionally put Seth in danger — not any more than Logan would have done with her, when she accepted missions. It was always her choice, and it would have been the same for her sib. And the truth was, Seth liked taking risks even more than Alec or Zack.

Max understood why Logan had lied now. That is, she understood his act of omission, not commission...

If this situation went sideways, as it very well might at any moment, there would be no way in hell she could ever explain to Logan, no way she could bear to tell him, if she were to cause him to lose his uncle, the last relative of his on the planet who had ever seemed to care about him...

Bostock’s voice grew sharp. “Your two playmates — on their knees. Hands behind their necks.”

She could feel Alec and Joshua looking at her, and she turned to them, nodded once, and they complied, dropping as if in prayer, elbows winged as hands locked behind heads.

“You seem to think you’re going somewhere,” Max said.

Bostock nodded. “Out of here, for a start.”

“How exactly?” Max crossed her arms. “You really think we’re just going to let you through? Or are you gonna haul ol’ Lyman out of bed and yank those tubes out of him and use him as a hostage? I’d pay to see that.”

Bostock turned a bit and trained the pistol on Max. “Ms. Guevera... you’re my hostage. And I think you’ll comply — after all, accompanying me will be your only chance, however faint, of rescuing Logan Cale.”

“And why is that?”

“Because I’ll be taking you to where he’s being held.”

Max froze. “Then... you knew White’s plan all along! You were part of it.”

Bostock said, “Familiars do get... familiar. We share many things with each other — it’s a brotherhood, after all.”

“Yeah, like Cain and Abel.” She shook her head. “If you knew what White was up to — that he planned to use me to get Ray back — why did you interfere with it? Why kill that boy?”

The man’s eyes flared. “What, and allow Ames White to consolidate his power with the Conclave? I don’t think so.”

Her head was spinning. “How could a kid like that consolidate White’s power?”

Bostock sighed, as if he were dealing with a child. “Ames White had hopes and dreams for his son — and there is a small but powerful faction among the Conclave who took the youngster’s potential seriously. Others of us considered that boy weak — his mother an ordinary who betrayed us, his father a failure, the whole family nothing but a negative influence to our goals... Let’s just say I removed a small problem.”

She let out a bitter laugh. “So, for all your posing... you and this Conclave are really no better than the ordinaries, are you?”

Bostock looked baffled, and offended.

“Petty jealousy,” she said. “Nothing more than petty jealousy cost that boy his life.”

“Petty?” The word seemed to explode out of Bostock. Suddenly the calm bureaucrat was a seething demon. “It was White’s family that burdened the Conclave with you transgenics in the first place! White’s father — this Sandeman, you consider him your father don’t you, all of you? — Sandeman lost his nerve, and now we have you mutated rabble to deal with. That family must be made to pay!”

Max frowned. “What is the Conclave’s obsession with Sandeman and the transgenics?... What possible threat could we be to you and your twisted goals?”

In an instant, Bostock was the calm bureaucrat again. “You don’t know?” He seemed amused — quietly so. “You really don’t know?”

Max’s hands went to her hips. “What don’t I know?”

Bostock’s upper lip curled, and his words dripped venomous contempt: “Anything. You... don’t... know... anything .”

“I’m crushed, Franklin,” she said. “And here I thought you held me in such high regard.”

The gun still trained on her, he shook his head. “You have no idea how important you are...”

“Now I’m important ?”

“... and you’ve just delivered yourself to me all tied up in a Christmas ribbon. But you are dangerous. Perhaps too dangerous to serve as a hostage...”

He pointed the gun at Max’s head now, eyes tightening.

Alec and Joshua both started to rise, but Max patted the air, telling them to keep their position.

“If I’m so valuable, so important,” she said, easing a half a step toward him, “why kill me?”

“Your death is inevitable — it’s just a question of where and when... though it must be soon.”

“I need to die... soon .”

“Yes. You see, killing you represents victory, Max. May I call you ‘Max’? ‘Ms. Guevera’ is too formal for us now, don’t you think?... Your death means we win.”