Collector: City In Embers Part 20

I tucked the comforter around me tighter. The breeze from the open doors p.r.i.c.kled my skin, but I liked it. Soft pebbles of rain struck the wood deck in a soothing way. Rain made me feel alive and refreshed. My legs curled underneath me in the large chair, Daniel's book on my lap. Ryker was still gone, and Sprig couldn't handle sitting still for more than five minutes before he got the zoomies. Then he'd collapse under the pillows on the bed. The silence was heaven. Well, it was until the empty s.p.a.ce became occupied by horrific images of Lexie's and Daniel's deaths. Lexie was the worst because my mind filled in what I didn't see or know: her crying for me, her pulling herself across the floor, her trying to get to the door before pa.s.sing out from smoke inhalation.

My fingers absently rubbed at the base of my neck for comfort, my head shaking. "Stop, Zoey."

Daniel's book was the only thing that might occupy my mind, get it off my vivid depictions. I carefully opened the cover, the spine cracking like bones of an old man. The pages still felt damp from the trip into the water. Some were drying, crinkled, and more transparent than they had been. My fingers wrapped around the edges. Tears p.r.i.c.ked at my eyes. Daniel had touched this last. I petted the well-worn leather jacket like a lover. I snuggled deeper into the chair, preparing to read. I flicked through the first couple of pages when something caught my eye. Markings I hadn't seen before now appeared on the thin paper. I grabbed the candle next to me, holding it to the other side. Under random letters were dots.

I sucked in my breath and ran my thumb along the edge of the pages, flipping through them quickly, going from back to the front. It was sporadic, but on every few sheets the same kind of dot formations appeared.

My stomach tightened. I knew it was a code. Daniel had taught it to me. It was his altered version of an encryption he learned in the black ops. I never questioned learning it. I figured it was part of the training. Now thinking back, I wondered why I never did. Why would a collector need to break a code or know one?

I scrambled from the chair, book and candle in hand. My sudden movement startled Sprig. Pillows fell from him as he sat. "What? What's going on? Are the b.u.t.terflies drunk again?" He looked around, a faraway haze clinging to his features.

"Go back to sleep, Sprig." I went to the desk and pulled the drawer open. "Yes." I s.n.a.t.c.hed the notepad and hotel pen.

"But the turtles need me. They are losing in strip poker against the tree sprites," he said, clearly still half asleep.

"Then you go back and help those turtles. No one wants to have sh.e.l.l-less reptiles." I went to the bed, grabbing one of the pillows.

"Yeah... yeah." He lay back down. "Would rather have the bunnies lose."

I clicked my tongue and placed the pillow over him. "Naked bunnies, of course." I shook my head and returned to the desk. I sat, reopening the book. What would Daniel write a code for? Why in this book?

Using the program Daniel taught me, I went through the book writing the correlating letter that went with the symbol. This was only the first part. The letter he wrote the cipher under was used as a number telling me the order the letter went in. It was a giant puzzle. To anyone who didn't know it, it wouldn't make any sense. Daniel had spent countless hours teaching, drilling, and testing me on it. A voice in my gut was now telling me he had done it for a reason. Did he want me to find this book? He forced the connection I had to it. It was the one he carried everywhere with him, pushed me to read, quoted it daily. Of his entire library or any book in the world, he would know I would pick this one. It represented him. The paper and leather engulfed Daniel's essence. It didn't seem a coincidence.

It took a while, but after I got all the letters, I started on the order.

The world tilted on its axis, affirming what I had felt in my gut to be true. The first word stared back at me, sweat dampening the back of my neck despite the chilly rain.

The candlelight flickered across the first word I decoded.

Zoey.

Holy h.e.l.l. My breath quickened. I rose from the seat, needing to move. It was like his ghost came back through the pages, speaking to me with a kiss of a word. Zoey. Daniel had written this before he died and hoped I would select this one and see the code. But I wasn't sure I would have ever noticed if the book hadn't gotten wet. There was no way he would count on an incident like taking a plunge in the water. It was a very lucky happenstance.

Frantically, I worked at placing the next letters. It was time consuming and my patience was skeletal.

Zoey do not trust...

"Jesus, Daniel," I whispered. I could feel him wanting to tell me so badly, but the words would not come fast enough.

It felt like forever, but I finally worked it out. The sentence stared at me. Taunting me with its cryptic meaning.

Zoey do not trust not what it seems find my father he will help he is why it all began.

The last person I thought Daniel would be mentioning in a secret code was his father. What did he have to do with anything? And why did Daniel want me to go see Daniel Senior? Wasn't he in some home with most of his mind and memories ripped away? What would he be able to tell me?

Don't trust who? The only thing I could think of was him warning me of the DMG. When he wrote this, he couldn't have foreseen what would happen to me or DMG would turn against one of their own. By now I was well aware they were not as ethical as they once appeared. Or maybe my ethics were changing.

Daniel took the time to write a code in this book, hoping I'd find it. If he wanted me to find his father, there was a good reason. I needed to locate Daniel Senior. I pulled on the k.n.o.b of the bottom desk compartment, revealing a phone book. Would Alzheimer's facilities even be listed in the yellow pages?

This seemed another clue showing me there was more to DMG than I formerly believed. And it seemed connected to me. Kettenburg solidified the notion. The DMG knew who I was before they ever recruited me. How would they know what I could do? Why were they watching me and for how long? I learned early to hide or pretend I didn't have the sight. So why did they ask Kettenburg to watch me? They had him teach every course in psychology so he could keep an eye on me? Why?

I couldn't make the connections yet, but it was clear. They had been lying to me since the day I walked through their doors. I needed to figure out the reason.

It was late evening by the time Ryker returned. He walked in while I was lying on the floor, Sprig sitting on my back, holding a flashlight, as I circled places in the phone book.

"What about this one?" Sprig stabbed at the page with his long finger.

"No." I bit the end of my pen. "I'm sure Daniel mentioned driving to see his father. I don't think he's in the city."

"What is going on?" Ryker shut the door, a paper bag clutched in his other hand. The smell of French fries and hamburgers wafted deliciously into my nose. My mouth watered, and I bolted. Sprig clung on like he was in a rodeo, then pulled himself onto my shoulder, his tail wrapping around my neck.

"Do you have fast food?" I went for the sack in Ryker's hand, seeing the familiar emblem displayed across the bag. "No way. How did you get it?"

He pushed past me, walking to the desk. "I ventured a little beyond town so I would have less chance of being recognized. There are a few restaurants in the northern suburbs using generators to open for a few hours a day."

"Oh my G.o.d. You have no idea what I found." I picked up The Art of War and held it to my chest. "Daniel left me a code in this book." He placed the bag down and turned to me. "Daniel taught me this comprehensive encryption system..." I waved my hand. "But that's not important. Look!" I slammed the piece of paper on the desk and held the flashlight on it.

Ryker leaned over and read the words. "Okay, so we find this guy's father."

The wind in my sails fluttered down. He was not as excited by this discovery as I was. "Yeah, but come on. This is a huge thing. He might be able to tell me something. Tell me what is going on." If he wasn't having a bad day and knew his own name. The probability of me finding out anything from him was slim, but I was going to take the chance.

I told Ryker about the night Mr. Kettenburg stopped me. So much had gone on since then, I had forgotten. Again, he wasn't as thrilled as I was about the news.

"Zoey, this is your fight. If he can tell me where Garrett is hiding Amara or how I can get my powers back from you, then you will see me eager about going to see a human or the fact the DMG was stalking you in your preteen years."

"I was in college."

"Same difference."

My nose scrunched in frustration. "You're right, Sprig." I peeked at the animal on my shoulder. "He really is a Viking."

"To the highest degree." Sprig nodded.

"If that is supposed to upset me, it doesn't."

I watched him pull items from the bag. The aroma of the food quelled my anger and turned my focus back to my stomach. My tongue ran over my lips. "Smells amazing."

"I didn't know what you'd like, so I got a few things." He continued to withdraw more paper-wrapped grub.

My head tilted, and I peered at him. "You didn't pay for this, did you?"

"They received payment."

My hands went to my hips, an eyebrow arching.

"Or so they believed." He smirked. "We don't have money. You want me to take it back?" He grabbed for a hamburger.

"No!" I s.n.a.t.c.hed it first.

I was in no place to judge and cared even less when the warm burger hit my taste buds. Flavor sang in my mouth after weeks of the bland and tasteless.

Saving the candles and flashlight batteries, we sat on the floor, leaning against the bed, consuming the bag of food. The night was pitch black, the storm clouds covering the sky in a thick murky cream. I could barely distinguish Ryker's profile, but his bulk was solid next to mine. The heat permeating from him warmed me. Sprig curled on the bed right by my head after eating half the bag of fries, the food coma luring him into slumber.

"He's like a puppy. Go-go-go. Then, bam, asleep." I petted his soft fur.

"If he p.o.o.ps on the rug, you're cleaning it up."

I smiled, my gaze returning to Ryker. His glowing eyes flicked to mine, then back out the doors. We sat for a while in silence. I rubbed at my full and happy stomach, listening to the rain pelting down.

Ryker adjusted next to me, and finally he spoke. "My past is a sensitive area for me, and I'd like to leave it in the past."

I pulled my knees to my chest. "I completely get that. I understand about wanting to forget or not wanting to relive your past." I put my chin on my knees. "Believe me. There is nothing in mine I care to remember, and most of it I would like purged from my mind forever."

"Like?" he replied.

"Now who's being nosy?"

He nodded, stuffing the last fry in his mouth.

What gave me the urge to talk, I can't say. The need probably had been sitting on my chest for years, but I never spoke a word of it to anyone, especially Daniel. I hadn't wanted him to look at me differently.

I never had any real friends, no one who went beyond the superficial level. You had to trust and let someone in for you to really be friends. I doubted it was ever going to happen for me. Where I was from, trust was a sacred thing and could easily be used against you. The person who knew me best was Lexie, and still she was unaware of most of my past. I kept the ugly stuff from her. She was way too young to know the full truth. She didn't need my c.r.a.p on her, too.

Telling Ryker seemed strangely appropriate. I knew he didn't care enough to think differently of me and even less to use it against me. It was like talking in an empty confession booth. It felt good to let it out, giving voice to my horrors, which lived inside me, tearing slowly at the cage I locked them in.

Ryker listened to it all: the beatings, drugs, alcohol, stealing, and the abuse. But he stiffened when I told the story about one of my foster fathers and the countless times he came to my bedroom, starting at the age of nine. Until I shot him. It was only in the leg. I was aiming higher, but I was young and didn't know how to handle a gun very well. After the failed attempt, I learned. I would not miss again.

DMG had their employees go to therapy, but I was good at getting out of talking in detail about my past. I would invent stuff or gloss over it. Some hoity-toity b.i.t.c.h with coiffed hair and a clipboard was not going to get me to bare my soul.

"Did you ever tell anyone?"

"I tried, but I discovered my nine-year-old voice was not strong enough against an adult's. He was good at making me the liar, and his wife was even worse. It didn't matter if she knew the truth. She backed her husband 100 percent. I was the ungrateful brat. He would punish me even more for saying something, so I stopped talking after a while and took it, half believing I deserved it in some way. After all, I was the girl no one wanted..." My voice quivered, and I coughed to clear it. "Whatever he did was clearly my fault, and I must have deserved it." I was speaking from my nine-year-old thoughts and not what I presently believed.

"Where is he now? Was he ever caught?"

"Not that I am aware of." I hugged my legs tighter. "It's what eats at me. He probably continued to do it to the next little girl they took in. I was eleven when I left their home, and I wanted to forget it. Now I feel horrible for letting it happen to some girl after me because I didn't try hard enough."

"You were a kid."

"Doesn't matter."

"You are remaining the victim."

"What?" My spine straightened, and I whirled to face him.

"You are blaming yourself instead of putting it where it should rightfully be. He was a grown man, a repulsive human who took advantage of an innocent little girl. He is the sick f.u.c.k. You are not to blame."

"I know."

His eyes pierced me. "Do you?"

My lower lip quivered, but I kept my gaze on him. I hated the man who took my innocence. I did blame him, but I blamed and hated myself almost as much for letting it happen. Somewhere deep inside, I still thought I somehow deserved it.

"Zoey?"

I blinked and looked away. My jaw clenched. "I am not weak."

"Weakness has nothing to do with it. It doesn't make you vulnerable to admit you had no control of a situation. What makes you powerless is putting the blame on yourself and easing it off the culprit. To take on what he did and make it your own." His voice stayed deep and soothing. He remained matter of fact, but the words struck me deeply. "And you are one of the toughest humans I ever met. You are anything but weak."

It was like the rain opened up on the desert. The simple but needed words, especially from him, broke me. He sat in obvious discomfort, watching me cry before he finally pulled me into his arms. My tears soaked his s.h.i.+rt. His hand slid over my head repeatedly, trying to calm me. My crying freaked him out, but he didn't tell me to stop. I could feel the weight of my tears. The things I went through would not heal immediately, but by letting them go for the first time, I felt there was a chance. Someday they wouldn't control me.

My sobs ebbed to sniffles. I pushed away from his chest, but his hands stayed on either side of my face, cupping the weight of my head. "Thank you," I uttered.

He watched me, his eyes roaming across my face. My eyes locked on his, and I couldn't seem to look away. My heart leaped into my throat and hammered in my chest.

Suddenly a rumble came from the bed, and we jumped a part. A putrid smell wafted to us. Sprig released a contented sigh in his sleep.

"Oh my G.o.d." I laughed, my nose scrunched, and I fanned my hand in front of me. Another wave of gas fluttered from Sprig.

"He's not getting fast food again." Ryker jumped, moving toward the fresh air.

I followed Ryker to the open doors.

"d.a.m.n." Ryker held his nose in the crook of his arm, shaking his head at the figure on the bed. "How does something so smelly come from something so small?"

I pushed away the odd moment Ryker and I almost did or didn't have. A strange moment meant to be ignored. The saying "saved by the bell"-well, we were saved by monkey farts.

I couldn't be more thankful to Sprig and his indigestion of greasy processed food.

NINETEEN.

The morning brought more rain. Seattle. Some days I thought I'd lose my mind if it rained one more minute, the clouds working as a co-conspirator and hiding the sun. Other times, mostly when I was warm inside looking out, I loved it. Today was not one of those days. I reached my peak of being cold, wet, and dirty.

Ryker seemed especially silent and Sprig overly chatty. Both were driving me nuts. For once I didn't feel anger bursting off Ryker, but he was in an odd mood. I couldn't pin it down. I would find him covertly glancing at me, but I could not decipher the meaning in his looks.

The trek was long to the care facility where Daniel Senior lived. As we traveled, I noticed the number of homeless seemed to be growing every time I turned my head. Groups of people were huddled in crude shelters they had erected. They were digging through trash or trying to set traps for rats and pigeons as food. The Red Cross shelters had only so much room, and some people preferred not to go there, wanting to fend for themselves.

Help could already be seen in the downtown area. Fire departments and volunteers worked different areas, and dogs hunted for live or dead bodies under buildings. The need was still too great and not enough hands or money. Sadly, the poorer the area the less likely any help would be coming for them, not for a long while anyway.

We walked through several tent cities on our way. People huddled together under tarps with fires they built in whatever could hold it without burning itself up. They stared at us, leery of why we were traveling through. Some ignored us, and others came out to us, like guard dogs, telling us to continue-there was no place for us here.