Destinata (Valguard) (9 page)

“For now we can, and Kara will warn us if his course changes, she’s watching him like a hawk.”

Slowly but surely she accepted the fact that for now they were safe from Jaramm and also for now let the news of Lucas Corp. drop, there were bigger problems at hand to worry about without having the added stress of fussing over a multi-billion dollar corporation who wanted information about the town they lived in.

“Fine.
First things first then. How are we planning on getting my mom out of town hall?”

Three days later Charlie, Zane and Ford headed out, finally having come up with a plan that everyone was happy with.

It was pitch black out, the only source of light coming from the glow of Charlie and Zane’s eyes and yet Charlie could see everything as if it were the middle of the day. Well not exactly like it was the middle of the day, the colors at night were brilliant. Everything was tinged with a blue-purple color and all shone brilliantly in her new eyes.

“Is this how you see at night all the time? It’s amazing!”

She whipped her head excitedly to find Zane’s face.

“Yea, pretty much.
Beautiful huh.”

The smile on Charlie’s face answered him, the need for words drowned out by
the small gesture that seemed to linger on her face for several minutes longer than necessary given the task at hand.

“Are you guys going to stand around and marvel at the beauty of the world all night or get on with the mission?”

“Sorry Ford, it’s just if you could see it…”

“If I could see it, I would be a Valguard and our town really isn’t lacking in those already.”

His attempt at a joke struck a chord with Charlie that she would address later. Right now, they were going to spring her mom from spending her life in a dark, dank underground cell. Her emotions mixed, she wasn’t sure whether she should be excited, happy, worried or utterly terrified. The vision she’d had a few days before had been replaying in her head all day and the fact that she was about to face the same place the vision had come on so suddenly didn’t exactly sit comfortably with her. How was she to know that seeing what she had that day hadn’t been a warning for this night? Kara didn’t seem to think so and neither did Zane but Charlie still had her doubts.

“Ok, let’s get this done.”

Charlie saw a curtain waver out of the corner of her eye and looked towards her house. Seeing Eloise’s face staring out into the dark she gave her a small wave but instead of returning the wave El’ closed her eyes and the curtains. Maybe she should have told her what was happening but that wouldn’t have helped matters any. El’ hadn’t believed a word of what Charlie had told her about her mom being held captive and even if she had, she would have wanted to tag along and that was one more person for Charlie to feel obligated to save. No this was definitely the best way. She gave another short wave at the window, sure that El’ was still standing behind the curtain and moved on.

They moved in single file towards the big building looking over the middle of town in
the darkness; Ford managing to convince Matt to hack into Tole’s main power grid and shut off power to the whole town, without so much as telling him a single word about what they were doing. It would be hours before they would figure out how to restore power which gave them a good chance to get Charlie’s mom to safety before they restored power to the town.

The small tunnel that led to the internal closet in the town hall seemed smaller than Charlie remembered from
the last time she had crawled through it. She felt claustrophobic this time around and a sense of fear surrounded her that had nothing to do with the horrid stench that was now saturating the air around them. While the smell that had lingered three days ago had reminded her of the musty clutter around Kara’s house, tonight’s smelled as if hundreds of rats had died in there since their departure earlier that day.

Finally emerging into the somewhat better smelling closet Charlie took her first deep breath since entering the building. No hesitation in her movements this time, she reached for the knob on the inside of the door and burst her way through to the other side, worried that if she stopped too long her visions would return and confirm her fears. The
y did not however make an appearance and although feeling slightly nauseated it had nothing to do with an oncoming vision and more to do with the uncertainty of what was coming next. Whatever was coming, Charlie was running out to meet it head on. This was for her mom; the woman who had given birth to her, who had nursed her when she was sick, who had wiped away her tears with a kiss and who had been there for her every step of the way. She couldn’t possibly let her mom down in her time of need, she would get her out of there no matter what the consequences.

Zane took
the lead once they had reached the main hall, moving towards the door at the back of the large room he motioned for Charlie and Ford to stay close behind him. The door led to a set of steps that Charlie knew used to lead to the dark basement of Mrs. Henderson’s house. Back then she’d had it separated into three parts. One was a living room, one was used as storage (in case of disaster) and one a room for her to sit in peace and read the numerous amounts of books she owned. Now though it had been converted to a stark grey barren place, there was nothing there but nothing. There was only one window set high up in the far side of the wall, no furniture, no flooring bar the aging concrete and no fixtures that could be seen. The only sound was the soft taps of their footfalls. Charlie had the immediate sense that they should turn back but they were too far in now to turn away and besides, what kind of daughter would she be if she left her mom here to rot?

They realized there was a problem within seconds of being in the room. There were no doors. Maybe they had come to the wrong spot? Maybe there was another way into the holding area where Eva resided. No, they had come to the right place, she could feel it. She couldn’t explain it but she definitely
knew that they were in the right spot.

Charlie started to move around the dark room
looking for any other entry points but coming up empty. That is until she tripped over something small on the bare floor. Patting her hands blindly around the floor she finally found what she was looking for. A tiny handle that protruded from the otherwise smooth concrete. She motioned for Zane and Ford to come and help her lift it but was able to pry it open a crack before they could reach her. She felt the air blow out in a rush towards her face and saw with shock that there was a light inside. Obviously they were running a generator for this part of the building but she wasn’t so sure that having a lightened area to move around in was a good thing in this case, though it would certainly make walking a lot easier. The glow from Charlie’s eyes had been growing dimmer and dimmer as the night had passed and was now all but a twinkle – like a flashlight about to go out – and with it went her heightened sense of sight.

Nodding in agreement with her thoughts Ford moved over and heaved on the small handle to allow passage through the trap door that they hoped would lead them to the cell containing Eva.
Ford led the way underground, following closely down the rickety ladder Charlie wondered whether her mom would look as she had in the vision or whether she would be worse than feared. It was almost time to find out, she knew they were close now, she could feel it from somewhere within, like her body was playing a game of Marco-Polo and the shouts were getting closer with each step.

Taking command once again, Charlie’s ‘feeling’ led her where her heart and mind knew not to go. The conflicted feelings within her waged a war on her body and she felt sick once again. Pausing for nothing, not even the retching that was almost crippling, she pushed on through and made her way around a tight corner of the vast underground. She knew that if she could just walk faster and leave caution to the wind she would be reunited with her mother within minutes. So why was it that the closer she got the closer the feeling of dread became?

Her heart hammering and her pulse racing, she picked up speed with each step wanting to know what lay beyond the walls that separated her and Eva. One more left turn and they were in the holding room but to their surprise Eva was not in her cell. Her bed sheets were askew and a bed pan overturned in the corner of the small room, a bottle of water, its contents dried up, still lay on its side on the bed.

No! Oh god no! What have they done with her?

“Mom. Are you still in here?”

Charlie whispered
the question to the empty room but knew the answer to the question before she had asked it. She knew her mom wasn’t still in the holding room. They had removed her. Somehow, someone had caught on to what they were doing and they had taken her away before Charlie, Zane and Ford even had a chance to get inside the building. But how? They had spoken to no one else but Kara about their plans and there is no way Kara would risk her own daughter’s life. Would she? One thing was certain, when Charlie found her mom she would be finding out.
“Charlie, we have to go. We can’t stay here if they know.”

“I know, let’s go.”

The trip back seemed a lot faster than the slow grinding walk into the holding cell and before long they were back at the stairs that led up into the main hall. Charlie moved forward reaching for the handle of the door that would lead through the main hall and out of the building but was caught by Ford who had a strange look on his face.

“We closed this door.
I
closed this door.”

“Yea, so?”

“So then why is it open?”

Charlie hadn’t noticed but the door was in fact open. It was only ajar a fraction but it was definitely open which could only mean one thing.

“They’ve been in here.”

“Wrong! They
are
in here!”

Charlie spun on her heals to face the familiar voice.
Mayor Reynolds stood in the shadows at the back of the room making it almost impossible to make out his features but by the glint of the moon now shining in from the small, high set window behind him, she could see that the Mayor held a gun in his hand, the glint reflecting into her eyes and half blinding her.

“Mayor Reynolds, what are you doing here?”

Trying to sound innocent and failing Ford stepped forward, shielding Charlie from the aim of the handgun now pointed directly at his chest.

“I should ask you the same question Mr. Williams, I wasn’t aware that a meeting was held without me to grant you permission back into town.”

“I wasn’t aware I needed permission to come back to my home Mayor. I also wasn’t aware that I would be shot for doing so.”

“Oh the gun isn’t for coming home Ford, it’s for meddling where you shouldn’t have been. You know just as well as anyone else around here that the Town Hall is off limits after dark Mr. Williams and trespassers will be shot. Of course if the old hag hadn’t have given the
bitch
the key to get in, we wouldn’t be in this predicament would we?”

Charlie could see Zane from the corner of her eye, moving silently through the shadows around the edge of the room; obviously the Mayor hadn’t seen him yet.
She guessed that he had put his sunglasses on before the shine of his eyes had attracted Mayor Reynold’s attention thankfully because right now, he was their only hope for a way out of this mess. She wished she could tell Ford to just keep the Mayor talking until Zane had moved full circle to reach him but knowing she couldn’t she stepped forward and took over.

“Where’s my mother?!”

“Oh, the niceties are over I see Miss. Dawson. You know Ford, you really should learn to keep your women better controlled. They all seem to get themselves in trouble.”

He was antagonizing Ford, just waiting for a reason to shoot him but there was no way in hell Charlie was going to let any more death come to her family and friends.

“Where… is… she?!”

“Now, now Charlie, there’s no reason to be hostile. Your mother is in the safe hands of the staff at the mental asylum, you know that.”

“My mother is nowhere near that mental asylum and you know that better than anyone! Now what did you do with her?”

Seeing Zane move around behind the Mayor and get into position to take him out, Charlie ever so slightly shook her head, enough that Zane would see she wanted her question answered first but not enough that the Mayor would take notice of it. He waited as she knew he would.

“All in good time my dear. I’m sure by first light you will have found her.”

An odd gleam passed over his face giving him a disturbing look that Charlie had never noticed before. Until the last couple of days had passed she had always thought of him as the middle aged cuddly bear type of man; his smile always seemed to reach his big round eyes, his voice low and quiet, the middle aged spread rounding off the cuddly uncle look better
than anyone she knew. Now though, these things just accentuated his sinister actions.

“Bastard!
If you have hurt her… if she even has one scratch on her, I swear to god I will kill you!”

He didn’t have time to reply. Just as he opened his mouth Zane hit him across the back of the head harder than Charlie thought was possible and the Mayor’s flabby form dropped to the floor in front of them, his head landing at her feet. Stepping back in disgust she looked up as the lights overhead flickered on. Zane looked up and closed his eyes briefly in apprehension.

“Dam! We need to get out of here now!”

“Agreed.”

Taking no chances, they ran without hesitation across the main hall and straight into the small closet that would lead them out without setting off any alarms. Through the big front doors and numerous windows on their way to the closet they could see the faint light of day beginning on the outside. The familiar light grey color meant that once again it was overcast and there was a good chance that it would be raining again today. The Mayor’s last words echoed back through Charlie’s mind.
‘by first light you will have found her’.