Up From The Deep by Vaughn Jackson (highly recommended books txt) 📕

“Displeasure,” she screamed. “If you so much as look at me wrong, I will break as many of your bones as I can before your men kill me.”

“They are only under orders to subdue you,” he said.

“Then I guess you’ll have a lot of broken bones,” she spat.

“Perhaps,” he said flatly. “There is a reason I brought you here, and it is not what you may be thinking.”

“Where is here?”

“I drugged you so you wouldn’t know, and you think I’ll just tell you?”

“Worth a shot.”

“I brought you here because—”

“Hush,” Skylar cut him off and listened intently to the silence. “I can’t hear Inkanyamba. If we were still in or near Las Vegas we’d hear her rampage.”

“You are correct.” Kurtis blinked slowly. “May I finish?”

“If you must.”

“I can no longer in good conscience support the actions of Tempest,” he said. His eyes locked on to her intensely, waiting for a response.

Skylar sat down on a satin upholstered stool with a scowl. “I don’t believe you.”

“One of our newest leaders has veered the organization in a direction that I believe is counter to our overall goals. Surprisingly, the others support her. I am the only dissenting opinion.”

“What do you want me to say?”

“I need your help.”

“No.”

“Please.”

“Fuck you.”

“Dammit Skylar, I’m serious, I can’t do this anymore.” The faintest hint of tears glistened at the corners of his eyes. “We were supposed to capture the creature and use it as a threat to allow us to operate as we wanted without any threat from the world governments. A safeguard against things like Interpol interference. But Jia Ming wants to burn the world and let Tempest rule what remains in the ashes. I have no stomach for murder, especially not on this scale.”

“So your gang gets too violent and now you want to tuck and run. You’re a coward, Kurtis.” She stood and shouted at him. “You shot my best friend. How many people did your raid on the base kill? Or the people in Vegas who couldn’t get out?”

“These weren’t my plans,” he shouted back.

“But you did nothing to stop them, did you?”

“They would have killed me.”

“Well then they’d have done something right for a change.”

Kurtis’ face went pale. He sat in a chair on the opposite side of the room. “You’re right. I’m a coward. My whole purpose in this organization is…was…to keep us from the limelight, and minimize the ripples of our actions, so this…this is egregious to me.” He gave her a pained look. “I don’t expect you to trust me, not right now, maybe not ever. But I’m not lying to you and I want to stop this.” He rose, brushed off his slacks, and gave her a solemn smile. “Someone will be by with dinner shortly.”

Skylar failed to resist the urge to cross the room and slug him right in his pouting face.

He toppled to the ground and rubbed his jaw. “What the fuck?”

“We’re nowhere near even,” she said.

“You could’ve taken my head off,” he said. “I have a bo—”

He cut himself off. “Ow,” he finished.

Skylar scowled and waited until he left the room. When the lock clicked, and she no longer heard his footstep in the hall outside the door she began her search of the room, looking for anything that could aid in her escape. Nothing. Everything heavy was bolted to the floor, and the room had been stripped of anything conducive to freedom.

“Skylar,” a voice said, barely audible and muffled sounding.

She searched around for the source of the voice until she came to a small vent down by the side of the bed.

“Skylar,” the voice said again. “It’s Ashleigh.”

“Ashleigh, oh my god, you’re okay?”

“Yeah,” she said.

Skylar slumped to the floor down by the vent. “Did Kurtis come see you?”

“No, but I heard you talking to him.”

“He said he wants to help us.”

“Do you buy it?”

“No,” she spat, then softened. “I don’t know.”

“Can you keep him engaged? Maybe get us out of here?”

“I can’t stand him!”

“He likes you though. We can use that.”

Skylar put her head in her hands. “Do I have to?”

“Of course not, but I’m not sure how we get out of here without you playing along,” Greenwood said. “And, if he does actually mean what he’s saying…”

“We need all the help we can get against Inkanyamba,” Skylar said with a sigh.

The silence from the other end of the vent was all the answer she needed. She ran her hands through her hair, stood up, and began pacing back and forth in the room. There was a knock at the door. Skylar straightened out her shirt, and said in a flat voice, “Come in.”

The door opened and Kurtis entered with a burger on a large purple plate. Skylar almost laughed when she saw that there was a knife and fork alongside the meal.

“I thought you said someone else would be by with dinner,” she said.

“I said someone would be by,” he said, “I’m someone.”

“You are indeed.” She looked at the burger. “I don’t eat meat.”

“You told me back in the lab. It’s a veggie burger. Vegan cheese?” He put the plate on the desk and turned to leave the room.

“Kurtis,” she called before he left.

He turned and raised an eyebrow at her.

“Let’s say I believe you…you’ll have to give me more to go on than your word.”

“Like what?” He closed the door again, and leaned up against it, with his hands buried deep in his pockets.

“Tell me who’s in charge of Tempest.”

“You know I can’t do that.”

“You’re planning on betraying them anyway,” Skylar said. “The only way we can really stop them is if we know who they are.”

Kurtis took a deep breath and stepped away from the door, walking across the room until he stood directly in front of her. “You’re right.”

Skylar’s heart skipped a beat.

“I’ll tell you about the one we need to stop first. Is that okay?”

“For now.”

Kurtis rubbed his face. “There are seven of us, The Hands of Fate. Each hand has something in its grip, a function that only