The Enemy Beside Me + The Liar Beside Me (Book 1 and 2)

Chapter 13

WATANABE'S PHONE rings and rings, and each second that slithers by, Alasdair grows uneasy.

What is he up to? Alasdair doesn't like it. He doesn't like how his right-hand man acted without his authority. Watanabe follows hesitantly, but he also always complies. Not tonight, though. And it's obvious he's been planning this.

There's only one man whom Watanabe will follow without any pause.

He sends Declan a message. He can't trust his men because whether he accepts it or not, as long as Kaito is alive, they're not truly his.

Alasdair shrugs on his coat and slips his phone inside its pocket. There's another phone inside his jeans, a tiny and flat one. He'd purchased it from a merchant a year ago. He'd made sure that no one knew about it. He's paranoid, and he has long admitted that.

Gingerly, he crawls under his bed, searches in the dark, and traces the outline of a secret door. He knocks four times and taps the floor lightly two times until a hissing sound whispers in his ears—it's still strange to be able to hear clearly. A panel slides open, revealing a black mirror. He presses his hand on it and waits until it identifies his fingerprints. Now the actual door is open. Alasdair rolls on his back and enters.

The Yamato household possesses many secret passages. He's chosen the easiest one since someone is guarding the outside of his room. And mostly, this is the exit his father does not know. His mother made this before she'd lost her mind. It was her ticket out of this hell, her words, not Alasdair's.

He knows it's a long shot. Kaito might be playing tricks on him again, challenging him. But he has to do it. He has to know what Kaito had said that made Watanabe betray him. And mostly, he has to make sure Eien is safe.

* * * *
When he drops to the cold floor, the first thing he sees is a large figurine of Mary carrying Jesus as a baby. Without breaking off his eye contact with Mary, Alasdair taps the ceiling and the sound of the door sliding down thunders in his ears. He knows there's no way anyone outside his room could've heard it, and yet his heart does a small somersault.

Sometimes it slips from his mind that his mother was a Catholic, just like Declan. He shakes his head. No, he has never forgotten about it. There are things he'd rather not admit to himself.

He can never understand how the late Mrs Yamato still had faith in her God when it had never helped her when she was suffering. Her imagination had made her more insane as she knelt to no one and prayed for days until her knees bled.

To be fair, he has no animosity against any deity. They are, after all, just products of humanity's desperation. It was his mother's fault and no one else.

Slowly, Alasdair glides his fingers to Mary's hand, the very hand that cradles Her son. He inserts his finger through the gap, and within a second, the hand of Mary blinks a faint green. He shoves his hand to his pocket as he waits.

The floorboard makes a hissing sound. In a blink, Mary and Jesus sink to the bottom. He's about to slip through when he feels another presence near him. Without hesitating, he turns around and erodes the person's weapon. A short yelp blares through the tunnel before the person drops the now useless gun. It clatters and skids near him.

His eyes widen. Another one! He commands his gift to do its work, and yet the sharp needles that pierce through his thigh and arm are much faster than his reaction. The effect doesn't take long. His vision swims with warped images; he hears nothing but overlapping sharp sounds.

Alasdair wills himself to stay awake, but another needle pricks his neck.