Obscure

Chapter 1

Elias

Even deep under the orchard, the sterile filtered air of the bunker still held the faint sweetness of the coming apple harvest. Elias breathed in the scent of comfort, the scent of home. He needed that comfort.

Tonight, as on every other bunker night, he was walking a tightrope. Across the orchard, in the drafty, too-big farmhouse, Laina could wake up at any moment to find her husband out of bed in the middle of the night. And there was the other risk of discovery, the deadly risk, not from the woman he loved but from the enemy.

He had never fallen off that tightrope yet. He was under no illusions that it meant he was safe.

The bunker was a twenty-by-twenty space, as welcoming as he could make it. A cot in one corner, made up with a quilt handed down from Laina's grandmother. Laina had never liked the quilt or the grandmother, so she hadn't shed any tears when he had told her it was lost.

A bookshelf in another corner held a smattering of dog-eared bestsellers of yore, scavenged from yard sales and thrift stores. A mini-fringe, regularly restocked, held enough food for a week—assuming the guest rationed it carefully. That was the longest he had ever needed to keep anyone down here.

Behind him, the air filtration system let out a constant hiss. Across from him at the square vinyl table, the woman with the hood over her head drew in a ragged breath. Her hands trembled in her lap.

She was afraid. They were always afraid. Afraid of him, at first—the way he had to operate made that unavoidable. And afraid of the enemy. He wouldn't try to talk her out of that latter fear. She needed it. It was one of the few things he would leave her when she left.

He pulled the hood off her head, slow and gentle. He folded it on the table next to him as he settled back into his seat. Then he rested his hands on the table so she could see that he had nothing to hide.

He schooled his face into a fatherly expression. Not a smile. She wouldn't trust a smile, not after the way she had come here. The hood, the car ride to parts unknown, the assurances his associates would have given her that they were there to help—unconvincing with no accompanying explanation. An unavoidable problem.

He met her eyes, his face solemn but soft. He tried to look both unthreatening and utterly in control. Like someone who could be trusted. Like someone who could take care of everything. Most of all, like someone who had no reason to be afraid.

It had been a long time since he had been anyone's father. But he remembered it had felt something like that.

Especially the lying. In truth, he had never been in control. He had always been afraid.

Her eyes belonged to a rabbit trapped in a hawk's gaze. Her shaking didn't stop. "This is a mistake." Her trembling voice lacked conviction. It told him she knew it was no such thing. "I don't know what you want from me." Even less convincing.

"I'm not who you think I am," he said. "You asked certain questions online. One of my people found you before someone worse could."

"I don't know what you're talking about." But even if she had been a decent liar, he would have noticed the way her eyes widened when he mentioned her online activity.

"The fact that you suspected those questions might have placed you in danger puts you ahead of most people," said Elias. "Have you had an encounter with them before?"

She visibly weighed further unconvincing lies against her curiosity. Curiosity won out. She shook her head. "But that's how it always goes in stories, isn't it? When there are people like us, there's always a them."