To Kill For the Truth (BOOK 1)

CHAPTER 16 ~ Preservation of Life (Part 1)

My hands are still on the keyboard.

I can hear each breath i take, the sound rattling around my head, empty of all it had understood. I'm not sure if the way I shake my head is to try and rid myself of the confusion or to hope that when I look back something will have changed. The cursor of the computer blinks back at me, punctuating the end of that sentence I've read over and over. The words all blur together until it is just a string of nonsensical pixels before my eyes.

I input the same as I had before. Refresh the page. Refresh it again. I hope for a new answer. I hope to wake up gasping; realising in slowly dissipating horror that this was just a dream and the dots hadn't connected this way. Dreams are a simpler solution.

But the answer on the screen remains the same and I sit frozen in the darkness of the HQ cubicle, blood still dried over my knuckles, skin splitting over the seashell i clutch in my palm, wishing there were a God real enough to pray to that wasn't me. To return to the stillness of the beach, the tide nipping at my toes, and a moment, just a moment of the world making sense.

Because now that all seemed like a dream too and reality is so much uglier.

7 hours earlier.

The sea shatters upon the cliff face behind us, reflecting the darkness of the sky above, like crushed charcoal pressed into the clouds until the moon itself seemed too pale.

I ignore the way my heart jumps in my chest at the waves, forcing down the irrational response, knowing there are bigger things to focus on than whatever had happened to me under those waters hours ago. I find the rough ridges of the seashell in my pocket and I'm almost embarrassed to feel my shoulders loosen when it bites into my skin. I like to think it's because i believe what Karma said about talismans, not simply because it was him who gave this to me.

"Listen up" Tadaomi's voice carries across the sea-breeze where we all stand before him "This isn't drills, this isn't school. This is using everything you've learnt, and there are lives on the line for this. We keep the element of surprise, we have twenty minutes to familiarise ourselves with the maps Ritsu has downloaded: then we move out"

My eyes slide over the drop next to us as everyone disperses, the black waves slamming into the rock, the tips of each wave reaching up like a hand. They snag on a pebble and drag it down, the tiny speck dissolving into the vastness of it. When i blink, there is water pressing on my chest, in my mouth, burning my eyes. I inhale sharply to remind myself I'm not drowning, rubbing irritably at the scar on my sternum before turning around to the group.

"Anri" I turn straight into the form of Tadaomi, suddenly in front of me "I wanted to speak to you on your own"

"Different instructions?" I guess and he nods, his mouth a thin line.

"They're skilled, but they aren't you" he says. It's not a pleasing statement, it's the knowledge he wants to have one less person to be second eyes for and the only person that can be is me "they'll make a formidable group. You'll be the same alone"

"Then tell me my assignment, handler" I say with resigned familiarity.

"We'll all move through the building methodically, following the safest entry points. Places we can sneak through whilst avoiding anything combative. While we do, you'll be trying to get to the wherever the phone signal came from as fast as you can" His voice is the tenor of my handler, every word a lieutenant's, not my guardian "your kit is in the van, you'll have a portable version of Ritsu on your phone to track the path to the signal and to follow the blue prints"

"And am I engaging?"

"Not unless you have to, ideally he'll never know you're there. Find where he is before we do. Try and find the antidote and get out, we'll be the mess crew and handle this mystery guy. Preserving the life of the students back at the resort is the goal"