Watchers

Chapter 44: The Secret Garden

Daniel and Sasha can't tell Jane much with their backs to each other in a room that isn't quite crowded enough to allow their voices to blend into the greater conversation. Beyond practical security considerations, Daniel isn't sure how much they should tell her, anyway... like what's really in her meatballs. If someone told him what he was eating right after he'd just taken a big bite, there's no way he would be able to keep it down, and that would certainly attract the bad kind of attention.

So they tell her that everything here isn't as it seems and Father Gary can't be trusted, and then they ask her if there's a private place where they can talk and figure out their exit plan.

She snorts and looks up at the cameras mounted near the ceiling. "Private? What kind of world are you living in?"

"What about the garden?" Sasha suggests.

"There are cameras out there too, I'm sure," Daniel says.

"It'll be harder to hear us talking with the wind blowing and the sounds of the city," she points out. "I can't think of a better place, can you?"

"No," Daniel admits. "But you can't come."

"What? Why?"

"Because you know Jane too well, for one thing," he says. "It'll be clear from a mile away that there's a connection, and you two are supposed to be strangers. Besides, all three of us going out there will definitely attract attention. What business do we have in the garden?"

"Smoking," Jane supplies. "It's common for people to go out there for that."

"I guess I am out, then," Sasha says. "I can never smoke one of those things without coughing up a lung. But what am I supposed to do while you two are planning our getaway?"

"Figure out how we're going to defend ourselves without that knife," Daniel says, and Sasha rolls her eyes.

"Whatever you say, Bobby Flay."

Daniel gets up and takes his dishes to the shelter residents who are waiting to collect and wash them. He has combined Sasha's full plate of spaghetti with his own so that if their refusal to eat raises suspicions, only one of them will fall under scrutiny. Then instead of returning to the table, he walks casually out of the great room.

Father Gary is walking through the door just as Daniel reaches it and he's suddenly lightheaded. If going on the road with his father all those times taught him anything, though, it's that your enemies can smell fear and it's a dead giveaway. So even though all he wants to do is turn and run in the other direction, Daniel holds his head high and gives Father Gary a little nod as he walks past him.

Then he high-tails it to the garden, heart thumping in his chest.

Jane joins him a few minutes later, long enough to keep people from thinking their meeting is intentional. She pulls out a battered pack of cigarettes and stays close to the building.

Daniel turns his body to block the wind and asks, "Can I bum one?"

She gives him a cigarette and they talk in low tones. He still can't bring himself to tell her what she ate for dinner, so he just tells her that Father Gary knocked him and Sasha out the last time they were here, and they woke up on the set of a reality show intent on killing them off.

"So what do you think he's doing, combing the streets for reality show contestants?" Jane asks, her expression cynical.

"He wanted me because my father's a politician and a lot of people would be interested to watch me squirm," Daniel says. "Sasha was an accident. There's other bad things he's doing here and we'll fill you in on all of that later. The most important thing right now is getting you out."

"What about everyone else?" Jane says. "If it's really so bad, can we leave the others behind?"

"One step at a time," Daniel says. "The mission is to rescue you first, then we'll regroup and figure out how to take down Father Gary."

Jane sighs, taking all of this in, and says, "He's always treated me well. Fed me, sheltered me, gave me a job."

"I know it's hard to believe," Daniel says, wondering if he'll have no choice but to tell Jane the gruesome things that are happening in the basement before she'll believe him. He really doesn't want to say it out loud. He settles on some slightly less macabre evidence and says, "He strung Sasha up by her heels and he was going to have her killed for trying to leave. The only reason he changed his mind was because she fought so hard he thought she'd be a good fighter on the reality show, too."

"I just can't believe it," Jane says, but just when Daniel thinks he'll have no choice but to tell her the whole truth, she adds, "So how do we get out of here?"

They talk until their cigarettes burn down to the filters and agree that their best chance will be tomorrow morning. The shelter is always at its most chaotic when everyone is beginning their day and heading to their various jobs within the Haven, and it will be their best chance to slip out unnoticed.

Daniel sighs as they head back inside, bracing himself for one more night in the shelter, but when they get back to the great room they find it in chaos.

There are at least five Watchers in the room, along with the nuns and Father Gary, and they're all trying to herd the crowd into some semblance of order. They're looking for someone, and Daniel doesn't need to guess who. The drones must have pinpointed their location and the Watchers themselves came out from behind their computer screens to finish the job.

In the crowd, Sasha is trying to remain calm but her eyes are much larger than they ought to be for an innocent bystander. She glances over at Daniel and Jane in the doorway and mouths the words help me.