The Marked People

Bad Luck

Phoenix

It's been three days since the Red Masked organisation put out their broadcast. Three days since I've been able to do anything. In all that time I haven't been able to contact New Horizons and with each passing day I'm slowly going mad. Indigo is with those backstabbing monsters and I have no way to contact them, no way to find her.

I wonder if she's asked to talk to me, I wonder if they've given her an excuse or just flat out refused. The only reason I haven't tried to tear apart the city brick by brick to find her is because Demon is with her. He wouldn't let them hurt her. I might despise him, but I know he'll have her back.

For once Indigo isn't the only thing on my mind though as I wait in the elevator that will take me up to Aradonious' office. As soon as the Red Mask broadcast had been made, as well as the alarm that revealed one of our warehouses had been broken into I'd tried to get into contact with my brother.

It hadn't surpassed me when his assistant had told me I'd have to make an appointment, or when that appointment was cancelled and rescheduled for today. Aradonious is nothing if not petty.

Patrick had tried to insist on coming up with me but I'd managed to convince him to wait in the car. At the moment I need Aradonious on my side, which means I need to show a peaceful side, bringing in Patrick wouldn't help. Besides, I don't really want anyone to witness our conversation. There's a good chance that once we're alone, Aradonious might be more honest. Yeah, as if that's ever going to happen.

But I haven't spent these last three days being completely useless. Instead I've been gathering evidence to help prove I'm telling my brother the truth. He might want me dead, might want to lock away the girl I love, but in this particular circumstance we're actually on the same side.

Aradonious is at his desk sorting through what appears to be contracts with one of our partners. I have the a copy of the same contract back in my apartment but haven't had time to even think of checking them over. The company is the last thing on my mind at the moment.

"So, are you here to tell me where you've hidden Indigo? Or is this just a friendly check in," Aradonious says in welcome, not even looking up from his work.

"Even if I wanted to tell you, I couldn't, not at the moment anyway." The words are polite but my markings reveal my worry, my anger.

Aradonious now looks up, smirking as they change, "What, did she get sick of you? Run off and leave your heart broken?"

I let the folder I've been carrying land on top of the contract he's looking at. Aradonious still prefers hard copies of things and he just raises an eyebrow at the paper, "What? Is this your diary or something?"

"No, this is to do with the break in."

He waves a hand, "I've already have detectives on the case. Lucky for us the item stolen isn't worth much. It was never given the green light to be produced for anything, not even military. Apparently it crossed too many ethic laws." Aradonious rolls his eyes at this, "My guess is whoever broke in wanted the machine for it's processing core, probably to hijack and put into something else."

"Then there were another dozen projects down there with the same core, they've could have stolen one of the instead. Trust me, you're going to want to hear me out," I say, and manage to hold in my growl.

"I don't want to hear anything from you unless you get me back my experiment," Aradonious hisses, "The board was promised results, results I could give them until you managed to hide her away."

I'm tempted to tell him Indigo had been in his office not long ago, that she'd been right under his nose but manage to bite my tongue. No good to show all our cards. Instead I say, "Did you see the Red Mask broadcast."