Eccentricities (book one of the Eccentric Worlds Saga)

Eight

"Show me."

The kitchen table had been abandoned in place of the closet. It was tightly packed, smelled strongly of stale air, and as Melanie stepped inward she realized that it had never been cleared out for use but, rather, crates and boxes and cleaning supplies had been tossed out of the way, leaving just enough room for a few of them to stand. Melanie stood in the doorway beside Kenna, staring intently into the dark room.

A flip of a switch and light spread into the room. At once, Melanie realized that it wasn't pealing wallpaper she had seen but papers themselves.

Printed out article clippings, redacted documents.

And photos.

Eighteen photos. Eighteen faces. All faces Melanie had seen on the news time and time again.

These were the missing persons currently gone from Rockheart.

"What is this?"

Nigel shoved his hands in his pockets. "These.... These are Blacks."

Melanie's finger flew to her ear, the tag heavy against it still, gum stale in her mouth.

"Eighteen missing persons cases in the last three months," Pearson said as he stepped into the room. He didn't address Melanie, though. He spoke to the walls as he passed them by, glancing over information Melanie was certain he had seen a thousand times before. "All of which at some point in time have shown up on CASTE cameras while within the facilities."

Kenna nodded to the images from behind. "I was the first to notice them. I was slinking around CASTE not too long-ago doing intel when I saw Collectors dragging one of the missing persons inside."

"Which was when I stepped in. I started paying attention to the feeds just out of curiosity to see what was happening, and—" Nigel slid his thumb over one of the photographs, smoothing down a crease—"and I, uh..."

"He saw a new tag," Pearson finished for him. "A black one."

"So, they're all dead then?" Melanie asked.

The group only shrugged, exchanging glances between one another. At last, Nigel stepped forward, jabbing his finger into the photo of a young woman, frail and skinny, shown in a grainy image taken at a street corner.

"She was the first one we saw taken down to the Executioners."

She was eleventh on the list. Eleven out of eighteen.

That's seven which were dead.

Eight, if Nigel hadn't stepped in for Melanie.

"Then where are the others?"

"Who knows. They could be in some separate facility or had escaped or—" Nigel swallowed, and Melanie knew immediately that his mind had questioned the same things her had.

Afterall, there's no reason deaths can't occur off camera.

Melanie stepped forward into the room. She didn't care that she was leaving her back open to Kenna, leaving herself vulnerable, just as Thomas had always taught her not to do. She didn't care that Pearson refused to meet her gaze, or that Nigel gave her a wide berth, so much larger than he had the first time they met. As if he were scared.

Her eyes found the first image—a young woman waiting for the trains, dark skin patchy and light in some places and long, elf-like ears poorly hidden beneath a hood. There were no similarities Melanie could see immediately between them all. Many had physical Eccentricities. One sported gills on the side of her neck, the other was awkwardly tall and with feet that more closely resembled a monkey's than humans.