I take in a breath, then slowly let it out. The only way we’re going to know for sure is to get in there.
“Will there be an alarm?” I ask, wanting to know just how fast this search of ours is going to have to be.
“I can get us in,” Naito says.
That’s not quite an answer to my question.
Naito straightens, then says to Aren, “You should stay here. My father has made this place unpleasant for fae.”
“We’ll be okay,” Aren says, standing as well.
“No, you won’t be. You’re already feeling the tech. You step inside that building, and you won’t be able to think. He has a low-level electric current flowing through the walls, and the signals he broadcasts—they’re designed to affect fae. The compound will let you walk in, but it might not let you walk out.”
God, he makes the place sound sentient.
“What if the vigilantes haven’t left?” Aren asks. “What if the remnants show up looking for the serum?”
“If the remnants come in, they’ll be just as crippled as you would be,” he says, turning his attention back to the main building. “And if the vigilantes haven’t left, McKenzie and I will take care of them.”
His voice is as cold as the In-Between, and goose bumps break out across my skin. I don’t have to guess what he means by “take care of them.” He fully expects me to kill a vigilante if we come across one.
Aren’s looking at me, watching for a reaction. I don’t give him one. I keep my expression and my voice carefully neutral, and say, “I have my dagger. We’ll be fine.”
“If you want to help us,” Naito says, “check out the residences.” He nods toward the compound’s other two buildings.
Aren doesn’t take his eyes off me. I’d feel more comfortable with him at my back, but I’m trusting Naito on this one. If he thinks going inside that main building is dangerous for the fae, then I don’t want Aren going in. If something happened to him…
Just the possibility causes my throat to tighten up, making it hard to draw in air. Losing him would crush me. There’s no doubt about that.
My fear is mirrored in his eyes.
“We’ll make it through today,” I tell him, and I don’t know if my words are meant to reassure him or to reassure myself.
His jaw tightens, but he focuses on Naito, and says, “You have ten minutes. Then I’m coming in.”
“Make them long minutes,” Naito says, setting off across the clearing.
Long minutes, I think as I jog after him. Not a chance. The fae have good internal clocks when things are calm, but when they’re waiting on the shit to hit the fan, they’re as impatient as two-year-olds. We’ll be lucky if we have five minutes before he comes in after us.
Miraculously, Naito and I reach the door of the main lodge without any hiccups. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a set of keys. He selects one, then slides it into the lock.
“You have a key to this place?” I ask quietly.
“No.” He grabs his dagger, then, keeping it safe in its scabbard, he hits the end of the key with his pommel three times.
It’s so fucking loud, but I don’t see any movement from inside. A quick check to my right, and the other two buildings look quiet and still as well. So why do I feel like we’re being watched?
It takes another two knocks for the key to turn. I have no idea how he did that, but I just tighten my grip on the strap of my sketchbook as Naito pushes the door open. Once we’re inside, Naito goes straight to an alarm pad. He reaches up to type in the code, but freezes, his finger hovering above the buttons.
“It’s not on,” he says.
My heart hammers in my chest. “We need to know if the serum is gone.”
He nods. “This way.”
I follow him through the main room of the lodge, though it’s hard to see that this place was once a resort. Only a wet bar in the back corner, the wide, thick wooden beams on the vaulted ceiling, and the huge stone fireplace toward the front of the room indicate its history. The rest of the area is taken up by long, plastic tables. On top of them are about a dozen flat-screen computers. They look out of place here, especially with the piles of old books in the back of the room. They’re in tall stacks on the floor and on a sofa pushed up against the wall. I read one of the titles as we pass by, Grennan’s Guide to Faery, and want to laugh. The fae are nothing like the winged creatures little girls dream of meeting.
Naito moves into a smaller room in the back of the lodge, but I pause in its doorway, looking back at the computers. The screens are black, but they’re plugged in and, if the little green lights are any indication, they’re on.
I walk to the nearest one. Move the mouse.
A box pops up, asking for the password.
I type in “vigilante” because, yes, I’m that uncreative. Plus, I’m stalling. Thinking. The details of how to make the serum might be on the hard drives. What other research could be here? Is it worth taking with us?
“Hey, Naito,” I say, entering the next room.
“What?” he asks, but I don’t answer immediately. He’s standing in front of a safe, twisting the knob to the right, back to the left, and back to the right again. And again when it doesn’t work. But that’s not what’s caught my attention. This room has been converted into a laboratory. Beakers are held in metal clamps, petri dishes sit beneath microscopes, and plastic tubing runs between bags of clear liquid and glass flasks. In short, this room looks like a fully equipped medical lab minus the sanitation.
“McKenzie?” Naito stops what he’s doing to look at me.
“Do you know the password for the computers?” He acted like he could disarm the alarm with a code, and he obviously has at least some hope of guessing the combination to that safe, so maybe his father is overconfident and hasn’t changed any of the vigilantes’ codes.
Turning back to the safe, he says, “I might be able to guess it, but it’ll take too long to…Finally.”
He opens the safe.
I move forward, trying to see inside. “Is the serum there?”
He’s shuffling through some things. Papers, stacks of money, more papers. He shakes his head. “No. It’s not here.”
Damn. “Is that the only place it could be?”
Naito closes the door, slips something into his waistband. A gun. I hate guns. It’s not just that they’re lethal and that one of them killed Kelia, but it feels like a bad omen to see this one. This break-in has gone well so far, but that could change in an instant.
“This is where it’s most likely to be, but no,” Naito says. “My father could have put it somewhere else.”
His gaze sweeps the room. We don’t have time to do a complete search of the compound—Aren’s probably already losing patience—but we need to be sure we’re not leaving it behind.
“I think Lee’s already been here,” Naito says. His mouth is pinched. It’s his fault. There’s no denying that. His grief blinded him, and he made a decision that could cost us the war.
But I can’t find the will to be angry at him. Instead, I say, “We should get out of here.”
He nods.
“But we can’t leave the research here,” I add. “Find a match or a lighter or something. We’ll burn the place down.”
God, I sound like an arsonist, but we have to make sure we don’t miss anything that will allow the vigilantes to easily reproduce the serum.
I leave Naito to search the lab and head back to the main room. The wet bar catches my attention. There could be a lighter there, and alcohol is flammable. Some of it is, at least.
Ducking behind it, I start rummaging through the bottles. Most of them are red wines, mostly Pinot Noir, but there’s some vodka and rum, too. Those might fuel a fire. If I can find a matchbook.
There’s a shallow basket behind one expensive-looking bottle, but it contains nothing but old corks, a simple corkscrew, and some pocket change. Nothing to start a fire with.