The sleepyhead lets out an obnoxious yawn, “Why can’t Gerald do it?”
“Because I asked you.”
“Dorian is supposed to take care of the boring chores.” Brown hair gets pushed to the side as Soren sighs, “Where is that dummy, anyways?”
My glare causes him to backtrack quickly.
“Er, I mean, where is that fun guy?”
Gerald snickers while Doc rolls his eyes, “Get your head out of the clouds and take Christopher upstairs to collect his papers. You know Dorian had his first shift at the mine this week.”
“You sent him to the mine?” Concern bleeds through my voice as I look at the eldest brother, “He’s just a kid.”
“His seventeenth birthday was last week. The rest of us started mining the day we were strong enough to carry a pickaxe.”
“Yeah, but-
“Are you here to seek information on our brother’s wellbeing or your railroad?” Doc tilts his head, his brown eyes twinkling with something far from friendly, “Because the cost of both exceeds our agreement. So I’d suggest you choose wisely.”
Bastard.
Pinching my cheeks into a painful smile, I look at Soren, “Lead the way.”
He yawns again, arms stretching high over his head and exposing the beer belly beneath his pyjama top. A quick eye rub follows and then he turns and starts walking up the staircase.
The cottage groans beneath our feet as we trudge up layers of dust and rickety stairs. Cobwebs sling in every corner, the dark blot of spiders wandering carelessly around the uncleaned corners of this house.
“Just through here.”
Soren huffs slightly, his cheeks flushed from the sudden exertion. A small, round door sits at the top of the staircase, a miniature doorway that looks better suited for a dollhouse.
It’s stuffy up here, a stuffiness that has my head swimming and my stomach tightening.
Whatever air I thought I had vanishes the moment my feet hit the ratty carpet. Rows of beds are pushed and crammed into every corner of the room, moth-bitten sheets and paper-thin blankets hanging off the sad-looking cots that are barely big enough to fit a child.
Mold and sweat hangs thick and heavy in the air, coating my throat with the smell of hard labour and not enough return for the men living under the same roof.
Soren pads inside easily, as though he’s blind to the despair laid out before him. I force myself to leave my position by the door, swallowing repeatedly to ensure the nausea stays down.
“All the beds are numbered based on when we were born. Doc is the oldest so he’s number one.” Shuffling past the tight quarters, Soren works his way through the family until he reaches number three, “Happy has the best memory, so he’s always responsible for keeping our keys. Don’t want them walking away on us.”
Throwing the blanket higher up the bed, he squats down and pulls on the drawer tucked beneath the worn bedframe.
“We each get a cubby, but you have to give anything worth keeping to Doc. He stores it in the office downstairs.”
“So which bunk holds the plans to the underground system?”
“Doc went ahead and tucked them in mine.” Shuffling two feet down, he repeats the same action on a different bed, “Must have known I’d be fresh from my nap right about now.”
Or he was hoping I’d have to search through every damn bed.
While he shuffles through junk and loose leaves of paper, I cast my eyes around the room. The number seven catches my eye, the farthest bed tucked in the corner where the ceiling sits a little bit higher and the sole window casts a dim piece of light on it.
“That should be everything.” Stuffing a pile of papers into my arms, Soren pushes himself up to standing, “Blueprints, access points, and all the notes and landmarks our family has assembled over the years. And this key here will give you access to the basement. Just go in through the backdoor and no one will be the wiser.”
He tosses the key in the air and I catch it.
“What about worker schedules?”
