Maybe I should run regardless. Listen to the warning flares setting off in my mind. And yet part of me needed the push, the impetus, the confirmation to make the final move. Because if I tried an escape…I could never return to this life.
Not only that, but I might spend the rest of my days on the run.
My stomach bottomed out, and I puddled into the computer chair, wishing I had some skills that would be useful here. That daydreams and brushstrokes weren’t all I had to offer the world.
With Ursuline, I felt useful. I felt cherished. I felt wanted. And they were trapped here regardless, so why was I even poking around in here, borrowing trouble anyway?
The minutes ticked by in the room, and I kept my attention focused on the hall, but the responding silence didn’t give me any solace. Not while I sat here in Frederick’s office, clearly forbidden territory.
I gave the computer chair a spin, and a bright blue snagged my attention on one of the shelves behind me.
I stopped and stared. The blue glass triangle on the shelf featured a black circle in the center, a silver ridge around the edges. It was the size of a paperweight, enough that to most it would be nondescript.
However, I’d seen the same piece on my parents’ shelves. It was the emblem of Alpha Blue, a “security” company everyone knew was a front for kidnappers for hire. The men worked in the underworld, and my parents had the same token in their possession my whole life, a reminder that anyone could easily disappear.
I’d dropped it once. I had picked the glass triangle up because the glass was pretty, and then it had slipped out of my hands. Yet another instance where I’d been klutzy. My parents had…well, overreacted was putting things mildly. They’d screamed and screamed and screamed, and I’d been locked in my room for days.
Hardly the response for a random paperweight, but I’d gauged over the years that Alpha Blue didn’t give those tokens out freely.
I surged from my seat and walked over to it, a tug in my gut that I couldn’t ignore. The sight of something so familiar here was a bit jarring, a bit disorienting. Almost as if…
I picked up the glass triangle and ran my fingers along the back.
My stomach bottomed out.
The same fracture was on this one. The fracture I’d caused when I’d dropped it as a child.
Somehow, Frederick Triton now had access to this token from Alpha Blue, the one that had lived in my parents’ mansion since I was young. I didn’t believe in coincidences—not with this. All this time, I’d been wondering what they could’ve wanted in a union between our two families. What Frederick Triton could need that my family had. Sure, we had money and access to the human side of the wealthy in Peregrine City, but so did many others.
Not everyone had access to Alpha Blue like the Durand family did, though.
I was going to be sick. Who was Triton trafficking? Who would he disappear? Too easily, answers emerged.
Anyone who’d escaped New Atlantis. People like Jason, who had left, searching for a better life on the surface than the pain he’d dealt with down below.
Oh, fuck.
I bit my lower lip and set the token down on the shelf again before I dropped it. The second I did, my hands started to tremble. If I married Arielle, I’d be complicit in this. I’d be enabling him to hurt more of the sea monsters up here. Did Ursuline know? They couldn’t possibly. My throat tightened as panic rose with a steadythump, thump, thump.
I had to tell them. I didn’t have concrete proof, but the pit in my gut was unerring. This was the confirmation I’d been waiting for, the signal.
And I needed to follow it.
Voices sounded from farther down the hall, and my heart jackknifed. Oh fuck.
If I was discovered here, I’d be buried.
I ducked beneath the desk, curling myself into the tight area. My knees pressed hard against the wooden sides, barely any space here. Yet I slowed my breath, focusing on quieting it as much as possible. The voices grew louder by the second.
Ones I recognized.
Arielle and her mother, Darla.
Adrenaline surged through me, tingling through my extremities, but I couldn’t budge. There wasn’t a secret exit here, and they were heading down the only hallway out. The footsteps pounded louder, and I tensed, not wanting to move an inch, to risk discovery. All it would take was for them to slow while they strolled past the office. Guaranteed, I could be seen beneath the desk if anyone looked hard enough.
And if they found me, I was in deep trouble.
I never should’ve been poking around back here. I should’ve listened to Jacques and got out the first chance I could. My palms began to sweat, but I didn’t dare wipe them or make any movements.
