Her bow lips pressed together, her head swinging back. For as petite as she was, she covered ground quickly, rushing after me to keep up.
“There’s the movie slash game room.” She motioned her hand to a large room we passed. I could see a homemade ping-pong table and pool table, raggedy sofas, shelves full of books and board games. A sheet was attached to a far wall to be used as a screen, and an obsolete TV hung on another wall with a stack of dated movies underneath. Food, drinks, and more types of games were shelved on another wall.
Again, nothing that couldn’t be left behind.
My mouth dropped as I saw a few children looking to be around five or six playing, some with games, some with building blocks, and others were coloring.
“There are kids here?” I gawked at the handful squealing and laughing as a few played tag.
“Why wouldn’t there be?” Kek stopped next to me at the doorway, watching the children. “We have a lot of families here. Most of these kids were born here. The older ones are in school upstairs.” She motioned to them. “Though personally, I don’t get why anyone would want something so messy, annoying, and loud. Ick.” She shivered. “But fighting for freedom is our life, not a weekend hobby. This is a home,” she added before starting back down the hallway.
“Most of us share bathrooms. There are ten rooms to every toilet.” She pointed at a community bathroom. “Some people paid to have aprivate one, but those are limited and only in family-size rooms. People have been on waiting lists for years, so don’t even ask.”
“I wasn’t going to.” I picked up my pace when she turned down another hallway. “How long has this place been here? How has no one found it?”
“Kaptain has been able to build this place and keep it safe for over ten years now,” Kek replied, twisting us down another hallway. “He’s gone to great lengths to keep it hidden with misdirection spells and protective barriers in place. This is the main base, but we also have several safe houses we move to when we’re in the city, pointing Prime Minister Leon’s soldiers in all the wrong directions. I think we have them looking up their ass by now. Here we are—four-eighteen.” Kek stopped at a door that looked like every other one we passed. “The latrine is right at the end here.” She pointed to a larger doorway about three doors down. “Little more privacy than Halálház, though I warn you, sex is even more rampant in there.”
She shoved open the door to my room.
It was tiny and almost identical to the one I had at Sarkis’s, with a bed, nightstand, and trunk at the end of the bed, but this one was a single, barely accommodating the basic furniture. And like before, clothing and a bathroom kit were left on the mattress for me.
“You are fortunate this one came up. People kill for singles.” Kek leaned against the doorframe. “Guess there is a perk to being the Kaptain’s niece.”
I bit down on my lip. The last thing I wanted was to cause ripples with people because of my relation to the leader. Not that it sounded like Mykel would be giving me many.
“It’s almost six-thirty. Dinner is served up in the canteen from six to eight, breakfast is also six to eight. Lunch and snacks are whatever you can grab from the carts or cafes.”
Six-thirty? I’d lost almost a whole day since they took me. It was late afternoon/early evening when I was kidnapped in Budapest. It was almost a seven-hour journey by train or car between the two cities. I had to have been unconscious for at least twelve hours.
Was Ash freaking out? Did Warwick head back? Were they looking for me?
I wagged my head, clearing the gnawing questions burrowing into my mind.
“I think I’m good.” The last thing I wanted to be was around people. I needed to sleep off the chemical still polluting my veins and reassess tomorrow.
Plopping down on the squeaky cot, I rubbed my head, feeling Kek’s eyes on me.
“At Halálház... I was told to watch you.” Kek tugged on her blue braid. “Not befriend you.”
My eyes went up to her, not sure how to respond.
“What I told you was true. I’m not good with friendships or people in general. But you were different.” Her eyes darted away. She cleared her throat, straightening, her manner shifting to the arrogant, blasé attitude I was used to. “Besides, I didn’t mind watching over you at all.” Her gaze ran over me, an eyebrow lifting. I didn’t respond. “If you get lonely or scared in the middle of the night and want acuddle, I’m right across the hallway.” She winked before stepping out and shutting the door.
A snort huffed from my nose, my hand rubbing my face. The silence ticked at my nerves, carving an unsettled feeling in my chest.
Just the other morning, I woke up at Ash’s, feeling safe and hopeful for the first time in a long while. This after Warwick took my body to places I couldn’t even fathom without actually doing more than washing my hair. Now I was isolated and defensive, going to sleep in a different country, within the hidden walls of Povstat, where no one could find me, and my real uncle, whom I didn’t know, was the leader.
So much had happened in the last twenty-four hours—hell, in the last few months—my brain struggled to keep up. Last spring, high up on HDF’s roof, I would never have imagined I’d be been here.
Plunking back on the thin pillow, I felt utterly alone. I lost my home, the boy I thought I would love all my life and my best friend, everything I thought I believed in. Even Hanna was gone to me now.
Kek, Zander, Lynx (Ling), and Warwick had been spying on me because of an order. Not one had been genuine. And once again, the one who hurt me the most was the one I should have been most guarded from.
Warwick already betrayed me once, but this seemed worse—the hazy memory of seeing him with a beautiful woman and boy. The boy with the same black hair. They looked so content and happy.
He has a son.
A family.
