Oculus (Oculus #1) (22 page)

“I
RIS.” SIC’S WARM HAND BRUSHES
against my arm, rousing me from sleep. “Iris, wake up.” I mumble my protests and try to roll over. “Iris, I have some news about your father.” That bit of information sends a lighting bolt of awareness through me and I bolt upright in my bed, sending painful reminders though my head and body of the damage that the agents inflicted on me.

“Easy,” he whispers soothingly with his hands on my shoulders.

“Did you find out where he is?”

“Yes. I overheard some people talking. He’s in the hospital. Ingram beat him.”

“Oh my god. I have to go. I have to get to him. Is he okay? I need clothes,” I splutter frantically, fighting against emotion.

“Iris, you have to stop for one second. Calm down.”

“Calm down? I can’t! He’s all I have!”

Sic says nothing in response and I feel bad for implying that he’s nothing to me because that couldn’t be further from the truth. He’s a stranger and an old friend. A guardian and a ghost. A lover and a murderer. A forbidden acquaintance and an inevitable fact. He’s the foundation of my confusion and the root of my clarity. He’s my beginning and my end. I can feel these things deep in my gut, just as a person vaguely recalls the feel of their ear pressed to their mother or father’s chest, a barely-there memory, but an absolute truth of something that happened long ago. The reverberation of the parent’s voice only resonates for a brief moment but the familiarity and the comfort that it brought stays long after the memory of being there in that place fades away.

Sic is that person, that place for me. I don’t know how. I just know.

“I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just,” I begin, unsure of how to explain my crassness.

“I understand.”

“Do you? Do you have parents?”

“Yes. No. I did. I had Anna.”

“I’m sorry.” I slip my hand beneath my mattress and feel for the worn spine of the braille book that my father gave me as a child. It’s the only one that I have. The book falls open to where the photo of my father is and though I can never see it, it has always felt important to have, important to keep.

“This is my dad,” I say quietly as I gingerly hold out the old photo with turned up corners.

“Your father,” he murmurs breathily. “This is your father?”

“Yes.”

“Of course,” he mumbles to himself. It’s difficult to miss the solemn tone in his voice.

“What?”

“I recognize him. This photo. Anna had a picture of him. Younger, but it’s him.”

“What? I’ve never heard him talk about anyone named Anna.” Sic says nothing to clear up the matter and the mountain of questions I have only seems to grow.

“Sic, I have to try to sneak in to see him. Can you help me?”

“You don’t have to sneak.”

“What? I’m an escaped criminal suspected of sedition.”

“No. While you were asleep I overheard your neighbors talking. They aren’t looking for you. They’re looking for me. I don’t think anyone knew you were being kept at security for… questioning.”

“But, how?”

“You were never being charged, Iris. Ingram just wanted you there to,”

“Oh.” I cut him off before either of us has to think any further about Ingram. Thoughts of him make me sick to my stomach. Thoughts about what nearly happened, what would have happened if Sic hadn’t shown up, sends a chill right through me.

“Don’t think about it.” Sic demands and just like that, I lay that demon to rest. For now. I don’t have time to think about anything else. My father has been hurt and needs me.

“Sic, we have to talk. I-I’m so confused. I don’t understand what’s going on. I still don’t understand you—us. Any of this.” Sic pulls me to him, and wraps his arms securely around my back, quelling the emotional turmoil building within me.

“Go and come back as quickly as you can. I’ll read Anna’s letter to you and we can try to figure this out.”

“Okay.” I quietly dress and move carefully, being sure not to bump my sore extremities on anything. If I’m this sore today I cringe to think what I’ll feel like tomorrow. I can feel Sic watching me. He’s the quietest person I’ve ever been in a room with and it takes focus for me to hear him breathe.

I imagine that he has been this way out of necessity just as I’ve honed my useful senses out of necessity. He’s from The Dark Lands. Survival skills, adapting, and playing at your strengths likely isn’t a choice. It’s a requirement. I can’t imagine what his life has been like out there beyond the walls of the compound.

“You’ll be here?” I ask as Sic presses the handle of my stick into my palm.

“Yes. Unless you plan on getting into some trouble.” It’s only a guess, but his attempt at joking seems forced but endearing. The palms of his hands cup my face gently, careful not to hurt the side that I’m certain is probably pretty unsightly. “There and back,” he whispers with his lips brushing lightly against mine.

“I will.”

The scanner at the hospital drones like normal, but right now the sound of the robotic voice is grating. My head is throbbing. My cheek feels swollen. The skin at the cap of my shoulder is sticky with the makings of a fresh scab. My hip feels quite tender and I don’t think I’ve breathed deeply since Sic plucked me right from the Devil’s grasp.

“This way, Miss Tierney. Doctor Tierney is awake and has had quite a few visitors.”

“Visitors?”

“Yes. Corp officials. A Mr. and Mrs. Brighton I believe.”

“Mhmm,” I hum while wondering what Fenra officials have been to see my father. “How is he? I mean, his injuries?”

“Well he’s quite bruised. We are most concerned with his loss of consciousness after the incident. I’ll tell Doctor Rayford that you’re here. He can come explain his injuries to you.”

“Assault. He was assaulted.” I correct her, feeling rage against Ingram bubble up within.

“Yes. Just this way,” she says, seemingly indifferent to my anger. She escorts me through halls one turn at a time. “Here we are. Doctor Tierney, another visitor for you.”

I hear the gasp of surprise before I can make out the scent of my father over the heavy scent of our mostly sterilized surroundings.

“Call if you need anything, Doctor Tierney,” the nurse instructs gently then squeaks away, her rubber-soled shoes trotting across the tile floor.

“Iris,” he sighs, clearly relieved. “What has happened to you?”

“I came to ask you the same thing, but I think we have matching answers. That’s what a ghost told me, anyway.”

“I’m just a little banged up. Come here,” he says, followed by the familiar sound of his hand patting against the mattress. “Let me look at you.”

“Let me look at you,” I say, bringing my hands up to touch his face. He grasps my wrists firmly with strength belying the severity of his injuries. It’s easy to deduce that it must be bad. He’d let me “see” if he was merely bumped and bruised.

“Dad,” I question.

“Oh, don’t fuss over it. It’s nothing. Just don’t want you fumbling around on my sore head.”

I take a deep breath and let my shoulders slouch forward. “Dad, what’s going on?” I want to know, but I know that I’m asking for information that could very well change the landscape of my life.

“Iris, oh where to start,” he squeezes my hand in his and takes a deep breath. “You’ve always known that you were adopted. But you don’t know where you came from. You don’t know
who
exactly you came from and quite frankly, neither do I. You weren’t orphaned. I’ve been with you since the moment you were conceived.” In spite of the anxiety knotted in my chest, a smile forces its way across my lips as I hear the pride in his voice.

“I can’t explain everything. Not here. Not now. But, Iris, if something happens, you need to know there’s a box for you. It’s in my closet under a floorboard. I carved a mark. Feel for the letter I.” All pride vanishes only to be replaced by the clearest sound of regret that I’ve ever heard in his voice.

“No. You’re fine. You said you just got a little banged up. What are you implying? How bad are you hurt?” Panic surges through me as I scoot closer to him, feeling helpless to make him better or to even understand his injuries.

“I told you. I’m only a little banged up. Shush. It’s okay. Everything is going to be okay,” he rasps as he pulls me close. I rest my ear against this chest and I know that the rapid pounding of his heart is far more telling than the nonchalance he’s trying to exude.

“I’m so sorry for everything dad,” I whisper against his chest wanting to say so much more, but feeling as if saying more would mean that I’m saying goodbye, something for which I can never be prepared for. He has been my only family, my only tie. Until Sic.

He shushes me and despite his battered condition, his hand brushes against my hair like he did so many times throughout my life. My fingers find the pendant on the leather twine that he has always worn around his neck. I roll the cylindrical pendant between my fingers and allow myself to linger there in his embrace, though I know he has to be uncomfortable with my weight against him.

“If he’s out there, if he’s still alive, you belong with him,” my father whispers so quietly that only my sharp ears can make out the words he just uttered against the top of my head.

The moment I walk up the steps to Unit 13, our Unit, our home, I can feel Sic. I can sense him here like I sense my father, even when he’s silently having a glass of pure fire in our living room.

I close the door behind me and collapse my stick, leaving it on the table. Without a word, I look to where I know he’s standing—where I
feel
him standing.

“There’s a box.” I declare as I move past him and up the stairs to my father’s room. I skirt the edge of his bed, past his writing desk, lift my arm to avoid hitting the lamp beside the closet door, and step into the small space. Sic has light footsteps, but I can hear him follow me into the room and over to the closet. I get to my knees, ignoring the painful reminders riddled all over my aching body of my nightmare at the security building. The closet smells like my father, but I shut that off. I turn off everything except my fingertips. I vaguely hear Sic’s voice, no doubt asking me what I’m doing.

With my feet tucked beneath me, I rub my clammy hands against my thighs and set them lightly against the wood planks of the closet floor. Scrapes and scratches from years of use mar the surface, and I’m careful to make certain that each knick and natural pockmark in the grain isn’t the mark that he said I’d find. I know my father well enough that before he’d even said it, I knew that if he’d marked the floor, it was with the first letter of my name.

I
.

In braille.

I can recall him hounding me as a child to take the time to learn braille. Despite the fact that it is considered antiquated in the world we live in today and he had to go great lengths to find the book, he’d said that it was important.

As a little girl it baffled me that he wanted me to learn to read it when everything was audible through scanners and computers. The only braille book that I have is worn, but not from use. It’s simply old. I practiced enough to satiate him and pass his quizzes, but in truth I guess I could be considered quite illiterate. I’m not even certain that I could read it now.

My fingers drift lightly, skimming the floor hoping that something will stand out to me because quite frankly, I can recall that the letter I has two dots but I don’t remember their orientation.

My fingers brush against my father’s winter boots as I move in a thorough pattern, crossing the surface of the floor. Sic has stopped questioning me, but I can feel his gaze upon me. It takes some effort to shut it off, to focus on only the pads of my fingers. To ignore the tingling in my feet, the ache in my abused knees, the soreness in every muscle.

I scoot along the floor feeling antsy. Beneath my fathers hanging clothes, against the base board, I feel the smallest of indentations. I nearly passed right over the spot. I drop my hands and press my palms against the floorboard, afraid to lose my mark.

“Sic, we need something to lift this floorboard,” without missing a beat, Sic folds his large frame into the bottom of the closet with me and pries the floorboard up. The musty scent of dust floats around us as he sets the board aside and reaches into the floor with me.