Secret of Betrayal: Book Two of The Destroyer Trilogy (43 page)

“What about the Ciphers?” Milo asks impatiently.
He’s already written off Braden and Mr. Walters. Lance starts to ask Cory, but
flinches and moves as if he’s expecting an attack.

“Get out of there, Cory! No, we’ll find out what
happened to the Ciphers later. If they’re not out yet, they aren’t coming.”
He’s crushing the phone as he waits for his order to be obeyed. The sharp slash
of his free hand startles me. “I said get out, Cory! Forget the Ciphers and get
out!”

We all hear the scream that rips through the
speaker.

Silence fills the room. Cory was the lead
handler here in Albuquerque, but he had a whole team with him. I don’t think
any of us believe the others haven’t just suffered a similar fate. Lance’s hand
drops to his side. His whole body looks wilted. The phone hangs loosely from
his hand until an unfamiliar voice sounds from it. Lance moves so fast I don’t even
see the motion.

“Who is this?” he demands.

I don’t hear what the speaker says, but Lance’s
angry refusal isn’t a good sign. Furious red spreads through his face. The
creak of plastic slowly breaking doesn’t reach his ears. Thankfully he relents
before crushing his phone completely. When he holds it out to me I lean forward
eagerly.

“Hello?”

“Libby Sparks, my name is Linden Blackwood. Do
you know who I am?”

Hatred explodes through my body. I can barely
speak through my clenched jaw. “Yes. I know who you are.”

He chuckles and the rope binding me creaks under
my angry push to rip him apart. “Yes,” he says, “I thought you would.”

“What have you done to Braden?” I demand.

“Open Braden’s work email.”

That’s all he says. The line goes dead after the
last word.

“Untie me!” Nobody moves. “Please, Lance, just
untie me. I promise I won’t run. I promise!”

Lance hesitates for a second. Milo shakes his
head, which hurts more than I care to admit, but Lance has learned to trust my
promises. He steps behind me and tugs against the rope. I leap out of the chair
the instant they are loose enough to let my hands slip free. Lance jumps away
from me as I barrel past him to get to Braden’s laptop. As soon as I open the
lid the screen flickers to life. My fingers fly across the keyboard and bring
up his inbox quickly. As soon as the page loads, a small box pops up at the
bottom, an invitation for a video chat.

The box blinks at me. Its sinister flashing
promises more agony. I can feel the other three moving in behind me. My finger
trembles as I accept the invitation. With a flicker, the monitor fills with an
image of a man’s face. I have never seen him before, but apparently he knows
me. He turns away from the camera, and says, “She’s here, Captain Blackwood.”

Whoever he is, he moves out of the way and
Captain Blackwood takes his place. His arrogant smile and handsome features are
revolting. It takes all my control not to smash the screen so I don’t have to
look at him anymore.

“Libby,” he drawls.

“Where’s Braden?”

Blackwood’s mouth twists into a snarl. “He’s no
concern of yours anymore. That traitorous son of a …” His fist slams down on
the table, rattling the computer. “I’m not here to discuss Braden. You
shouldn’t be nearly so concerned for him as for the abominations you just tried
to rescue.
They
need you so much more.”

“What have you done to them?” I ask.

Instead of answering, he stands up and turns the
computer around. Eighty-seven frightened Ciphers huddle against a wall. No. Not
eighty-seven. Blackwood steps back, widening my view. At the feet of the
Ciphers are six bodies that will never move again. Lucas’s face is turned
toward the screen. His lifeless eyes accuse me of failing him. My hand covers
my mouth as tears slip down my cheeks.

“These six,” Blackwood says, gesturing at the
dead,
“didn’t come as easily as the others. They killed two
of my men, so I repaid them in kind.”

We tried very hard to teach the Ciphers how to
fight if they were cornered. I was so afraid it wouldn’t be enough. Their
bodies would be weak, their talents so new and unwieldy. Lucas and his band of
renegades were some of the newest. They were some of the angriest and most able
to fight back. I have no doubt they did their best to give the others a chance
at freedom. Like everything I try to do, it just wasn’t enough.

Blackwood continues coldly. The camera moves
back up to the terrified faces. I can see Casey’s friend Caroline clinging to a
young girl next to her, and Cole’s brother standing tall despite his fear.
“These others,” Blackwood says, “are still alive, as you can see. They’ll stay
that way for now, but not forever. You have forty-eight hours to turn yourself
over to me or every single one of these people will die.”

“No, you can’t!” I cry out.

The camera turns back to him. “The only thing I
ever believed out of Braden’s mouth was that you were too soft to ever really
hurt anyone. He said it to try and dissuade me from coming after you, but it
turns out he gave me the exact key to bringing you in.”

Milo’s growl behind me has dangerous written all
over it, but I say nothing. Anything I do at this point will make it worse.

“Turn yourself in,” Blackwood continues, “with a
full admission of your guilt in this little escapade, or they will all be
dead.”

Eight-one lives.

The camera jostles roughly as Blackwood sets it
back down on the table. It’s facing a set of doors I haven’t seen before.
Terror that there is something even worse that this monster plans to force on
me rivets my eyes to them. The handles turn slowly at first. When they burst
open, I am rocked again by the sight of two men hauling Mr. Walters into the
room. Blackwood grabs his arm and stares into the camera with a darkly gleeful
expression.

“Just in case you don’t think I’ll follow
through on my threat, I have a little demonstration for you.” His vicious smile
widens as he glances down at Mr. Walters. “Anything you want to confess to your
little project before
it’s
too late, old man?”

The sorrow in Mr. Walters’ eyes strikes me as
odd. He isn’t scared, just sad. He doesn’t resist, either. I know he is looking
straight into my soul as he says, “Libby, I’m so sorry. I tried to warn you.”

“But you couldn’t,” Blackwood sneers. His blade
presses up against his neck.

A moment of fear finally darkens Mr. Walters’
features, but it’s not fear of dying. He looks straight into the camera, and
says, “Libby, remember twenty questions.”

Blackwood pauses at the odd statement, but his
ruthlessness won’t let him ponder it. “Forty-eight hours, Libby. And then this
…” His knife slides across Mr. Walters’ flesh, spilling crimson down his neck.
“…
will
happen to the rest of them. Forty-eight
hours.”

He lets his victim drop to the floor and the
screen goes black.

Mr. Walters is gone.
Dead.
I can’t even process the meaning of that single word. My hands shake, rattling
the laptop as my brain tries to hold off reality.

“Why?” Milo asks. His strangled voice cracks as
he speaks. “Why did they kill him? Why did they even take him in the first
place? Braden’s the one who broke his promises. Mr. Walters wasn’t a part of
their world anymore.”

Part of my mind is screaming at me to wake up. I
know this. A hint that has been hiding until this moment is battering to get
out of its prison. I latch onto the slim hope that I can figure this out, that
I can put off admitting my teacher and friend is gone forever.

Mr. Walters knew about betrayal. When he tried
to convince me it would be either Milo or Braden, he said you could never know
what would push a person over the edge. I had a feeling at the time that he
wasn’t really talking about either of my friends. My heart breaks as I realize
what secret he was really trying to tell me.
The secret of
betrayal.

“It was him,” I whisper. “Mr. Walters, he’s the
one who betrayed us, Milo. He let them take Braden.”

Milo’s body rocks back in the face of my
revelation. He shakes his head slowly. “Libby, that doesn’t make sense. He’s
always been the one saying you were going to make things better. He was behind
you completely. No, something else happened.”

“It was his idea for him to stay with Braden,” I
say. “I told him about splitting up and he insisted on pairing up with Braden.
He’s the one who betrayed him. How else would Blackwood have known exactly when
to come and what to expect? The captured Ciphers are proof enough.”

“He said he was sorry,” Lance says quietly.

“Sorry for our plan not working!” Milo argues.
“He didn’t do this. Blackwood could have found out some other way.”

Lance’s head drops down and he sighs. “There
wasn’t enough time for the Spiritualists to alert the Guardians to what was
happening. All the other groups got out. They grabbed Braden so fast. Mr.
Walters had to have tipped them off. He looked as if he expected them to kill
him. He knew what he did, Milo.”

“But … but why would they kill
Walters if he helped them?”
Milo is getting frantic trying to defend one
of the few people he truly trusted and respected.

My mind falls back to our conversation. Not only
did Mr. Walters know betrayal well, he knew the limits of the human soul. He
doubted my friends because he doubted himself. He has always hidden things from
me. Things he was forced to hide because of Oaths and promises, but I suspect
there was even more he chose to keep to himself. Our little game that day let
him reveal some of what he wanted me to know. So much more must have been
hidden behind his eyes. Something else slaps against my consciousness.
Our game.

“Twenty questions!” I gasp. “He told me to
remember twenty questions. It was a message. We have to find what he left!”

They all stare at me as if I’ve lost what small
portion of sanity I had left. My growl of frustration makes me push up from my
seat. The change of light in the corner of my eye draws my attention back to
the laptop. I must have hit something when I stood up because the email page is
gone and only the desktop remains. I am about to dismiss it in my rush to find
the message when I catch sight of a lone icon in the center of the screen. It’s
a single folder with a simple name. My brain processes the words slowly.

Twenty questions.

I double click the file and find only a single
item inside, a video file. Remembering the gruesome video link we just endured,
my stomach threatens to empty itself. I force the feeling away and open the
file. Mr. Walters’ flustered face centers in the screen with Braden seated and
fully in his trance in the background. My heart falters at the sight of Braden
alive and unhurt, but I can’t focus on him right now. The turbulent, almost
pained expression on Mr. Walters’ normally calm face seems so out of place. One
click of the play button brings him to life.

“Libby, I don’t think I can bear this much
longer. I’ll hold out as long as I can, but I may not make it through this day.
I tried to warn you that someone you trusted was going to betray you. I tried
to tell you that everyone has their limit. I reached mine a long time ago. The
Guardians will be here soon to take me and Braden. I led them to believe you
would be here, too. At least I was able to do that. They don’t know where you
are, but they’re coming for us. I can’t stop them, Libby. They’re going to kill
me, but it’s what I had to do. I’m sorry.

“When I thought you had found a way to break
Guardian promises, I know you must have felt my fear. I lied when I told you I
left the Seekers, Libby. You can never leave. I tried. I paid for it, too, but
I never made it out. What I didn’t lie about was when I told you I thought the
Seekers were going about dealing with the Destroyer in the wrong way, because
of the Ciphers. That’s also what I meant when I told you I knew about forbidden
love.

“I was assisting on a Cipher hunt when I met
her,” Mr. Walters says quietly. His entire face crumples in agony. Tears run
down his wrinkled cheeks.

“She was the one I was supposed to help capture.
But I couldn’t do it. I used my Vision to find the perfect moment to escape
with her, and I took it. I ran, I hid,
I
used every
one of my talents to protect her. We fell in love and secretly married. After
three years of running, I thought we were finally safe. I could see any threats
before they came. When Samantha told me she was pregnant, I thought our lives
together could never get any better. My daughter, Helen, was only six months
old when they found us.

“I didn’t see it in time.”

Mr. Walters breaks down and hides his face in
his hands. I want to do the same, but I can’t tear my eyes away from him.
It’s
several long seconds before he can continue.

“I was away from the house with Helen when I saw
them coming for Samantha. I was too far away to get to her in time. I couldn’t
even go back to say goodbye. They killed her and stood guard on the house,
hoping I would return. I couldn’t risk the same thing happening to Helen. It
killed me to do it, but I hid her with my sister and turned myself in to the
Guardians.”

He pushes his sleeves up to reveal the mottled
scars covering his arms. He stares at them with a sense of pride. “I paid for
betraying them. For years they tortured me, but I took every bit of it knowing
I was saving my daughter’s life. I couldn’t do it for Samantha, but I could do
it for my baby girl. They kept me in that prison until someone found a better
use for me. Someone remembered my fascination with the Destroyer, as well as my
strong Vision. I was pulled out of my cell and offered a single mission. Find
the Destroyer, and all would be forgiven.

“It was a chance at freedom, a chance to see
Helen again. I’m
sorry,
Libby, but I took it. I swore
to do anything in my power to find you, thinking I would never live to see the
birth of the Destroyer. I must have been a fool not to understand that someone
must have glimpsed a sign of your coming sometime in the near future. I found
my daughter, by then a young woman, and watched her grow and marry.” He falters
when his emotions become too difficult to bear. “I got to walk her down the
aisle, something I never imagined I would be able to do.”