The Unmaking (The Rayne Whitmore Series Book 1) (3 page)

            Damien flashes his id and
then the guard hands him some kind of computer speaker type thing. Damien
speaks his deep, dominant voice into it. “Damien Carson. Charlie Zero Gamma
X-ray X-ray Beta.”

            There’s a pause, then a
masculine voice comes through the speaker, “Voice recognition confirmed. Damien
Carson. Password confirmed. Welcome back sir.” Damien hands the device back to
the guard who walks back into the security office. We wait patiently for the
gates to open and then close behind us, one by one, three in all. I have never
been here and I’m already intrigued at the heavy security around the lot.

Chapter Three

           
W
e pull up to the farthest building out of the five that
are inside the gated area and Damien stops the car. Each building is a
different size and none of them have windows in front. All of them have garages
as well as doors except for the one we stop at. It’s all white as far as I can
tell from the lighting and seems to be the smallest of all the buildings. “Wait
here for a second Rayne,” he tells me as he walks up to the door, knocks and
then says a few words to someone behind the door. Less than a minute later,
he’s waving me to come to him.

            I get out of the car,
surprised by the chill in the air as well as the silence. There are other cars
around, but very few, and I wonder if there’s more parking on the other side of
the building. My steps are quick as a wave of fear quickly washes over me,
then, goes away. What is that about? When I reach Damien, he puts his hand on
the middle of my back, opens the door, and guides me inside.

            It may be the smallest of
the buildings, but the inside is huge, and astonishingly clean. As our
footsteps echo against the gray tiled floor, I take in the expensive looking
equipment and picture this place as if it were during the day. I visualize
people with white coats standing over the machines and monitors, nodding their
heads and collecting their data. But, there is none of that now. Now, there is
simply enormous emptiness from the very top where the railings and walkways
hang and steps, but after that, only darkness. The smell inside here is that of
ammonia as if something dangerous had spilled and needed gallons upon gallons
of cleaner to wipe it up. It becomes more overpowering to the point that my
head begins to feel dizzy.

            I’m grateful when we reach
an elevator. Damien removes his hand from my back and then presses up on some
kind of scanning device. Next, he swipes his badge and the doors open. When we
step on the elevator, I realize that there are only two buttons. It’s strange
for there to only be two floors to go to, seeing that this place is incredibly
huge. It must be a special clearance one.

            Even after the card swipe
and the hand scan, Damien presses another button and the same voice as before
speaks, startling me, “Prepare for eye scan.” Damien steps up to the panel with
the buttons on it and remains still, unblinking. “Confirmed. Damien Carson.”
After another second, the voice says, “There is another occupant with you,
identity has not been confirmed. Shall I override, Mr. Carson?”

            I look at Damien and ask,
“So, what am I supposed to do?” At this point, I’m afraid I’m going to have to
go through an x-ray body scan.

            “State your full name and
then say confirm identity,” he tells me calmly.

            I sigh. All of this is
becoming a little too unnecessary for my liking. What is there to hide down
here? I’ll play along for a little while longer though. “Rayne Danielle
Whitmore. Confirm identity.” I tried to sound as authoritative as D had
sounded.

            “Rayne Danielle Whitmore.
Identity confirmed. Prepare for eye scan.” Surprised, I hesitantly stand where
Damien had stood and hold my eyes open, not knowing if there’ll be a lazer
pointed in my eye that could blind me if I wasn’t who they thought I was.

            Thankfully, the voice
says, “Analysis complete. Rayne Danielle Whitmore, daughter of Jason Anthony
Whitmore. Identity has been confirmed. It is good to finally see you Ms.
Whitmore.”

            I take a deep breath as
the elevator finally begins to move with a slight jolt and a humming sound.

            “So,” I say, extremely
curious. “What does it do if you are not who you say you are?”

            “Well, it accesses your
perceived threat level, and from there it either gasses you to sleep while it
calls security, or it,” he pauses, but I already know the answer. “Can kill
you.”

            I don’t ask any more
questions. I think I’m starting to understand why Damien had wanted my daddy to
talk to me about these things first. Whatever is down here clearly needs to be
protected and now all I can think about is how many people may have died trying
to get to the lower level.

            When the doors open, I
finally see my dad standing in front of the doors waiting patiently for our
arrival. At first glance, other than the fact that he has on dress slacks with
just a wife beater, nothing seems out of place. Then, as I glance again before
his chiseled arms embrace me, I can tell something is off. Even though this had
been his idea to bring me down here, he obviously is having second thoughts
about it. Hmmm.

            “Hey, sunshine,” he says
warmly. I had always thought it was amusing that he called me that, since he
was the one who named me Rayne.

            “Hey, daddy,” I reply with
a smile.

            He and Damien exchange
brief looks and I can almost hear the argument they surely had before now.

            I try to break the awkward
silence. “The technology is beasty dad. I need to put one of your security
locks on my phone in case someone tries to steal all the naughty pics on it.”

            That does the trick as
Damien bites back a laugh and my dad attempts to completely ignore what was
just said by shaking his head and pretending to clean out his ears with his
finger tips. Dad then starts to walk away, his demeanor all business. Damien
motions for me to follow. I walk closely behind them ogling all the cases of
weapon after weapon that are hanging on each side of the wall as we go down a
corridor. Interesting. I’d never seen so many different types of knives,
swords, spears, bows, or even guns. My dad has to have every single hand
wielded weapon known to man down here. This would have been a ninja’s wet
dream.

            “As you know, we contract
with the government to make weapons of all sorts, but that’s not all. Sometimes
I sell weapons to collectors or even overseas to small rebel groups if the
price is right. We have the most brilliant minds at work here and those minds
are just as valuable as the weapons we make. They, above all must be protected
Rayne,” my dad tells me, his mood becoming much more sour by the way his body
language shifts as we get closer to a room.

            He stops just short of the
door, reaches for the handle then stops, before turning to me frowning. “There
are consequences for those who threaten the safety of my family, my friends,
and my valued scientists.” As he says the last part, he looks me in the eyes, a
cold ruthlessness behind them that I’ve never seen before from him.

            “Show me,” I tell him,
needing to understand what it is that has changed my father in this way.

            Damien steps in front of
us and opens the door. Agonizing moans hit my ears, coming from across the
room. I step inside. A white man is strapped to a chair, arms behind him, head
bowed, and shirt ripped open in the front to reveal deep bruises and blood. 
Without seeing his face I know that it is in the same condition. On the floor
is a bloody towel lying next to my father’s suit jacket. He cleaned himself up
before I got here. My father had done this to this man. Why did he need me to
see this?

            I try not to turn and run
away as I study the room to see brass knuckles, spread on a table, a hammer, and
other items that I care not to name. My stomach starts to hurt and my knees
begin to tremble. As if he can feel my fear, the man lifts his swollen face
slowly, looks up at me, and smiles through bloodied gums and missing teeth. One
eye is completely swollen shut and the other eye reveals something dark and
sinister inside it. It is almost as if he’s enjoying the pain that he’s been
put through in a twisted sort of way. How can a man who has been beaten like
this still look as if he’s the one in charge? At this point, I am more afraid
of him than all the weapons in the room. Instinctually, I take a step back and
the battered man looks amused by my reaction.

            I can hold my gaze no
longer and stand closer to Damien as I tuck my hair behind my ears nervously.
My heart is pounding and goose bumps form on my flesh. “What’s wrong with that
man?” I ask quietly.

            Completely understanding
my meaning, my father answers loudly, “This man is a sociopath. He kidnapped
two of my best researchers and tortured them to get our secrets. All I’m doing
is returning the favor.”

            The man laughs. It sounds
like tires screeching.

            “Where are they now?” I
ask, afraid of the answer.

            “Dead,” the man hisses,
sounding nothing like a human being. “I mailed them back when I was done.”

             I use my hand to cover
the sound of disbelief. I imagine my father opening a package to find broken
body parts, decomposed, staring back at him. How could this be business? How
could my daddy, no, how could anyone play this game?

            Damien puts a hand around
my waist to balance me, and I cannot meet his eyes. He says nothing and so, my
father continues.

            “A perspective associate
had been fishing around our sites for some time now. Ever since we began to
expand certain types of weaponry that has proven very successful in some of our
field tests, we’d begun to start peaking the interest of this client. So, he
started to send his errand boy here over to my offices trying to broker a deal
to sell some of my secrets. However, that man deals in the black market. We refused
and he didn’t like the answer.” My daddy picks up random things off the table
inspecting each one until he finds that he likes the tire iron the best. “We
make weapons to kill things and we make security technology to protect secrets,
but I would never sell those things to people like you. In the hands of your
kind, the world would fall.”

            His kind? Before I can ask
what that means, there’s a blitz of speed and then a crack that fills the room.
The man howls in misery as his leg twists in ways that it should never go. I
have seen enough. My stomach has seen enough and I know what the outcome of
this game is. Dad said he would return the favor and I know that only death
awaits this man.

            How do I feel about that?
To know that my father who’s always taught me to be moral and upstanding is a
murderer. I don’t know. I had looked at that man for only a couple minutes, but
I can tell that inside of him is something twisted and evil. Still, does that
mean that what my father is doing is justice? How many times has my father
given out this type of justice? Am I expected to do the same?

            My dad had once told me
that reputation was as much of a weapon as anything else and now I understand
what he meant. He has appearances to uphold just as my mom had told me many
times before. I wonder if she knows, if she truly knows the man that she had
fallen in love with so many years ago. How does my dad transform from this to
the kind and gentle man that he is at home? If this is the price that must be
paid to keep our family and assets safe, I’m not so sure that I want it
anymore.

            My head hurts, and all I
want to do now is be with Selene. I need to be around something good and warm.
I need something  right, to hold on to. Selene is right, she is kind, and I
need her. This is something I will never let Jasmine see. I promise myself.
Never will she have to see the violence and torture. Inside those doors, more
muffled screams are being drawn out. I slide down the wall crying silently for
the loss of the scientists and for the loss of my ignorance.

            Five minutes later, Damien
stalks down the hallway to sit next to me on the floor, his hands on his head.
We sit there silently for about five minutes before I finally ask, “Is he
dead?”

            “No,” he responds,
surprising me. “Your father isn’t done with him yet.”

            “Wow. How thorough he is,”
I spit. “How many have you killed?”

            “None. Jason doesn’t want
both of us to go down that road. He says that watching and actually having to
physically carry it out are two different things.”

            I almost laugh at that. My
daddy, the virtuous one, always taking one for the team.

            “Rayne-“

            I cut him off.

            “Don’t Damien. I’m not
ready to talk about anything else right now. I don’t want to know anything
else. I’m on overload and I just want to see Selene,” I practically beg,
feeling the full weight of exhaustion that stress can put on you.