Page 29 of Unnatural
A cell phone rang in the back room, startling Sam slightly. This whole conversation felt…surreal.
Morana glanced back. “That’s my call,” she said.
For a few beats, they simply stared at each other. Sam felt troubled and odd, like he should say something but also like he didn’t know this woman well enough to know what that might be. “Good luck, Morana,” he finally said. “I hope it goes well.”
“By whose definition?” she asked. But then she smiled and waved her hand as if to disregard her statement. “Good luck to you too, Samael.”
Sam left the apartment. Back out on the street, he pulled his ball cap low again, stuffing his hands in his pockets andhunching his shoulders, trying to make himself as indistinct as possible as he walked back toward the subway station.Why did you come here? What was the purpose?
But Sam had no purpose. Not small or large nor anything in between.I am nothing alone. I am a tool for the greater good.That’s what they’d told him at least.
The thought had always brought both comfort and despair. But now there was only despair because his one purpose had been taken from him.
They named us after monsters.
Half an hour later or so, he was back in the red pickup truck. He sat there, still feeling off-kilter about his visit to the apartment. Morana had confused him. But he was more concerned about what he’d seen on the paper that Amon had burned. The instructions for his job, Sam knew, because he’d received similar instructions before.
Deercroft.
1358.
Military time: one fifty-eight.What time was it now?Sam wasn’t sure. He didn’t have a phone. That had been taken from him. But he knew it was somewhere around one o’clock.
Deercroft.
They named us after monsters.
Sam turned the key in the ignition and then shut the truck off again, letting out a soft growl, directed toward himself.How many more bad ideas are you going to have before you die, Sam?
More importantly, how many more are you going to follow?
There was a café just up the block that had a sign advertising internet, and he jumped from the truck, heading in that direction. He paid the woman at the counter for thirtyminutes, her gaze lingering on him as he turned away.
He sat down in the plastic chair, far too small for his large frame, clicked on the browser, and typed inDeercroft, New York.
A list of hits came up, and he clicked on the first one.A private school.Deercroft Academy was a private elementary school in the city.
Sam’s hand fell from the mouse, and he sat there for a moment, picturing the sheen of perspiration on Amon’s forehead, the man who had been trained not to sweat.
We have to do what’s necessary. The mission is what matters. The mission is all that matters.
Sam couldn’t stop a mission. Missions were happening all over the world. The other program members were carrying outmissionseverywhere, some perhaps right that second. He didn’t know where. He didn’t know why.
You know this time though, his mind whispered.Deercroft. One fifty-eight.
Each mission is for the greater good.
The greater good.
What did that mean though? No one had ever defined it for him.
Sam glanced at the time on the computer. One twenty-seven.
He hesitated only a moment before scooting back, the chair falling to the floor with a loud clatter. Sam didn’t bother to pick it up. He turned and headed for the door.
Chapter Fifteen
Autumn slowed to a walk, breath coming quickly as she melded with the other New Yorkers moving throughthe crowded streets. She’d rolled up the stolen files and stuffed them in her mostly empty purse and secured it around her body. Now she gave one final glance over her shoulder, secure in the belief that no one was on her tail. If Chantelle had called the authorities present in the building and they’d attempted to follow and detain her for stealing official, sealed documents, she’d successfully evaded them.
