Page 61 of Forged By Shadows
“I’m calling it in.” Fuck. Within seconds, my father is going to know we’ve disobeyed him by coming back home, calling him out on his bullshit restoration lie. He’s covering up a break-in, and I have the uneasy sense that this is all relating to Avery. “Ay Boss, we’re back in the house. There are signs of tampering with the alarm system. What are our orders?”
My feet are retracting, an arm outstretched to push the girls back into the auction graveyard room. After a beat, the gruff one comes back with the swift command to search the manor. My jaw clenches. I knew we should have gotten here earlier. Urging Avery to move, she stands firm and grabs my wrist.
“This way,” she barely whispers, tugging me along the hall. Meg is right behind, ushering me along. Despite my instinct to stay still and be stubborn, I have to relent to the fact that Avery knows these walls better than I do.
She speeds along as quickly as she’s able without making a single sound, into my parent’s room and to the left of the four-poster bed. Releasing me to grab either side of the bedside table, the whole unit swings aside with a click to reveal an open hatch in the wall behind. Avery slips in first, Meg following straight after. It’s a tight squeeze, one not made for any type of muscle, but I manage to just about fit. Behind the bedside table, there’s a rope handle to pull the hatch shut, sealing us in the dark space. Lithe footsteps echo around the hidden walls and a moment later, a light appears at the top of a slender staircase.
“What the fuck is this place?” I frown as I make it to the top of the steps and enter a rather spacious room. Peering around the size of it, the crease between my eyebrows deepens. “Where the fuck is this place?”
“It’s a safe room,” Avery gives me a wide-eyed, mini head shake kind of action which infers I’m a fucking idiot. “And we’re just below the attic. It’s a minor extension that was put in years ago, only really visible from the outside if you know to look for it.”
Unlike the dim steps leading up here, the room is bright and airy thanks to a vent system in the top corner. Avery moves past me to close the door with a push of a button, which I now notice is made of a heavy duty metal as it seals us inside. There’s a matching one across the far side, separated by a computer desk on the left and a set of bunk beds on the right. Bedding sits neatly in vacuum-sealed bags on the end of each mattress, which is also covered in a protective plastic. A pink, fluffy rug stretches out in the center of the room, filing the space between fully-stocked shelving units.
“I’m…” I glance between the pieces of paper tacked to the walls, displaying shaded sketches or vibrant colorings. “So confused.”
“I was an abused child who refused to go back out into the real world,” Avery states so plainly, it’s as if she’s said it a hundred times before. “Mom had this room put in for me. If I was ever scared while she was away, I’d come here to feel safe.”
Avery sits at the desk, powering on the computer. It’s old and clunky, but comes on immediately. She loads up a split screen of security cameras I didn’t know were dotted through the manor, skipping through the screens until she finds the men loitering around. There’s easily ten of them, six inside and more visible through the windows. They wear dark polo shirts with a logo I can’t make out, their uniforms and steel-toe boots suggesting they are here to replace the broken window. If only they were doing that, and not helping themselves to the contents of the kitchen and dropping onto the sofa to watch TV. It seems their sweep of the house was short lived.
Swinging around in her chair, Avery’s blonde locks fall over her shoulder as she sits deep in thought. “Although, in the last year or two, mom started joining me in here. We would hide out sometimes.”
“I didn’t know that,” Meg looks over to Avery from where she’s retrieving a bottle of water from a mini fridge. “What did you do in here?”
Avery shrugs. “Play card games, read, sketch. Sometimes we’d watch the cameras and spy on Nixon and the staff.”
“And that didn’t seem weird to you?” I cross my arms, not stepping any further into the room. I feel weird being here, like this space was crafted for Avery alone and I’m intruding. Not that I’d usually give a shit, but this isn’t my turf. I don’t belong in the manor, never mind a place where the demons of Avery’s past are meant to be firmly on the outside.
“I mean…not until now…It was just meant to be a game.” Avery’s gaze becomes hazy. I watch her whole world rearrange behind her blue eyes. Meg kneels beneath Avery’s legs, stroking her jean-clad thighs.
“I don’t think it was a game, Aves,” she says softly. “I think your mom might have been scared of something too.”
My eye twitches. The tension and the onslaught of guilt that hits me becomes all too much. “Stop calling her that,” I hiss, clenching my fists by my sides. Two heads swivel to me, their accusing expressions adding to the weight crushing my chest from the inside. I do what I always do, blocking out the bullshit and focusing on the hatred. It lays dormant inside until I need to call on it, forcing the rest of the world to still. “She wasn’t your mom,” I seethe through clenched teeth.
“We’re really going to do this now?!” Avery shoots to her feet, stepping to me with her chest pushed out. She’s ready to swing, and I’m ready to block it when Meg pushes between us, her head upturned to the ceiling.
“Both of you stop acting like twatmuffins,” Meg sighs. “If you don’t want to seem like siblings, stop bickering like a pair of them.” Avery steps back, strolling towards the bunk bed. From underneath, she pulls out a plastic box and places it on the mattress, her attention focused on what’s inside. Meg drops down at the desk, so I head to the shelves to busy myself with being nosey.
The top half hold necessities like long lasting food and toiletries. I shift through with sparked interest. Clearly my mom thought Avery might be holed up here for long periods of time, with the need of portable toilet bottles and crystals, cleaning soap that doesn't need water and shampoo caps. I decide the lower shelves are reserved for forms of entertainment, as Avery stated. Arts and crafts, pencils, watercolor paints. Boxes of DVDs for the computer and books that have extremely worn spines. I opt not to look through the box labeled clothing.
“How often did you come here?” I ask, deciding my curiosity beats my desire to not speak to Avery ever again.
“In the early years, sometimes nightly. Once my biological father was incarcerated, it was only when the nightmares hit. That door leads to my bedroom,” she jerks her chin across the room. “But recently, I only came when Mom asked. She just wanted to escape sometimes and I thought I understood.” She frowns, continuing to shift through the papers holding her attention. Now she’s speaking, I can’t get her to shut up again. “These are all of my letters from Mr. XO. He never missed a single Christmas or Birthday. I kind of thought he was my friend.”
I kind of think that’s the saddest thing I’ve ever heard, but I keep it to myself. It’s never been so apparent to me as when standing in this room, how lonely Avery was. From outside the manor, I thought she had the perfect life. Hell, I wholly believe she convinced herself she did too. Now it’s all crashing down around us both.
“Aww, I remember this one,” Avery smiles distantly. Meg crosses the room to sit by her side, plucking the crumpled piece of paper from her hand.
“This was when we’d had those awful storms and all the power cuts,” Meg also reminisces, clearly remembering too. “Amidst the wind that fiercely blows. In the eye of the storm, your spirit still glows. You shine brightly, providing light. Guiding me through the darkest night.”
I cringe so hard, my stomach rolls. Turning away I hang over the computer, preferring the view through the screen. Although, these jobsworths still aren’t doing what they’re being paid for. Most linger around, almost lying in wait, while two have finally entered the study.
Crouching over the broken drawers littering the floor, I expect them to start tidying the mess. Instead, they’re carefully sifting through the papers, occasionally taking out their phones to capture a photo and move on.
I lower into the chair, enlarging the camera footage of the study only. Another man enters, this one twice the size of the others. His polo shirt appears to cut the circulation off around his biceps, his trousers too tight fitting to actually be his. The veins in his neck bulge as he shouts something, kicking the armchair over with his boot. The crash reverberates through a set of headphones sitting on top of the computer tower. I slip them on.
“This is a huge waste of time! It clearly isn’t here!”
“Boss wants every inch of this room scoured before we sign off on it. If he deems the study clean, then we’ll fake another break-in for the next room and move on.”
