Atoning (Darkness Rising 3.1)

Prologue - Rae

Rae had failed Chloe once. She wouldn't do it again.

She sat in the hotel room, listening to her mom talk to John Schultz. He was their main contact with "the group." They were talking about Chloe. Schultz had "a man on the inside," as he called him. Someone at Badger Lake feeding him information about the kids being held captive there: Chloe, Simon, Derek and Tori. There were also a bunch of others Rae didn't know--subjects in another Edison Group experiment called Project Phoenix.

Rae had been on the run for almost eighteen months now. Ever since her mother rescued her from the Edison Group, after Rae had...

She swallowed. After she'd betrayed Chloe. She'd thought she was doing the right thing--Dr. Davidoff had convinced her that the Edison Group only wanted to help the kids. She should have seen right through the lie, but after years in foster care, competing for attention with her younger foster siblings--and almost always losing... Well, her mom said that was why Rae had done it. Dr. Davidoff had made her feel special and promised her an amazing life, and she'd fallen for it. She wouldn't make excuses for that. She'd messed up bad. Betrayed the best friend she'd had in years. But she was going to fix that now.

Chloe and the others had been captured by the Nast Cabal. Six months ago, when Sean Nast had tracked down Rae and her mom, he'd seemed like the answer to their prayers. He'd cut a deal with the St. Cloud Cabal to let all the Edison Group kids finally stop running. He would protect them from others, and he'd give them a place to live--Badger Lake, a community custom-made for the kids and their families. They'd get a house. Her mom would have a job. Rae would go to school and, later, to college, all of it paid for by the Nasts. The only catch was that they'd also get special training in hopes that they'd decide to become Cabal employees when they were old enough.

Did it sound too good to be true? Not exactly, and that's why they'd fallen for it. Because, as her mom said, the Nasts knew exactly how to make their offer both enticing and plausible. It was like an athletic company wooing future Olympians by giving them all the training and equipment they need in hopes it will pay off in sponsorship. A business gamble. Perfectly logical. Except it was a lie.

Two weeks before they were due to move to Badger Lake, Schultz and his group of anti-Cabal activists found Rae and her mom and told them the truth. There was no "Badger Lake." Not really. Oh, the place existed, but it was an armed camp. When they arrived, Rae would be put into barracks with the other kids, where she'd be brainwashed and forced to train as a Cabal soldier. As for her mother? Well, they'd tell Rae that Jacinda was fine, but they'd only keep her around for as long as she was useful, for as long as they could force Rae to comply by threatening her mother. In other words, for as long as it took the brainwashing to kick in and for Rae to forget she'd ever had a mother.

Schultz and his group had saved them from the horrors of Badger Lake. Now Rae was going to save Chloe.

"It's all been arranged," Schultz was saying. "The kids sometimes get weekend trips into North Bay as a reward for good behavior. Chloe and a few of the others will be there this weekend."

"Under guard, of course," her mother said.

"Yes, but remember these kids are fully brainwashed. As far as they're concerned, they're happy at Badger Lake, and they have no desire to leave it. There's little chance of them escaping, so they'll only have a few guards, and one of them is our guy. He'll make sure the others are preoccupied when Rae moves in." He turned to Rae. "You understand what you're to do, Rachelle?"

Rae nodded. "Let her catch a glimpse of me and lure her away."

"Right. When we do take her down, she's going to fight. She's going to lie. These kids haven't just been brainwashed--they've been taught CIA-grade techniques for dealing with capture and interrogation. She'll have a complete story fabricated. She'll tell you how wonderful Badger Lake is and that she's living there with her aunt and her dad in a house in their perfect little community, exactly as Sean Nast promised you. She'll lie to get away and maybe even take you with her."

"She won't," Rae said. "I'm going to rescue Chloe, whether she wants it or not."

One - Chloe

I was playing fetch with Derek. Except I was the stick, which can be a little dangerous with a werewolf. That's why we did it--training him so he wouldn't see a fleeing human as dinner. Which can be somewhat disconcerting when playing the role of the fleeing human. We've been doing it for over a year, though, starting slow and working up, and he's never so much as spooked me. They say that werewolves chase by instinct, but Derek doesn't seem to have any of that. Maybe it's the genetic modification; maybe it's just him. The point of the game is simply to reassure him that he's not going to accidentally devour his girlfriend. Which would be inconvenient, especially for that girlfriend.

"Okay, boy," I said, crouching in front of him. "Are you ready?"

He snorted. I don't need to crouch very far to get on his level. I've shot up a couple of inches in the last eighteen months. At sixteen, I'm a whopping five-foot-three. Derek, luckily, seems to have topped out at six-three. With conservation of mass, that still makes him a huge wolf. That's what he looks like, too--a wolf not a wolfman. He's a two-hundred-pound black wolf with green eyes. Those green eyes were currently giving me his best get on with it look.

"Hmm," I said. "I don't know about you, but I'm kind of tired. Maybe you can chase your tail instead."