Undisclosed (12 page)

He turned back to her and took the short, flat ruler-like object from her. Embedded in the center of the twisted leather and metal was an eye-shaped turquoise stone. It glimmered and for a second looked alive, moving like liquid mercury back and forth as he tilted it. The leather wrapped its way around the rest of the shiny straight metal, and cuneiform symbols were engraved on either side of the stone.

“What is it?” he said, squinting in confusion and whipping it around in the air as if it was some kind of dagger.

“A form of sonar, according to Ty. If you’re anywhere near the Watchers it shows their location as small red dots.”

“Let me guess, this is what you use to find them?”

“No, our DNA is the same, it would only interfere. It was for Jack.”

“And how’s it work?” he asked, jabbing the smooth circular stone with his finger.

She pointed to it. “Not entirely sure, it’s one of Ty’s newest harebrained prototypes.”

“That’s it? No ray gun? No cool sword or handgun? Just a beeper that may or may not work?”

She nodded and then tilted her head. “You can always threaten to drive their car.”

“Great,” he said sarcastically.

“And Travis, I wouldn’t go spreading stories, if you know what I mean.”

Travis tsked. “As if anyone would believe it.”

He started across the street, glancing back a few times to see if she was still there. He should have thanked her; if it weren’t for her he probably would be getting anal probed by now. She leaned against the bike, looking up and down the street and then back at him.

As he approached his home, he felt like a lamb being led to the slaughter. It had been a while since he had felt this way. He knew he would need to come up with something fast. He got a call from Ryan? Nah, his mother would follow up on that. He needed some fresh air and got lost?
Ah, you’re screwed
, he thought to himself.

He braced himself as he walked in the front door, half expecting a barrage of questions. Instead, he found his mother seated in the kitchen at the island with her head in her hands. Baxter swirled around his legs, pleased to see him. Travis bent down and patted his back. “Hey, boy.”

As he passed by the living room area, he was shocked to see the entire room in complete disarray. Ornaments were smashed, the sofa was ripped apart, wooden drawers were scattered and broken. It looked as if someone had taken a demolition team through the place.

“Mom?”

She turned her head. Her eyes were red, and he could see she had been crying. She turned back without saying a word, which only made Travis feel even more disturbed. He sat across from her.

Travis tried to soothe his mother. “Mom?”

His mother shook her head. “Who would do this?” she forced out. “As if we haven’t been through enough already?”

Travis looked around the kitchen; cupboards were open, drawers pulled out and papers all over the floor. His mind flashed back to what Jack had said
… They’re going to take you out … you have something they want.

“When did it happen?” Travis asked.

His mother began collecting together the papers on the table, organizing and attempting to tidy up the mess.

“Sometime last night. When I left from visiting you at the hospital, I ran a number of errands and didn’t make it back here until the evening. I found it like this.”

“What did the police have to say?” He waited with bated breath, realizing that at any moment she would remember what they had to say about the hospital.

“The police are investigating it. Checking into it with the neighbors to see if they saw anything suspicious. They said they would have the night shift keep an eye on the house and area over the next couple of nights,” she said.

He thought it was odd; surely that they would have told his mother what had happened at the hospital. There was no way that incident wouldn’t have drawn the attention of the police.

“Was that it?”

She nodded. “Well, that and they returned a few of the belongings from your father’s truck. I haven’t gone through it yet. She pointed to a pile of things on the table behind Travis. “He’s going to be livid when he hears about the break-in—never mind his truck being written off.”

Travis crossed the kitchen to the table and began sorting through the bag of clothes, books and documents, and then he saw the phone.
Could he have? No?
He tried powering it on but the battery was dead.

He remembered what his mother had said about his father being away, but he knew full well that wasn’t the case. He took his phone everywhere with him; it was always hooked to his belt. Then there was what Jack had said about how they had planned to meet him that night.
Whoever Mom spoke to that night, it couldn’t have been
Dad.

Travis never bothered to ask his mother if she had attempted to reach his dad since she last spoke with him, as he knew full well that she wouldn’t be able to get hold of him. Instead, he quickly slipped the phone into his jeans pocket and remained tight-lipped about finding it.

“I thought I was going to pick you up today.”

He twisted slightly and gave his best performance. “They decided to let me leave early. Well, to be honest I kinda felt cooped up in there,” he said casually, continuing to scope out what else was in the bag.

His mom seemed to buy it, which was a first. He could see that she wasn’t coping well, and truth be told, he wasn’t either. Whatever his father had gotten caught up in was serious, serious enough that they would ransack the house, send men after him and openly launch a fall-scale war in a public place.

He spent the rest of the morning and the better part of the afternoon helping his mother put everything back in its place. It took them hours and by the time they were done it was early evening.

He so badly wanted to tell his mother about the phone, in hopes that it would prove his point, but he really didn’t think she could take another thing; it would surely be the final nail in the coffin. He ordered in pizza and they ate together in silence. His mind was whirling and from the expression on his mother’s face, she was carrying her own weight. Once they had finished, his mother retreated into the family room, the TV came on and he could hear the usual sound of wine being poured into a glass.

Travis retreated to his room. Shutting the door behind him he fished into his pocket and dragged out the phone. He plugged his phone charger into it and splayed out on his bed. He ran through the day’s events in his mind, the hospital, the men, The Black Hole, Jayde. Everything in him told him he must be going crazy. He wanted to push the thoughts of them being from another world far from his mind, yet there was no denying what they could do. He was fond of magic tricks, and knew there was a lot that could look real, especially when you were taking pain medication, but there was no way on earth they could fake such displays of power.

He leaned over the edge of his bed, dug down into his bag, and retrieved the device Jayde had handed him. Lying back on his bed, he twirled it around in his hands, examining it. It was extremely light. Travis ran his fingers along the edges, noticing how rigid, smooth and straight it was, a bit like a short ruler. He tapped the underside of it against his wrist and the flat metallic and leather band immediately snapped comfortably around his wrist, forming almost like liquid. The turquoise stone on the surface immediately lit up and an illuminated white dot in the center pulsated, sending out 360-degree ripples of light to the edges of the screen until they vanished, and then it would send out another.
Piece of junk, I’ve seen better gadgets at Radio Shack
. Travis ripped it off his wrist and tossed it onto his desk by the window.

Travis rested on his bed for what seemed like hours. His mind felt like a highway with questions zipping in and out. He snapped out of the constant bombardment as his dad’s phone bleeped, indicating there was some power in it.

He snatched it up and slid the lock on the screen open and began quickly browsing the images. He felt his heart sink as he saw himself, Will and his father in several of them. He got to the end of them and there wasn’t anything else. He leaped off his bed and hooked it up to his laptop. The screen fired up and he immediately began searching the drive. He saw several folders; inside one of them he saw a number of files that he recognized as images, music files and then … there it was. He clicked the folder and it wouldn’t open—it was locked—strange. Why would he lock this? He tried several passwords—family and pet names—before giving up. Travis leaned back in his swivel chair and stared at the screen. He could try the software Ryan had given him for hacking and run a brute-force attack, but that could take days trying an unlimited number of key combinations until the correct one was found.

He needed a faster solution, and there was only one person whom he could trust that had mad skills.
Ryan!

Travis grabbed the phone and cable and dashed downstairs. He poked his head into the family room. Good, his mother was still awake.

“You think I could borrow the car, I need to shoot out.” He dangled the keys in his hand, hoping she would be too tired to bother arguing.

“It’s eight-thirty, Travis, can’t it wait until tomorrow?”

“I won’t be long, promise.”

She gave a concerned look and then spoke.

“No need, you can take your bike.”

Travis cocked his head. “What?”

“Rick was kind enough to pick it up and I paid to get it repaired. It was going to be a surprise—well, kind of. To tell you the truth, with the truck out of commission, I knew you would be asking for the car,” she said before taking a sip of her icy drink.

Travis spotted the keys on the counter. He grasped them and held them tight and shot his mother a look of appreciation.

“No later than ten, I mean it, Travis.”

“Sure.”

Chapter Eleven

Behind the old stone mansion, the roar of bikes reverberated around the freestyle motocross compound, barely drowning out the sound of the ear-bleeding rock music that was blaring from multiple speakers, each one stacked up on top of the other as if it was a concert. It was every biker’s dream and every mother’s worst nightmare; yet for Deagan, with his mother gone and his father too consumed with his own agenda, it was the perfect place to practice, host raunchy weekend parties and perform wild antics with his friends.

Now, lit up by a series of tall floodlights positioned around the mounds of dirt track, dirt bikes soared in the air off tabletops of dirt, a variety of curved metallic jumps, flipping, twisting and performing seemingly impossible maneuvers. These were no ordinary freestyle tricks—no, they made pro freestyle look like child’s play. Their presence in freestyle motocross competitions over the past two years had become almost legendary, with thousands now turning out to watch them live. Just a little power—that was the one and only rule, and it stuck too. But here where few would ever see … their performance made even the gods jealous.

An eruption of cheers, laughter and shouting came from a front-row seat to the action. Beside an ocean-blue pool, Seth and Deagan were surrounded by a handful of barely clothed teens girls and a floor full of crumpled beer cans and empty coolers.

“Dude, Billy’s no-handed kiss of death trick was sick.”

“Try it with a 720 thrown in.”

“You guys are insane, I’ve watched my brother at freestyle events for over six years and I’ve never seen anyone perform tricks like you lot. It’s like you defy gravity.”

Seth slipped his arm around the young beauty and winked at Deagan.

“Ah, that’s nothing, let me show what else we’re good at.”

The girl shoved him and laughed as he led her away into the house. No sooner had they left than Deagan saw them scurrying back out followed by his unimpressed father.

“Hey, chill out, papa Kaine, it’s a party.”

Before Harlan had even reached Deagan the power cable for the music had been yanked out of the wall without anyone touching it. Those still riding on the track heard the music cut out and came over to hear what was going on.

Harlan shook his head. “Deagan, Deagan … you … are a disappointment.”

Deagan ambled around like a court jester, his arms outstretched, a beer in one hand, a cigarette in the other, as if he was introducing his father for the first time. “Ah, Dad, glad to see you could finally squeeze in some time to show up.”

“What is this?” he demanded.

“This, my dear father …” He breathed deeply through his nostrils, slinking down onto a sofa between two girls, his arms slipping around them as if admiring his accomplishments. “This is what it’s all about.” He leaned over and stole a kiss from one of them.

Harlan laughed. “Another scheme to get my attention?”

“Quite the opposite.” He grinned from ear to ear.

Harlan turned to Deagan’s friends. “I think it’s time you all ran along now—my son and I are going to have a little heart-to-heart about responsibility.”

Seth frowned. “C’mon, homie.”

Deagan nodded, gave the other girl a kiss, and they grabbed their belongings and went over to the bikes.