The Unmasking

Part 8

Sang POV

Each rung was cold and gritty, belying it's age and making me shiver. Jay was right behind me, urging me to keep moving when I hesitated and moved a foot back to the rung below. I couldn't do this. I don't know how I always managed to get myself into so much trouble, no matter how hard I tried to stay out of it. I could see Gabriel agreeing with me emphatically on this issue, nodding his head happily and calling me his Trouble. Jay moved up behind me where I was frozen on the ladder, and then stepped back too, pausing, looking up at me to see what was wrong. I heaved a shaky sigh.

Here went nothing.

I swallowed painfully in my dry throat and re gripped at the ladder, twisting at the flaking metal for a moment before moving again back up to the door above us. A hand reached out towards me from the shadow of the door, offering assistance up onto the landing. I hesitated momentarily before grasping it and moving my knees up into the entrance to help pull myself up. The smell of dust and mold assaulted my nose, and I squinched my nose up in efforts to keep from sneezing while Jay was helped up by the same hand that had reached out for me. I peered around in the dark of the place, sweeping my gaze into the black as if I could see the answers in it. I felt the air shift as Karen, Derrick, and Jay moved around me and jumped when one of them touched my arm as if to show me which way to go. I snapped my back straight and wrapped my arms around my waist, then moved forward at the touch. A scraping noise interrupted the scuffling of our feet in the debris, and then a sliver of florescent light broke open a few feet in front of me. I was through the door in a moment, heart suddenly pounding in pure rage at the person that was leading this whole fiasco. I blinked and stopped short when all I saw was a massive wall of old monitors and piles of tangled computer cords intermixed between it all.

Each monitor was different and stacked one on top of another from the floor up. Different calibers of uncorrected color and black and white were mixed in a random pattern of sizes and colors almost to the ceiling. Every screen steadily held on a different room perspective and even streets. My gaze flicked from one screen to another, taking in all the different views. One caught my eye, a black and white view of a meeting room by the looks of it, but that's not the aspect that held my attention.

Mr. Blackbourne was bent over unfolded papers and talking into his phone while Kota and Victor sat at a computer, heads together while they looked closely at the computer's screen. Victor was varying between typing rapidly and using the mouse, while Kota looked on and occasionally pointed at the screen. Kota sat up a bit and leaned back in his chair, putting his hand up to his hair in a gesture of frustration.

“I see you've noticed our surveillance system.”

The voice came from behind me and I knew it, knew who it belonged to the moment he uttered the first syllable. I turned, arms still folded across my waist and faced him. Will pushed at the door I had entered by and closed it, pulling keys from his pocket and fumbling with them nervously as he attempted to lock the deadbolt. I watched him fumble gracelessly with the task as I waited for him to finish locking me in. He dropped the keys, and bent hurriedly to snatch them up. I simply sat there and let him do it while I stared at him floundering about. He really didn't look that scary without his trademark mask.