Black Equation - The Hunted Ones

SEVEN

"Things can change with one encounter."

SEVEN

Ophee found herself totally worn out by the time she returned to the barn. Her home was nothing like most people imagined it to be. But then, most people didn't have much imagination to begin with.

It was a strange mix of modern and old, of redwood and tempered glass, a renovated barn house that looked simple enough to trick people into thinking it was a work of an amateur architect but large enough to house thirty people inside. In reality, the main house had sufficient rooms to accommodate a hundred or so heads, but more than half of the rooms were actually built underground. There were multiple tunnels and halls arranged inside, and if one was a newcomer, he or she could easily get lost in the maze.

Behind the main house, there were smaller cabins and warehouses that had dual functions. In the daytime, those were treated either as normal farming sheds or living quarters for the workers. Of course, things weren't as simple as it seems.

After all, her family right now owns a very large tract of land. Penetrating the agriculture industry was one way to disguise the truth of her background. None of their enemies would probably think that men trained to be soldiers in war were actually hauling hay and harvesting apples, right?

Ophee was short of crawling back to her room. As her aching feet stepped on the front porch, she was a hairsbreadth from passing out. She almost neglected the fact that she had to be inside in time for dinner, as it was a family tradition that dinners were meant to be attended by everyone from the main family.

But then, the annoying stuck-up guard who lost his boots reminded her. Bummer.

"I know," she frowned in response. With a flick of a hand, she waved both escorts away. "Go ahead. I'll just clean myself up a bit."

Sadly, I'm back to my home sweet home.

Discreetly, she pressed her palm on a hidden scanner before twisting the knob of the front door. The security of the Creed residence was not ordinary. Only her father and several old codgers knew all the layers upon layers of high technology maximum protection enforced around the perimeter. One wrong action would cause an alarm to blare, and by the time the defense was breached, everyone inside the house would have evacuated.

And that's just the main house, the façade. Underground, there was area with an even stricter defense. If one had no idea what's actually underneath the two-storey barn house, it was impossible to find the entrance to the underground tunnel.

Before anyone inside noticed her return, Ophee ran towards her room, ignoring the hidden cameras on her way. Her bedraggled appearance would have shocked the security people in the monitoring room, probably fearing that she landed herself in a vicious life-and-death fight against an enemy. Fortunately, she encountered none of those aunties that normally loved to watch those dramas in the living room. Even her Uncle Brandon's wife wasn't defending the stairs leading to her bedroom. Normally, one of her aunts would welcome her with a shriek and a reprimand.

For some reason, this made her awfully suspicious.

Against the monitoring system that automatically recorded any movement inside the house, she wasn't too worried. Her dearest Uncle Brandon, as the person mainly in-charge of security, had the primary access to the recordings. And it was his people watching her right now. Not that they weren't used to it. She had done these a thousand times – sneaking in, sneaking out – that if one had to say that Ophee was the number two expert in the family, no one would dare call themselves number one. Maybe she would have to bribe her uncle again to let her off this time.