Children of the Gamma

chapter two || i

[ word count : 2508 ]

I'm pasty with sweat by the time I get home. I was hoping to get some team morale from the mansion staff, but the second the elevator opens on the third floor, all hope of that flies out the window.

I count at least five pacing, three others frantically cleaning things that don't need to be cleaned, one crying with Gia consoling him, two more staring off into space shocked to their cores. A cluster of four converse in the furthest corner of the room. I recognize some of the scientists from the sublevels in the midst.

All activity ceases when I step into the room.

Before anyone can say anything, I lift my hands. "Everything's going to be fine." If not now, maybe a few years. Here's hoping. "I'll go talk to him." And there they are—the five most idiotic words I've ever uttered.

But they seem to calm everyone down for the time being. Gia gets to her feet and meets me halfway across the floor, her hand reaching for mine. "I'm sorry I sent it, but I—we all hoped you could try."

I clasp her hand tightly between both of mine. "I will. Don't worry."

She nods, glances down the hallway that leads to his quarters. "He should be in the private dining room with his governors right now."

"Then wish me luck." Without second thoughts, I return to the elevator and ride down to the second floor. The doors slide open on his empty meeting room. Across the room, behind my father's seat, are the doors to the dining room. Raucous laughter pulses from behind the door.

They haven't left yet. This is when I start stressing. Sweat slicks my palms, the blood surges in my ears, my heart beats a tattoo against my ribs—the works.

I make my way around the table. Behind the chairs, portraits of the past Upkeepers line the walls, with smaller pictures of their Downkeepers below them. Under my grandfather are two paintings, one of my father when he was younger, and the other—I've never known who it was. Nobody in the castle speaks their name. Where a portrait used to be, a thin white x blots out distinguishable features, leaving the rest smeared. I don't know where they went, what happened to them, anything.

I only know that they were the Downkeeper that could have been.

At the end of the hallway, right after the flattering painting of my father, is the door to his office.

I stop, my stomach jolting into my windpipe. I take a deep breath. Lift a fist. Remember April Spider Flora everyone in Solada—Azurdin, mulatto, and unmarked alike.

I knock on the glossy wood.

Obviously, it's lost in the buzz of conversation, the clink of wine glasses.

So I shove open the door.

The chatter fades as ten men swivel their heads in my direction. My father stands at the back of the room, deep in conversation. He breaks off when he spots me.

His expression freezes for long enough for me to infer that he knows what I've come for. And his light "Cecil, what are you doing here?" is forced enough for me to realize that he's going to pretend he doesn't.

I step into the room, the smell of cigarette smoke and alcohol choking my senses. The sunset streams in from the windows and splays across the intricately patterned carpet. On a table against the wall, the skeleton of a roast sits, surrounded by bottles of wine, brandy, bourbon, whiskey. I wonder how much my father has consumed.