City of Dust

Chapter Twenty

Tun does indeed return later that night. I won't admit it out loud, but I'm looking forward to speaking with the brownie. While I'm a solitary person by choice, the operative word here is choice. If I want to stay in my room and not socialize, that's my prerogative; but when that choice is taken away from me, I get a little stir-crazy.

Since I can't look at the computer during the day, I ask the guard taking me to my three-time daily potty break to bring me some books. He doesn't deign to reply, but by the time we get back to my room, lunch is waiting—along with a stack of old magazines.

And I mean old.

Five, ten, fifteen years out of date.

But it's something to keep me occupied, so I force myself to read articles about celebrities from the west coast who are more than likely dead; recipes that contain ingredients I've never heard of; and parenting advice.

I'm on the fifteenth magazine with dozens more to go when Tun appears on the bookshelf—and he's not alone. Five more brownies emerge from the silver portal, all elders from what I can tell. One even walks with the aid of a gnarled cane. Some of them carry little cushions, which they arrange in a line on the shelf.

I feel as if I've been summoned to some grand inquisition.

Every brownie stares at me with a grave expression on their wrinkly, nut-brown faces. Tun stands at the far left. "Hunter, these are the elders of our tribe."

I give them a little nod of acknowledgment.

The elderly female with the cane is the first to speak. She sits in the middle of the line, which may mean that she's the spokesperson, the oldest, or it might mean nothing special at all. Her long white hair is plaited in a thick braid that hangs over her left shoulder and spills into her lap.

"Tun has informed us that you intend on taking the nephilim," she says, her accent as broad as Tun's. I have to concentrate very hard on every word.

"Yes," I tell the assembled brownies, "but that's going to be rather hard, considering I'm stuck in here with no weapons."

"And where will you take her?"

I actually thought about this while wasting brain cells reading those magazines. "Alaska."

The brownies exchange a look. The elderly female with the braid says, "Alaska? My dear, you cannot go there."

"Why not?" I frown and uncross my legs to tuck them beneath my chin.

"The Institute has another compound there."

They are telling me things that I already know. "Yes, in the peak of Deer Mountain in Ketchikan."

The worried expressions on the faces of the elders swiftly change to surprise. "How do you know this?" a male at the end demands, pressing down on his generous belly as he leans forward.

"Because that's where they took my parents."

Long strings of unintelligible Scottish syllables flow between the elders. Tun clasps his hands behind his back and watches as they seemingly argue back and forth. After a minute, the chatter stops.

"Tell us about this," the elderly female insists.

For a brief moment, I consider my options. I've never told anyone other than Jae-Seong about my past. But they had several opportunities to rat me out and didn't. I hope that the one time I put my trust in someone it doesn't backfire.

"My parents worked for the Institute," I tell them, all the while listening for my internal warning bell to go off. But it doesn't, so I continue. "I spent a lot of time as a child here. They had a joint office in room 312 on the third floor. I spent all of my life believing that they were simple scientists, researching alternative energy sources. It wasn't until last night that I discovered the truth—that they were part of a project that was attempting to harness demonic energy."