The Seasons

Chapter 46

Summer had been called back to that cult place, and he had arrived to try to find that door again. Emil had taken him away from that door for a reason: they were hiding something, and he would get to the bottom of it, whether they liked it or not.

So, he walked down the hallways again, this time led by a lean man with long dark hair and delicate features. He tried to make small talk but was ignored as he went down the elevators and was led to that room; he turned around to say thank you, but the man was not there.

He wiped his hands down his jeans before he entered. Like before, it was packed full of people, all talking to one another, a bright fluorescent light once again lit the room, and no furniture was visible except for the podium towards the front of the room. Judging by the light grey walls and the dark flooring, Summer assumed he was in the same room as he had been the last time.

He knew he had probably five, if even that, minutes to search for the door and be back in the room. So, he slipped out the entrance to the east, and no one noticed him. He went down the hallways, all of which looked the same, and, for extra measure, had taken his phone with him, but he somehow remembered the door and hadn’t made any mistakes.

It was down the hallway, the third right, then down again to the second left, down to the third right and down that large hallway stood the door, which seemed to be sucking on all the light around it. He returned the way he came, his heart pounding; he really should have planned what he was doing. How would he find a way to sneak back out? What if they took him before he managed to help whoever was stuck inside?

Inside the room, Emil was on the stand, and he was talking blankly about the plans they had for the future. The more Summer listened to their goal, the more he realised this was definitely the group they had been looking for. But why were they here? They were only a few hours away from Moonwane when they could have been a menace in the town.

Once again, Emil mentioned the bloodshed the group, which he called Iustitia, had created was necessary. He also claimed that everyone involved had volunteered; he thought back to Wing, who was traumatised by this group and wanted to call him out then and there. But he decided against it; he was one of the few humans in the room, knowing he would be killed without hesitation. So, he stayed quiet as Emil rambled on, and then the woman beside him took over the podium.

Vanessa looked as she always did, dressed in a black suit, her blood-red lips smiling as she scanned the crowd and paused over Summer, who froze but kept eye contact before moving on and addressing the group. He listened, and it all dawned on him.

He was technically helping Iustita; he didn’t want to help them. He did not want the deaths of hundreds to be on his hands; he only wanted to be with Autumn, not become involved with a killer group of Entia. But the more he looked around, the more he realised he was too deep. Vanessa and Emil knew who he was, and they appeared to be high up in the ranks. They could find and kill him; hell, they could kill everyone around him.

No. They could kill Autumn, and that was the one thing he couldn’t let happen. So, he ran his hands down his pants and focused.

He could play spy. He could learn all he could and then find a way to report back to his friends without gaining suspicion about where he was getting his intel from.

~*~