A Place Where There Is No Darkness

Thirteen

It really didn’t take us much more than five minutes to get to our destination. As Mitchell turned off the engine and the car fell silent and still beneath us, I lifted my heavy, stuffy head. We had parked in front of an old warehouse, seemingly forgotten but for the light seeping out through cracks in the boarded windows. A passer-by with no intention to snoop would never have suspected any sort of activity behind the crumbling walls. Apparently, neither would the police. Or the FBI. The Elite would have made sure of that.

“You coming?”

I jumped. Mitchell had opened my door without my notice and was offering me a hand. One I desperately needed, I knew, because it was quite impossible for me to get up on my own. I looked up at his face and accepted the offered help with a nod.

“Thanks.”

He ignored it. “You okay?”

I stifled a scream when he heaved me up and out of the car. “Uh, I’ve got a hole in my side, so no, not really.” We made our first tentative step and then our second. Mitchell noticed me shaking and repositioned me so that I had an arm slung over his shoulders and he was taking a lot of my weight. I hazily remembered him getting shot in the shoulder, which had to be crying for attention right about now, but if it was, he didn’t show it in the slightest.

“No, I meant … you looked kind of stricken back there.”

And I realised that I was. Even through the haze, I could still feel my heart pounding away at my chest. Somehow, I had truly believed that I would never return to the Elite again. That I would be bounced around from prison to prison until I was grey and old or stabbed to death by a cellmate for stealing their sandwich. A month ago I had still believed that. Then, over the course of a few weeks, my life had changed completely.

And now here I was. Where all the nightmares had begun.

“I’m fine,” I said gruffly. Because it really wasn’t anyone’s business.

We shakily made our way to the entrance. There was no bell, at least none that seemed to be working. I let my eyes sweep over the door and noticed a vintage door knocker that looked strangely out of place surrounded by the otherwise rotting wood. It was shaped like a lion’s head with a ring in its mouth and it was as graceful as the beast it represented.

I cleared my throat and gestured towards the knocker. Mitchell noticed it, too, and expressed his surprise with a quirk of his eyebrows but didn't comment further. He simply reached for the iron ring and rapped it against the wood three times.

The door opened instantly. As if the man standing in the doorway had been waiting behind it. I suspected he had.

»Password?« he said with his characteristic monotone. I smiled. His dark sunglasses mirrored the landscape outside, his grey hair as short as I remembered, and I found myself comforted.

Not all members of the Elite were evil. Some – many – had simply been forced into the business, like me. Like Alfred.

Mitch was starting to respond, but I tightened my grip on his shoulder and made him stop. “Hey, Alf,” I said and even I was surprised how weak my voice sounded. “It’s me.”

He only marginally moved his head in my direction; rather than looking at me, he shifted his ear to catch my voice better. How I liked this gesture of his. Even though he was blind and couldn’t see my face at all, I still felt as if he gave me more of his attention than anyone ever had.

“Ellie? It is nice to hear you!”

“Nice to see you, too, Alf,” I said with a weak smile.

“Are you okay?”

“I, uh … I’ve kinda been shot, but I’m fine.”

“You don’t sound fine,” he argued.

“I will be.”

“That you will. And who is this charming gentleman next to you?”

Mitchell was about to ask something in that rude manner of his, but I spoke first. “Now, how would you know he’s charming?”

Alf laughed. “That was just a lucky guess. But it was lucky, right?”

I gave Mitchell a mock once over, even though Alf couldn’t see me do so. I knew he knew exactly I was doing it, though. Then I smiled and turned back to face Alf.

“Kind of, yeah. He got me here alive, which is something. He also got me shot, though, so let’s just wait and see, ‘kay?”

“As you wish, my lady.” Alf stood back with a small bow and let us pass.

Now came the hard part.

The corridors we took were deserted, just like one would suspect from an abandoned warehouse. We walked down many of them, took lefts and rights and straights and had no idea where we were actually going. It was supposed to be this way. Every newcomer had to find their own way. Policy. It was the best way to let one get lost in the maze of the building and prevent strangers from drawing too thorough a map of it in their heads too quickly.

With every step I grew weaker and the pain stronger. It was taking my breath away and using it for its own, twisted purposes.

Finally, after an eternity of dusty walls and cobwebbed ceilings, we entered a hall where there was activity. All movement stopped as the occupants of the room noticed our presence. It was an act, of course, but it was still nice to think that we had surprised them. Which I knew we hadn’t, simply because it was impossible to surprise the Elite. But they didn’t want us to think so. It was only beneficial to them if we were lulled into a false sense of security, believing that we were better or smarter than they were.

They had, however, forgotten how long I’d been playing these games. I had invented some of them. I would never allow myself to let my guard down. Probably not until the day I died.

A blond woman I didn’t know came up to us. She took in the blood on my hands and my T-shirt with cold blue eyes, then robotically lifted her head to stare at my face. She did not meet my gaze.

“Orwell will see you now.”

I sighed. I had hoped to get medical attention before having to face the head of the Elite again, but I would just have to soldier through.

Mitchell, apparently, wasn’t of the same opinion.

“Uh, excuse me, but she’s been shot,” he protested. I signalled for him to stop, but he either didn’t get the message or ignored it. “She needs a doctor, like, now.”

The woman regarded him closely without ever meeting his eye. I waited anxiously for her response, but nothing spectacular happened. “Orwell is waiting now,” she simply said, as if that was any kind of explanation – which it was –, then turned around and walked away, clearly expecting us to follow.

Mitchell didn’t budge.

I struggled to reach his ear with my mouth. I only got about halfway, but it was close enough. “Please follow her. I’m fine. Really. And we need to be in that room with Orwell. Please.”

He watched the woman slowly getting lost in the crowd of people, his expression conflicted. He wanted this too, probably almost as much as me. But something was holding him back …

“I’ll be fine, promise,” I said again. That finally did it. He closed his eyes briefly, nodded curtly, and off we went, a lot faster than before. I was quickly out of breath, but Mitchell didn’t seem to notice. Maybe he had distanced himself from the situation somehow. Maybe he had reminded himself that he didn’t really care what happened to me and that he had a mission to complete.

We were led to a flight of stairs and then down, down, down. Underground. The temperatures dropped immediately and the air around us was suddenly moist and stale. It wasn't surprising that Orwell had chosen this place to serve as his layer. And his throne room.

The woman stopped in front of a door and gestured towards it. We stepped forward. The door was opened from inside by two men in ridiculous uniforms and as we entered, a crowd of people that had been politely conversing around a long table in the centre of the room fell suddenly quiet. They all looked at us.

On a throne, perched on a raised pedestal, sat Orwell. The wrongness of the whole scene was only underlined by the fact that the throne was turned around, with its backrest facing the room. The only parts of Orwell we could see were his arms, resting on the armrests of the throne, the sleeves of his large robe hanging down, almost touching the floor.

I had been told that few people, if any, had ever seen Orwell’s face. I myself had come very close once. In a fit of rage – which had also only been witnessed by few – he had jumped off his throne and turned around towards the people in the room. I had been fully prepared then to face the man without a face, but because of the black mask he had worn under the baggy hood of his baggy cloak, he had remained faceless to the day.

“Welcome,” he said, his voice echoing off the bare walls of the room. A simple gesture of his right hand – which would have gone unnoticed if the attention of the whole room hadn’t been concentrated on the two armrests of the throne – had all the previously conversing people scrambling out of the room and the door closing behind them.

The cold woman, Mitchell, Orwell and I were alone now.

At this point, I wished I had explained to Mitchell a bit better the dynamics of this particular organisation and what was behind them. He looked vastly overwhelmed, even though he tried to hide it. This only proved that Orwell was on the right track. Terrify and conquer, that was his quest. For all its secrecy and invisibility in the real world, the Elite sure loved its pomp down here, where it couldn’t hurt. Indeed, it was quite vital. The fact that he was working in the shadows didn’t mean that Orwell didn’t have to show off his power in order to be able to keep it. He just had to show off to the right people, and not a big circle of those either. Where he was only a ghost, a whisper, a rumour in the sunny streets, he had his own kingdom under the radar, where no one would look and no one would find him. Here, he was a presence that would never be denied, not by anyone.

Except on the day I had come so close to seeing his face. But that was a story I had shoved to the back of my mind.

Just as any other dictatorship, the Elite was largely based on a charade, and a very intricate one at that. It was a state of its own, an invisible one, one that didn’t exist in the eyes of its neighbours, but a state all the same. And it was a state at war.

“Ella, it is nice to see you again,” he said. It wouldn’t only have been futile, but also lethal, to point out that he couldn’t actually see me, so I refrained from doing so. Besides, I figured the less I talked, the more energy I conserved, the less shaky and weak I would feel.

Thankfully, Orwell wasn’t one to talk around the bush or particularly enjoy my company. This was going to be over fast, provided I managed not to make him angry.

“You are going to participate in the next mission,” Orwell said. As per usual, he didn’t imply with any one word that the Elite needed me. No, they just gave the order, I obeyed. If not, I would suffer and they would live on, happily ever after. All part of their charade, the problem being that it was hard to tell where the sham ended and reality began. The threats, I knew, were very real.

“What do you need me for?” I asked quietly, in a small attempt at defiance.

He laughed a mocking, fake laugh that dripped with coldness and made me shiver. It even aggravated my wound, somehow. “Do you know what a joke is, little one?”

I sighed, knowing that I had to play along with his game. But I was getting really cold, my side was getting really numb and my legs weren’t willing to carry my weight any longer. I was hanging onto Mitchell, inching towards the floor slowly but surely, and I knew that if this was going to take much longer, I wouldn’t be able to talk anymore. Or listen. Or do anything but fall and let the darkness take me.

“No.” It was so hard to get the simple, simple word over my chapped lips. Such an effort.

“Every joke is a tiny revolution .” His voice didn’t change, but I still knew that these were not his words. “Do not rebel against me, little one.”

“I would never,” I said, almost meaning it. Only he had left me no choice.

“I know you wouldn’t. You never have.” A pause. “You will use your abilities in the mission. You are going to rob a bank. You need to know nothing more for now. As for the gentleman next to you …”

Count on Orwell to see everything behind his back.

“He will join you. We cannot host someone who hasn’t proven their loyalty yet, now, can we?”

The blood in my veins froze. I’d known something like this would happen eventually. Without it, the whole thing would have been way too easy. I had known there would be nothing easy about this.

“Of-of course not.”

“I thought so. Very well. That is all. You may go. Be prepared in three days. Evelyn, take her to the doctor. And keep an eye on him.”

The cold woman, Evelyn, nodded and strode towards the door, which, again, opened just as she was about to exit. Mitchell and I turned around, too, but before we could take a step, my legs gave out and I grunted. Black spots were dancing around in my vision and I would have fallen to the floor, and I would have kept falling and lost myself if it hadn’t been for Mitchell’s strong arms. He wrapped one around my shoulders and placed the other under my knees and lifted me effortlessly off the ground. I would have protested, but hey, there would still be time for that after I needed his help to get away from Orwell as fast as I could.

As soon as we were out the door, I fisted his shirt and pulled to get his attention. He looked down at me, got the message and lowered his head, letting his ear rest near my mouth.

“You … you have to-to go.” I whispered, quietly enough not to be overheard by Evelyn. Or anyone else potentially hidden in the walls. I liked to think that I was only doing it to keep our forbidden conversation strictly private, but in reality, my throat simply wasn’t strong enough to squeeze out anything more.

“Why? Because he’s going to test my loyalty?”

I wanted to go, it would have been so easy to escape the pain, just slip away, but I had to say something more. He had to know. He had to find a way out.

“He – you’re g-going to have to kill someone,” I told him weakly. “Or he’ll kill you. Y-you have to … to go.”

Having done everything that I could, I let go of reality, letting myself appreciate the arms I would never feel around me again just for a second. Then I felt nothing.