Deion poked his head out of the alcove and peered as far as he could see down the deserted alleyway and onto the street. “No sign of her yet.”
He and Alex ducked back deeper into the recess. “Didn’t we say we’d learned our lesson the last time we snuck out past curfew?” Alex bemoaned.
“We did,” Deion sighed, “but after everything she told you… aren’t you curious to see what she has to say?”
“That’s why I’m here,” Alex replied, resigned. “Against my better judgment,” he added under his breath.
Deion peeked into the alley again and considered all that Lizzie had revealed to Alex. He’d seen her face when she ran out of the drama airing last week, and it was clear that she at least believed everything she said. But could such a sordid tale really be true? Could all of this really be happening right under their noses?
“I don’t know why exactly,” Deion said. “But I just trust her.”
“Me too,” Alex admitted. “Otherwise, believe me, I would not be here.”
Alex was a good friend, but his temperament had always led him to be less inclined to stick his neck out for other people than Deion was liable to do. The fact that he was here spoke volumes about how he must feel about Lizzie, Deion knew.
Light footsteps echoed down the vacant alleyway. This time, Alex peered around the corner, and his face lit up as he registered who was approaching – it must be Lizzie, Deion deduced.
A moment later a whirlwind of blonde hair spun into the alcove.
“Thank you guys so much for meeting me.” Lizzie spoke quietly, but tension practically screamed from her eyes. “There’s one more thing I want you guys to know, something I didn’t tell Alex the other day.” She looked earnestly between the two friends, but before Deion could ask what she meant, she finished, “I think it’s best if I just show you. Come on.”
Lizzie briskly started down the opposite end of the alley. Deion raised his eyebrow at Alex, who shrugged and quickly followed after her.
The sun sunk lower in the sky casting long shadows against the buildings, which the trio stuck to as they paced efficiently and unobtrusively through several backstreets until they reached an unlocked back door many blocks away. Lizzie led them inside and up the nondescript stairwell, and they exited, panting, a dozen floors up into an abandoned office space.
She crossed quietly into a deserted office, opened a drawer of the desk, and withdrew a pair of binoculars. Clearly, she had been here before.
Lizzie motioned to Alex and Deion to join her by the window, and she gently nudged the blinds aside and pointed at the building across the street. “Do you guys know what that is?”
“The old hotel,” Alex answered. “I stayed there a couple nights when I first arrived in the country, before I met my host family.”
Deion remembered the opulent and glamorous building well – even though he’d never been a guest, his family had sometimes gone to brunch there when they visited him at school. He hadn’t thought much about it since the outbreak had happened; he guessed he assumed that it had been converted to living space like his efficiency unit.
“That’s where the Ruling Class lives,” Lizzie explained.
In the fading twilight, the building almost looked abandoned. Could all of the horrors Lizzie had told them about really be emanating from this one spot? “Those are the people in charge?” Deion clarified.
“They think they are,” Lizzie rolled her eyes, “and they do make a lot of recommendations, that’s kind of their job. But ultimately it’s the Engineers calling the shots. They take a lot of liberties, though. Some more than others,” she added darkly.
Deion got the sense that she was building up to something, so he just watched the building in silence, waiting for her to continue. After a few moments, a handful of rooms on the dark upper floors across from them lit up.
Lizzie sighed. “Here we go.”
She picked up the binoculars and handed them to Alex.
“Take a look,” she directed, nodding towards the lit rooms.
Alex lifted the lenses and focused the view. Deion could see his brow crinkling, his lips curling into a grimace, as he struggled to interpret what he was seeing.
“Is that…?” he muttered to himself before trailing off. He lowered the binoculars and looked with consternation at Lizzie. “That can’t be what I think it is…”
Lizzie gently took the lenses from Alex’s hand and pressed them into Deion’s grip without breaking Alex’s gaze. “It is,” she nodded, solemnly.
Alex gasped, a look of horror settling into his countenance.
Puzzled, Deion raised the binoculars and peered through them in the same direction Alex had been looking.
As they could easily see even unassisted from their vantage point across the way, most of the upper floors were dark and seemingly uninhabited. But a few rooms shone with a dim light, so Deion focused his search there.
The viewing device must have included some sort of digital enhancement, as the image appeared much brighter and more detailed than he would have expected.
Through the open windows, he observed what looked like pretty standard (though well-appointed) hotel rooms: one or two large beds, a dresser, desk, various lamps, and unremarkable artwork adorning the walls.
Nothing seemed out of the ordinary until he noticed movement on one of the beds. Concentrating, he watched – his face flushing with embarrassment – as a scantily clad woman sat up from the sumptuous pillows and reached up to brush her hair back from her face. For some reason, her arm stopped abruptly at the crown of her head, and it was only when Deion zoomed in a little more closely that he could see why: her wrist was chained to the headboard.
Deion was grateful then that his dark skin hid most of the extent of his mortification – he was obviously witnessing something he was not supposed to see.
The woman adjusted her position and lifted her leg slightly off the bed, and Deion could see that there was another shackle around her ankle. His stomach dropped. He knew it could be just some kind of kinky fetish, but something about the scene was just not sitting right with him.
When the door at the back of the room opened and two men entered, his instincts proved correct – she shrunk back into the pillows in obvious distress, Deion clutching the windowsill in front of him in outrage. One of the men stood at the foot of the bed undoing his belt, Deion pleading under his breath for someone to intervene while the other man stalked towards the window and abruptly yanked the curtains closed, blocking off Deion’s view.
“No!” Deion shouted, slamming down the binoculars. He turned to Lizzie in indignation. “What’s going to happen to her?” he demanded.
Lizzie looked him straight in the eyes and very quietly but firmly replied, “Exactly what you think is going to happen to her.”
Deion felt the blood rushing to his head, his heart pounding in his ribcage. “We have to do something!” he insisted.
Alex put his hand out and grabbed his friend’s wrist. “What can we do?”
“Something!” Deion spat with disgust.
“Thank you for wanting to help,” Lizzie intoned, her voice filled with emotion. “I’m sorry you had to witness that, I didn’t know how else to explain it.” She looked gravely at Alex, and then at Deion. “We will do something, if you’re both willing. We can stop this, together. Maybe not tonight, but she will be okay.” Barely audible, she added, “Just like I was.”
Deion’s heart shattered watching her drop her eyes to the floor. Alex tentatively reached for her hand, and Deion was grateful to see that she took it and looked up at him, tears in her eyes, but her expression filled with strength. He looked away to afford them some privacy.
He’d seen enough tonight. Whatever was going on in Paragon, he was not okay with it. And he would not be complicit.
Even if they had to risk their own safety, this had to be stopped. The Engineers needed to be stopped.