The Scroll of Knowledge

Chapter 6

I woke up hours later. My head wasn't hurting as much. The empty red bottle had been replaced with a new one. I shuddered when I realized that meant that someone had been in my room while I was asleep.

Now that my head was gone I could finally think about what to do. I still didn't think that Derek was a bad person. He wasn't the most affectionate but he was always nice. I knew him better than I know these people. I'm sure he had a good reason to be doing whatever it is they think he was doing. I needed to talk to him. I needed to talk to Paige as well. She would be worried about me.

I wondered if they thought I was dead. Would they have the funeral without me? I wanted to see my mother one last time before she was cremated. I hugged my knees. Tears dripped onto the sheets. I wanted to go back home. I wanted everything to go back to the way it was before she got sick and I got the stupid key.

I wiped away my tears. Crying wouldn't do anything now.

There was no way we were actually in Russia. When I'd checked my phone in the cell, it had only been five minutes between Shay and Thomas, if those were even their real names (I could see no birth certificate for them bearing those names though something like 'Junaid' kept coming up), arriving in the conference room and me being locked up. It was impossible to travel so far in such a short time.

Memories of the flashing's I saw when my eyes landing on their bracelets came to mind. I pushed it away. It was grief. Grief could do things to people.

My room was too high up to climb out the window. I went to the door and stuck my head out.

The coast was clear.

I shut the door behind me. I remembered the route Thomas had taken to bring me from the cell to the room. I didn't remember seeing any way of escape that way so I went the other.

At the end of the hall there were stairs going up and down.

"Shay was right. You did try to escape."

I spun around. My foot missed the top step. Brennan caught my arm and steadied me. He had a cup of tea in the other. He hadn't even spilled a drop. That was so British of him. All those memes were true.

"What are you doing here?" I asked.

"It is my house," he said. He sat on the stairs going up and took a sip from the cup. I noticed how different his style of clothing was to his brother's. I'd never seen Thomas wear anything with sleeves apart from that short meeting with my boss but Brennan was dressed warmly in a gray shawl collared sweater over a dress shirt. "Shay, said you would try to leave. Not that she needed to tell me. If it wasn't for your headaches I'm sure you'd have tried earlier."

"How do you know about my headaches?" I asked. "Are there cameras in my room?"

"Don't be ridiculous. Weren't you paying even a little bit of attention at dinner yesterday?" Brennan asked. "Shay had them for months. Almost drove Ju mad with worry."

"Who's Ju? Her brother?" I asked.

"You're not allowed to leave or contact anyone until Shay says you can." He was ignoring the questions.

"Do you work for her or something?" I asked.

He snorted. "Of course not. She's my sister-in-law. I'm just doing her a favor. She's the one who can see the future and since I don't have the time to deal with you, I'm just waiting until she says you can leave. I'm not too keen on guests." He finished his tea and stood. "Go back to your room. I have work to do."

"I can't stay locked up in that room forever."

Brennan's eyebrows rose. "Is that what you think?" He took a step towards me and leaned down. There was barely two inches between our noses. I hadn't realized he was that tall at dinner. "Just remember something, you're in my house. You don't get to make any decisions. I'm letting you stay here because Shay asked me for a favor but the only thing I promised was that we wouldn't let those people hurt you. I never promised that I would not. Don't test my patience. Understand?"