Underground

74

Joel

I stood in front of the glass windows of the council's office and watched as protesters of the Mason faction began to gather. The last three weeks have been nothing but confusion and lies. There have been secret meetings and rebellions against the orders of the council. If the rebels aggression were only towards the council I wouldn't have minded so much. But they want everything. Valentine is behind this. Him and Gary. Two taps on the door followed by some movement removed me from my thoughts and pacing. There was only one other person who knew what I suspected. The only other person who could protect her.
"I've confirmed it. They plan to move within the week."

I looked over my shoulder at Nicholas who moved around the large table, picking up the papers I had discarded when I had entered. "Only a week?" I asked. "That's not enough time, Spalding."

"With some respect, Joel, when people plan a coup it's not for the enemy to know it's coming. I don't come to you because we are good friends but because you have dragged a good woman into this life and she will be caught in this crossfire," Nicholas explained. A growl rose from my throat as I turned to stand in front of him. Everything in me wanted to kill him for the role he played in this. But you need him still. Nicholas would be free to protect her while I fought for my home and family. "Tell me that you will protect her, Nicholas," I pressed.

"You trust a man who would sooner take your mate from your side to protect her?" he asked.

I straightened up, "I trust my rival and a man I once called friend to help me protect the future of our order-"

Nicholas shook his head violently. There was more to this than he was letting on. "Joel. Taking down the Underground as a whole is not the only thing that Valentine wants. He wants Justine," he said quietly as the room doors opened and begun to fill. "Your aunt, Carmen is also involved with their plans. What you are planning to do will delay them only a day, maybe two."

I looked around at the Captains and Generals around the room as well as the Council members that took their seats. This was a match of wits. Valentine had this planned for months and in his own way was using Justine to hide his true ambitions. Whatever he was hiding from my father all these years definitely had to do with those experiments he insisted be run on every new member of the Order. I reached over and took the papers from Nicholas as Valentine and Gary walked in, nodding in my direction. I glanced at Nicholas over my shoulder and he bowed, walking out of the room. Looking around the room one last time my eyes landed on Valentine as I stepped closer to the table, tossing the papers at them.
"So," I begun. "Let's have a chat."

Justine

I was filing paperwork on the laptop Thomas loaned me when a paper was flung onto my keyboard and I looked up to see a very angry Mitchie staring down at me. Three weeks had past since the funeral and things around the Underground was becoming more and more hectic. For starters, people were beginning to question the competence of the council mostly Valentine himself because of the number of missing assassins and deaths that had begun to rack up. Even in the mission I went on with Staci to retrieve a group of kidnapped politicians didn't end the best. The break room that usually played the news was like a ghost town and people have been wanting to transfer out of the London branch. I picked up the paper and frowned. It was Underground made and issued and was a type of propaganda. I looked up at Mitchie, "What the fuck is this?" I asked slowly.
"A bunch of low ranked assassins from the Belrose faction were giving them out at the front entrance this morning," she snapped. "They are directly attacking our faction."

I flipped through the paper and sure enough there was article upon article about how corrupt the Mason faction was and how Eric and the Masons only save their own. There was one article that even bashed Valentine for the fall of the council and a demand for the council members to go under review. I slowly set my laptop down on the table and stood up, still flipping through the paper. This sounded like the makings of a rebellion. "Has anyone else seen this?"