The Duns

Caught

Chapter Twenty

Catherine

"This is not going to work! Tell her that!" I whisper fiercely into his face, my voice urgent and at the brink of rising. "They've probably figured it out already. Don't you get it? Those people can read my mind!" I say, my index finger tapping at the hair above my ears. "And I don't know about you, but I surely don't want to get stuck in this!" Damn it!

The man in front of me looks pissed as he raises his hand to shush me and continues speaking into the microphone on his shirt, his beard wobbling up and down with his chin as he goes on, speaking in a language I'm not equipped to understand. I turn to one of the others.

"What's he going on about? What's happening?" The man looked at me with pity in his eyes and says, "I'm sorry Miss, this is not in my control." Ugh!

The man with the beard, or Jack, puts down the device in his hands. He looks at me, bored. "Miss Davis, you need to convince Peter and the rest of them not to continue with this 'heist'."

I stare into his face, shaking my head, "Are you out of your mind? What will my excuse be? She doesn't want you to continue with your plans because she's scared it'll disrupt hers? Come on Jack, you've known these people long enough to know that they won't do, or change anything without a reason."

I stand up and dust my knees. "I have to go now. Tell her I can't do it, tell her I won't." I say to the three men in front of me. Jack rolls his eyes, "Miss Davis come on now. You can't say no to her. You of all people knows this, it's practically impossible."

I lose my temper and scream into his face now, "For a reason? Is this the same reason you guys are here? Stalking us, watching our every step? Is this reason the cause of my forced lies? Tell me, Jack, tell me more." I stop for a quick breath and then hurry, afraid the men inside might have heard me, "You know what, I'm not going to keep this from him anymore- I can't. I'm telling Peter everything."

Jack looks at me weakly, "Miss Davis, no, you can't." I spit out my words at him with quitting rage, "Yes I can." I turn around swiftly, heading for the house and freeze in my tracks. Peter stands in front of me, trying to look blank, but his eyes give him away. A swirly shade of red mixed with hints of green, of sloppy yellow shine brightly. I gulp.

-

"Don't you think I have enough to deal with already? What else have you been keeping from me?" He says, his tone low, but angry.

"Not a lot." I whisper unnecessarily.

"Catherine..." He runs his hands through his hair, tired. "Catherine, Ester said you might be up to something, but I refused to believe him and you know what, part of me still doesn't. Please, please, just tell me what's going on here. Who are you, why are you here? Whose side are you on? Do you know those men, and I mean more than what we know them by?" He looks at me, begging, and I can see the slight dark shadows below his eyes, there because I didn't open up. I sigh guiltily.

"Peter, I'm the same person you met ten years ago. The very same one. I-"

"Start over, Catherine- if that's your name- start right from the beginning."

I breathe in. "My name is Catherine Stanley Davis. I am seventeen years old. I have always lived with my parents- all my life, until merely twelve days back when I returned here to find them brutally murdered, perhaps even tortured. My parents are-were- an integral part of a secret society called To Sotos. Obviously, I joined them too..." I gulp. Can I tell him? I have to. "Peter, you must understand this goes deeper than... It's not easy to explain this, I..." A solitary tear runs down my left cheek.

"Catherine, I don't care how difficult it is to explain. You need to. You have to." He pauses. "That day when we went to get Ester, and I said we didn't need to fight them, you slapped me. Why? You never wanted to fight them do you; you are a part of them. Is Ester too?"

"Ester doesn't know about this- and I had to keep my cover." I say and at once I know the weight of my words.

"Oh my god, Catherine." He runs his hands through his hair, pulling it.

"Peter, I want to tell you, but I can't, I just can't." He doesn't reply. "This is way more complicated than you think, it's way too much. I-" I break off and fall into a heap on the floor.

He shakes his head, or so I think, and walks out. And then it hits me. Peter and the rest of them plan on heading to the pyramid in two days. Maybe, if just maybe, I could get them to meet Igetis and Countess Eliza, things could get more clearer, and faster. I stand up quickly, rubbing the tears on my face with the back of my hand, and leave the room to find them.

The chairs that were once occupied by us now seated all of the twelve men tied up with duct tape firmly. I shake my head and go straight up to Peter. "Untie them." His back is turned to me, so his eyes, as they normally do, don't give away hints of his emotions.

Instead, he says to me in a grave tone, still looking away, "I don't think you have any voice in this matter Catherine. Instead-" He stops, mid-sentence and looks down. I frown, now angry.

"Instead," I complete, "I should be tied up with them too, right? Is that what you want?"

His silence gives him away.

"Okay then Peter," I put my hands out together in front of me, my wrists touching each other. "Tie me up, go ahead." I huff, pulling my hands back when he doesn't move, "Peter, they don't want to hurt us, they're not here to do that. We are with you; we have always been with you."

Finally, he turns, and I take a step back unknowingly. He looks scary, his eyes burning red, like a volcano at its apex of eruption, face fierce, his hands clenched at his sides and he grits his teeth together, leaning onto me.

He said, "When did you join them? When did you and them become a 'we'? When did we-" he gestures to the rest of the boys from Oi Alloi, "become 'you'll'?"

He moves closer. I can feel his breath on my face. "Tie her up." He's doing it. I can't let him; he needs to meet them. "You're okay with that I suspect?"

I take a space back and look him in the eye, trying my best not to waver. "I am, sure, whatever. But there's one last thing you need to see before anything else, one last person you have to meet."

"Who?"

-

Peter stops the car behind some bushes, the same place as Ester had thirteen days back. We get out and walk onto the familiar open space leading to the Pyramid. Right before the wired fence, I stop. "Not this way. We're going in from the front."

"And that's going to make so much of a difference, right?" Max asks rhetorically. I ignore it and walk ahead, parallel to the fence to the main entrance. Peter jogs up beside me.

"Have you been here before? From this main entry?" He asks. There is no point in lying. I never wanted to, and I won't ever again- not if I can.

"Yes." I clear the branches in front of me as we walk into the forest, the clearing now ending. He nods and continues. "When?"

"I would rather you wait until you meet them for all your questions to be answered; they will be able to answer it better than I." I reply bluntly, not wanting to give too much away, and yet wanting to give into that desire to. Once again, he simply nods and we continue shoving aside the leaves.

"How big is the Pyramid?" I think about it. "It's not really a pyramid, you know, more like a diamond- and to answer your question, it's quite big." We continue in silence.

"This way." I turn towards my right and after clearing some more branches, we can see the glistening glass of the tip of the structure and on walking ahead, more of its beauty comes into view- as does its bordered wires.

Men in armor, masked and loaded, patrol the gates. A soft blue light is emitting from the inside and if one would look up, and tilt their heads all the way back, they would see the clear name for the base stapled lovingly onto the building.

I smile at it and walk straight to the gates, beckoning the others to follow me. If I don't, I think they would probably stand here for the rest of the day, admiring this beautiful structure.