ELBINA 2

Chapter 22

I look up at Fallen, his hands planted on the desk beside me.
I look over at Lucas, to the left of me, standing straight and watching me.
"I knew this house had something, it couldn't be empty, too simple." Fallen sighs heavily beside me, when I turn to him, he's moving his eyes around the room. Analysing the walls and the ceilings, even if they're bare, he still looks.
"Too simple?" I mumble to him.
"Too ordinary." He clarifies and I turn my head back to the computer again, reloading the documents to see if the hard drive is loaded yet.
"To be honest. I expected something crazier." I say.
Fallen responds absentmindedly. "Like?"
I shrug my shoulders, muttering almost just to myself. "I don't know. Maybe more guns and weapons lining the walls? Spy equipment?"
He chokes a quiet laugh. "Spy equipment? Elbina. They weren't out of a James bond movie."
"It bloody feels like it right now." I tap my fingers along the mouse, thrumming quietly in the room but it's not louder than the whirring of the computer in front of me. 
I turn back to the screen shaking my head, refreshing it one last time. I practically jump on it when I see it has loaded onto the desktop, clicking on it almost immediately.
I groan. "A password?"
"I thought they wanted me to find it?" I let it out in exasperation, hitting the mouse on the desk harder than it needed.
I look around the room, eyeing the entire of it, over and over again like I expect it to be different. It isn't.
Lucas walks away from me, circling the desk and walking out into the room. He keeps looking over at the shelf on the right and my eyes follow him too. He stands there, looking over the contents of it. From here, all I can see is the one or two books which he picks up, flitting through them in case there is anything in them.
I look over at Fallen and he isn't sure what to do, so I switch my stare back to Lucas who has now dropped the books on the shelf. He picks up another object, turning it over in his hand for a while until he decides it isn't worth looking at anymore.
"Wait!" He pauses, holding it still in his hand in mid-air when I shout.
"What is that?" I point over, right at the structure in his hand. I can't quite see it from here, but I think I know what I'm seeing, but I'm not certain.
"A book stand?" I sigh in frustration when he says it.
"No. What is it?"
He furrows his eyebrows at me, raising it again so he can look at it to make sure before responding. "A dog?"
I switch to Fallen who isn't looking at me, he steps forwards towards Lucas before grabbing it from him. "A dog. You're sure?" I say.
He gives me a deadpan look. "I'm not an idiot. Yes. It's a dog."
"You think the dog?" Fallen says and I nod in response to him, it had to be. What else would it be, the rest of the room was bare. This was all we had to go on.
They bring it over, dropping it onto the desk beside me and I look over it. There isn't anything on it, no words or texts or anything. It's gold coloured and simple, smooth edged as it curves into the shape of a podgy little dog.
I lower my voice in thought, continuing to glide my fingers over the sculpture. "Fallen, What was my dogs name?" I keep looking down at it in my hand, this one constant that seems to make sense at the moment. I can't imagine it being anything else.
He thinks for a second until he pushes me to the side, quickly typing away on the keyboard until he's got it.
I loudly sigh in relief when it confirms it, entrance into the hard drive's information granted.
"Tetris." He says.
"Of course." I mutter.
Fallen then starts flicking the mouse through the different files, so quick that the computer gets stuck a couple of times because it's so slow.
He moves over another folder labelled '20th August'. Once he clicks it open, it comes up with a pile of different documents inside. One by one he clicks through them and each one just intermingles with the other to form the day.
The laid-out plans so precisely done that it resembled the entire attack, mapped out into individual stages.
It was weird, seeing it from this perspective rather than the one we saw on the news or through the social media videos. That was scary, it was volatile and brutal. I just remember not being able to watch when we went through it at school one time. Even though it happened near on fifteen years ago, people still remember it.
Now, looking at this...it just seems methodical.
Just a checklist of different motions and processes to ultimately come up with the final product. The day over twenty people lost their lives.
And for what?
I still ask the question, even if I already know what I'm seeing.
Even if the twist in my stomach hurts enough to know exactly what this is, and that Fallen was right when he said they knew.
They knew so much that they were involved.
How could they not be? After holding all this information?
"The London attack? Is this how they did it?"
Fallen stills beside me. "It is."
"Holy shit." Lucas breathes out.
"You were you right then. They did it." I said, sitting back in my seat.
Fallen nods in response, I see him slowly breathe out through his nose before he plants another hand on the desk. "It's all here." Fallen keeps flicking through each one, over and over again. Each one with different people's faces flashing on the screen, then screenshots of texts.
He was right of course, it was everything.
Every single last thing that went into organising the attack on the London eye.
From finding the attackers, collating the materials to making the bomb.
Even how they disturbed the security systems to allow the bypass of it, the bomb that would be detonated at the top of the London eye. Killing every single last person in the carriage.
If there is one thing I didn't want to learn from all of this... it was that I was a daughter of terrorists.
It makes me feel dirty, uncomfortable, and dangerous by default. I turn my head just slightly to see Fallen's reaction and it looks conflicted. I suppose he's just happy to find what we've been looking for. And for Fallen, it's what he's been looking for, for a huge proportion of his life.
I'd only needed to know this for the last month, and that was hell enough.
I'm sick of looking at it, the mountains of evidence and notes that connect it all together. Sick of looking at my supposed parents planning this entire event.
I quickly switch out of the folder, swiftly cutting off Fallen's repetitive search through each and every document.
I turn my head to Lucas, his rough hand circling my wrist gently before curling his fingers through mine to squeeze. He's trying to make me feel better and I smile back at him, feeling the tension on my cheeks when my lips spread more than my taut skin would allow.
He helps a little, but I'm still overwhelmed. Maybe that's why he needed the contact too because he's overwhelmed.
I hope he is, at least then...it won't just be me.
I'm not sure if that makes me selfish or not.
The clicking of the mouse brings me back to the screen because Fallen didn't waste anymore time with moving onto the next file along.
"What am I looking at?"
"I don't know." Fallen says quietly, zoning off as he stares at the screen and at the multitude of different files laid out.
"That one, what is it?" I point on the screen, Fallen quickly flicks the mouse and clicks on it.
It takes us a second, looking over everything again like the last time.
But it didn't take much to get the idea.
"Another one." Fallen says, a dark tone to his voice and if I look up I can see his jaw clenching in anger. 
"Why?" Lucas squeezes my hand again, he can probably hear the catch in my throat. Can probably tell that my eyes sting and I hate it.
Every bit of it.
"It's too many people, why this many people..." I'm overwhelmed but there's nothing I can do about it. Nothing I can think that will make this any better or make me feel better anyway.
A hand smacks against the desk, Fallen catches my eye in the process.
"Fuck them. Honestly, fuck them Elbina because we're not like them and we'd never-" I cut him off though before he has chance to shout even louder.
"But I have... and so have you too." I say quietly.
He shakes his head, a defiant expression on his face. "That's different, what they organized... it's different."
"I didn't even know this was planned."
"I remember, they blamed it on another lone terrorist. Just some nutcase." Lucas says beside me, I cross my arms over my chest just thinking.
"Do you think they know it was more than just the one person? That it was a group effort?"
"Maybe, but maybe they couldn't prove it and well... they've got to reassure the public haven't they? It's easier to say it was some random lunatic then try and explain it was a meticulously planned event."
"It killed thirty people, and for what?"
"Your guess is as good as mine. But doing this, releasing poisonous gas into the library like that..."
"It's disgusting."
I didn't want to be broken. I didn't want to have this cavernous hole in my belly that threatened to suck every last bit of me into it.
His jaw stiff and grinding continuously the more he looks and thinks about it.
All I can do is sit back further in my seat and think of it all. Think of all those people that suffered and died for nothing, there certainly doesn't seem a reason to do this.
Not that I think any reason would justify it but to think they'd do this on a whim... for the fun of it?
I almost want there to be a reason behind it all.
Because that's better.
"What's in the last folder?" I almost want to dig my nails into Lucas' hand as he says it, so he knows I didn't like it.
But that doesn't stop Fallen clicking out of the folder and moving into the next.
I need this to stop.
I can't think any more about this and all the ramifications of finding this, even if the events had already transpired.
How long has it been since the last one? 8 years?
Plenty of time for the same people to do something just as awful. Just as vicious.
Because of they'd done it twice before then is there anything stopping them doing it again?
I'm jolted back into the room by Fallen again. "It's everyone."
"What?" I lift my head in confusion to survey the screen, away from the scratch marks etched onto the wooden desk.
"Everyone involved. For each attack, but specific names." The pad of his finger runs along the screen, dragging it down along the list of names.
"Do you think they were using this as leverage before they died?" I say.
"Maybe. But it makes sense now why they wanted it so much all these years. They've been in the clear this entire time but if our parents told them about it then  they've had this hanging over their heads the entire time. It'd drive anyone mad thinking that any day they could be caught, their reputation ruined."
"Hale. The professor." I stare at his name, alongside it, the name of the person who killed him. "He was a professor in toxicology? So... they got the sample and ran with it? Or maybe he found out about it somehow? I don't understand how they haven't been caught for this. You can't just kill people and get away with it." I say it quietly towards the end.
That shot rings through my head again and I feel Lucas run a thumb over the back of my hand, running over the knuckles carefully cause he remembers it too.
There's lots of people on the list, all with different roles to play in the events.
Maybe some of them are dead now, who knows.
There's politicians, civil servants, assassins, agents on the list... all of them involved. All these people willingly letting people die, I don't want to think there are this many people that are evil.
Then there's the familiar name, the name I've heard from Fallen time and time again. The worst, or so I assume just by his reactions to his name.
Nathanial Towers.
The name that I'd heard the scouts use, the man I was supposed to go to and who only wanted answers.
Looking at all of this.
I knew that answers were the last thing he wanted, he wanted this gone. He didn't care how, he just wanted it to disappear.
Even if making it disappear means killing us, killing person after person. Killing Halley, Dan, Lucas, Fallen and me.
I'm brought out of my thought process again, looking at Fallen who just keeps looking at the screen. Rising up now though and crossing his arms over his chest, squeezing his arms at his sides tightly so I can see the pressure by the whites at the edges.
"No wonder why they wanted this, this could put him away for life."
"Put them all away for life." I clarify quietly, pulling a leg up and resting my chin on top. We wait in uncomfortable silence, for what, I'm not sure.
An eternity seems to pass before Fallen speaks, this time turning his head to us before briefly nodding his head at the screen.
"But you know who's not in any of this? Who's not involved at all?" I wait with bated breath when he flicks his eyes back to the screen and then back at us. "Gerald Trueman."
He was right, he always did seem to be. I nod my head in determination, preparing myself for something. A plan formulating in my own head when I think of everything that's happened. I'm not stupid, I'm smart. We all are.
And I'd like to think that this plan that's starting to emerge, that it'll go down well and that it'll work.
I stand up, letting go of Lucas' hand and push the chair back hard. The legs scrape along the floor harsh and loud in the room, so the others stand straighter when I speak.
"Then he's the guy."
*****
"Are you ready for this?" I sit down, nodding my head.
They agreed, we discussed it over and over again. Especially when I found what I was hoping would be in the house. It was tucked away in one of the draws, at the back of the house again where we found the generator. I mean, whether it would work is another thing and all I can hope is that we don't actually need to use it. This is just a plan B, just in case.
The back of the chair is solid against my shoulder blades, I grate them back and forth every time I move to readjust myself but none of it seems to help me.
I can get through this; it won't hurt that much. I've been through worse, there's only one and I'm the only one they seem keen enough to keep alive. But that's just speculation, from our other encounters. They never tried to kill me, just Fallen and Lucas.
But this'll be fine, even if the pit stains seem to grow larger and my skin seems to get moister by the minute. My body never seems to agree with my mind.
My head shakes, waving him off and taking a big breath. A breath that never seems to be deep enough and it doesn't want to remove the uncomfortable itch in my gut. "Just do it, before I think twice."
"Okay then." He turns to the side. "Lucas; hold her arms."
"Fucking déjà vu here." I laugh nervously. My eyes following Fallen's movements when he brings it closer to me.
"Try not to bite your tongue off." He snips at me, giving me one last smile before he draws closer and I want to vomit in nerves.
"I'll give it a go." It's all I can say, I close my eyes and I try and focus on Lucas' hands gripping at my wrists. His breath tickling the back of my neck when he stands behind the chair, his nose feeling like it's right in the crook of my neck.
I focus on that.