This was totally going to be my last entry for IATK, but planned events seem to take much longer than I think they will to write. I'm setting off to write part 5 a.s.a.p, so look forward to the exciting conclusion really soon, or else prod me on Facebook for an ending if I'm taking too long.
And for previous readings: part 1, part 2, part 3
Trent opened the door for her. “And will I get to meet this Kraken? The rescue he pulled after Jareel’s coup still has everyone talking.”
“He … likes to keep himself a mystery,” Emma explained, wondering why she was feeling so guilty for lying. “I think I’m the only one who knows who he is.”
“Not a chance he’d show himself to the new guy then.” Trent got into the car.
Emma frowned at his nervousness. He’d been nervous around her at the ball, but then he’d been quiet. Now he was babbling. “Am I making you anxious?”
“No, it’s just … Your Dad, he always talked about you, and I’ve been waiting forever to meet you.”
Emma was surprised by his answer. “What did he say about me?”
Trent just leant back and smiled. “He told me how much he loved you, and how even your frown could make a man as tough as him feel love.”
Emma frowned at this, and Trent gave a light laugh. She tried to suppress her smile, but that only made him laugh harder.
“Then what did he say about my smile?” she asked, accepting that she’d lost the power in the conversation.
He turned his soulful eyes to her, the smile gone from his face. “He said it would light up the night.”
Fios eyed the boy with distaste. Emma was twitchy around him, nervous. The boy had power over his human, and that could only end badly. Emma had left him to roam the warehouse, explaining that she had to go speak with the Kraken, and Fios watched him with suspicion through a darkened window high above the factory floor.
“Frank.”
Frank turned his head to watch Emma as she came in the door. She approached him cautiously.
“Is something wrong?”
Frank turned his head to look out the window once again. “I don’t trust him.”
Emma joined him at the window. “Trent? He was the one who told me not to attack at the ball. He’s been working with us for a long time. We can trust him.”
“You’re nervous around him though.”
Emma bristled. “That has nothing to do with how trustworthy he is,” she said through gritted teeth.
“Then why?”
Emma sucked in a breath, “He kissed me at the ball.”
“Oh.” The revelation didn’t ease Fios’s mind, it just made him more suspicious. If that boy made the slightest wrong move, Fios wouldn’t hesitate to disable him.
A few weeks passed, and Fios watched from afar as Trent and Emma became closer. He didn’t know what was so special about the boy that Emma would treat him differently from her other subordinates. He was a spy close to Jareel, but Emma had plenty of others on the inside. Fios couldn’t understand her actions. He was just glad Emma hadn’t brought the boy to their home, he still didn’t trust him. Fios paced his room, anxious about his human. She was still out with that boy, doing whatever it was they did night after night, and he didn’t like it.
The door opened and closed, and Fios stepped slowly into the front room. He waited silently for Emma to speak in the semi-darkness, the light from the street the only illumination.
Without turning on the lights, Emma approached him and placed a hand on his nose. They stood in a companionable silence for awhile, but Fios needed to know what was happening. He pulled his head away from her and she sighed.
“Trent thinks we should take on Jareel now.”
“Tonight?”
“No, but in the next few days. The atmosphere at Jareel’s has been relaxed lately, and his security has been toned down. It’s the perfect time for us to make our move.”
Fios shook his head. “I don’t think it’s the right time. My feelings tell me we should wait longer.”
“How long?” Emma had a little edge of irritation in her voice.
“Just a few more weeks. I’ve been watching Jareel. He seems like he’s getting too comfortable, but that there’s something in the works. There’s more to his movements at the moment than meets the eye.”
“Trent says he thinks we’re not going to attack. Trent is in the thick of it.”
Fios met Emma’s gaze. “I think he’s wrong.”
“You just don’t want to go ahead because you don’t trust Trent.”
“Do you really believe that about me, Emma? You’re trusting that boy over me, when I’ve been with you for half your life. Where has this Trent been all that time? I think you should hold off.”
“You know who’s been in my life longer than you? My father! I need to get his business back, and I need to do it sooner rather than later. My father’s memory needs to be honoured.”
“And we will get it back, Emma. I promise you that.”
“I shouldn’t have lost it to Jareel in the first place!” Emma around to face the front door. “My father shouldn’t even be dead! He should have had his bodyguards, I should have been there to protect him. We shouldn’t have taken so long to get back.”
Fios stepped forward to nuzzle Emma’s shoulder. “Emma, the past is the past. We can’t do anything to change it now. All we can do is plan properly for the future, and I say we should wait.”
Emma spun to face him, but kept her voice soft. “I can’t wait any longer, Frank. If Trent says we can attack Jareel now, then that’s what I’m going to do.”
It was midnight, and Emma waited in the car with her semi-automatic, feeling self conscious without her real weapon standing by. She was having second thoughts about doing this when Frank had been so adamant that she not, but she wasn’t a little kid anymore, and it was time to be making her own decisions. Frank wouldn’t be there forever, he was a wild unicorn, and she had to prepare for her future in whatever way she could, so if creating an independent life for herself involved blowing Frank off every once in awhile, that was what she had to do.
Any of Emma’s publicly known followers waited around the main building. Her covert staff were inside, and when Jareel stepped outside tonight, Emma would be the one to have the honour of removing him from his position. He was having a late night meeting regarding the Kraken, and Trent would lead him out and the bodyguards would be dispatched, leaving Jareel unattended. Since Emma was the rightful heir to the business, there wouldn’t have to be a bloody takeover. But there was still the disturbing issue of why Jareel had kept her alive in the first place. The empire needed a king and a queen. Trent would be the one responsible for a successful coup, and so it was reasonable that he would be the one to take the open position. She’d seen his glances when he thought she wasn’t watching. It would only be a matter of time before he tried something, because Emma wasn’t going to reject his flirting. She was jolted out of her daydream as the door opened and Jareel stepped out alone. She waited for Trent, even watching the building for a signal of some sort, but there was nothing. She leaned forwards to be nearer her driver.
“Go. Back to the factory. We’ll meet anyone who got out of this back there.”
As they pulled into the next street, the sound of gunfire followed them. Emma cursed. She didn’t know the extent of the damage to her operation until she returned to the warehouse. She listened to the continuing spatters of bullets and realised she shouldn’t get her hopes up.
Upon returning to the factory, Emma shut herself in her office. She told Frank the whole story, watching employees trickle in to deal with the crisis at hand, bandaging wounds and carrying covered bodies to lay them on the floor.
Frank pawed the ground nervously. “... Emma, I hate to say ‘I told you so,’ but-”
“No! Frank, I don’t want to hear it. We need to get Trent back. Without him, we can’t get my father’s business back.”
“Why do we need the boy? We had no need for him when it was just the two of us. We will get revenge on behalf of your father on our own and then return to our normal lives.”
“Our normal lives? Do you know what has to happen when I get the business back? I need Trent by my side.”
“I don’t understand. Why am I not enough?” Frank looked hurt and Emma turned away from him.
“The business ... traditionally it needs two leaders to run it so that all the employees will stay loyal. It needs a queen and a king, and I need Trent to be my king. If I don’t do that, I’ll end up with a situation like Jareel has now.”
“Why does it have to be him? There has to be someone else.”
Emma moved over to run her hand through the unicorn’s mane. “No Frank, there’s not. Trent was one of Jareel’s and there’s no one else still there who I know I can trust.”
Frank tossed his mane indignantly, removing Emma’s hand from his head. “Well I’m not running in, guns blazing, to save your little king. We don’t even know if he’s still alive.”
“Fine. I’ll do it myself.”
Emma walked in through the front door in broad daylight. No one stopped her or even gave a second glance, they were so busy rushing around in the aftermath of her own failed takeover operation. She let go of the breath she didn’t realise she’d been holding as elevator doors closed in front of her.
This was the first thing Emma had done without Frank’s help since she was a little girl. She felt unnerved without him as a safety net in this situation, but it seemed that her own charisma would serve her just as well as his magic. She’d been an assassin most of her life, after all. Blending and looking like she belonged was her thing. She pushed the button for the basement floor where the holding cells were. In her line of work, she’d never had to go down there. Her jobs didn’t involve taking prisoners. But for one night she had been a resident there herself, so it wasn’t unfamiliar territory.
The doors opened to a dim corridor of barred walls. There was a strip of fluorescent lighting down the middle between the rows of cells, and anything beyond the metal poles was in darkness. No one approached the doors upon seeing the light from the elevator. She supposed that most of the prisoners just hoped the visitor wasn’t for them. More of the cells were occupied than on her last visit. Jareel must have had more trouble consolidating his power than he had anticipated. She’d been the only snag in his plan and was proud to have ruined his smooth transition with her refusal to help. She peered into the first cell at the shadowy figure huddled in the corner. It was too big to be Trent, so she moved on to the second cell. This time the woman inside approached the bars.
“Emma,” she croaked. “You’ve finally left the Kraken and joined Jareel?” There was a hint of disappointment in her voice. Emma turned away, but everyone else in the room had heard and were now at their bars. “How could you betray us like this, Emma?” the woman continued, her voice louder now. “How could you betray your father?”
Out of the corner of her eye, Emma saw that the elevator had started to come down, so she had to find Trent quickly. With everyone closer to the light now, she could see who was in what cell, and Trent was on the floor, trying to pull himself up. The keys were at the end of the corridor, near a small door, and Emma rushed to get them and open Trent’s door, glancing back to the elevator ticking down numbers. The other prisoners continued to yell at her, a slight bit of confusion creeping in at Emma’s actions. By the time she had Trent leaning on her arm, the elevator was almost at the LB level and the only thing to do was to go through the door.
The room beyond was a dead end, and Trent groaned as they entered. It seemed to be used for torturing prisoners, which was clearly what had happened to Trent himself. The lack of exit didn’t bother Emma though. It was time to swallow her pride and call Frank for help. She hadn’t really thought of how to get out once she had gotten in, and called out urgently for Frank. He appeared quickly, his horn emitting a soft glow in the darkness. She could feel his disapproval as she pushed Trent up onto his grey flank and jumped up behind him. The light was suddenly bright as they were instantly in Emma’s Kraken headquarters office. Trent slid off Frank’s back and onto the floor, breathing heavily. Frank was still streaming his angry thoughts into her mind and Emma had no idea of who to deal with first. She ran her hands through Frank’s mane, promising to have a talk with him at their home soon. As she got off Frank, he snorted and disappeared.
“Not a chance he’d show himself to the new guy then.” Trent got into the car.
Emma frowned at his nervousness. He’d been nervous around her at the ball, but then he’d been quiet. Now he was babbling. “Am I making you anxious?”
“No, it’s just … Your Dad, he always talked about you, and I’ve been waiting forever to meet you.”
Emma was surprised by his answer. “What did he say about me?”
Trent just leant back and smiled. “He told me how much he loved you, and how even your frown could make a man as tough as him feel love.”
Emma frowned at this, and Trent gave a light laugh. She tried to suppress her smile, but that only made him laugh harder.
“Then what did he say about my smile?” she asked, accepting that she’d lost the power in the conversation.
He turned his soulful eyes to her, the smile gone from his face. “He said it would light up the night.”
Fios eyed the boy with distaste. Emma was twitchy around him, nervous. The boy had power over his human, and that could only end badly. Emma had left him to roam the warehouse, explaining that she had to go speak with the Kraken, and Fios watched him with suspicion through a darkened window high above the factory floor.
“Frank.”
Frank turned his head to watch Emma as she came in the door. She approached him cautiously.
“Is something wrong?”
Frank turned his head to look out the window once again. “I don’t trust him.”
Emma joined him at the window. “Trent? He was the one who told me not to attack at the ball. He’s been working with us for a long time. We can trust him.”
“You’re nervous around him though.”
Emma bristled. “That has nothing to do with how trustworthy he is,” she said through gritted teeth.
“Then why?”
Emma sucked in a breath, “He kissed me at the ball.”
“Oh.” The revelation didn’t ease Fios’s mind, it just made him more suspicious. If that boy made the slightest wrong move, Fios wouldn’t hesitate to disable him.
A few weeks passed, and Fios watched from afar as Trent and Emma became closer. He didn’t know what was so special about the boy that Emma would treat him differently from her other subordinates. He was a spy close to Jareel, but Emma had plenty of others on the inside. Fios couldn’t understand her actions. He was just glad Emma hadn’t brought the boy to their home, he still didn’t trust him. Fios paced his room, anxious about his human. She was still out with that boy, doing whatever it was they did night after night, and he didn’t like it.
The door opened and closed, and Fios stepped slowly into the front room. He waited silently for Emma to speak in the semi-darkness, the light from the street the only illumination.
Without turning on the lights, Emma approached him and placed a hand on his nose. They stood in a companionable silence for awhile, but Fios needed to know what was happening. He pulled his head away from her and she sighed.
“Trent thinks we should take on Jareel now.”
“Tonight?”
“No, but in the next few days. The atmosphere at Jareel’s has been relaxed lately, and his security has been toned down. It’s the perfect time for us to make our move.”
Fios shook his head. “I don’t think it’s the right time. My feelings tell me we should wait longer.”
“How long?” Emma had a little edge of irritation in her voice.
“Just a few more weeks. I’ve been watching Jareel. He seems like he’s getting too comfortable, but that there’s something in the works. There’s more to his movements at the moment than meets the eye.”
“Trent says he thinks we’re not going to attack. Trent is in the thick of it.”
Fios met Emma’s gaze. “I think he’s wrong.”
“You just don’t want to go ahead because you don’t trust Trent.”
“Do you really believe that about me, Emma? You’re trusting that boy over me, when I’ve been with you for half your life. Where has this Trent been all that time? I think you should hold off.”
“You know who’s been in my life longer than you? My father! I need to get his business back, and I need to do it sooner rather than later. My father’s memory needs to be honoured.”
“And we will get it back, Emma. I promise you that.”
“I shouldn’t have lost it to Jareel in the first place!” Emma around to face the front door. “My father shouldn’t even be dead! He should have had his bodyguards, I should have been there to protect him. We shouldn’t have taken so long to get back.”
Fios stepped forward to nuzzle Emma’s shoulder. “Emma, the past is the past. We can’t do anything to change it now. All we can do is plan properly for the future, and I say we should wait.”
Emma spun to face him, but kept her voice soft. “I can’t wait any longer, Frank. If Trent says we can attack Jareel now, then that’s what I’m going to do.”
It was midnight, and Emma waited in the car with her semi-automatic, feeling self conscious without her real weapon standing by. She was having second thoughts about doing this when Frank had been so adamant that she not, but she wasn’t a little kid anymore, and it was time to be making her own decisions. Frank wouldn’t be there forever, he was a wild unicorn, and she had to prepare for her future in whatever way she could, so if creating an independent life for herself involved blowing Frank off every once in awhile, that was what she had to do.
Any of Emma’s publicly known followers waited around the main building. Her covert staff were inside, and when Jareel stepped outside tonight, Emma would be the one to have the honour of removing him from his position. He was having a late night meeting regarding the Kraken, and Trent would lead him out and the bodyguards would be dispatched, leaving Jareel unattended. Since Emma was the rightful heir to the business, there wouldn’t have to be a bloody takeover. But there was still the disturbing issue of why Jareel had kept her alive in the first place. The empire needed a king and a queen. Trent would be the one responsible for a successful coup, and so it was reasonable that he would be the one to take the open position. She’d seen his glances when he thought she wasn’t watching. It would only be a matter of time before he tried something, because Emma wasn’t going to reject his flirting. She was jolted out of her daydream as the door opened and Jareel stepped out alone. She waited for Trent, even watching the building for a signal of some sort, but there was nothing. She leaned forwards to be nearer her driver.
“Go. Back to the factory. We’ll meet anyone who got out of this back there.”
As they pulled into the next street, the sound of gunfire followed them. Emma cursed. She didn’t know the extent of the damage to her operation until she returned to the warehouse. She listened to the continuing spatters of bullets and realised she shouldn’t get her hopes up.
Upon returning to the factory, Emma shut herself in her office. She told Frank the whole story, watching employees trickle in to deal with the crisis at hand, bandaging wounds and carrying covered bodies to lay them on the floor.
Frank pawed the ground nervously. “... Emma, I hate to say ‘I told you so,’ but-”
“No! Frank, I don’t want to hear it. We need to get Trent back. Without him, we can’t get my father’s business back.”
“Why do we need the boy? We had no need for him when it was just the two of us. We will get revenge on behalf of your father on our own and then return to our normal lives.”
“Our normal lives? Do you know what has to happen when I get the business back? I need Trent by my side.”
“I don’t understand. Why am I not enough?” Frank looked hurt and Emma turned away from him.
“The business ... traditionally it needs two leaders to run it so that all the employees will stay loyal. It needs a queen and a king, and I need Trent to be my king. If I don’t do that, I’ll end up with a situation like Jareel has now.”
“Why does it have to be him? There has to be someone else.”
Emma moved over to run her hand through the unicorn’s mane. “No Frank, there’s not. Trent was one of Jareel’s and there’s no one else still there who I know I can trust.”
Frank tossed his mane indignantly, removing Emma’s hand from his head. “Well I’m not running in, guns blazing, to save your little king. We don’t even know if he’s still alive.”
“Fine. I’ll do it myself.”
Emma walked in through the front door in broad daylight. No one stopped her or even gave a second glance, they were so busy rushing around in the aftermath of her own failed takeover operation. She let go of the breath she didn’t realise she’d been holding as elevator doors closed in front of her.
This was the first thing Emma had done without Frank’s help since she was a little girl. She felt unnerved without him as a safety net in this situation, but it seemed that her own charisma would serve her just as well as his magic. She’d been an assassin most of her life, after all. Blending and looking like she belonged was her thing. She pushed the button for the basement floor where the holding cells were. In her line of work, she’d never had to go down there. Her jobs didn’t involve taking prisoners. But for one night she had been a resident there herself, so it wasn’t unfamiliar territory.
The doors opened to a dim corridor of barred walls. There was a strip of fluorescent lighting down the middle between the rows of cells, and anything beyond the metal poles was in darkness. No one approached the doors upon seeing the light from the elevator. She supposed that most of the prisoners just hoped the visitor wasn’t for them. More of the cells were occupied than on her last visit. Jareel must have had more trouble consolidating his power than he had anticipated. She’d been the only snag in his plan and was proud to have ruined his smooth transition with her refusal to help. She peered into the first cell at the shadowy figure huddled in the corner. It was too big to be Trent, so she moved on to the second cell. This time the woman inside approached the bars.
“Emma,” she croaked. “You’ve finally left the Kraken and joined Jareel?” There was a hint of disappointment in her voice. Emma turned away, but everyone else in the room had heard and were now at their bars. “How could you betray us like this, Emma?” the woman continued, her voice louder now. “How could you betray your father?”
Out of the corner of her eye, Emma saw that the elevator had started to come down, so she had to find Trent quickly. With everyone closer to the light now, she could see who was in what cell, and Trent was on the floor, trying to pull himself up. The keys were at the end of the corridor, near a small door, and Emma rushed to get them and open Trent’s door, glancing back to the elevator ticking down numbers. The other prisoners continued to yell at her, a slight bit of confusion creeping in at Emma’s actions. By the time she had Trent leaning on her arm, the elevator was almost at the LB level and the only thing to do was to go through the door.
The room beyond was a dead end, and Trent groaned as they entered. It seemed to be used for torturing prisoners, which was clearly what had happened to Trent himself. The lack of exit didn’t bother Emma though. It was time to swallow her pride and call Frank for help. She hadn’t really thought of how to get out once she had gotten in, and called out urgently for Frank. He appeared quickly, his horn emitting a soft glow in the darkness. She could feel his disapproval as she pushed Trent up onto his grey flank and jumped up behind him. The light was suddenly bright as they were instantly in Emma’s Kraken headquarters office. Trent slid off Frank’s back and onto the floor, breathing heavily. Frank was still streaming his angry thoughts into her mind and Emma had no idea of who to deal with first. She ran her hands through Frank’s mane, promising to have a talk with him at their home soon. As she got off Frank, he snorted and disappeared.
