Free Sun Rose (Rose of the Dawn Series Book 1) by Ily Maguire

No one
knows where he is,” Pike answers.
    “Do
you know who has him?” I’ve swung my legs over the side of the bed, making room
in case Pike wants to sit down. He doesn’t.
    “We
hope it isn’t the Beadledom. If they have him, we’ll never get him back, locked
up in maximum security, under heavy guard,” Pike’s voice trails off. “But this
might be worse if some other group got hold of him. Some other underground
group that we haven’t heard about.”
    “Then
why would anyone say he was dead? I mean, it was a pretty elaborate death to
falsify. If he was captured, why such a story?”
    Pike
shrugs. “Whoever has him must have their reasons.” He still stands in the
doorway. Ezekiel comes over and puts his hand on Pike’s shoulder. Pike turns.
    “–think
someone may know we’re here–” Ezekiel whispers into Pike’s ear.
    “Maybe,”
I talk to myself, “someone made up Tithonus’s death to draw you out and then
follow you back.” Neither Pike nor Ezekiel listens. They continue to whisper. Pike
looks around and then down.
    “Okay.
I’ll go find out,” Pike says to Ezekiel. He turns to me, holding a candle that
he pulled out of his cargo pants pocket. I get up and take it. He doesn’t say
anything more before leaving. Ezekiel doesn’t go with him.
    “JJ
wants to see you,” His tone is chilly as usual.
    “In
the lab?” I refer to the space he created underground, where like Victor
Frankenstein, his obsession for taking samples, monitoring rates, and analyzing
successes and failures almost torments him, and therefore me, daily. JJ hooks
me up, monitors my vitals, and then collects data. He hasn’t drawn anymore
blood. I guess he got enough out of me the first time.
    Ezekiel
doesn’t react or respond.
    “Uh,
thank you.” I guess.
    Ezekiel
bows his head and when he looks up, his eyebrows are a little less narrow. His
demeanor is a little less gruff. He stomps off in Pike’s direction. The only
person who ever looks moderately relaxed is Patience and I’m curious as to why.
She can’t be that simple.
    I
pull a clean army-green sweatshirt over my standard issue T-shirt. At least I
have shower privileges three times a week. I won’t use the bed pan, but there
is a common bathroom in the lobby of the building. It is relatively unregulated
and private.
    Passing
through the common area, it’s very quiet. No one’s around. I walk past the
fountain to the rear stairwell. I take the stairs down. At the bottom, the
cement is covered with dirt.
    “JJ?
You wanted to see me?” I hold open the polyvinyl doors to the tent. The frame is
aluminum. Against the back wall is a counter, and glass cabinets are above it,
open. There is a centrifuge spinning something, the whirring sound absorbed by
these inner dirt walls.
    There
is dampness in the air. Water runs down the walls not protected by plastic,
eroding it. I hear a soft splash and I run across the room to the sink. The
faucet is on and water is spilling over the counter, puddling mud on the ground.
I shut it off.
    “Leave
it on, please,” Patience stands at the other end of the counter, behind a
partition. She steps out from behind it, holding a graduated cylinder in her
rubber-gloved hand. She is mixing something in a beaker. The contents of the cylinder
are a dark purplish-red. A label says Serum R.
    “Oh!
Sorry,” I say surprised and turn the faucet back on to a drip. She must notice
the plug in the drain.
    “Can
I help you with something, Rose?” Patience has on a long labcoat, and goggles
shield her eyes. She titrates something after putting drops of something else
into a capped glass jar. The something else has a skull on the label, though it
is written in some foreign language I’ve never learned.
    “Your
brother wanted to see me,” I say. I’ve never been down here for anything like
this. “What’re you doing?”
    “He’s
upstairs in his room,” Patience quickly answers, then goes back to stirring
with a long, glass rod. This