by C. L. Stone
Axel looked from him to me. “I don’t know. This is beyond what they are ready for.”
Liam took his hands out of his pockets, showing us his palms. “We can’t help it, Axel. No matter what, we can’t give up. Call it a character flaw. If it wasn’t me, someone else would, have come out and want to help and you know you wouldn’t be able to stop us.” He looked from him to me as he approached. “How’s it going, Kayli?”
I had to give some credit to the Academy. Despite everything I tried to think of them, they seemed genuine, really trying to help, even when it wasn’t in their better interests. I sighed. I was kind of glad it was him. “Have you heard anything?”
He nodded. “Sure. Take me along and I’ll tell you about it.” He looked to Axel. “Don’t make me follow you anyway. You know we can. Besides, she’s got some of ours, too. Don’t do this alone.”
Axel shook his head and then lowered it, considering. “If you follow, I can’t promise…We have to do what needs to be done. There’s going to be blood spilled.”
“Our inaction can cause the same,” he said. “I’d rather be there. We’ve let it get this far because we’ve been afraid to act. We tried not to cross the line.” Liam put his hands on his own chest. “We should have been doing this together from the start.”
“She can do a lot of damage,” Axel said. “She already has.”
“Which means you were right,” Liam said. “We need to take care of this. And we can. We have the numbers, she doesn’t.” He stepped a bit closer and lowered his voice a little. “Let’s use the advantage that we have.”
Axel said nothing, staring at him but seeming to consider what he was saying. I couldn’t believe he was hesitating, but I knew why. We weren’t sure if the others were dead or not. Asking anyone else to join us, it was asking them to risk their lives. We were willing to, because going after Alice and making sure she never came after us again or rescuing the others, that wasn’t optional.
“Maybe we aren’t as alone as we thought,” I said. I tugged gently at Axel by the wrist. “We keep trying to do this on our own, to handle it. The only way we’ve ever gotten out of these situations is with them, not fighting their involvement every step. Maybe it’s time we started actually acting like we work together.”
“She’s got a point,” Liam said. “We try to encourage independence, but this isn’t the time to trade favors or anything like that. This is beyond that sort of thing.” He stretched out his hands toward us. “Don’t make me call them all in.”
Axel sighed and motioned for him to follow us. “Like you said, not like I could stop you.”
♠♠♠♠♠♠
We were on a road together in the truck, heading out toward Folly Beach’s island. The bike was in the back. The plan was to park the truck not far from the meeting spot, and I’d watch what went down with Liam. We filled him in on the way: trail Alice hopefully to where she’s keeping the others. After we found the location, we could get back to the RV and contact who we needed to rescue them.
I hadn’t been this far out in a long time, but little had changed on the road between Charleston and Folly Beach. The further out we went, the fewer buildings there were. It was eventually a long stretch of road with marshland on either side.
“Who contacted you?” Axel asked once we were out of the city and we were sure cop cars weren’t following us.
“Dr. Roberts,” Liam said. “Before Roger got the note, I’d been out looking for you, her and Raven.”
“There’s more missing,” I said. “My father, Blake Coaltar…Marc. Brandon and Corey… We didn’t know if she actually got to them or not.”
He nodded, frowning. “I know, but we know they didn’t get you two and they didn’t get him. We’re still looking for the others, but my job was to find the ones that showed signs of life...basically.”
“Raven didn’t go to the safe meeting spot?”
“I was told no one showed up.”
Axel’s hands twisted on the wheel, and his chin lowered. “So she might have him, too.”
“No, there’s been activity. He’s been leaving a trail. They thought you two were with him up until you showed up at Henshaw’s.”
I sat back in the seat. “Is it bad? Are there explosions? Is he in trouble?”
“He’s been talking to some unscrupulous people around the city. He’s trying to find Alice, too.” Liam adjusted since he was sitting in the middle and we were a little cramped together. “It’s bad enough there’s a leak in the police department tipping her off. Every time someone thinks they have a location, it’s empty.”
“Might be false reporting. To throw you off.”
“Could be,” Liam said. “But every report the police get, they have to follow up on. They’re getting stretched thin.”
Axel adjusted the mirror to look behind us as he drove. “So how is it the police reports aren’t talking about the missing people? The kidnapping? The explosions at the Sargent Jasper? There’s nothing in the news feeds.”
“It’s being reported as the floors were empty, an accidental fire. No one’s filed missing persons reports on anyone, so there’s nothing to report. The police are just looking for Alice and Mr. Murdock and anyone associated with them. The only APB has been for Raven. And you.” He looked at me. “They’re trying to find his wife for answers as to where he is. He’s still a witness.”
“He should be under witness protection,” Axel said.
“Once they get to the bottom of who’s let someone get killed in jail, that’s where he’s headed. I can’t believe they let him go home.”
Axel frowned. “It’s what they wanted. Alice. They waited to do this when he was home. To get us all at once.”
Liam brushed his hand against his cheek and then rubbed at his eyes. “I’ve been reading up on this whole thing, learning as I was looking for you. One of our first assignments was dealing with corruption and I’m back in the middle of it now.” He stopped rubbing and looked up. “Seems like things don’t change much.”
“It’ll be dealt with,” Axel said. “Nowhere is perfect. Unfortunately, it can take a scandal like a few murders to expose corruption.”
I peered out of the front of the truck. The sun was setting low behind us. Ahead of us was streaks of dark clouds, the swamps between the mainland and the island. We were getting close, but it’d be a couple more miles before we got to the start of Folly Beach. “I keep thinking about how she did it. How she got so many people out of the building…”
Axel nodded. “I was thinking about that. It had to happen while we were in the elevator.”
“But we weren’t in there that long. They trashed the entire of two apartments during that time and got so many people down the stairs, plus security guards to…do what? Unless there was a bus or a truck outside…” I shook my head.
“And where do you hide so many people?” Liam asked.
Axel blinked rapidly. “The cameras inside the building had been messed with. They weren’t working so we couldn’t see downstairs, which is why we went to the elevators. When she and I left, there wasn’t a bus on the back side of the building.”
“I didn’t hear anything about a big bus or truck in the vicinity,” Liam said.
“I don’t think they left,” I said. “The floor was empty, but did you check all the apartments?”
Liam pressed his lips together hard and shook his head. “It’d have been an easy thing to miss if the police were told no one lived in one and the fire hadn’t spread that far. If they knew the other apartments were empty, they might not have checked.”
A big beam of light brightened up behind us. We were on a stretch of bridges going over the swamps still. There hadn’t been many people on this road going either way. The brights were blinding.
Approaching at top speed before Axel could react.
Suddenly, the car lurched forward.
The next few moments were a haze for me. I blacked out. When I came to, I was upside down, my arm
s dangled over my head. We’d flipped the truck. I was disoriented. The airbag had gotten me in the face, and half of my head felt hot, like there might be blood. The front window had broken and was no longer there. Cool air hit me in the face, stinging.
Liam was unconscious, his jacket covering part of his face. The airbag was propping him up a bit.
I couldn’t see Axel. The airbag was puffed out around him.
My ears were ringing. The air was cold. I tasted something metallic.
Suddenly, my airbag was popped, and I was hanging heavier off of the seatbelt as I dangled. I tried to turn to look but someone covered my face while my seatbelt was cut away and I was lowered. I was being carried, broken glass underfoot.
The hand near my face moved away. The last thing I saw was Axel still in the truck, dangling with his arms upside down and eyes closed, blood dripping from his brow.
That was all before the black cloth bag covered my face.
CAPTURED
The lump I’d gotten on my head from my last concussion was smaller than the size of the lump I’d just gotten from the car crash. It felt like my head had collided with someone else’s before we’d settled, restrained upside down.
I’d been taken to a bare room. Tile floors. White walls. A closet, door closed. There was one window high up. One would need to stand on something to see from it. The shades were drawn. The room was empty except for me and one camera by the door aimed into the room.
I was tied, with my hands behind my back.
Naked.
I don’t know when they’d removed my clothes, sometime while I was passed out. I don’t even know why. Most likely to intimidate and also to be sure I had absolutely nothing to use against…whoever had captured me.
Alice, no doubt. It wasn’t like the police or even most other people would do something like this.
The lump on my head was sensitive, but I didn’t feel sleepy now. The pain seemed to wake me up, intensified my vision slightly, at least for a while.
I twisted my wrists to try to pry the hand ties off, but when I finally got it halfway, someone in a black mask came in and hit me with the back of his hand across his face until I could taste blood on my lip.
“Don’t move.”
That was the last time I saw anyone for hours. I thought I heard a commotion for a bit on the other side of the wall, but it settled quickly.
I assumed I was dead. Needle in my back while I was passed out. Why they kept me in here, I didn’t know. Waiting for me to die?
I’d no idea what happened to Axel, or Liam.
Apparently, I was permitted to lie down or sit up as no one entered when I shifted around. I did both at times, uncomfortable in each position. The ties around my wrists were plastic, hard, cutting off circulation to my hands. I wanted to get them to my front, but I was afraid doing so would bring another guard in.
With the light always on overhead and the high window covered, it was hard to tell when morning arrived, but I suspected it was into the next day before the door opened.
A body was thrown in, black bag over his head.
A large man hovered over the body. He was burly, with a beard and tattoos on his forearms. He looked down at the nude male form. “Try anything funny and you’re a dead man. And so is she.” He reached over and yanked at the black mask.
I didn’t know the man. He had dark hair, cut short, dark skin. Older, maybe early thirties. He struggled to get up and scoot to the opposite wall and cover himself with his legs, positioning away from me. There were bruises around his back, red marks like he’d been struck around his neck and shoulders.
The door closed, and my new roommate looked at me over his shoulder. “You’re Kayli?” he whispered.
I wasn’t ready to talk to anyone I didn’t know. Was he someone they sent in to get cozy with me and get some secrets out of me? Nice try. I just glared at him. I wasn’t going to be intimidated because I was naked and tied up. There was no way I would allow anyone to trick me into saying anything.
He swallowed thickly. “I’m Cornelius Buble. I was watching over the people in the other apartment. One of them was your father. Jack, right?”
He was one of the Academy friends who was supposed to help protect my father and the others? “Why are you talking?” I asked. “They have ears on us.”
He looked up toward the camera and then back down to the floor. His dark eyes shifted like he was trying to think. “It might not matter at this point. They only have one more to catch before they’re done with us.”
“Catch? They want us alive?”
“I don’t know why. And it might not be for long, either.” He swallowed again. “I was with the others in a different room. No water, no food and Natalie… she’s pregnant and it’s not going well.”
I rolled my head back against the wall, shaking it back and forth. I didn’t know him, I didn’t know Natalie. She could be the one that Blake was talking about—his sister-in-law? Buble could be telling the truth or a lie, but I couldn’t know and there wasn’t anything I could do about it from where I was.
So I didn’t say anything, waiting him out. My hair was still in the half made up ponytail from earlier, all a mess, some locks had fallen out around my face. Half of my head on one side tingled with where I had a bump. I shifted around, trying to use the wall to help get strands of hair out of my face but it hurt to put pressure anywhere on that side of my face.
He closed his eyes, licking his lips shortly. “They can’t hurt all of us. All of these bodies dead, it’ll get discovered eventually. And they can’t hide us forever. At least not here.”
“Why did they bring you in here?” I asked. If I kept asking them questions, I couldn’t possibly reveal anything.
His lips twitched and he lowered his head. “I tried to get out. The window…I didn’t realize we were…”
“Still in the Sargent Jasper?”
He looked up shortly and seemed startled, seeing me naked across the room and tied up like him. He looked away, staring at the floor or the wall instead of looking directly at me. “How’d you know? They knocked us out for a while, we were sure we were somewhere else.”
“How do you get ten or so bodies out of a building undetected?” I asked. “No one else was on this floor. They didn’t need to take you far, just into a different room the others wouldn’t recognize. Cover the windows, disorient you. Although it’s the only building with windows that high nearby I think.” I was nearly seething as I said the next part. “We weren’t protecting ourselves. We set ourselves up for them to come get us. Isolating ourselves to make us easier to capture without involving anyone else.”
He breathed in sharply through his nose and let it out. Buble lowered his voice to a stage whisper. “I’m not sure how much time we have left, and they’re holding on to us for a reason. I want to figure it out.”
The door opened again, jarring the doorstop to vibrate shortly and then stop dead.
Another body, nude and tied up as well, but this one was familiar to me. The tattoos around his torso and arms, the piercings...
Raven.
He was motionless with the bag still around his head. There were bruises, cuts along his skin, some blending in with the tattoos.
The man who threw him in looked right at me. Dark face, two-day growth, deep shadows under his eyes like he hadn’t slept in a while. “He should be out for a few hours. Had to tranq him or he’d…”
Someone behind him hissed. “Don’t talk to them.”
He took a step back, but I never saw who spoke. The door closed.
I scooted across the floor, butt sliding until I could get to Raven. I used my feet, hooking my big toe into the black bag, trying to loosen it.
“Who is it?” Buble asked.
He didn’t recognize him? “My husband,” I said and pulled the bag away from his face.
Raven’s lip was bleeding, the ring had been ripped out, causing a gash. There was another one, still bleeding at his brow. More bruisi
ng, especially around his temple, like they were trying to beat him into unconsciousness.
It was hard to tell if he was even still breathing. I flipped around, leaning over him, listening.
It was quiet, but still there. I tried to nudge his face with my head, but no response. If he was going to be unconscious for so long, then escaping would be that much harder. It wasn’t like I could carry him out.
Buble breathed out slowly, his lip trembling. “I should have…” He shook his head, mumbling. “We should never have done this.”
“What do you know?” I asked. Seeing Raven like this, passed out, beaten, I strained against the binds behind me, nervously looking at the camera. I was positive they could hear, but if I didn’t talk about anything, especially not about the Academy…I wanted as much information as I could get. It was the only chance to find a way out. “How many are there?”
“I’ve counted four,” he said. “But there are more. There has to be. There’s someone who gives orders but never shows his face.”
“Not a woman?”
He shook his head. “No. Sounds male to me.”
I bit my lower lip. “Were any of the people you saw…red hair, bright blue eyes?”
He blinked repeatedly. “There was a woman like that with us. In our group. Captured.”
I raised a brow. “Tied up?”
“Yeah. Alice. She was the one trying to help me escape.”
I bit my lip harder, pulled away from Raven to turn around, cursing and tightening my fingers into my numb hands. “She’s one of them.”
His eyes widened, seeming confused. “What? She couldn’t be.”
“She triggered this whole thing. She called me two days ago and started coming after us.”
“She can’t be,” Buble said in a much more assured tone. “I watched them beat her when she demanded giving the pregnant woman some water. I watched her get dragged out by her hair and come back with cuts and…” He blinked rapidly again and shook his head slowly. “No…She can’t be one of them.”
I laughed shortly. “She’s tricked you. Or you’re one of them trying to trick me.”
He swallowed thickly and shook his head. “Or you’re one of them…”