I stumbled to the door, running on adrenaline alone as my entire body quaked with weakness. I slipped outside and headed down the empty corridor in the direction of an elevator, my pulse thundering in my ears.
The tiles were icily cold against my bare feet as I moved as fast as I could toward the metal doors ahead. Before I reached them, they started to open and chatter sounded from inside. With a jolt of anxiety, I lunged toward a set of double doors beside the elevator and stumbled through into a brightly lit stairwell. I stifled a cough, my lungs feeling like they were about to pop in my chest as I held it back with all my might.
Stay in my damn chest, you explosive cough of doom.
My tongue was thick and heavy in my mouth as I gripped the railing and started moving down level after level, my breaths coming unevenly. If I can just get outside, get to a road, find help…
An alarm sounded like a klaxon in my head and I cursed, quickening my pace, nearly falling several times but somehow staying upright as I pushed myself harder and harder. I felt like Bambi on the ice, my legs as brittle as twigs. But the only Thumper I had cheering me on was my pounding heart in my chest.
I made it to the ground floor and shoved my weight against a fire exit door, depressing the bar that secured it. But it didn’t budge. Who the fuck kept fire exits locked??
“Shit,” I growled, pushing it harder, but the thing wasn’t opening.
The sound of running footsteps reached me somewhere further up the stairs and panic washed through me.
I have to get out. I can’t give up.
I ran for the door next to the stairs, pushing through it and finding myself in a large foyer with two security personnel with fucking guns at their hips staring out of a large, rotating door. My heart leapt as I gazed at the street ahead of them. Rain started tinkling against the floor length windows as I looked around for any other way out. But that was it. My one, single hope.
A reception desk lay empty opposite the doors and I ran boldly toward it, dropping down behind it before I was seen. I’d moved with all the grace of a drunk zombie, but had somehow made it here silently.
I pulled open the bottom drawer, rifling inside it for something I could use as a weapon, but there was nothing aside from a stapler and some equally useless stationary. Oh come on, gimme a break.
Static crackled over the guards’ radios and a female voice sounded through it. “Security footage shows her heading down the main stairwell. She’s – ah! She’s behind the reception desk.”
Fuck a fucking duck on a truck.
Heavy footfalls sounded, coming my way and I pushed myself to my feet, figuring I had no alternative as I threw the stapler as hard as I could. It bounced off of one of the guard’s heads and he grunted angrily.
“Stay back, I’m contagious,” I snapped and they slowed their approach.
The one I hadn’t struck glared at me as he pulled up a black face mask from his chin to cover his mouth and nose. “On your knees.”
“I’m the most valuable person in the world,” I blurted, pressing my shoulders back even though all I felt like doing was curling up on the floor and trying to drown the pain in my body. “You can’t shoot me.”
The guards shared a look that confirmed it and I ran for the door with my heart in my throat. Sure enough, no shots were fired and they clearly didn’t want to get too close to me and the Hades Virus either. That dirty cluster of death in my body was suddenly my only friend and I clung onto its hand as it offered me my only chance for freedom.
I wasn’t fast or graceful, but I was fucking desperate and the daylight pouring in from outside called to me like a song. I was most likely going to be caught, but maybe someone out there would hear my screams first.
I made it into the rotating door, pushing it around, almost tasting the fresh air. Then it slammed to a halt and I turned back with a snarl on my lips, finding the guards stopping it from moving any further. They started turning it the other way, one of them walking around with it to return me to them. I tried to force it back again with all I had, but my weakened body just couldn’t do what I needed it to and I almost heard the Hades Virus laughing maniacally in the back of my head.
I screamed as much as my lungs would allow, making as much noise as I possibly could, banging my hands on the window and hoping someone out there would see or hear, would call the police. It was no hope at all really, but doing nothing wasn’t in my nature. I couldn’t lie down and take this. And I may not have been able to fight right now, but I still had one weapon at my disposal.
I ripped the visor and mask off of my face as the door rotated back into the foyer and the guard grabbed my arm. I coughed as I tore at his face mask and he cursed, slapping a hand over my mouth and nose as he immobilised me against his chest.
My heart catapulted into my throat as I suddenly couldn’t breathe, his meaty palm clasped down too hard as my lungs laboured for air. I jerked in his hold, stamping on his foot and using my elbows to try and escape, but I was too weak.
Darkness curtained my eyes as a bunch of nurses in full biohazard suits ran toward us across the foyer and it was only a few more seconds before a needle was driven into my thigh. Everything went black as the strength of the drug overwhelmed me and I thought of my Night Keepers as the last of my hope faded with my strength.
They weren’t going to find me.
I couldn’t get free.
I had days left at the very most. My fate was paved, walled in on all sides as it led me to my final destination. And only a grave awaited me at the end.
"H ow fucking long is this going to take, man?" I asked, the impatience in my voice clear as I paced back and forth in front of the dining table in The Temple.
Saint sat there before his laptop, totally still, staring at the screen with his fingers steepled as he waited like a freaking statue and the rest of us tried not to lose our shit.
Well, me and Monroe were trying not to lose our shit - Kyan was currently on the phone to his uncle Niall while clenching his jaw so hard that I was fairly certain he was about to flip out. But he pretty much constantly flipped out these days, so I didn’t pay him much attention.
I’d been looking right at Saint when he’d answered that call, the colour draining from his face as the faintest sound of her voice reached me from the speaker for the briefest of seconds before it was cut off. One word was all she’d managed. Saint’s name. A plea for help, a single chance at a lifeline and less than a second of connection between them. But it was all he needed. Because this was Saint motherfucking Memphis we were talking about. One word and a call from an unknown number – she might as well have given him a full address and a time for us to swing by and pick her up. Thank fuck. Although the hour that had passed since that one, momentary, fleeting phone call had seemed to drag on into eternity while Saint worked his magic, pulled the right strings, greased the right palms and now we just had to fucking wait until it paid off.
"Good," Kyan ground out, drawing my attention back to him and his phone conversation. "I'll call you about where to meet us when I know the details." Kyan hung up and I wondered if that was really the best way to treat a man who he had declared a criminally insane psychopath on more than one occasion. But apparently he gave no shits about that and I just had to hope that Niall O’Brien was still on our side despite his nephew’s rudeness.
"He's in," Kyan said, tossing his cell down on the table so that it slid across the polished wood and smacked into the side of Saint's laptop. "Tell me when we're ready to leave."
He stalked away without another word and headed down into the crypt where a bellow of rage escaped him, echoing off the cold stone walls down there before the predictable sound of him beating the shit out of the punching bag came a moment later. He’d managed to split two of them in the weeks that Tatum had been missing, spilling sand all over the floor while he stood there sweating and panting over the carnage, barely even seeming human anymore as the rage in him burned freely.
"I'd better m
ake sure he puts gloves on," Monroe grunted after a few moments passed of us listening in to Kyan's pain in physical form. "If he fucks his hands up before we head out, he'll be no good to her."
Her.
No need for any of us to mention her name. There was only one woman in our lives. Only one. She was the spider that had lured us all in and bound us to one another within her web. We may have been close without her, but with Tatum at the heart of us, we were an unstoppable force. We only needed a direction to point our fury in and we'd be ready to tear the world apart to return her to her rightful place at the heart of us.
Monroe stalked away to join Kyan and I expelled a hard breath as I tried to contain my own frustrations.
"Anything?" I demanded while Saint just continued to stare at nothing on the fucking laptop screen.
"Yes," he replied scathingly, his voice dripping disdain. "My contact within the FBI already traced that motherfucker's number and sent me over all the details. I chose to continue sitting here and not to react in any way because clearly, I don't give a fuck about the welfare of our queen. Perhaps I'll go and take a nap before opening the email."
His cold gaze slid to me for a single second before he went back to staring at his fucking screen, waiting for that email to come in for real and I felt the weight of that look like a fucking sucker punch.
"Alright, alright," I replied, raising my hands in surrender and apology. "I'm just desperate to get out there and find her."
Saint exhaled slowly and nodded once. "We are all equally shattered by our separation from her. Our enthralment with the girl we made our own is something quite astounding, wouldn't you agree?"
"Not really," I replied. "You only have to take one look at the girl - a real look, beyond the fucking stunning exterior to the richness of her soul beneath it and the power she commands without even trying. Once you see that, I don't think anyone would be surprised that she caught the four of us under her spell. I mean, shit, that girl deserves a whole hell of a lot from this life and if we can even begin to give it to her then I'm all in."
The sound of Kyan and Monroe arguing about his lack of gloves called up to us, quickly followed by the sound of the two of them fighting each other. I wasn't worried about them injuring themselves in any lasting way though. Neither of them would want to render the other useless once we found out where we needed to go. The four of us would need to be on top form to rescue her.
"She's the light to our dark," Saint said when I'd just about given up on getting a reply from him. "I just hope our corruption doesn't taint her soul too much."
I scoffed dismissively and he raised an eyebrow, deigning to look at me once more.
"That's not the way this works, dude, haven't you figured that out yet?" I asked him.
"What?"
"The corruption. It's not us darkening her soul, it's her lightening ours. She's more powerful than any of us and the deeper we let her into our hearts, the closer I think we move to salvation."
"Salvation?" Saint asked before shaking his head. "No, I don't believe we are about to become reformed citizens, Blake. I think we have become her creatures. We are still the dogs of war, dark, desperate and ruined as we are, but she is our master. She won't remove that stain upon our natures, but she will show us where best to aim it. And I for one am ready to let her."
I swallowed thickly as I considered his words. Had I hoped that being with her might reform me? Mould me into a better man than the one I was? Perhaps. But maybe he was right. Maybe I shouldn't have been trying to use her to drag myself up out of the dark. Maybe I should just embrace my shadows and use her as a guiding light for where I should aim them.
Saint somehow managed to straighten further even though his spine was ramrod straight to begin with and he quickly leaned towards the laptop, tapping a few keys before his eyes scanned back and forth across the screen. I watched with my heart pounding, hoping against hope that Saint's contact had come through for us. That that number Tatum had called us from was the breadcrumb we'd needed and not another loose end.
"Got him," Saint purred, pushing to his feet and stalking away from the laptop.
I leaned in instantly, needing to see it for myself and I smiled as I found the registered owner of the cellphone we'd received that call from. Jonas Barrow, thirty-nine, single, clinical assistant at Serenity Pharmaceuticals. His address was listed too alongside a recent photograph which I guessed was from his driver's license. Tatum had given us the name Jonas before her earpiece had died but we’d had no other leads to go on until now. I hated him on sight, from his wispy brown hair to his patchy attempt at a beard which looked more like someone had glued clumps of pubes to his face in random places.
"Wait," I called, just as Saint made it to the foot of the stairs which led up to his bedroom. "There's no address here for his place of work. We already knew Serenity Pharmaceuticals were the ones holding her, but they have countless buildings and offices around the city, so how-"
"We're going to pack up our shit and head to Mr Barrow's house," Saint said, an evil glint in his eye. "And then we're going to wait for him to head into work and follow him."
"Just like that?" I asked, wondering if there weren’t more layers to his not-so-diabolical plan.
"Never forget, Blake, if you have a vermin problem there is no point taking out a single rat. You need to lie in wait, watch it return to its nest then you can strike at the whole lot of them. Complete annihilation. True victory."
He turned and continued up the stairs and a slow smile spread across my face. This was it. Finally. We were really going to get her back.
***
Jonas Barrow's home turned out to be a nice new house out in the suburbs with pink roses growing in the garden and kids playing loudly within the neighbouring houses, no doubt sending their parents batshit after months of lockdown with no end in sight. Still, better safe than sorry I guessed. I certainly would rather have been locked in a house with my mom for months than to have lost her like I did.
It was a bright and unseasonably warm day and it seemed like almost everyone on this cosy little nowhere street had decided to open their curtains wide and sit by their windows to enjoy it.
We sat in Saint's mom-mobile with its blacked-out windows, comfy seats and cup holders and watched Jonas’s home with the eyes of a hoard of bloodthirsty men.
"I still say I could just beat the information out of him," Kyan grumbled, not for the first time.
We'd been camped out here for hours - though of course Saint had planned for that and we had plenty of food, drinks, blankets (because he didn't want the engine running and drawing attention) and even our own personal bottles to pee in. Of course, I'd made a smartass comment about what we were supposed to do if one of us needed a shit and he'd just casually lifted a Tupperware box from the space beneath his seat in answer. Luckily none of us had felt the need to make use of it, but I was pretty certain he really expected us to rather than risk getting out of the car and alerting our target to our presence.
The only time any of us had gotten out was when we'd first shown up here. Saint had dropped Kyan off on a side street where no one would see him then he’d snuck through backyards until he reached Jonas’s house. He'd managed to confirm that the bastard in question was currently asleep in his bed and had seen a work schedule stuck to the fridge which confirmed he was back on shift tonight.
Niall had come through for us, meeting Kyan to give us the weapons we needed, and my gut twisted uncomfortably as I wondered what he was going to have to do to pay his family back for all the help they'd been giving us recently. I knew he was more than willing to pay the price, but I also wished for a better life for my brother. One that he could choose for himself. But now wasn't the time to worry about the future. We needed to get Tatum back if we wanted any chance of one anyway.
Ever since Kyan had returned to us he'd been chomping at the bit, wanting to beat the answers from that fucker. But Saint had overruled him, not wanting to do anything
that might alert the people holding Tatum to our approach. With his dad pulling the strings here, he was adamant we needed to be careful and I had to agree. As much as I ached to move now, the main focus had to be on getting our girl back.
So we sat there all fucking day and just waited him out.
***
Hours later, I shifted in my seat, trying to alleviate some of the numbness in my ass as the gun at my hip dug into my side.
Night had fallen and the tension in the car was palpable as we waited on Jonas to appear.
When he finally did, I straightened in my seat beside Saint who barely even reacted to our prey emerging at last.
We watched as Jonas headed out of his house with a medical mask covering his lower face like a good little citizen, before he slipped into the blue sedan parked on his drive.
He started up the engine and backed out into the street before heading away from us at a steady speed.
"Come on," I urged when Saint just remained seated behind the wheel, the engine silent and desperation filling the car. "We need to follow him."
"I'm perfectly capable of tailing that asshole," Saint gritted out, not taking his eyes from the now distant taillights. "But I'm also capable of subtlety. Something you lack considerably."
"Start driving or I'll rip you out of that seat and take over," Kyan growled while Monroe muttered insults at our self-appointed leader.
Saint slowly slid his seatbelt on and sighed like we were testing his patience before starting up the engine and pulling away from the curb.
He stuck to the motherfucking speed limit as he followed Jonas at far too great of a distance for my liking and I bit down my own complaints as I just kept my gaze fixed on the car which was now several blocks away from us.
With the lockdown still in full force, there weren't many cars on the street as there weren't that many essential workers still allowed to leave their homes for work. And as much as it frustrated me, I guessed Saint had a point about us not riding the sedan's ass the whole way there, but it still made me nervous as fuck in case we lost him.
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