by Elodie Colt
“Do you think he’ll ever be able to race again?” Chris asked quietly after a few minutes of silence.
Christ. I hadn’t even thought about the possibility of Jimmy never being able to use his ability again. “I don’t know,” I answered, deflated, at a loss about what to do.
Today got out of control. Again. The Hunters seemed to be one step ahead of us every time. I had to face the truth—information was leaking out of the compound. It just left the question—who the fuck was the traitor?
“You should have a look at that.” I nodded toward Chris’ knee.
“Can wait for now. Which reminds me, we need to call the compound and tell them what happened,” he muttered with a sigh, but I was only half listening.
“Something doesn’t add up,” I mumbled more to myself.
“What?”
“We are not their enemy. They have no reason to attack us.”
Chris huffed out a dry laugh. “We made them our enemy when we started hunting them years ago, and now we have what they want. They won’t stop at anything to get it.”
He spoke of Haylie, of course, the precious Natural they wanted to rip out of my hands. I shook my head, pressing the heels of my hands onto my eyes as I let my brain reel through every possibility.
“But they wouldn’t be so stupid as to think we’d take Haylie with us on this mission. Besides, they could have killed her in the explosion. They made it clear they wanted her alive. If they plotted this to get their hands on her, they chose the wrong strategy.”
Chris suddenly gasped, and my head jerked in his direction. “Exactly,” he murmured, his eyes drifting off. “They knew we’d leave her behind…”
It took me less than a second to catch up to where Chris was going with this, but I quickly swallowed down the upcoming panic.
“Everything’s fine. Someone from the compound would have… called… us…” I drifted off, remembering that we’d all muted our phones before storming the building. I gave Chris a look of horror before we simultaneously fished out our phones.
“Shit, shit, shit!” Chris cursed, attracting a few people’s attention. “Several missed calls from Lauren.”
“Same here.” My phone showed five missed calls from Lauren but none from the rest of the crew. Sarah or Scott would have called us if something went wrong, right? I dialed Lauren’s number, putting the phone to my ear.
“Dylan, thank God!”
I knew we were in trouble as soon as I heard Lauren’s panicked voice. “What happened?”
“An attack at the southern entrance. Cole and his team are taking care of it. He wouldn’t let me go outside and told me to call you, but you weren’t answering.” Lauren spoke so fast, it was hard to keep up with her, but as soon as the word ‘attack’ reached my ears, I was out of the seat dashing in the direction of the parking lot. Chris followed me quickly, picking up on me being on high alert in no time while I indicated him to text Josh and Jared to wait for Jimmy’s verdict when the surgery was over. I hated to leave before we knew anything about Jimmy’s condition, but we couldn’t help him now anyway.
Jimmy had transferred the compound’s command to me barely half an hour ago, and already everything had blown up. If I messed this up, I’d never be able to look into Jimmy’s eyes again. Failure was no option.
“When?”
“About half an hour ago.”
“Is anybody hurt?”
“I don’t know. They haven’t come back yet. I don’t even know what happened!”
“Is Haylie with you?”
“No. She left shortly before, said she needed some time to think.”
A dark cloud of fear formed in my heart. It was only that morning she’d woken in my bed, her world completely turned upside down again after two days of being in a coma. I couldn’t blame her for some alone time, but right now, I wished she was with Lauren.
“Can you go check on her?”
“Please tell me you don’t—”
“Just do it and call me back, okay?”
I hung up without waiting for an answer and got into the driver’s seat. I couldn’t get rid of the notion that Haylie’s safety was at stake. Her heritage made her the center of danger.
We sped away while Chris made a quick check through our weapons and ammunition. A few minutes later, Lauren called again. I put the phone on speaker.
“She’s not in her cabin,” Lauren said flatly as soon as I connected the call. My heart plummeted down my stomach. This can’t be happening… “But she could be anywhere, right? Maybe she’s—”
I didn’t let her finish. “Lauren, listen to me. Go to the control room to Scott and Sarah. They have recordings.”
“All right. Do you think something’s happened to her?” Lauren’s voice shot up an octave while we could hear her sprinting through the corridors.
“Let’s not assume the worst, okay?” Chris intervened before I could open my mouth, no doubt to calm us both. “We should—”
“Jesus,” Lauren stuttered, interrupting whatever Chris had wanted to suggest.
“What?” I urged, gripping the steering wheel so hard, my knuckles cracked.
“Scott, he’s… And Sarah…”
“What is it, Lauren?” Chris shouted this time.
“They are on the floor. They both have needles in their necks.” A sob came through the speaker.
“Lauren, you need to calm down, okay?” Chris instructed in a soothing voice, trying to prevent Lauren from freaking out. “Check their pulses.”
I cut the van hard, sharply switching onto the left lane and causing the convertible behind me to blare its horn.
“Both stable, I think.”
“Is there any blood?”
“No.” Chris and I sighed in relief.
“They were drugged,” I concluded.
Clean and silent. No fight necessary. Either the attacker wanted to stay inconspicuous, or they doubted they could win a fight, therefore choosing the safer way.
“Lauren, have a look at the footage. I need to know what happened.” I gave her the password needed to access the security system. After giving her instructions on how to handle the software, I told her the timeframe she should search.
“Uhm… Scott sits in front of the monitors. Sarah isn’t with him. I think this was about the time one of the students broke his ankle.” I remembered Jimmy telling us about it earlier. “Something red flashes on the monitors, and Scott panics.” The cameras recorded unauthorized entering, causing the alarm to go off. “Cole rushes into the room. They talk. Cole rushes out. And then Scott collapses.”
“What, just like that? Are you sure there’s no one else in the room?”
“Yes.”
Great. Whoever shot in the main quarters with tranq darts knew about the blind spots of the cameras in there. Dear God, if I caught the motherfucker who did this, no one would stop me from crushing his windpipe with my bare hands.
“Sarah comes in,” Lauren continued. “She runs over to Scott but faints, too, before she can reach him.” He hid in the shadows the entire time. Fucking coward.
“Okay. What about Haylie? Can you see her on any of the screens?”
“Uhm, wait a sec…” Clicking sounds came through the speaker. “Here she is… She’s going to her room. She probably wanted to see how it looked.” After it had collapsed on top of us, I added mentally.
“I’ll speed up the file. Hang on…” A pause. “Someone knocks on her door.”
“Who?”
“I’m not sure, but it looks like Cassie.”
I frowned. Cassie knocking on Haylie’s door? They’d never willingly exchanged a word before. That didn’t make any sense.
“Cassie opens the door,” Lauren continued, telling us everything she saw on the monitors. “They talk. Haylie seems shocked, and they take off down the hallway. They’re running. They seem to be in a hurry.”
“Running where?”
“The northern exit.”
I closed my
eyes briefly. There it was. The one thing I’d vehemently denied, and the reason why I’d argued with Haylie in the first place. She’d felt that something was wrong with Cassie, just like Lisa and Scott, but again I hadn’t listened and had shouted at Haylie for even suggesting it. The truth had been right in front of my eyes the entire time, and Chris spoke so out loud.
“Cassie was the traitor from the beginning.” He bumped his head against the backrest in defeat, as helpless as me.
“But who drugged Scott and Sarah?” Lauren wanted to know, and Chris shot me a knowing look. I nodded in return. Cassie had help.
“Lauren, go back to your room and lock it from the inside,” Chris ordered in a sharp tone, obviously coming to the same conclusion about who the conniver was.
“But—”
“Now!”
There was only one person that hadn’t shown up until now. And I doubted he was doing his regular job in the server room as Scott had told Jimmy on the phone a few hours earlier.
I hit the road harder than ever before.
Dylan’s sharp voice still rang in my ears when I left Lauren’s room and made my way back to my own—or rather, what was left of it. I needed to see the destruction with my own eyes.
Scott had given me new literature, another weighty tome of over five hundred pages about the physical aspects of gravity, but it wouldn’t take my mind off the last few days’ events. I needed to get my thoughts in order—a few hours that didn’t consist of training or learning or strategy planning, a little free time to cope with all the things fate was throwing my way.
It felt as if my brain had turned to mush, a light headache humming at the back of my head ever since I’d opened my eyes this morning—a silent reminder of the changes my body had gone through with a certain sexy Fighter whom I’d clearly pissed off earlier.
Why his mood-shifting always seemed to take me by surprise was beyond me. Dylan wore two different faces, and you never knew which one you’d be confronted with the next minute.
Had I been wrong to suspect Cassie? We’d never gotten along, and she’d never hidden her resentment toward me, so maybe it was only natural for me to be suspicious of her. Or was Dylan too blind to see through her façade? He knew her better than me. They shared a past. I usually trusted his sentiment.
A hundred thoughts churned in my head as I entered my room, and I came to an abrupt halt when I saw the destruction behind the door.
The only part that seemed to be undamaged was the bathroom. In the main room, half of the ceiling hung down. The rest was reduced to a gaping hole where a huge chunk of concrete had crashed onto the bed, long zig-zag cracks a silent warning that the ceiling could crumble at any second.
The bed was a ruined mass of wood and metal, feathers from torn pillows scattered on the debris. The nightstand was broken, and the mirror on the wall was shattered. I recalled crashing into it before I lost consciousness. Dried specks of blood still stuck on the shards.
It was inconceivable how Dylan had gotten us out of here with nothing more than scratches. My eyes found the spot next to the bed where we’d landed after Dylan had rolled us onto the floor, shortly before the ceiling came down. It suddenly struck me how close we’d been to being seriously injured. I doubted Dylan would have survived a slab of concrete hitting his head.
Carefully stepping over the debris, I crouched low, touching the dusty bed sheets where Dylan and I had been entangled that fateful night. My entire Awakening had been one hell of a risk for him. He’d known, yet hadn’t left my side. Why? Just because of his devotion to saving a Natural? To avoid another failure on his part after he couldn’t protect Jenna and Shawna?
No, this couldn’t be. No man would go to such lengths just for the sake of fulfilling his duty and having a clear conscience.
A memory from when I’d tended to him after his fight with Cole crossed my mind, making me ache inside—Dylan’s hand trailing a hot path over my arm to my jaw, the longing in his eyes, that brief moment our lips had connected…
Had he just wanted to get into my pants or was there more to it? Had he taken advantage of me caught in the Revival just to get me to sleep with him? But, as close as we’d been to take that last step, he hadn’t overstepped the line, had only really touched me at the end when he couldn’t hold back any longer. Sure, he’d fought with himself, that much I’d seen in his eyes and felt in his touch, but he’d kept control the entire time.
This was more than just about sex, but we were clueless as to how to cope with things. Dylan was neither the man for relationships nor the man for talking about feelings.
And I was too timid to bring up the topic for fear of getting hurt. For fear of rejection. For fear of seeing the judgment in his appion eyes again—that look of condemnation he gave me in the beginning. Wow, what a pathetic little coward I was…
Sighing, I let the piece of fabric slip through my fingers, clouds of dust puffing up when it landed on the remains of my bed. Dylan and I needed to talk. It just never seemed to be the right time.
The earth under my feet suddenly vibrated, and I shot out my hand to keep steady. Debris trickled from the ceiling, but the rumbling was gone just as fast as it came. An earthquake? Or had my ability accidentally gone off?
A few minutes later, I heard quick footsteps approaching before someone banged open the door.
“Haylie!”
Jerking my head toward the panicked voice, I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw Cassie standing there, gasping for breath.
“Uhm… hey, what—”
“It’s Dylan,” she blurted out, her face a mask of horror. The blood in my veins froze in the blink of an eye. “They returned, but they were under attack. Dylan’s barely alive,” she choked, voice breaking at the end.
The mission. Dylan and the others had been on a routine check-out. He’d assured me there were no risks. How could it have escalated so quickly?
“Where are they?” I rushed, hurrying to Cassie’s side.
“Outside in the woods.”
No. Please, not him of all people. I didn’t know what I would do if anything happened to Dylan. He was the only reason I was still on the sane side.
“Where exactly?” I asked as soon as we exited through the trap door to the cemetery.
“This way,” Cassie answered, pointing with her hand to the dense forest.
I sprinted forward, not hesitating one second, but as I entered the woods, the moist earth crunching beneath my shoes, and the gnarly branches whipping my skin, my mind started to reel, going over every possible scenario on how it had come to this. Something didn’t make sense.
“Why would they return to the backside? They couldn’t even park the car anywhere nearby…”
A cold laughter echoed through the trees, and I froze on the spot. There was a second of silence before it dawned on me.
Dammit, I’d walked into a trap.
A stinging pain shot up my neck, my hand flying to its source and touching something thin and short sticking out. A needle?
“It was you all the time…” were my last words before the forest’s canopy tilted, encasing me in utter blackness.
~~~
I awoke before my eyelids managed the effort to open a slit. They seemed to be glued shut, and my mind was too sluggish to remember anything. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say I was having a gigantic hangover preventing my limbs from cooperating. A heavy headache pulsed in the back of my head, making me groan.
What the hell happened yesterday? Hang on… or was it even the same day?
A vision of Dylan’s face made it through the haze of pain—his intense, appion eyes on me, a slight smile on his face as he traced two fingers over my jaw the morning I awoke after the Awakening.
As soon as the thought entered my mind, everything came rushing back in snippets, increasing my headache to an unbearable level.
Training with Lisa, Dylan shouting at me, visiting the remains of my room and then… Cassie. Cassie telling me that the
mission had gone wrong, that Dylan was badly hurt, and me running off into the unknown without a second thought.
I knew I wouldn’t find myself in the compound before I opened my eyes. The stale air filling my nostrils was unfamiliar and smelled wrong. Blinding light made me blink until I could make out a high concrete ceiling with dangling bulbs looming above me. I shivered from the low temperature in the room.
Wherever I was, Cassie was the reason I was here. Anger welled inside me at remembering her vicious smile as she watched me crumbling limply to the ground. If the bitch ever came near me again, I’d squash her like a fly with my power whether Dylan approved or not.
With a grunt and a lot of effort, I pushed myself up from the hard and uncomfortable bed, my shoes touching concrete. The headache made me dizzy, and I grabbed the bed frame for support. What had that bitch injected me with?
As soon as I heard a clinking noise and felt the restraints around my foot, I knew I was shackled. A manacle wound around my left ankle, a thick chain connecting it to a heavy metal ring embedded in the ground. The ring was nearly as thick as the ropes from the parkour in the compound’s training hall, and from the looks of it, it was twice as heavy as me. They hadn’t left anything to chances. Only a Fighter would have the strength to rip the thing off its hinges.
With a pounding heart, I took in my surroundings. The room was square and brightly lit. No windows were visible except for a little one embedded into the steel door to my right revealing nothing but an empty hallway. I groaned. Of course, they kept me underground. Jeez, did all Roes live like moles under the earth?
Except for the squeaking cot I occupied and an identical one on the opposite wall, the room was void of anything else. Or could it even be called a room? ‘Cell’ seemed to be more appropriate, even if it was void of handlebars. I’d bet the door was locked, so there was really no difference between a prisoner’s cell and mine.
Not that I had any chance of getting out of here. The chain binding me was long enough to enable free movement halfway through the room, but it wouldn’t get me near the door. They’d finally caught me after months of failures, and they would do anything to prevent me from escaping.