Forged in Flames (Made of Steel Series Book 2)

by Ivy Smoak

  The window automatically shut behind him before I got to ask him any more questions.

  "V, wait!" I looked around the window for a way to open it. I didn't actually want to leave, but I thought it was important to know how. "Open," I eventually whispered when I couldn't find any buttons or knobs that would do the trick.

  "Access denied," said a computerized female voice from above me. I looked up to see a speaker above the window. And a camera. Had he seriously locked me in?

  I turned around and let my eyes wander over the room. The place looked like it was a combination of a bachelor pad and a high tech computer lab. If he had been poor, he was certainly keeping some of the missing money from his conquests for himself. I walked into the center of the huge room and turned around in a circle.

  Glass partitions were the only thing that separated the different areas. There was a section with workout equipment. Several glass desks were decked out with computers and monitors. There was another glass table filled with small vials of a clear liquid. A kitchen that looked like it had never been used was off to one side. And there were three doors that led to who knew where.

  Everything was glass or stainless steel. And there wasn't a spot on anything. It was like he had just wiped it all clean like a criminal not wanting to be detected. I wondered if he had a thing about smudges and dirt. I thought about the gloves he always wore when I saw him. Did he wear them all the time?

  The other thing that was odd was that there were no decorations. Well, I guess there was one: the five-foot target hanging on the far wall. Not a single arrow was in the bulls-eye. Some arrows were even sunk into the drywall. I walked over to it and I touched the end of one of the arrows on the outer ring of the target. I was lucky he hadn't hit me when he shot that note at me earlier today.

  I took a step back and looked at the wall covered in holes. He was practicing, perfecting his technique. But why? Why did he have to get better at what he was doing? All we needed to do was take down one man. Just one. This didn't need to be a whole operation. This couldn't be all about me.

  The image of Sadie Davis popped into my head. My mind seemed to focus on her outstretched hand, telling me to stop. Was she warning me somehow? Maybe she was trying to help me.

  I glanced over my shoulder, that eerie feeling of being watched suddenly overcoming me. I looked up at the ceiling and saw another camera and speaker. Hell, maybe the vigilante was watching me right now.

  I walked over to one of the doors and grabbed the handle.

  "Access denied," said the computerized voice before I even had a chance to turn it.

  I went to the next door and the same thing happened.

  The last door opened without anyone yelling at me. It was a bathroom that was as immaculate as the rest of the house. The shower was incased in glass. There wasn't a single splash of water or stray hair anywhere on the vanity. It was like he never stepped foot in here, yet I knew that wasn't true. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I was completely overcome by the enticing smell. It was his cologne. The whole room smelled just like him. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. It was embarrassing that the smell turned me on.

  I stepped out of the bathroom before I did something embarrassing like smell his body wash. I looked around the main room again and bit the inside of my lip. So, there was a bathroom but no bedroom. Which meant he didn't live here. Also, why was there no front door? There was just the window to the emergency escape. There should have been a door entering the main building. I walked around the room, but I didn't see a door anywhere. He really did lock me in here.

  I walked over to the glass desks with the computers and sat down in the only chair. My feet barely touched the ground. I grabbed the lever on the side and lowered the chair until it was a comfortable height. If I was locked in here, I could at least make myself useful. I pressed the power button on the closest computer monitor.

  "Access denied," said the female voice.

  I pushed the chair to the side and pressed the power button on the next computer.

  "Access denied," she said again.

  I thought about when the vigilante had said "lights on," and the room had immediately been illuminated. "Computer on," I said.

  "Access denied."

  What had V said before the command? Athena? "Athena, computer on."

  "Access denied."

  "You've got to be kidding me." I sighed and stood up. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed a few papers strewn about at the end of the desk. I picked one of them up. It looked like a sketch for a new mask. He definitely wasn't planning on stopping this any time soon. I pressed my lips together. I didn't want to drag any of this out. As soon as Don was back, all of this had to end once and for all. I wouldn't be the reason that V got himself killed. I placed the sketch back down on the desk and turned around.

  What was I supposed to do in here? My stomach rumbled. I was almost pissed off that the vigilante had told me I could help myself to anything in his kitchen. It was like he knew that I'd get hungry. How does he know more about me than I know about myself?

  "Am I allowed to open the fridge door?" I asked to the speaker above me.

  The computerized voice didn't respond.

  My eyes wandered back toward the bathroom. Was it really that weird to smell his body wash? While I was debating whether to make myself a sandwich or just dive right into being a crazy person, a whooshing noise sounded through the apartment.

  The vigilante emerged through the window, carrying Eli's unconscious body over his shoulder. V heaved Eli off his shoulder and dropped him unceremoniously on the floor.

  "Any ideas?" he said and looked from me to Eli's body.

  "Me? I don't know how to interrogate someone."

  "You know him better than I do."

  I shook my head. The truth was I didn't know Eli at all. "You're not going to hurt him, are you?"

  "Good idea. It's probably better if we make it look like I might." He grabbed Eli's limp arm and dragged him across the sparkling clean floors.

  "That's not what I meant."

  V ignored me as he pushed Eli's body to a seated position underneath the bulls-eye. The one he was still clearly learning how to use. He grabbed the bow and an arrow off a nearby glass table and kicked Eli's thigh.

  "Please don't hurt him."

  V glanced at me over his shoulder. "He'll be more scared if he doesn't see you." He nodded for me to go into the bathroom.

  "Don't hurt him."

  "I'm not going to kill your boyfriend if that's what you're worried about."

  I couldn't even believe it. He was jealous. How could he be jealous of anything I did when he wouldn't even show me his face? It wasn't like we were in a relationship built on honesty. But it didn't stop me from feeling terrible about it either. I had been a little relieved when I thought the vigilante was Eli instead of some stranger under a mask.

  "I thought he was you."

  He shook his head and turned back to Eli.

  V was right, it would be better if I wasn't watching. And I didn't want to witness this. I flinched when V kicked Eli again. The truth was, I had feelings for both of them. I wouldn't have just slept with Eli because he was the vigilante if I didn't like Eli in the first place. I retreated into the bathroom and let the enchanting smell calm me down.

  Chapter 16

  Sunday

  I leaned my head against the doorjamb and pulled my knees into my chest. I tried my best to listen to their exchange while suppressing the need to jump in. If I just listened, maybe I could finally get some answers. No one ever seemed to want to tell me anything when I asked. This was the best way. But so far, I hadn't learned anything new.

  "I said how long?" the vigilante's voice rumbled.

  "I wasn't on surveillance that whole time."

  "How long were you on the case?"

  "I was put on it shortly after I joined the force three years ago."

  Three years? I shut my eyes. Three years of hell that could have
been avoided.

  "What do you have on Don Roberts?" the vigilante said.

  "Nothing. That's the problem."

  "With three years of trying to put him away? I highly doubt that."

  "I'd tell you more if..."

  A crunching sound made my eyes fly open.

  "Jesus! You nearly shot my ear off!"

  "Tell me what you know!"

  "You're fucking crazy," Eli said.

  "Fine, you don't want to talk about Don? Then let's talk about Sadie. How could you not connect the dots? There was a missing persons case for her. It was all laid out for you. All you had to do was look."

  Missing persons case? I was in the foster care system. Don Roberts had even gone to the lengths to adopt me. I wasn't missing.

  "My job was about breaking Don. It had nothing to do with..."

  "It had everything to do with her!"

  Another crunching noise, as an arrow landed in the dry wall again.

  "Fuck!" Eli yelled.

  "What happened to that case?"

  "It was dropped almost as soon as it was filed. Kids from foster care run away all the time. No one was looking for her."

  "Someone was looking for her. Or else the report wouldn't have been filed."

  Crunch.

  "I care about her too, okay?" Eli said.

  Crunch.

  "Jesus Christ stop shooting arrows at my head!"

  "Tell me what you know!"

  "The only reason I even know about the damn file was because it showed up on my desk a few months ago."

  "Who gave you the file?"

  "I don't know. Look, would you just untie me and I'll tell you everything that I do know?"

  Crunch.

  "After you got the file, why didn't you put the pieces together right away?" V said.

  "Because it was a case about a little girl named Summer Brooks. She didn't look the same. She had a different name. Honestly, I thought the file landed on my desk by mistake. I didn't think anything of it at first. There was no reason to suspect that anything was amiss. I had looked up Sadie Davis when I was first put on the case. The adoption paperwork was sound. Everything was perfectly legit. There really was no reason for me to think anything was going on."

  "What about the bruises on her neck! And the scar on her stomach? And her broken bones!"

  I cringed and put my hand on my stomach.

  "She did a hell of a job hiding it. What do you want me to say? I didn't know. I thought she was there by choice. And the only reason I knew that the missing persons case was dropped was because I went digging," Eli said. "Because I cared about her. Because I didn't want her to have to keep living with a criminal. I was the one that took the time to figure out what the hell was going on. But by the time I connected the dots, it was too late. She was gone. When she turned up here, I uprooted my whole life to come here and make sure she was okay. So don't you dare fucking act like I don't care about her."

  "You think you love her? You don't even know her!"

  Crunch.

  "I'll know her better than you ever will," Eli said.

  Crunch.

  "You're shooting at me because you know you can't have her. You're hiding behind a fucking mask. No one in their right mind would want to be with you."

  Crunch.

  "And you think she's going to choose you?" V said. "You were sitting outside her house while someone was hurting her. You could have stopped it! You could have protected her."

  "I didn't know!" Eli said.

  "It's written all over her face. I knew it as soon as I saw her. And you couldn't see it in all that time?"

  I swallowed hard. The vigilante pities me. I hadn't thought about that before. He felt sorry for me. Is that why he started all this? I thought I had become great at pretending I was fine. He had stripped me of my mask as soon as he met me.

  "People like you prey on weakness," V said. "You saw hers and you latched on. She's scared of you, you know that right? She thinks you're going to hurt her."

  V thinks I'm weak.

  "She's not scared of me," said Eli. "She likes me just as much as I like her."

  "The only reason she even likes you is because you remind her of what she knows."

  I felt like I was going to be sick. Was that true? Did Eli remind me of Don? I thought about the way his fingers seemed to dig into my skin when he was mad.

  "You took advantage of her," V said. "You crossed the line. This whole time you should have been protecting her, and you did the fucking opposite. You're just as bad as him."

  I couldn't take them talking about me like I couldn't hear every word they were saying. I didn't want to know what else the vigilante thought about me. That was already enough. I stood up and stormed out of the bathroom. At first neither of them noticed me. Eli's head and upper body were outlined with arrows. There was a little blood on the top of his right ear, like an arrow had skimmed it.

  "What missing persons report?" I said. I wasn't going to acknowledge what else I had overheard. If V thought I was weak, scared, and pitiful that was fine. Fuck him. And fuck him for thinking I liked Eli because he reminded me of Don. The only reason I hadn't really fallen for Eli was because of the small similarities. They both thought they knew me. Well, neither one of them knew anything about me. Screw both of them.

  They both turned to me.

  "Thank God," Eli said. "Can you please untie me?"

  "What report?" I repeated, ignoring him. If someone had been looking for me, I wanted to know who. It could point to something important.

  "Tell her what you did," the vigilante said.

  "It wasn't me who buried it. I hadn't even joined the force yet. I..."

  Another arrow landed right next to his left arm.

  "Okay." Eli was breathing heavily. "Okay, just stop shooting at me. When you were 12 years old, apparently you vanished. Officially, Summer Brooks has been missing for the past six years."

  "I was in the foster care system. I was with Don that whole time. Liza said he adopted me," I added and glanced over at the vigilante. "And that he changed my name. But why? Why did he do it?"

  "I don't know," Eli said. "But this is deeper than you might think. Don was never enrolled as a foster father. And it wasn't just a normal name change. He altered personal identities and made it look like you stole someone's identity. He wanted you to look like a criminal too. He's up to something big, I just don't know what."

  "I already knew all that."

  Another arrow sunk into the wall beside his arm.

  "Stop!" I glared at V.

  "You just said you already knew that. He's being unhelpful."

  "Please stop shooting at him before you accidently miss. We're trying to get information, not kill him."

  He sighed and lowered his bow.

  "Who filed the missing persons report?" I asked.

  The vigilante looked over at Eli.

  "Someone named Rebecca Young," Eli said.

  Miles' mom? God, Miles didn't just think I stopped writing. He was probably worried that I was dead. Or was it possible that he thought I just ran away and never spoke to him again? Just the thought made my chest hurt. The other night when I had asked him to tell me about Summer, I had cut off his story after he said I had entered foster care. I thought that was all there was to validate. But if he had kept going, he would have told me about thinking that I had run away. That I had abandoned him, not the other way around.

  I had to tell him the truth. Enough was enough. All of this had escalated beyond anything I had ever imagined. I needed to talk to the one person I could actually trust. "I...I have to go."

  "You can't leave," V said.

  Oh, yes I can.

  "Don't leave me with this maniac," Eli called after me.

  "You can't." V's voice seemed to rumble an octave lower than usual. He was mad.

  Well, I was mad too. I was mad at him for thinking those thoughts about me. I wasn't weak. I had been in hell, but I was still breathing. Neithe
r one of them knew anything about me. I was almost at the window when I heard V loose another arrow from his bow.

  "Fuck!" Eli yelled.

  "Shit," V said.

  I turned my head and skidded to a stop. An arrow was sticking straight out of Eli's thigh.

  "What is wrong with you!" I ran over to them. Maybe V was right. Maybe Eli did take advantage of his position as a cop to be with me. But that didn't make shooting him okay. It also didn't just suddenly evaporate any feelings I had for him.

  "It just slipped. I didn't mean to..." V's voice faded away.

  I shoved V hard as I ran over to Eli. The fact that my shove didn't make him move an inch pissed me off even more. I crouched down next to Eli. The fabric around the arrowhead was already stained with blood. "It's going to be okay," I said, probably not at all convincingly.

  He groaned.

  I had no clue what to do. Should I pull it out? Would that make it even worse? God, this was all my fault.

  Eli's head drooped forward. The pain must have caused him to pass out.

  "V, do something! We're losing him!"

  "We're not losing anyone," he said. "The arrow was laced with the same serum I use in the darts. It just knocked him out, that's all." He grabbed the arrow by the shaft and unceremoniously pulled it out. "You should probably stay the night to take care of him, though." He placed a medical kit at my knees and walked away.

  "Are you serious? You shot him so that I wouldn't leave?"

  He didn't respond. He just walked into the kitchen.

  "What is wrong with you?"

  "I said it was an accident." He opened up the fridge. "Are you hungry?"

  Eli was right. The vigilante was a lunatic. I turned back to Eli, ignoring V's question. I looked down at the gash in Eli's leg and grimaced at the blood. Of course I wasn't hungry. If anything, I thought I might be sick.

  Chapter 17

  Sunday

  "I want to go back to my dorm."

  V kept his back turned toward me and didn't say a word. He was stirring something on the stove.

  "V."

  "Dinner will be ready in a minute."

  "I'm not hungry. Please, I just want to go back to my dorm and get some sleep. I'm exhausted and I have classes tomorrow." My stomach growled, completely betraying me.