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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.
