Page 36 of Glitched Fates & Stolen Mates

“Kit’s never missed a session!” I blurted out, to distract them from my message inbox.

“He doesn’t oversleep either,” Rory said, frowning. “Kit gets up at five thirty every morning and goes for a run. He has porridge at exactly six fifteen, and he’s always at the hotel by seven. Always. When I lived with him, I refused to come in with him that early because it’s barbaric.”

Flynn shifted in his chair. “Maybe he’s having another… breakdown? Um… sorry, I mean, mental health crisis?”

They all exchanged glances. Those two weeks had been a dark, dark time for everyone.

“No,” Rory said firmly. “Sorry, but I don’t believe it. He was fine yesterday.”

Seb nodded. “Rory, message Theo. Ask him to inspect Kit’s flat, see if there’s anything amiss or if Kit’s simply there incapacitated.”

Rory nodded, already pulling out his phone. “There’s a spare key to Kit’s flat at ours. Teddy can grab it.”

“And I presume you’ve tracked his phone?” Seb asked, turning to me.

I gripped the plant tighter. “I checked as we came down here. Our app shows his phone is currently offline. I’d need my computer to properly see if I can pull up data on when it last pinged a location.”

“I saw him leave here yesterday around seven,” Priya said. “He said he was headed across London to Arnos Grove. End of the Piccadilly line.”

“Yes,” Seb said. “Felix, check if we’ve got anything from this morning, then see what we can pull up from yesterday evening.”

I nodded, though my hands were trembling so badly I wasn’t sure I’d be able to type properly.

“Kit was due to meet a vampire at Arnos Grove Station last night,” Seb continued, and the temperature in the room seemed to plummet. “A breakaway from Marcus Vale’s clan who apparently wanted to hand over details on him.”

The plant’s leaves rustled violently in my grip. Marcus Vale. The vampire who hated us with a burning passion, who left bloody trails of bodies throughout Brixton, who was building his own twisted army. The one whose prodigy we’d captured and… questioned… in room 410 in October last year.

“It’s possible that the intelligence meet-up went sideways,” Seb said, his voice carefully neutral. “That the vampire was lying. Bluffing. That it was a trap.”

Scorching hot anger flared within me. If there was a chance it was dangerous, why on earth had he gone alone?!

Flynn sat forward in his chair. “You think Vale has him?”

The words hung in the air like a death sentence. Nobody said what we were all thinking—that Vale might have killed Kit already. That this could be revenge. Perfect, bloody revenge.

“We don’t know anything yet,” Seb replied, but his face said it all.

My chest felt like it was caving in. Kit could be dead. Kit could be somewhere being chopped up into little pieces whilst I sat here holding a houseplant like an idiot. Kit could be—

“Felix,” Seb said sharply. “I need you focused. Can you do this?”

Freddy scampered up onto Rory’s lap, squeaking frantically.

“I know, little friend,” Rory said, scratching behind his ears. “I’m worried too. Settle down.”

But Freddy didn’t settle down. He continued going mental, then performed a sequence of acrobatics worthy of an animation, bouncing off the coffee table and launching himself onto the lampshade. From there, he scampered across the thick oak beams running parallel across the ceiling, his sharp claws gripping the wood as he navigated between the smaller cross-joists towards the basement staircase.

We leapt to our feet to follow him, watching as he swung from the lightbulb that hung halfway up the stairs.

“Um… okay?” Rory said to him. “Look, now really isn’t—”

Freddy made a noise—half squeak, half growl.

“Someone bring me a ladder,” Seb ordered.

Priya sighed and disappeared upstairs.

When she returned, Seb balanced the stepladder precariously on the stairs and climbed up.