Page 65 of Glitched Fates & Stolen Mates

It felt like too much of a coincidence for it not to be connected to Kit’s disappearance, but Seb kept reminding us that we had a lot of enemies.

Which wasn’t really what I wanted to hear.

My low-lying feeling of nausea had continued to grow. I’d barely slept a wink last night. It had now been over twenty-four hours since I’d waited under the lime tree for Kit to arrive. Twenty-four hours of not knowing where he was, if he was hurt, if he was even alive.

I was unable to focus on anything else. It was like someone was slowly tightening a vise around my ribs. Kit could be anywhere. Tied up somewhere, being tortured… or worse. The rational part of my brain insisted I’d know if he was dead—somehow, I’d feel it—but the anxious spiral dragging me down whispered that was just wishful thinking.

Theo’s inspection of Kit’s flat had turned up nothing. No signs of struggle, no indication he’d even been home. His phone had gone offline around quarter past seven at Clapham North underground station, which probably meant he’d boarded a Tube. But after that, nada. He was supposed to meet a vampire who wanted to dish dirt on Marcus Vale’s whereabouts in Arnos Grove. The station had been Kit’s suggestion, the idea being it would be very unlikely prying eyes would see the vampire negotiate with Kit.

Arnos Grove was all the way across London from Clapham North. Kit would have had to change from the Northern Line to the Piccadilly.

Who knew what had happened.

We hadn’t been able to contact the vampire on the number we had.

Not that he’d answer, if indeed the whole thing had been a trap.

“I’m going to go set up more expanded facial recognition searches on the transport networks,” I mumbled to the others, already slowly backing towards my cupboard. I needed the solitude of my lair to properly fall apart.

Bang!

We all froze. The sound had come from directly above us.

We all glanced between each other, each making the same calculation. Felix plus Seb plus Rory plus Theo plus Flynn plus Priya equalled everyone.

Someone was in our hotel.

Without a word, we rushed to my lair. I threw myself into my chair and jabbed at the keyboard, cycling through the camera feeds with trembling fingers.

A tall figure strode across the lobby towards the reception desk, movements confident. They stared long and hard at Dolly before reaching out slowly to touch her face.

Priya leaned over my shoulder, squinting at the screen.

“Is that… Wren?”

My stomach dropped. What the…?!

The figure on screen moved with his familiar lanky stride, long blond hair catching the lobby’s dim light. But what was Wren doing here? Inside the hotel?

“I’ll handle this,” Seb said, already moving towards the door. “The rest of you stay here while I disable him.”

“No!” The word burst out of me before I could stop it. “He’s a friend. He’s not—he wouldn’t—”

But the looks on everyone’s faces told me everything. The suspicion, the doubt. After the last twenty-four hours, after Kit’s disappearance and the listening device, they didn’t trust my judgment. They didn’t trust me.

“I’ll come with you,” Rory said, hand already moving to the knife at his belt. “Just in case he’s armed.”

I gasped. “Armed? Rory, he works at Fat Cat’s. He draws cats on coffee cups.”

As they left, Priya’s hand gripped my arm, gentle but firm, keeping me in place. “Let them handle it, Felix.”

My fingers flew across the keyboard, switching camera angles as Seb and Rory emerged into the lobby. I watched Wren spin round at the sound of their footsteps, his hands flying up in surprise.

Then Seb was on him.

Wren didn’t even have time to speak before Seb twisted his arms behind his back. The struggling was brief—Wren was tall, but no match for vampire strength. I watched in horror as Rory approached with a black hood, the kind we used for prisoners.

“No,” I breathed, my hands pressed against the screen. “Please, no.”