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ChapterTen
Anson
We have turned this hospital upside down and searched every nook and cranny on every floor. We have overlapped our search to ensure nothing slipped through the cracks several times and was still unable to find my brother. I don’t understand what the hell provoked this attack on Joseph, but it has officially pissed me off. First it looks like the collapse was intentional and not an accident, and now after Lennox worked her ass off to save him, someone abducts him? And Lennox doesn’t have to tell us how hard she had to work to save him; it was written all over her face when she first walked in the waiting room. It’s the same look I have had on my face after a particularly hard mission I successfully completed but had to work my ass off to do it. What could he have done to have someone be bold enough to not only fuck with one of us when all of us are present, but to come into a hospital and take him? Jabarri went home to hack into the hospital's system to access the cameras. I do not want to hear the bullshit, ‘we can’t give you that information’ they will undoubtedly tell us, and I damn sure am not foolish enough to rely on the local PD to find my brother.
When they called down to transportation, they told us they hadn’t sent anyone to get him yet. They had gotten behind and were just about to send someone for him, so whoever came to get him wasn’t from transportation and didn't even work for the hospital. When I get done with this hospital, it won’t be Southshore General Hospital, it’ll be Gideon Memorial Hospital because I am going to sue them, and they won’t have enough money left over to buy a fucking band-aid. They are bending over backwards to try to simultaneously explain themselves and distance themselves and help us find him. The look of pure terror on Lennox’s face let me know he is in no condition to not be in a hospital and probably won’t make it if he’s not found soon. This is bullshit! I swear to God, whoever has him is going to wish for death by the time we’re done with them. I turn getting ready to punch the wall or something, but before I can, Aryan comes over to me.
“You’ll only hurt your hand, and we need you in top shape. I know you are pissed, worried, and frustrated but I know we’ll find him, alive. Lennox said he was doing good after surgery, so good they were moving him to his own room early. We’re not that easy to kill or be contained. Personally, I feel sorry for whoever has him once he wakes up. It’s going to be hell to pay even with him being hurt.”
I can only nod. I know he’s right, but he shouldn’t have to deal with this on his own, especially hurt. In all the missions we have all been on, we have never truly gotten hurt and when it does happen, it’s at one of our builds? And then the coward takes him when he’s fresh out of surgery? But I know Aryan is right. Once he wakes up, it’s going to be like dealing with a wounded bear, and I wouldn’t want to be that person.
“Jabarri’s back. Let’s go find out what he found so we can go get our brother,” Aryan says as we stride back to the administrator offices.
Jabarri
“Nothing,” I grate out past my tightly clenched teeth.
“Nothing?” Atlas and Jag say in unison
“The cameras were not working during the time Joseph went missing. Actually, the cameras stopped recording right after the power outage. I knew something was wrong with that shit, but I didn’t have time to think much into it because Lennox walked in right after.”
“How did the hospital not notice anything wrong with the cameras?” they all ask.
“Because there wasn’t anything wrong with them,” I say pissed off and impressed.
“You’re contradicting yourself, Jabarri,” Jaasiel says.
“No, I am not. There appeared to be nothing wrong. The cameras were still working, but they weren’t recording anything. So, you still saw everything that was happening but if you wanted to go back and look at something, there is nothing to go back to. Whoever hacked into the cameras disabled the recording abilities and wiped the backup system, but like I said unless you were trying to see something that was supposed to be recorded, you would never know the cameras weren’t recording.”
“What about the surrounding areas?” Asher asks
“Whoever did this, implemented this program into every camera system in a ten-block radius. They’re damn good and if this was any other circumstance, I’d be jealous. Once you get past the ten-block range of the hospital traffic is too heavy to be able to track who is coming in and from where. I can’t track him.”
“Then it looks like we have to do this the old-fashioned way. We go back over Joseph’s life and run down anyone new including our staff. If they have come across his path, they get investigated no matter how fleeting the interaction,” Atlas says.
“If that’s the case, Atlas, we’re starting with her ass!” True says looking at Joyce.
Joyce
I physically take a step back when she says that to me, but I am willing to do whatever is necessary so they can get past me and hopefully find whoever has taken Joseph.
“I know emotions are riding high and that is why I have been choosing to keep my distance and my mouth shut, but you’re going to stop treating me like a basic bitch because I am not. I wouldn’t do anything to Joseph, what motive do I have and besides I was here with you all when he was taken…”
“You could have had help,” she says to me, but I continue to talk like she hasn’t said a word.
“Besides I had plenty and I do mean plenty of time and opportunity to do what I wanted to Joseph. I would have been a fool to wait until now to try to do anything to him. You’re pissed off at me for a private situation that was between me and him. What happened between him and I is none of your business. I know he’s your brother and you have the right to feel how you feel, but you don’t have the right to talk to me any kind of way. And if you want to take it outside, I’m ok with that. I might get my ass whooped, I might not, but if I do so be it, but I can guarantee one thing you’ll know you’ve been in a fight too! So do what you have to do to clear me so you can move on to whoever the real person is who has taken him.” I walk over to a chair and have a seat. I am tired of the bullshit and being her whipping post.
“I already vetted her,” one of the brothers says. I look at him, both eyebrows raised.
“You were the first person I checked out,” he states matter of factly.
“Well now that that’s been taken care of, y’all can look for the person who is actually responsible.” They begin talking and I tune them out, I am sick to my stomach over Joseph. Who the hell would take him and for what reason? And now that I am faced with the real possibility that I may never see him again, I cannot for the life of me understand any of the stupid arguments I had to keep him at a distance. It’s so cliché but it took a life-or-death situation to accept what I have been fighting since the first time I saw him at the department store. I am in love with Joseph and that fact alone scares the pure shit out of me. I will not be going back to North Carolina until we find Joseph alive, and I tell him how I feel. If he asks me to leave, then I still won’t. I will fight for him but if after all that it’s not meant to be, I will just go back home and build a machine so I can kick my own ass.
“J, what is going on there? How is Joseph? When are you coming back?”
“T, you gotta breathe, sis. If you give me a chance, I can answer your questions.”
“Sorry, go ahead.”
