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I shake my head from side to side. “It was a setup. A total setup, wasn’t it? You can tell just by looking at that… It wasn’t like someone just saw him and got upset. Between the footage from the drone and this clip I found online, this isn’t the way things go. All of a sudden, out of nowhere, there are like fifty people attacking him? They were planted.”
“Agreed,” Thayer says. “It would be the easiest method in the world, right? Get people afraid of us, then blow the whistle. Have them think that they’re in danger because the bad guys are here. Make the actual bad guys innocuous enough that the others there don’t send a guard after him. Then, attack. Yeah, it makes sense.”
My heart races. I want Lyam safe. The first time they had him, he was a bargaining chip, but now… “Zoom in,” I tell Manny.
I stand and cover my mouth when I see two men bring Lyam to the ground. One sticks something in his neck. A second puts a bag over his head, and a third helps carry him away. I blink, staring, waiting for them to emerge from the crowd so we can see where they went.
They don’t.
“They didn’t leave,” I tell Thayer. “How come they didn’t leave?”
He scratches his chin and shakes his head. He’s got Fabien on the line. “What the fuck does that mean, they didn’t leave?”
Thayer frowns.
“Maybe we should check out that area at another time? Let’s go to two days ago, six a.m., same spot.”
Thayer eyes me curiously.
“Good thinking,” Thayer says approvingly. “Very good job.”
His praise sounds hollow compared to Lyam’s, but I give him a wan smile.
Manny’s fingers fly over the keys as he zooms in further, a few days earlier.
“Aha! There, look!” Right in that location is a manhole cover. “Let’s find out what that leads to.”
Minutes later we have an underground map of the tunnels.
I reach out and stroke Princess. She makes me feel closer to Lyam.
Thayer’s eyes go dark. He shakes his head. “Well, look at that. The tunnels lead straight to the Capitol.”
* * *
NINETEEN
Lyam
I keeptrack of the days by looking outside the sliver of a window and watching the sun set and rise. And on the second day, I decide. I’m going to get away from Montague if it’s the last thing I do.
If I haven’t cooperated, where will he go next? Will he hurt my brothers? My mother?
Cosette and the baby?
I know now that my first thought that Cosette betrayed us couldn’t have been further from the truth.
Jesus, I’ve been a douchebag.
I will make it up to her, goddamn it, and when I do, I will crawl on my belly to beg forgiveness. Cosette loves with the tenderest heart and yet she would still rather die than ever even serve this man coffee, never mind lie to us and betray us and work with him behind our backs. I let my fear convince me she betrayed us.
Never again.
I have to get away.
He has me chained to the floor with electric shocks on my ankles, neck, and wrists.
Twice someone’s come in with food, but they’ve given me hardly any water. He’s trying to give me just enough to keep me alive. I know what he’s playing at.
