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The run back to the hacker house feels like I’m on fire, and by the time I return, I’m more resolved than ever.
I know what I need to do.
Because it is right.
“You smell like a locker room,” Debbie snaps at me as I walk in and head over to Newman’s desk.
“Dude. You’re dripping,” he complains, but his screen is filled with lines of code I scan, adrenaline sharpening my senses, the run forcing blood out of my cock and into my brain.
“There. Semi-colon,” I point, and as I turn away to head down the hallway to the bathroom, he lets out a loud groan, like a sea lion.
Then a string of profanity.
“OUT OF SHAPE BASTARD!” he wails.
“Cam,” Debbie says, suddenly at the end of the hall as my hand’s on the bathroom doorknob.
“Yeah?” I tense. If they are watching me, this is where they ask.
“Good work. You’re so close to finding her.”
“Yeah.” Our eyes meet, and hers soften with emotion, catching me off guard.
“Listen, there’s something you need to see.”
“See?”
The way she waves me into her office makes my stomach drop. When she closes the door, my gut practically hits the floor.
“We got this video from an anonymous tip line.”
“TINSA has one of those? Good to know an agency that doesn’t exist has a way for the general public to drop info.”
“Shut up. It’s a video. We’ve had it analyzed. Looks like it’s from about seven years ago. Grainy as hell, and it takes place after dark, but you have to watch.” She pulls me over to her computer and hands me headphones. I put one over my ear, leaving the other bare.
A group of men, all in business shirts and casual pants, are around a bonfire. The fire has clearly been burning a while, down to embers. A breeze blows the palm trees behind them. It’s about seven or eight men, all of them beefy, like bouncers, most of them with shaved heads.
“Repeat after me,” declares a man from off camera.
My spine tingles.
“No way. Rooney?”
“Makiah himself,” she says, acid in her voice.
“I vow to protect our future queen at all costs.”
The men repeat the line, holding their hands together in a weird way.
“Triangle,” Debbie whispers.
“Huh?”
“They’re holding their hands in a triangle. Like a pyramid. It’s part of the loopy mixed-mythology approach of the cult.”
“This is a cult ritual?”
“Yep. And we finally have Rooney on camera, tied directly to it.”
