27. Chapter 27
27
B y the time Rebecca’s team rolled up to the agreed rendezvous point half an hour later—the rescued prisoners split between the Shade vehicle they’d parked farther down the highway and the new van they’d acquired from Harkennr’s guys—Rebecca didn’t know what to expect. She’d sent two teams out to intercept confirmed transport convoys, but she could only be in one place at a time.
Maxwell wasn’t wrong to think Bravo Team wouldn’t have any better luck than they’d had, but Rebecca hadn’t held her breath with the hope that he’d be wrong.
However, the sight of Bravo Team’s Shade vehicle rolling up to their meeting place, followed by a second vehicle she didn’t recognize, was a good start. Both teams had arrived later than they’d planned, but that hardly affected their next steps now that everyone was here.
She also hadn’t expected the other team to show such high spirits when they left their vehicles to converge with Rebecca, Maxwell, and the three other operatives of their team.
“Looks like someone might have some good news,” she muttered as Diego and Hank headed toward them while the remainder of both teams focused on helping the rescued victims of Harkennr’s abhorrent plans get out of the vehicles for a bit for some fresh air and to stretch their legs.
“Looks like you guys were just as successful,” Diego said as he tugged down the brim of his baseball cap that barely hid the red glow of his eyes in the darkness. “I’d love to hear it’s all good news.”
“Most of it.” Rebecca glanced over her shoulder at the magicals they’d found all crammed together in the back of that single van. “Most of them are still pretty shell-shocked. I don’t know if they really understand yet that we showed up to help.”
“How many did you find?” Hank asked.
“Twenty-two,” Maxwell said.
“Damn. And I thought seven was more than enough,” Diego said.
Rebecca nodded. “Well then there’s plenty of room between four vehicles to get everybody somewhere safe as soon as possible. We’ll head out in a few minutes, once they’ve had a little more time to process what’s going on. The last thing we need is for any of Harkennr’s victims to start feeling like they were saved from one abduction just to be whisked right into another.”
“I’m not sure anyone could confuse rescue with another abduction,” Maxwell murmured.
She looked at him sideways. “You’d be surprised by what people’s brains can come up with. Especially after what they’ve been through.” Then she turned her attention to Diego. “Did you get any other information or intel from the driver?”
The Cruorcian shook his head. “Never even had a chance. Both of Harkennr’s errand boys and that truck back there took something before we could question them.”
“They poisoned themselves?” Rebecca asked.
Both Diego and Hank sent her sharp looks before Hank nodded. “As far as we could tell, that’s what probably happened, yeah. Didn’t exactly stop to run any tests, though, since we had a few extra people to get out of there. Top priority.”
“You made the right call,” Rebecca said. “We came up against the same issue.”
“That was an ancillary directive anyway,” Maxwell said. “What matters is we staked out the right locations and stopped these assholes before they could do any more damage.”
A pained shout came from the much larger group of victims Rebecca’s team had recovered. Then a tall, skinny witch wearing nothing but rags flung herself away from the group, only to be stopped again by Zane for a chat. Every Shade operative had discarded their weapons for the time being, hoping it would make the captives feel a little safer in their rescuers’ midst.
“So where do we go from here?” Hank asked.
“We can’t keep driving these people around with us all night,” Rebecca said, “and I don’t think it’s in anyone’s best interest to take them back home with us.”
Maxwell nodded. “I agree.”
“But where did they all come from?” she asked before turning back toward the other team leaders. “That’s a question we need to answer. We can’t just let them go and hope everybody has a safe journey home on their own.”
“Of course not,” he said. “They’re our responsibility, and we’ll see it through until we know they’re off Harkennr’s radar.”
“Has anybody said anything on your side?” Rebecca asked, nodding toward Bravo Team’s vehicles and the silent, traumatized prisoners staring at everything with wide eyes.
“They really won’t say much,” Diego said. “But I guess if anyone can get anything out of them at this point, it’d be Blackmoon.”
She wasn’t sure, but she could’ve sworn Maxwell choked on something.
“Blackmoon?” the shifter grunted.
“I know,” Diego said. “Wouldn’t have figured him as the best of us to turn to with a bunch of civilian prisoners right after we just changed their fates, but he’s actually done a pretty okay job.”
“He didn’t get in the way during your op?” Rebecca asked.
Hank and Diego both shook their heads before Hank shrugged and replied, “Not really, no.”
Wasn’t that a surprise?
Maybe Rebecca couldn’t predict Rowan’s every move after all. It sounded like he’d behaved himself.
“Where is he now?” she asked.
“Still talking to the prisoners, I think,” Diego said. “I’ll go get him if you want to.”
“ Please !” The echoing cry rang across the field. “Please, I just have to say something!”
“Just wait a minute—”
“No, you don’t understand! Let me go!”
Rebecca and Maxwell turned around toward the screaming to see the same thin witch who’d been talking with Zane now tear away from him before she barreled straight toward the team leaders holding their unofficial meeting in the center of both teams’ recovered convoys.
“Knox!” Zane shouted before spreading his arms. “She won’t—”
“That’s all right,” Rebecca called back, then walked away from the huddle to meet the witch halfway.
The other woman was so malnourished and off balance, she could hardly stand. She’d clearly pushed herself to her own physical limits to get to the team leaders that much faster and could hardly hobble in a straight line.
Rebecca caught up to her and reached for the witch’s shoulders just as the poor thing stumbled over her own feet and practically tripped right into Rebecca’s arms. “Whoa, it’s okay. Hey. Everyone’s safe now.”
“No, they’re not!” the witch cried, righting herself and clasping Rebecca’s forearms before meeting her gaze with wide, desperate brown eyes. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell him, but he won’t listen .”
“Okay. Okay. Let’s just get you sitting down, then you can tell me , all right?” Rebecca tried to guide the witch toward the rear of one of their open vehicles, but the other woman wouldn’t budge.
“No, I have to tell you now,” she panted. “We have to go back.”
“Back?” Rebecca paused to search the woman’s face. “We’re trying to help you get home.”
“No, back to where they’re keeping all the others,” the witch blurted. “You have to help them too. You have to get everyone else out of there. Please!”
“Slow down a second. Get who out of where?”
“The other prisoners like us,” the witch panted. “The ones they didn’t take out tonight to drive us wherever we were going. They’re still all back there right now, and if we don’t do something, they’ll just send more men back there and take them anyway. Please.”
Rebecca studied the witch’s desperate, terrified face, then looked up toward Maxwell, Diego, and Hank, in case any of them had a clue as to what the witch was talking about.
Maxwell was already on his way toward them, and when he reached them, his voice was surprisingly gentle. “Where is there?”
“Th-the warehouse. The men who took us, they were keeping us all in a warehouse. There are so many more of us still in there now. You have to help them too. My sister’s there. Please. Please, you have to—”
She burst into breathless sobs and sagged against Rebecca for support.
“What’s your name?” Rebecca finally asked after the worst of it seemed to have passed.
The witch sniffled. “Maddie.”
“Okay, Maddie. Where is this warehouse?”
“I…I don’t know any of the street names around here. We’re from Boise. But I can show you exactly where it is. I can take you there. I promise I can. Just please don’t leave them behind. Please.”
That hadn’t been part of their plan tonight.
Intercepting these van-loads of Harkennr’s newest experiment subjects had felt surprisingly easy from the start. Rebecca should have known there would be more to it.
When she looked up at Maxwell, meaning to ask for his opinion, the pain and fury mingling in his expression told her everything she needed to know.
He wouldn’t be able to let this go, knowing there was an entire separate facility out there, away from the prison, holding even more of Harkennr’s future victims.
Rebecca couldn’t let it go, either, regardless of whether she held a sobbing young witch in her arms literally begging Shade for their help.
The rendezvous point had fallen disturbingly silent, and as Rebecca scanned the faces of every operative she and Maxwell had assigned to what was supposed to be a simple ambush on Harkennr’s prisoner transport, each of their faces reflected the same decision both teams seemed to have already made.
They had to help these magicals however possible. Which now meant looking for this warehouse to get the others out before it was too late for all of them.
Even if it took these teams wildly off course before they had any idea what the fuck they were getting into next.