Chapter 24 #2
“Oh, god.” Stone looked down at the concrete under his feet. The same spot he’d nearly lost his life on just a few weeks before.
Hawk’s eyes went wide. “What?”
“I remember…”
The SUV.
Fuck.
He knew who shot him.
The devil was alive and well.
Mae crouched down in front of Jessie. “Are you okay? Did they hurt you?”
“I’m fine. I woke up in the van they used to transport us here. We drove probably another thirty minutes before pulling into this place. It's a long way off the road. I thought for sure the jostling would have woken you up, but you were out cold. Scared me half to death that you were gone.”
Holy shit.
“Not gone. But I’ve got a terrible headache.”
“Wouldn’t have known it from the way you handled those two,” Laurel scoffed.
“Yeah, well, bitch mode just comes naturally to me sometimes. You should know what that feels like. That’s the state you always live in, isn’t it?”
“Down girl. I fucked up. I obviously know that because…” Laurel waved around the cell. “I landed here first.”
“I’m not going to lie and say I’m not glad you're here. Because every ounce of information I can have about this place is going to help. Between what Jessie saw and what you can tell us about this place, we might just be able to get ourselves out and to safety. How long have you been here?”
“A few days, I think. I’ve had three meals, but it feels like it’s once a day.”
“That makes sense. Nash and Gunner found your hotel room trashed two days ago. What can you tell us about where we are? Or those guys that took us.”
Laurel sighed, wincing as her hand brushed over her bruised cheekbone. “I don’t know where we are. They knocked me out in my hotel room and I didn’t wake up until I was behind these bars. But I can help in other ways.”
“Tell me,” Mae said as she continued to search for anything she could use to start some sort of escape plan.
“What sort of information do you need?”
“Everything. Start at the beginning. And while you do, Jessie, I need your help.”
Jessie nodded from the corner, before pushing herself up and walking to where Mae was standing by the mattress.
“What do you need?”
“Use the sharp edge of the bed frame, right here…” Her fingers ran along the metal to show Jessie right where she meant. “To tear this sheet into thin strips. We’re going to tie them all together and hope to god we get the chance to choke the life force right out of one of these assholes.”
“That’s your plan?” Laurel balked. “That’s never going to work.”
“It will if Scar Face comes back in here on his own. I saw the way he eye-fucked me. We’re going to use that to our advantage. Now, tell me what you know. Starting with your source.”
“Jase and I… god, it makes me sick to even say it. We were dating for the last six months. Or so I thought. He dropped this story right in my lap about three months ago. Said a buddy who was a former SEAL reached out to him. Begged me to run it. I should have known, but all the documentation was there. When I asked Jase about the source, he said his friend was willing to go on the record if I needed him to. That taking down the guys for what they did was the most important thing. His ‘moral duty to the uniform’. But I never directly talked to the source. I wanted Stone and the guys to stand up and say it wasn’t true, but when they officially wouldn’t…
I didn’t have any reason not to believe him.
Corruption in places like the military is speculated about every single day in my business. So to be handed this white whale…“
“Your career was going to be made,” Jessie mumbled.
Laurel nodded. “I’m ambitious, and I won’t apologize for that. Everything, every bit of information was verified across multiple documents and eye witness statements. I couldn’t have known that something else was at play.”
“When did you realize you were being fed a lie?”
“The day they did this.” Laurel pointed to her face.
“I found the files… the plans for the bombs and the locations they were planning to hit. I should have come right to you, to the guys and the police, but he walked back into the motel room and I froze. Not my brightest moment. I panicked. I was trying to send the documents to Gage. But there wasn’t enough time. ”
Mae bit the inside of her cheek from unleashing her wrath on Laurel. There would be time for that later, when they were safe.
“So, you’re telling me you were going to do the right thing? You were going to turn him in?”
“Yes! Do you think he’d do this to me if he still thought of me as his girlfriend?
I mean, maybe he would have… I thought I knew him.
I thought he was doing the right thing. I’ve done several large exposés like this before and never has something like this crossed my mind as a possibility of happening.
Do you know how scared whistleblowers are?
Especially those who are from inside the military ranks? ”
“You knew my brother. The rest of the team. You didn’t give them the same benefit of the doubt as you did Jase and this source?”
“Mae, the evidence I saw… I only casually dated your brother a few times over a few months. I met the team out at different events. It wasn’t serious enough for us to have any truly deep, meaningful conversations. We were just two people who were attracted to each other and had insane chemistry.”
Mae felt Jessie stiffen beside her.
“Sorry, Jess.” Mae squeezed her arm.
“I told you, we have the same arrangement. I was his for a good time. Not a long time. It feels like there’s already no coming back from this.” Jessie just shrugged her shoulders and went back to work ripping the sheet apart.
Mae nodded, moving past the hurt she could see in her friend’s eyes.
“Okay, so how did these guys all really connect?”
Laurel sighed. “That’s what I was trying to send to Gage. They’re part of a military extremist group. They all met online posting on some chat boards. Jason and Luke were dishonorably discharged from the Marines for drug use. I-I didn’t know… This guy found them, and pulled them in on his plan.”
“Who is it? Who’s the boss they're worried about?”
“Christopher Caulleou. He’s a former Navy SEAL.”
Mae closed her eyes, the image of the photograph on Stone’s shelf immediately popping up in her memory. The name sounded so familiar, she was sure it was one of the guys she’d seen Stone looking at before…
“Shit. Look, there’s still time. There has to be something you learned that we can use against them, I’m sure of it. I just need you to tell me everything so I can figure out what part we can exploit. Okay?”
“Okay.” Laurel nodded, a gasp leaving her open lips as she grasped at her side.
“Why don’t you sit down? You look like you’re about to collapse.”
“There’s just one… bed. I just woke up. Figured you might want some time to rest.” Laurel offered.
“Listen, I’d normally say we could share, because I’m a girl’s girl.
You’re pretty… well, normally you are, but you’re not exactly my ideal partner to experience the one bed trope with.
So, you sit your very black and blue self down on that mattress while I figure out how the hell I’m going to get us out of this situation. ”
“Mae, I’m sorry—”
“Nope. We don’t have time for apologies right now. And they won’t do us any good if we can’t get out of here anyway. Eyes on the prize, girls. And that means we don’t slow down, we don’t stop fighting, until all three of us are out of here. Got it?”