Chapter 19
Chapter
Nineteen
Too many hours had passed since Whitney had disappeared, and Blade was dangerously close to losing his mind.
Or maybe he’d already lost it.
Ever since he’d realized that their plan had been derailed, and the tracking devices on Whitney had either been found and destroyed or their transmission was being blocked, he’d felt like his skin was too tight on his body.
His anger felt trapped inside him. Wanting to let it out, to rage at something or someone, but not having an available target, made him turn that anger on himself.
When it boiled down to it, he was the one to blame.
He’d gone against his better judgment in letting Whitney play bait. Hadn't learned his lesson from the disaster things had turned into when they’d gone this route before with Rose. Steel had almost lost her, and they hadn't even got their hands on the doctor.
At least they’d gotten Rose back alive, but whether they’d find Whitney before it was too late was still up in the air.
As much as he didn't want to lose hope, and he would never give up, the chances of them finding her were slim. Whitney had been their best source of intel, and she hadn't been able to lead them directly to the insane scientist. Without her, he couldn’t help but feel that they had nothing.
They’d never had anything.
They’d been chasing their tails for seven years now, always playing defense.
Even when they’d finally learned the name of the man they’d known only as doctor during their time in the program and while held captive, their one attempt at gaining the upper hand had only led to them to take a step toward becoming the monsters Dr. Gardner had always told them they were.
Rose had easily flipped to being on their side, she had even more reason to hate her brother than they did, but she didn't know anything about her brother’s evil plans.
Prey had been doing everything they could, but even they hadn't been able to pinpoint anything that would give them the doctor’s location.
Why should he believe that would change now that the life of the woman whose big innocent eyes, and sweet timidity had pierced his heart was on the line?
“If you keep doing that, there’s not going to be any of you left when we find her,” Dragon said quietly from beside him.
Glancing down at the skin on his forearm he’d been absently peeling off with the blade of his knife, Blade just shrugged.
The pain was the only thing keeping him marginally sane.
A way to work out his anger and keep the panic at bay enough that he didn't go off on a screaming rampage. A rampage that would do no good. By the time they’d gotten to the produce store, Whitney and whoever had killed the cop were gone, and they hadn't been able to pick up a trail.
The kidnapper had come prepared to throw off their enhanced skills, and it had worked.
“We have a name,” Steel suddenly announced, and Blade’s gaze jerked up from his bloody skin.
“Of him?” he asked, wanting clarification before he let himself light even a glimmer of hope.
After they’d searched the entire area without coming up with a single angle to pursue where Whitney had been taken, they’d gone back to their cars, called Prey to get Cyber Team going through CCTV footage, and then checked into a nearby hotel.
The plan had never been to hang around there.
If they were lucky and Dr. Gardner had come to the meet up with the cop, they would have moved in and taken the scientist with them.
Otherwise, the plan had been to follow the trackers and let Whitney lead them right to the man they all wanted to destroy.
“Yep,” Steel agreed, shooting him what Blade was sure was supposed to be an encouraging smile.
“His name is Terry Richards. Served a single tour for the Marines before being honorably discharged. He’s forty-three years old.
Grew up in the foster system after he was taken from his parents before his first birthday, due to drug use and abuse in the home.
No siblings. Not married, never has been, and no kids.
He’s done security work ever since leaving the Marines.
Started small, working at a mall, then moved up to a bank.
Before taking on a new job about thirteen years ago, working as the head of security for a pharmaceutical company called Nature Plus. ”
“As in From Nature, dressed up under a new name, when it was taken over by Dr. Gardner,” Thunder muttered.
“That’s my guess,” Steel agreed.
Backstory for the man who had been in that room when the cop was shot, who had taken Whitney from him, and who had quite obviously terrified her, was the last thing Blade was interested in right now. "Address?" he barked out.
“Raven said that the address listed for Terry Richards is actually an empty plot of land,” Steel replied.
If Raven Oswald, the second oldest of the six Oswald siblings, and a computer genius who led Cyber Team, said it then he believed it.
He also knew her team had been running every CCTV camera in the area they could get, but all they’d been able to pick up was a man all in black pushing out a trolley with pallets of fruit and vegetables to a van that delivered to a local charity right around the time he and his team had arrived at the store.
There was no doubt the man in black was Terry Richards, and that Whitney’s unconscious body had been hidden beneath the produce, but the van had disappeared along the way, and Cyber Team was yet to pick it up anywhere.
“Address on the business?” Blade asked. If they couldn’t find Terry Richards through his home address, they’d just get to the man through his work one.
“Only address listed for it is the same building where Whitney used to work, the one she blew up,” Steel answered.
“Damn,” Blade swore, his knife moving automatically back to peel away at his skin. It seemed only fitting that he keep punishing himself because who knew what kind of hell Whitney was going through at this moment.
“Stop doing that,” Dragon snapped, reaching for the knife, but Blade swung it out of reach.
“We were supposed to be following her, but we lost her. I promised her she’d be okay, and we all know she’s not,” he snarled. His gaze fell on the small cut in his palm. His promise to his girl, broken already.
“Even if they found the trackers on her, she still has the one Teresa invented, that doesn’t get turned on until it’s activated,” Voodoo reminded him, like that was any comfort.
In theory, the device created by Cyber Team member Teresa Dash was a workaround for most situations, but if someone was using a jammer, then it was useless.
“Problem is, we shouldn’t have assumed she’d be taken straight to Dr. Gardner,” he said.
Whitney had told them that the only other person who worked for the scientist who might want to get his hands on her was her former handler, who was the man Blade had killed last in the forest that day.
There didn't seem to be any reason to suspect that having her taken straight to the man who bought her wouldn't happen.
What had just hours ago seemed like a perfectly logical plan, let Whitney play bait, follow at a distance, be led straight to the source of all their suffering, now seemed like it was so full of holes that a kindergartener could have come up with something better.
“We don’t know that she hasn’t been taken straight to Dr. Gardner,” Lion reminded him.
“Well, we sure as hell know that we have no way to track her regardless of where she is,” he snapped back.
In the end, it didn't matter if she was still with Terry Richards.
If she was with Dr. Gardner, or if she was with someone else, or hell, even dumped alone somewhere.
She wasn't with him and that was all he cared about.
“Your girl is smart,” Steel said, his expression and his voice fierce.
“She survived these people for twelve years, and she was only a child back then. She knows we’re coming for her, she knows she’s not facing this alone, and she knows her brain is too valuable to Dr. Gardner for him to risk hurting her too badly.
She will survive, and we will find her. We have a name and a company, and there will be something linking them to actionable intel that will lead us to them.
None of us is giving up on Whitney, which means you can't either.”
“Rather be dead than give up on her,” he said simply, and the gravity of his own words hit him hard. Sitting there, peeling off his own skin was wasting time. Time Whitney might not have.
January 16th
4:52 A.M.
So many hours had passed since she was taken.
Too many.
Was Blade still out there? Somewhere close by, just waiting for a glimpse of Dr. Gardner before he came swooping in on his white horse to save her?
Or …
Had he left? Maybe not even followed her to begin with? Maybe when he’d found the dead cop and her gone, he’d just decided this was too much hassle and he and his team had headed back home to come up with a new way to go after the man they despised.
“No,” she said aloud, her voice loud and strong, if slightly panicked, and she traced a fingertip around the gash on her palm almost convulsively, like she’d been doing most of the time since Terry had left her alone. “That’s just your fear talking.”
There was no way Blade would just leave her there.
Bound by blood. That’s what he’d promised her.
“He wasn't lying to you when he said you were his, that he wanted you,” she assured herself, annoyed that doubt remained.
Whitney was ninety-nine percent sure that Blade hadn't been playing her, that he’d been serious, that he knew she would help regardless, so he didn't have to lead her on to gain her cooperation.
Yet …
There was a teeny, tiny, little piece of lingering doubt. She hated it, but it was there nonetheless, and no amount of reminding herself of Blade’s words, his touches, his kisses, could seem to eliminate it.