Chapter Fifty-seven — Trinity
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
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TRINITY
My head banged against something, bringing me awake.
Where—
I was fucking dizzy. My head hurt. And I was moving.
Panic sank its claws into me and didn’t let go. That man drugged me. I was terrified of what I’d find when I opened my eyes, but knew enough to know that I needed to. Information was vital.
The sun nearly blinded me when I cracked them open. It pierced down through the back windows of the van I was in. That’s what it looked like. The back of a utility van.
The radio was on low in the front of the vehicle. It gave me a little cover for movement. I kept moving slowly because I didn’t want to let this asshole—or maybe more than one of them—know I was awake yet.
It was one of those vans that had a dividing wall that separated the back. There was a grate at the top, which was why I could hear the radio. Okay, so at the very least, if I kept myself on the floor, they probably wouldn’t be able to see me.
There was always risk in being a reporter. I’d taken the self-defense classes and knew what to do. The thing those classes didn’t teach you was how different it was knowing something as opposed to using it.
I was already at a disadvantage. Your odds of survival went down significantly if you were transported to a second location.
But if this was what I thought it was, my chances of survival were already slim to none.
They didn’t take me to have a nice chat.
And you didn’t abduct someone in broad daylight with your face fully visible if you planned on leaving them alive.
Carefully, I shifted my body.
Some of my panic receded. I wasn’t restrained. Probably because they needed to get me into the vehicle quickly.
The sun was still almost vertical, so I hadn’t been unconscious for too long. That was good. Plus, Ocean and Isolde would send up the alarm when I didn’t show up. Hopefully they’d already done that.
My Alphas—
Terror gripped me at the thought of them. They were probably out of their minds. I hadn’t told all of them I loved them yet. Grief felt like a crushing weight. If I didn’t make it out of this…
I couldn’t think like that. If I thought like that, there wouldn’t be any room for survival. I needed to survive. Everything else could come after. He hadn’t injected me with something that killed me, so that was good, but also terrifying. Where was I being taken, and why?
Slowly, I turned over onto my stomach. My body felt okay, minus the aches and pains from the arena. I could fight back. Right now I wasn’t going to focus on the reality that I might not be strong enough. If this was going to happen, I wasn’t going down without a fucking fight.
I didn’t find exactly where I was meant to be and who I was meant to be with, just to die before we could live life together.
The van slowed and arced in a smooth turn like we were pulling off the highway. But where were we? I raised my head as much as I dared—making sure I wasn’t visible in the rear-view mirror—and saw the crane in the distance.
Fuck.
I figured it was because of the story. If Aiden was right, and there were no coincidences, then there was no other reason for me to be taken. He’d known my name. Somehow they’d caught on to what I was looking into, even though I’d been careful.
The thought hit me then.
Maybe Tracy’s accident wasn’t an accident. The possibility had been raised, but there hadn’t been any red flags. Just like there hadn’t been any red flags for me. Other than the break-in.
I ducked back down as we approached the gate. Brian rolled down the window. I recognized his voice when he spoke. “Everything quiet?”
“Yeah, man. Whenever you want me to cover hours for you, let me know.”
He was the fucking gate guard.
They would find me. As soon as Isolde and Ocean realized something was wrong, they would tell someone. They would figure it out. They had to. It was the only option. I couldn’t allow any other thought. If I did, I would fall apart completely.
“Will do. Thanks for the coverage.”
We drove through the gate. I already knew where we were heading. The real question was whether or not every single person at Port Sunset was a part of it. If I could get away long enough for someone else to see and hear me, it was my best shot.
The van slowed to a stop. I heard muffled shouts and conversations from outside. Brian got out and slammed the door behind him. They would open the door in seconds, and all I had was one chance.
One look told me I was where I thought I was. Good. I could run toward the office. And toward that security camera, now that I knew where it was.
“How’d it go?”
A laugh. “Almost too easy. Didn’t make a peep the whole ride.”
“Good. Let’s get this over with. Fucking tired of these reporters digging around.”
Then maybe you shouldn’t be committing egregious crimes, jackass.
I moved, crouching low behind the door. This would only work once. I placed my hands against the door and watched their shadows through the window.
As soon as the latch clicked, I shoved the door open and sprang from the van, leaping over the guy I knocked down and running. “HELP!” I yelled as loud as I could at the expense of my breath. “SOMEONE HELP ME.”
A long time ago, I heard someone say that more people responded to calls of fire than calls of help. “FIRE. FIRE. HELP, PLEASE. FIRE.”
There were shouts and pounding footsteps behind me. My legs and lungs burned. I made it around the corner of the first row of shipping containers. Fuck, I couldn’t breathe. But I wouldn’t be breathing at all if I didn’t keep going.
“SOMEBODY I NEED HELP.” I gasped and nearly stumbled. The footsteps were pounding right behind me and gaining. I pushed everything I had into going faster. Harder. “THEY’RE TRYING TO KILL—”
A body hit me from behind and I went down. All the weight hit me, knocking the breath from me entirely. Gravel scraped my skin, my palms and knees burning. It took long seconds for my ears to stop ringing and for me to actually inhale air.
“You didn’t fucking tie her up?” The man on top of me grunted as he dragged me to my feet, dazed.
“Yeah, because I had so much time while I took her off a downtown street. This was the first time she’s been alone in days, so I made it work. Get off my back.”
I still had to try. “HELP. ANYONE.”
Stars flared behind my eyes, and the pain came a second later. He hit me. I felt all the strength go out of my limbs. I was shaking from the adrenaline and exhaustion and fear.
The screech of tape had me fighting, in spite of everything. This wasn’t Bastian who would stop with a word. This was real life, and I wasn’t going to let this happen.
“Hold her still.”
I kicked and clawed and screamed. It took three of them to get me still enough for tape to be wrapped around my wrists and forearms.
“Shit. Get those bracelets off in case she can use them against the tape.”
“NO.” They couldn’t take those. They couldn’t.
The panic was starting to overwhelm me now, and I couldn’t hold it back. I wasn’t strong enough to stop them and no one had heard me. This wasn’t a movie. There wasn’t a guarantee that the good guys would win and get there in time. Now they were taking the one thing I had left of them and—
I sobbed when Brian used a knife to cut the delicate chains. “Please. You don’t have to do this. I’ll stop. I won’t say anything.”
The man who held me shrugged. “It’s not personal. You stuck your nose where it didn’t belong, and these are the consequences.”
“If you stop now, you can make it out of this with only jail time. You don’t know who’s looking for me. If you don’t let me go, I promise you, it won’t go well.”
He sighed and ripped off a piece of tape. “That’s what they all say.” And he sealed it over my mouth. Two more followed before he gave up and wrapped the tape around my neck and hair, tangling it so I couldn’t get it off even with my fingers free.
My brain tried to shut down. It threw me back into memories I didn’t want to face and made everything so much worse. My whole body shook so hard it felt like I was in my own personal earthquake.
The third man held my legs while they taped them together. I had no leverage at all. I still tried. And fought. I moved my body and tried to make them drop me.
“Fuck me.” The big man put me down on my ass, grabbed me by the hair, and made me look at him. “It’s over. Stop fighting and accept it.”
He hit me so hard I was thrown to the ground. I tasted blood beneath the tape. My stomach churned, but I couldn’t throw up. Not with the tape. I went still. Fighting was good, but not if they beat me into a concussion.
Now the only hope I had was that my Alphas knew where I was and that they were coming for me. They had to be.
One of the cars they’d been loading had the back door open. They tossed me across the seat and slammed the door. Two taps on the roof. “Ready to go.”
The clanging of the giant magnet was deafening. I was thrown around as the car lifted into the air. They were putting me on the boat.
Please find me.
I curled up and sobbed because there was nothing more I could do to try.