Chapter 9 Xave #2
“Because I don’t want to involve the family until I know what’s going on,” I say simply.
He tilts his head quizzically.
“I wasn’t the target,” I explain. “And I used my alias, so they have no idea who I am. And I doubt they knew who Damon was when they targeted him. This has nothing to do with us or the family, and getting everyone involved will just complicate things. And they have a lot going on right now with trying to figure out what’s going on with that other hacker they’ve been tracking, so I don’t want to add to things if all this ends up not being a big deal. ”
“I’m pretty sure that being drugged and kidnapped is always a big deal, but it’s your call.” He picks up one of the phones and turns it over in his hands. “Did they get either of your phones when they grabbed you?”
“They got the ones we were carrying, but not the ones we use.”
“Your burner?”
I nod. “And Damon was using a burner too. He gave me the number so you can trace it.”
Carter taps on one of the keyboards on the desk, and an oversized screen flickers to life. “Hit me with it.”
I recite the number, and his fingers fly over the keyboard as he does his thing.
“How many of them did you say were still out there?” he asks, staring at his screen intently as he keeps typing away.
“How many phones?” I ask stupidly.
“Kidnappers,” he clarifies.
“At least one.”
He stops typing and studies the fast-moving text on his screen.
“Well, he’s not a complete idiot, but he’s not the brightest crayon in the box either,” he says.
“It looks like both phones were turned on multiple times in different locations.” He angles the screen toward me so I can see the map he brought up.
“Each of those inverted triangles are cell towers that picked up their signals, and the circles are the service radius for each tower. Does any of it look familiar?”
I study the map for a few seconds. “The one on the outskirts of the city is close to where the rave was held.”
“Do you know the exact location?” he asks, zooming in on the service radius.
I tell him the address, and he marks it off with a black X. “What about this one? Is it familiar?” He zooms in on another circle.
“That’s part of the highway we took to get back from the cabin.”
He marks the highway with another black X. “What about these two?” He points to two overlapping circles that are right on the edge of the city, but on the opposite side from where the rave was.
I study the map, then shake my head. “No. I don’t recognize that area, but that last one all by itself is close to the cabin.”
“Do you remember exactly where it is?”
I tell him, and he marks it off.
“Is there anything on either of your phones that could be used to figure out who you are or give them any information about you?” He flicks his gaze to mine.
I shake my head.
He shifts his focus back to the monitor.
“I’ll wipe them just in case and keep tracking them to see if they flash them up again and we get a new location.
Do you know around what time you were snatched?
If you can give me some rough estimates, I can put together a timeline of their known movements. ”
“Not sure,” I tell him. “The drugs really fucked with our memories, but it was after Damon’s set was over, so I’m guessing it was probably between one and two in the morning.”
He nods and types something on his keyboard.
“That tracks with when both phones stopped pinging at the tower nearest to the rave. The next time a signal is picked up is about an hour later on the highway, then about three hours after that, they ping off the one closest to the cabin. Then there’s nothing until almost ten in the morning when the city towers pick up their signal about twenty minutes apart.
That indicates that they were moving, but I can’t be sure if they turned them off and kept moving or if that’s where they stopped. ”
I watch as a thick black line appears on the map with timings written over it while he explains what he found.
“It’s an incomplete picture because so much of the area outside the city has no cell coverage, so we can’t be sure if they went to other locations or if they brought you straight to the cabin, then one of them left with your phones.
” He leans back in his chair and spins it so he’s facing me.
“It’ll take a bit to go through the goodies you brought me, but I don’t have anything else on my plate right now, so I should have answers for you soon enough. ”
“Thanks, I appreciate it.”
He shrugs. “Gives me something to do beyond watching empty houses and looking for things to fix so I don’t die of boredom, so really, I should be thanking you for breaking up the monotony.”
“Glad to be of service,” I say dryly.
“But you’re okay?” He gives me a critical look, like I’m a complex math equation he’s trying to figure out. “I know you like to treat your body like an amusement park and all that, but you got drugged with god knows what and woke up in a hole in the ground.”
“It was a cellar,” I interject.
“Was it underground?”
“Yes.”
“Did it have a dirt floor?”
I nod.
“Then it’s a hole in the ground.”
“Fair enough.” I swing my chair in a slow arc. “But I’m fine.”
“Are you sure?”
I nod.
“And you still have no idea what you were drugged with?”
I shake my head.
His brow furrows, and he turns back to his computer. “Describe it to me. What you noticed, how you felt, whatever you can remember.”
“Honestly, I don’t remember a lot,” I tell him.
“I had a few drinks, then I was just chilling and enjoying the music when I started to feel really good. Like everything was awesome and I was on top of the world type of good. That’s when I started losing time, and I only have bits and pieces of my memories until I woke up in the cellar.
“How long after your last drink before you felt it?”
“I’m not sure. I was too out of it to really pay attention to those kinds of details.”
He quickly types something, then studies his screen for a few beats. “Do you think it was more than an hour between your last drink and when you got knocked out, or was it less?”
“More. Definitely more.”
“Was it a gradual high, or did it hit hard and all at once?”
I pause to cycle through the few memories, or at least what I think are memories, that I do have. “It was gradual, then it hit like a brick to the face.”
He hums thoughtfully and taps a few keys. “Was it the same for Damon?”
“I don’t know. We didn’t really talk about that, but it incapacitated us at about the same time. I remember that much.”
“Have you ever heard of Bute? Some people call it One Comma Four.”
“No, never heard of either of them.”
He turns away from his computer, a grim look on his face.
“I obviously can’t know for sure without a test to confirm it, but it sounds like you were drugged with something called 1,4-butanediol.
It has the same effects as GHB because our bodies literally metabolize it into GHB in our systems. The big difference between Bute and GHB is that the onset is gradual, and it lasts a lot longer.
The effects usually start to kick in about twenty or thirty minutes after you take it, but the full effects can take up to two hours to hit.
Once they do, it's usually lights out, and that can last anywhere from a few to four hours. Does that sound like what happened?”
“That tracks with what I remember,” I confirm.
“You’re lucky those guys knew what they were doing,” he says, that grim look still on his face. “That’s one of those drugs where the difference in the dose for getting high and ODing is tiny. And you were fine after?”
“Yeah, I mean, it took a while to shake it off, but once I did, I felt fine. I was dehydrated as fuck and starving by the time we got back to our hotel, but that’s it.”
“It’s so crazy that you were not only at the same rave, but you stayed at the same hotel.”
“Yeah, that was a weird coincidence,” I agree.
“Is Damon okay?” he asks. “I have no idea what the kid’s life is like, but something tells me it’s not like yours, so getting drugged and kidnapped would probably fuck with him.”
“Yeah, he definitely lives a different life than I do. He was pretty messed up after we escaped, but I think that had more to do with having a gun shoved in his face and watching me off those guys. He seemed okay once we got to the city.” I pause. “Can you see if he came back to campus?”
“Can I see if he’s on campus?” He shoots me a flat look, then spins around and taps one of the keys on his keyboard.
The monitor next to the one that still has the map on it flickers to life.
“I’m going to let you off the hook for asking such a dumb question because you went through something traumatic,” he says as he does his thing.
“And to answer your stupid question, yes. He swiped his ID at the main gate about an hour before you did. Any other moronic questions?” he asks, giving me some side-eye.
I shoot him a big grin. “Nope.”
“I still can’t believe that Damon is a famous DJ.” He shakes his head and logs out of whatever he was looking at on his computer. “I know next to nothing about the guy, but that’s not something you’d expect to find around here.”
“Yeah, discovering that was a mindfuck. I’ve been following his alter ego for years and had no idea he’s been on the other side of campus this whole time.”
The memory of a hot mouth wrapped around my dick and a low moan of pleasure fills my senses, but I push it aside. I do not need to be thinking about that right now.
A loud beep echoes in the room, and a red rectangle with a bunch of writing in it appears on his screen.