Chapter 11 #2
Expecting to get a rush of relief as he began the slow work of unlocking and relocking cells as he delivered each plate, none ended up coming, because as his gaze searched for Emma kneeling in her cell, watching him with ocean blue eyes, he didn't find her.
For a second, it felt like time froze.
Emma wasn't there.
She’d been there at two in the morning when he’d known that switching off his phone was the only way he had a chance of getting any sleep.
He’d watched her curled up in the corner of her cell.
She hadn't earned herself a mattress, blanket, or pillow, so there was nothing to make the hard concrete floor a little more bearable.
She didn't even have the protection of clothing, and seeing her small, naked body curled in on itself stoked the fires of every single one of his protective instincts.
Now she was gone.
Someone had come for her, there was no other explanation because she wasn't ready to be sold.
No doubt she was in one of the training rooms, but it wasn't like he could just go searching for her without someone noticing.
At the very least, he had to deliver the meals, then he could go up to his room and scroll through each camera feed until he found which room she was in.
One by one, he dropped off each plate, each obedient and compliant woman waiting on her knees, head bent, gaze fixed on the floor, awaiting permission to eat their meager breakfast. Nathan had never liked seeing the women waiting like dogs to be allowed to eat, but today each bowed head shoved him closer to losing control.
Somehow, he managed not to snap, and when he spotted Van lounging in the doorway to the guards’ room, he aimed for nonchalance.
“Got one left over, where’s blondie?” he asked as he held up the plate with the two slices of buttered toast and a single egg.
It wasn't much, but at least she was getting some food into her system, although she’d lost weight in the few days she’d been held prisoner.
“Hank came for her this morning,” Van said like the whole thing bored him.
Wanting to grab the man, shake answers from him, shake some sort of emotion loose inside him, so he did something other than smirk and watch dispassionately at the hell surrounding him.
Instead, Nathan managed to cling to the last vestiges of his control.
“Well, he didn't inform Ernie he was moving her. He’s going to be annoyed that food went to waste.”
That was actually true. Ernie hated wasteful food practices and was always complaining when they were delivering a punishment and forgot to update the meal plans to reflect it.
Like the emotionless monster he was, Van just shrugged. “Ernie will get over it. Besides, not like we can't just eat it, and then he’ll never know the difference.”
Disappearing back into the room to lounge on the couch and watch videos on his phone or whatever else he did with his time, Nathan wanted to call Van back and demand more information, but he couldn’t do that without painting a target on his back.
Already he was teetering on the edge of throwing away everything he’d worked for the last six months.
Besides, Van might not even know which room Hank had taken her to.
The safer option was to take the trolley back to the kitchen, then head to his room and find out for himself what hell Hank had decided to throw Emma into.
By the time he’d done just that, his hands were trembling. Actually shaking. If you were to look at him, you'd never suspect he’d been working undercover for a decade.
As soon as his door slammed shut behind him, Nathan yanked his phone from his pocket and brought up the camera feeds. Room after room turned up empty. And when he’d gone through all the training rooms, none of them showed him a shot of the one woman he was searching for.
Which left him with only two options.
One, problem women were sometimes sold off quickly to someone who was going to enjoy breaking them completely. That was not a position he ever wanted Emma to find herself in.
Two, because she’d been so stubborn, the others were ready to make her crack, and there was one way they did that which was effective ninety-nine percent of the time. Again, that was not a position Nathan ever wanted Emma to find herself in.
It was unlikely she’d been sold without him hearing about it, especially since he’d only been asleep for five hours, add in another hour he spent at the gym and getting dressed before he was down in the basement with breakfast to find her gone, meant selling her in six hours would have been difficult.
Especially since they hadn't even taken shots and videos of her yet to show to prospective buyers.
Some of them liked watching the training videos, which is why everything was recorded, but more professional pictures were always taken.
By process of elimination, that meant Emma had to be in the sensory deprivation box.
A heavy metal trunk with leather straps inside that would hold the victim completely immobile, including gagged and blindfolded.
The room would be kept silent, so there would be nothing for her to do but lie there and slowly lose her mind.
There were also small holes in the sides of the box, which were used to sporadically offer small moments of human contact.
By the time they were released from the box, the women were usually so desperate for more moments of touch that they’d do anything to get it.
“Hold on, blondie, I'm going to get you out of here,” he muttered as he shut down the feed and instead brought up his contact list. His phone was encrypted, it was safe to use, but never once in all the years he’d been undercover had he broken procedure for anything personal.
There had been times he’d reached out to Prey to let them know that things had changed and they needed to act.
He’d done it to save Piper Hamilton, now Piper Hamilton-Eden, one of Prey’s on-staff psychologists who was married to a member of Alpha Team, and a handful of other times, and while this call was to save Emma, it was also to save himself.
Bringing up Falcon’s number, he managed to pause before touching it so he could scan the room to check for bugs.
He’d only been gone a short time, but it didn't take long to plant something, and there were no cameras up there for him to check.
Once it came up clean, he finally pressed his finger to the name on the screen.
“What's wrong?” Falcon asked without preamble.
“Her time is running out,” he replied, feeling it deep down in his bones.
Emma had been there almost a week, and she’d managed to maintain her fighting spirit.
Azure would be looking to get rid of her quickly, putting her in the sensory deprivation box proved that.
If he didn't move forward with their plan to fake her death soon, he wouldn't get a chance.
Stroking the bite mark on his neck, it felt like the only connection he might have left to the woman who had penetrated his professionalism, and it was going to fade quickly.
“We need to get her out of here now, before I lose her for good.”