LAILAH #2
The simple promise took a weight off my shoulders that I didn’t realize was slowly crushing me with worry. Hanging up with her, I noticed Brayden was on the phone so I turned to Hudson who was on the couch with his eyes closed. “Hey, who’s Brayden talking to?”
“He’s trying to find out where they took the people they rescued from the blast. Figured we could start at the hospitals since none of the guys are answering their phones,” he answered, opening his blue eyes to meet mine.
Even though I’d restored his power, it seemed the energy high was short lived. His body was tired even if he had more than enough power to flood the whole city. “Should we leave someone here just in case they couldn’t call us?”
“That’s a smart thought but do we really want to split up even more than we already have? You were right when you said it was a bad idea,” Hudson pointed out. “Nothing ever good happens when we’re separated.”
I curled up beside him, letting my head rest on his shoulder as my adrenaline came down, leaving me to feel every sore muscle. It would seem while I could heal the guys, I couldn’t do it to myself. That was fine with me. I could deal with the bruises and soreness.
“No, no, I will not call back later. You can put me on hold but I’m not going to be ignored,” Brayden growled into the phone.
“Trust me when I tell you it will be safer for everyone if you don’t make me come down there to look through every room myself.
” He paused as he listened to whoever was speaking.
“Oh really, I see, then since that will be more convenient for you, we’ll be down there ASAP.
” When he hung up the phone, he chucked it onto the bed where it harmlessly bounded to a stop.
“They don’t have any information to give us and if we want to look over the dead bodies, they’re conducting viewings. ”
I could feel the blood run out of my face and my body turned to stone at the idea that they could be dead. “There’s no way they can be dead! I’d know if they were dead. The Bond would tell me if they died.”
Son of a bitch! Why hadn’t I thought of that sooner?
Closing my eyes, I reached out to the glowing balls of silver and red energy that I held within me.
Clinging to them, I sent my power down the line, calling out to them, begging for any kind of response to let me know they were alive.
Jay’s energy flared to life, and I got a pulse of emotions.
It was love mixed with fear and anger. Jay was alive!
Then I was hit next with Micah’s fury telling me he was indeed alive but pissed the fuck off.
I guess I would be too if I’d almost been blown up.
The only other feeling I got from them is that they were not close by.
I couldn’t remember where the Pride building was.
Snapping my eyes open, I grabbed one of the tablets and pulled up the maps, trying to get a sense if they were still in the city or if something else happened. “I don’t think they’re in the hospitals. They reached out to me through our bond but they feel farther away than they should.”
“I felt Micah’s answer to your call,” Brayden said as he flopped onto the couch next to me, dropping his head into his hands. “That much anger echoed through you into us.”
“Do you get a lot of echoes?” I asked, curious since they’d never mentioned it.
Hudson blushed, telling me that there might be certain situations where it happened. When neither of them answered, I let it drop.
“Alright, so here is where Pride’s building is. It’s only a short drive away. They felt much further inland but where would they be going?” I questioned as I searched the map, trying to put myself in their shoes.
Brayden’s head popped up. “Can I look at that?”
Handing over the tablet, he typed something into the search bar and an odd-looking website appeared. He typed in a login and password before a list of locations and addresses were revealed.
“What is that?” I inquired, looking over his shoulder.
“These are the locations of different bases that Jay’s father uses for his military.
It would seem that there is a site on the outskirts of Paarl near the mountains.
That has to be where they’re going. It’s the only thing that makes sense.
They wouldn’t trust any other location in the city, knowing they’ve been compromised and their mission was a bust. Jay probably had them ditch their phones, or they lost them.
He would never let them use an unsecure line to reach out to us with the base’s location,” Brayden explained as he went back to the map to show me where they were going.
“We need to grab our shit and join them. This place clearly isn’t safe for us to stay and there’s nowhere safer than with Makoto. ”
“Alright, how do we get there?” Hudson asked. “I’m guessing taking a cab isn’t going to be the best idea.”
“We can take a ride to Paarl and then we’ll have to make our way on foot or see if they reach out to us at that point. According to the news reports, they have about an hour’s head start on us,” Brayden said.
Not needing any more encouragement, I packed everyone’s things.
It wasn’t very much since we’d hardly spent any time in the room but I took all the mini soaps and things just in case, unsure of where we were going to end up.
Brayden called us a ride and fifteen minutes later, we were on the road to Paarl.
Fingers crossed this drive would be uneventful and we wouldn’t have to cause any more natural disasters.