Chapter Forty-Eight
Feralyn
Saint spoke into his cell phone as the men disappeared from the monitor I was watching. “We’ve got company. Security was breached on the northern end of the island. Your sister is secure in the safe room.”
I frantically looked at the other screens.
Saint glanced at me. “We’re both secure.” He glanced at his watch. “Roger that.” He turned back toward the monitors. “Lima Charlie.” He ended the call, then typed on the keyboard, and different angles of the island appeared on the screens.
“What did Helios say?”
“He’s on his way back here.” Saint casually glanced across the monitors without any sign of urgency or panic.
“How long?” How long could we stay down here without being found out?
“An hour and a half.” Saint turned in his seat.
“Water?” Without waiting for a reply, he stood and took the three paces he needed to reach the refrigerator in the galley.
Opening the door, he looked inside for a couple seconds like he was browsing for a snack.
“You brought your cell phone down here,” he stated with no intonation as he came away with two bottles of water and two protein bars.
I looked down at the cell phone clutched in my hands.
Shit.
I’d forgotten to hide it, so I owned it. “Helios gave this to me so I could call him if I needed him.”
“He’s otherwise engaged at the moment.” Saint held out one of the waters, but the second I took the bottle, he held out his hand. “Phone.”
Almost involuntarily, never having heard Saint speak like that, with no room for debate or dissent, I pulled my hand in closer. “I-I’ll keep it.”
“You’ll get it back.”
I glanced up at him, and all of a sudden, his eyes no longer looked mythical. They looked terrifying. “Will I?”
He didn’t answer.
Knowing I didn’t have a choice, I dropped the burner into his hand.
His tone returned to his usual complacent, affable manner. “Thank you.” He placed the two protein bars in my free hand. “Please eat. You missed dinner.” Sitting back at the desk, setting the burner next to him, he opened his water and casually drank with one hand as he typed with the other.
The screens repopulated with new angles and images.
I stood there holding water and protein bars while terrorists were invading Helios’s island. “H-how….” I cleared my throat. “How do you know how to use the security system?”
“Drink your water, then eat, Feralyn.”
Fear spun around me in a whirlwind. “I’d like my cell phone back.”
He angled one of the monitors toward himself so I couldn’t see it, then he started typing. “Did you call Helios at any point today?”
Suddenly I felt like I was back in that rotted-out bunker, and the past became the present. “I-I need air.”
“Central air-conditioning system is on.” He kept typing. “You texted Helios this morning.”
I wasn’t sure if it was a question or confirmation, and I just wanted out of the bunker. I wanted out of this house. But I was terrified of six men I couldn’t see who were somewhere on this island, and I needed Helios. “I need Helios right now.”
Saint spun around in his chair, grasped my arm, and sat me down on the end of the couch nearest him. Then he rested his elbows on his knees and folded his hands. “When you texted Helios, did you log into the Wi-Fi?”
Oh God.
Oh God.
It happened in slow motion. It happened in rapid-fire. It happened all around me like a ton of bricks.
I didn’t use the Wi-Fi.
That burner was roaming.
Cell phones could be tracked.
Masked, armed men were now on the island.
My throat closed, pins and needles spread across my face and head, and my vision started to tunnel. I rasped out the horrific truth. “They found us because of me.”