Chapter Thirty-Three
Drew was out there somewhere, alone. She didn’t know where Brian was or what had happened to any of the other soldiers who were out on the mission. All she knew was that it had gone horribly, horribly wrong.
“Gabe, get Tony in here. Now,” Sydney snapped, immediately launching into action.
Gabe flew out of his seat, rushing for their tech guy. He gave her a passing look of sympathy before leaving the room, but she hardly noticed.
“I’m going to find Meghan. If we have injured…” Washington said, trailing off.
“Go,” Sydney barked.
He hurried toward the door but stopped to put his hand on Reyna’s arm. “You should take a seat. I will have Meghan bring you water. You’re in shock.”
She shook him off and turned away. Shock. Yes. That was the correct word. She knew it was true and yet couldn’t seem to process anything past that.
To Sydney’s credit, she didn’t try to console Reyna. Perhaps she knew Reyna was past that. Or that she had caused this. Or maybe…she just didn’t care.
People flitted in and out of the room, coming and going.
Tony tried to fix the radio, listen in to microphones he’d attached to people, adjust earpieces.
Nothing worked. All the cameras were down.
All the radios were out. It was like an electromagnetic pulse had gone off inside the camp they were infiltrating. It was a technological black hole.
Tony’s head jerked up finally. “Someone just pulled into the parking lot.”
Gabe was out of the room in a second. Reyna felt her heart race, wondering who was there. What could possibly have happened.
“It’s Tye,” Tony confirmed. “He just scanned in.”
Reyna deflated. Tye. Thank God. She was so relieved for her friend. He had helped her escape. She couldn’t imagine what would happen if the others were…
She didn’t even know. Caught? Captured? Killed? She shuddered at that thought.
Gabe burst back into the room, holding Tye up. He looked like utter shit. He was favoring his right ankle. His clothes were covered in black soot. He coughed and collapsed into a chair. Meghan was at his side in an instant.
“Oh my God, Tye,” she gasped. Her hands fluttered over him. All of her calm demeanor had dissolved.
“I’m okay, Meghan. It’s just my ankle, and I inhaled something.” He coughed again violently. “Knocked most of us out, but I covered my face with my jacket and got far enough away.”
“Tell us what happened,” Sydney said, only slightly gentler than her normal command.
Reyna took a wary step forward. Her eyes were wide with terror and barely concealed hope.
“It was a decoy,” he gasped. He clutched his lungs.
Meghan brought him a glass of water. He took a long drink, draining the entire glass before continuing.
“They knew we were coming the entire time. I don’t know how they did, but they did.
I should have known it was too easy to get past the guards on duty.
Too easy to get over their fence and inside the perimeter.
All my training for shit.” He ran a hand through his black hair.
“We split up. Carpenter took one team. I took another. Xavier took the third.”
“Carpenter,” she whispered.
“Brian,” Tye said with a grimace.
Reyna hadn’t known he was leading a team. It made her even sicker.
“My team had only just made it inside when we noticed none of our comms were working. That was my first sign. But when we got inside, it was empty.”
“Empty?” Sydney asked.
“Just a warehouse. I mean, it had shit in it. But like, building supplies. Guarded and all that shit for some building supplies. They’d set us up.
And then the smoke rained down.” He coughed again, trying to expel whatever toxins they’d hit him with.
“I called a retreat. Tried to warn the other teams, but there was no way.”
“What happened to your team?” Meghan whispered.
“We scattered.”
“You had a rendezvous point, right?” Gabe asked.
Tye nodded. “No one showed.”
“Fuck,” Gabe spat.
Meghan covered her mouth. Reyna’s eyes welled with tears. Washington sat back hard in his chair.
“I don’t know if anyone else got out.”
“Drew did,” Reyna said softly. Tye’s eyes snapped to her. “He was able to radio us right before everything went out.”
“Anyone else?”
“We don’t know,” Sydney answered for her.
There was a long silence in the room as the possibilities swept over them. An ambush. All communication down. Tye and Drew the only people they’d heard from. It would be an incredible loss to their cause.
“We should get that leg looked at,” Meghan said.
“I’m fine,” Tye said.
Meghan glared at him. “You need medical attention. We have a long night ahead of us. I don’t want you to do more damage to yourself than necessary.”
He relented. “Fine.”
“Gabe, help me get him upstairs.”
The trio retreated, leaving the bomb Tye had just dropped behind. Reyna’s heart was in her throat as she realized she’d have to wait longer to get more information about her brothers.
“We’re going to need to interrogate Everett,” Sydney said. “He set us up for this. We need to know all the information he has. I’m going to give Gabe the go for whatever methods prove fruitful.”
Reyna’s gaze snapped to her. “Everett didn’t know.”
“He clearly did. He told you it was a trap.”
“He pieced it together when I told him we sent a team there. He didn’t know before then. Why would he tell me it was an ambush? He wouldn’t want me to know he was involved.”
“He wants you to trust him. Providing you with key information once it was already past the point when it could be of value is an easy way to do so.”
“I really don’t think he had anything to do with it.”
“Either he was manipulated or he manipulated us,” Sydney said evenly. “Either way, we will find out tonight.”
It was nearly dawn when Gabe returned to the conference room.
Reyna had finally sat down, head resting on her hands, eyes drooping from lack of sleep—and yet she wasn’t tired. Just exhausted.
“Either he’s trained to endure this,” Gabe said, flexing his fist and revealing split knuckles, “or he really didn’t know what he was leading us into.”
Reyna smiled faintly. She’d been right. But the smile didn’t stay long. Everett’s involvement didn’t change anything. Her brothers were still unaccounted for, along with everyone else. Meghan had Tye ordered into a chair at the table when he wouldn’t cease pacing.
“Lower-level entry access requested,” Tony said in the same tone he’d been using all day.
“What?” Reyna gasped. Her head popped up.
“Hold. Let me get that camera up.”
He typed furiously on his computer. Everyone crowded in around him, hoping to get the first glimpse. The screen flickered and revealed a person.
Reyna’s breath released in a whoosh. Her legs gave out, and she clutched at the table. “Drew.”
“Should I grant him access?” Tony asked Sydney.
“Gabe, go and meet him, then yes,” Sydney said.
Reyna darted to her feet. “I’m going with him.”
“We need to assess him and make sure there are no more threats,” Sydney said.
“You want a threat?” Reyna snarled. “Just try to keep me from my brother.”
Without a backward glance, she stormed from the room.
Gabe dashed after her. He put a hand on her shoulder to move into place beside her, but neither of them let up.
They raced down the stairs, their breath in tandem with their movements.
He was faster, but he didn’t let her fall behind as they finally hit the level where Drew had come in.
Gabe spoke into a radio. “We’re here.”
“Access: three, two, one,” Tony counted down.
The door slid open.
Drew collapsed forward onto the floor. Reyna ran to him, cradling his head in her arms. She pushed his fine hair out of his eyes.
“Drew,” she whispered. Tears streamed down her cheeks. “You’re alive. You’re okay now. You’re here.”
She barely noticed Gabe as he checked the underground garage entrance before manually shutting and relocking the door.
“He’s alone,” he said.
“Drew, it’s Rey. I’m here.”
“Rey,” he muttered, coughing up the same stuff Tye had inhaled.
“Yeah, it’s me. I’m here. You’re safe.”
“Hey man,” Gabe said, leaning forward. “How did you get here? Did you see anyone else?”
Drew pushed himself up on his elbows. His eyes were red and hazy. “I…I walked and…I’m alone.” He coughed again, so hard she thought he might cough up his lung. “Where is everyone else?”
“We’re trying to figure that out,” Gabe said.
Drew groaned and rolled in on himself.
“Hey, hey, are you hurt?” Reyna asked.
“Shoulder.”
Reyna looked down at his shoulder and cursed. “He’s been shot. We need to get him upstairs. He needs medical attention.”
“No,” Drew managed. “No, I need…Laura.”
“Laura?” Reyna asked, horror sinking into her stomach. “Why?”
“Rey, I’m sorry.”
“No, no, no,” she whispered. “Don’t be sorry.”
“Brian.”
Gabe radioed back to the conference room. “We need medical here. Carpenter has been shot in the shoulder. Plus smoke inhalation.”
“Laura,” Drew repeated. “I have to tell Laura.”
He tried to struggle to his feet, but Gabe put a hand on his good shoulder, pushing him back down to the ground. “Hold it there, buddy. You can tell her when you’re patched up.”
“I have to tell her,” he repeated, slipping in and out of consciousness as he collapsed back onto the floor.
“Tell her what?” Reyna asked.
“They got Brian,” he whispered. “They captured Brian.”
Then Drew passed out.
Drew was rushed to the medical wing, where Meghan and Washington both suited up to remove the bullet from his shoulder. Reyna sat in the waiting room with Gabe. She knew that she should tell Laura. That she should get Jodie. That anything else should probably matter at that moment. But…it didn’t.
All that mattered was that Drew was in surgery. And that Brian was gone.
Gone.
Her heart broke. Shattered into a million pieces and scattered all over the floor. Gone was such a simple word. A word that didn’t mean half of what she was feeling.
When she joined Visage, she did it for her brothers. All of this had been for them, and in the end, she was safe and they were fucked. What the hell had she done? What the hell had she brought them into?
She didn’t know how long she sat there before Beckham suddenly appeared. Tears fell from her eyes as he picked her up and crushed her to him. She put her arms around his neck, and he wrapped his around her waist. She stayed like that, letting him hold her, giving him all her grief.
His lips landed on her hair. “Oh, Little One.”
“Brian,” she choked out.
“I heard.”
“It’s my fault. If I hadn’t joined Visage, they wouldn’t be here.”
“No,” Beckham repeated more firmly. He pulled back to look down into her red-rimmed eyes. “Do not place the blame on anyone but the person who deserves it—William Harrington.”
“Can we kill him now?”
“Yes.” The murderous vampire who had single-handedly taken over a kingdom stood before her. She was glad for it. She would need him to win this war.
“Good.”
His thumbs stroked across her cheeks, wiping away her tears. “Don’t let them break you.”
“Only you.” She whispered the words he had said to her once before.
His lips were tender against hers. A direct contrast to his normal behavior. It settled her in a way nothing else had been able to.
“Will you wait with me?”
“To the end of time.”
Meghan came out of surgery. Dark circles ringed her eyes, and her hands shook as she adjusted the braided bun on top of her head.
“He’s fine,” she told Reyna. “He told us the same information Tye did. I think he inhaled more smoke than Tye, though. We gave him a sedative so he’d sleep. He’ll have to wait a few hours to tell Laura.”
“Thank you,” Reyna said, hugging Meghan. “For everything.”
“Of course.” She ran a hand over her face. “What a night.”
“Beckham said there’s a meeting. They’re waiting for us.”
Meghan nodded. “I should check in with Jodie first. She’s been cagey lately.”
“Yeah. I know. Let me know how she is.” Meghan stumbled forward a step, and Reyna caught her. “Hey, maybe you should get some sleep. You’re no use to anyone if you’re dead on your feet.”
“Everyone else is still awake. I can make it.”
“When did you last sleep?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re not a vampire. Leave patients to Washington, okay?”
“Maybe just a few hours,” she said reluctantly.
Reyna went to see Drew. She played with his hair where he slept on a cot in the corner of the recovery room. She kissed his forehead. “We’re going to get Brian back, Drew. We’re going to kill the monster who did this. We’re going to fix everything. I promise.”
Vengeance filled her cold heart, savage and wild. Eager to devour anything that got in her way.
Beckham saw the look on her face and offered her his hand. She took it, drinking in his strength as a beacon to ground her. The anger and Beckham were the only things keeping her afloat right now. If she gave up either, she didn’t know where she’d be.
They returned to the conference room once more. Sydney remained at the head of the table. Tony had his computer up in front of him, still typing away frantically. Gabe had returned, and Tye sat next to him, ankle bandaged.
To Reyna’s surprise and distaste, Penelope was also in attendance. Her eyes drifted down to where Beckham still held Reyna’s hand. She pursed her lips, then looked away.
Washington followed Beckham and Reyna into the room.
“As many of you know,” Sydney began, “early this evening, we sent a scouting team to look into the reported farming camp. That mission failed. It was an ambush. They knew we were coming. They planted the information for us to find. Which means we are no closer to locating the actual farming camp, we don’t know how the camp will be utilized, and we have no idea when it will be functional. ”
“What do we know?” Penelope asked curtly.
Sydney shot her a furious look. “That nearly a dozen of our top soldiers were either taken or killed at this decoy camp. They are MIA. And Visage clearly wanted us to know about these plans. They sent Everett to us knowing he would reveal the information.”
“Then how do we know there actually is a feeding camp?” Penelope asked. “Perhaps it was all just a lie to make us look a fool.”
“It’s not,” Beckham said. “I found correspondence at Visage with coded information about it. Once I knew what I was looking for, I found it. They’re doing this. I just don’t know when or where.”
“Which means Harrington no longer trusts you,” Sydney said. “Which officially confirms what we already suspected—you’re out.”
Everyone was silent at the realization that their top double agent was out of the game.
It didn’t faze Reyna. She stood and slapped her hands on the table. “Then there’s only one thing we can do. Only one thing we must do. We must stop the camp any way that we can. We cannot let it happen.”
“And what do you propose?” Penelope asked with a sneer.
“We create chaos. We kill Harrington.”