Chapter 22
Saint
too bad - nickelback
I don’t even wait for the SUV to stop; my boots slam onto the snow-covered ground before Rex can even get the car to slow, the door laying open behind me as I slam through the entrance to the Pit.
The front grounds feel like a graveyard, having to send my people all the way back to Indie’s mom’s house to repair the vehicle tyres and get the rest of them back here as soon as possible.
Everything’s going fucking wrong.
They’re planting land mines at every step we take.
My heart is beating so fast I might have a fucking heart attack, and it hasn’t let up since the moment Dawson muttered her name.
I burst into the meeting room. The back wall is lit up with the number of screens stretched across the desk, the rest of the room dipped in darkness as Regina’s fingers slam viciously off the keyboard.
“Tell me fucking something, Gina.”
The hours it took us to get back to the Pit from outside Harriston were excruciating. Where you’d normally need a rest over, we ploughed straight through the highways and every single road, only stopping enough for gas and me throwing way more cash at the cashier than was necessary.
There wasn’t a single fucking minute I allowed to be wasted.
All our cell phones died, and when I say that those last six hours having not a single bit of communication with the outside world…
I’ve never wanted to tear it apart so violently in my fucking life.
When Regina’s sunken and red-rimmed eyes meet mine, a shudder runs through my body. “I’ve downloaded the GPS, but the tracker’s now dead.”
My hands run through my hair, tugging the strands as I walk away from her.
I can’t pummel my fists through those screens.
We don’t need any more problems.
Footsteps slam beside me as Dawson, Rex and my dad rush into the meeting room. My interlinked hands cup against my nape as I stare at the shutters on the window.
What the fuck have they done to her?
Is she even fucking alive?
No, I know she is. If she wasn’t, the tie my soul has to hers would make itself known.
I wouldn’t even be standing here.
My fist goes to meet the metal, when another wraps itself around my wrist, yanking me to face them before I can break a bone. “Keep it contained, Saint. I need to get Grace looked over; I can’t fucking babysit your temper at the same time,” Dad growls at me.
I yank my hand from his, shaking off the adrenaline that’s pumping through my body, letting sparks fire off my skin.
I’m going to fucking kill somebody if they get too close to me.
I nod at him, and he gives me a wary glance before running out of the room.
“Saint, look at this.”
Forcing myself to drag in a breath, I make my way over to everyone huddled round Regina’s screen. “What is it?” My voice doesn’t even sound like mine. It’s gritty, coated in the charcoal from my fury that’s dying to be unleashed.
I’m a walking time bomb.
Not even I’ll be able to assist in defusing me.
“Look at the line,” Rex says, his finger dragging across the broken white markers.
The screen shows the map of Kingstone. The tracker’s GPS has been marked from Indie’s mom’s house and follows the roads, making its way to Conrad’s house in the city.
My teeth grind, but Regina reads my mind.
“She spent twenty minutes in the city home before leaving,” she says quietly against her fist, opening another tab that has a breakdown of times and how long was spent when the tracker was stationary.
“How accurate is that tracker?” Dawson asks her.
She shakes her head. “99% accurate, I tested it a number of times before Indie even used it in the cabin. It’s so damn precise that I could tell when she even moved an inch in the woods going by the coordinates.”
“Could it have malfunctioned?” Rex adds, his eyes as narrowed as mine as we stare at the straight line running from Harriston right to the coast.
Regina lifts her head to look at him. “Not like that. If anything, it would have a broken time track if it lost signal. It would have multiple entries, not a continuous one.”
“Enlarge it, Gina,” I ask, my hands palming the desk as I watch her enlarge the route.
From Conrad’s home, there’s a straight line until the marker moves around a bit, like the tracker’s on the move and following various roads before it goes in another straight line. It does it a total of three times.
Then it hits me like a fucking train.
My fingertip almost punches the screen so hard, the liquid behind it shudders. “That’s the fucking manor in the middle.”
Rex and Dawson lean over to stare, but it’s Rex who mumbles, “Motherfuckers.”
“Would they have access to a plane? A helicopter?” Regina asks.
I shake my head. “No. Even if they did, that doesn’t look like a flight path; the speed at reaching the locations would be quicker.”
“Tunnels.”
All four of us raise our heads to look at my dad standing in front of the desk, the double doors swinging behind him, and my neck tightens when he speaks again. “It sounds like they’ve used underground tunnels. Has to be the only way if it’s a straight route.”
My hands fist at his words, and my knees want to drop and fucking thank him.
When I look at the last location it moved around before heading out into the body of water, I clamp up. “That’s Conrad’s coastal home.”
The one home he never visits, that’s laid vacant ever since I managed to get a feed plotted outside it.
Rex slaps the table as he shouts, “Now it makes fucking sense.”
Dawson runs his hands through his hair. “That’s why we’ve never found out how they move their victims.”
We’ve had eyes on all three residences; we’ve never seen any large vehicles going in or out.
The women they abduct are always just fucking there.
And I haven’t had reports Conrad or George have left that fucking manor since the event.
They have tunnels running from Harriston, the manor, and the coastal home.
All three are in perfect fucking alignment.
“Fucking hell,” Regina growls, eyes batting from the pathway the Omnia have likely worked on for years; these tunnels could be as old as their society. “You think she’s being kept at the coast?”
“She could be at either one.”
I take a shuddering breath. These fucks want to play games; I thrive on breaking people’s minds. “It’s a decoy. They want us to believe she’s in that water being shipped off. Either way, we need to search all three, and use the tunnels to our advantage,” I say.
What they won’t account for is me tracking his house near the coast, and he won’t know that I’m aware of the tunnels connecting all three.
Dawson located that house in the file years ago; it’s not even in any of the Montgomerys’ names. He’s had it since he graduated, a gift for him to carry out his sickening desires.
I gave up looking at it because there was never any activity. All the while, they’ve been travelling underground between the three locations.
They’ll think I’ll be out chasing the tracker in the water, that I’ll be vulnerable and desperate and not taking into account any of their twists.
Dad makes his way over, tightening a hand on my shoulder. “Where does your gut tell you to go?” he asks, eyeing me with a narrowed gaze. He taught me to always trust it, my intuition, my instincts.
It might have taken a dent at Indie’s mom’s, but now, it’s roaring to life.
All of them have the needle screaming at the coast, and I tell him exactly that.
His nod is sharp and deliberate at my answer. “Then you go there. We’ll tell the others about the change in plans and to check those areas for tunnel access.”
Just as Dad leans away, he fixes me with a warning glare, dropping his voice so that only I can hear him. “Keep your fucking head on from here on out. Your anger could cost you it all.”
I steel my spine. “Get everyone ready to split up between the three. I need to do something before I leave.”
Making my way out the meeting room, I rush up the stairs and make my way over to the east wing, pounding on a door to a room I’ve never entered.
I pace along the corridor outside Jenna’s room. I need to know if she’s ever been at the coast, and whether or not she knows about these fucking tunnels.
That home is the only one I never bothered to get blueprints of, a fucking major error on my part. I should have known it was vacant for a reason.
If Jenna can give me a basic layout, I can spread my team out better when we arrive.
No one can hold me back from going straight through the fucking front doors.
I’ll fight my way through with my bare fucking hands if I need to.
But I can’t risk them or Indie going in completely blind.
Jenna’s door opens, revealing her tiny frame hidden behind the door. I take a step backwards, giving her space. Doctor Beverley told me she’s uneasy around men, but she’s been making progress speaking to Rex the last couple days.
He hasn’t been allowed close to her yet, and despite the urge that I want to shake every piece of knowledge she has within her out, she’s Indie’s best friend.
I won’t allow for my detachment from reality to cause her harm.
She’s my only hope at getting information, seeing as they fucking killed Ross, who’d know exactly what to do to get what I need for the layout.
Fuck.
She’s the best chance I have at getting straight to Indie.
“Saint? What’s going on? I-I keep hearing people yelling outside.”
“Can I talk to you? Please,” I ask, taking another step back when she flinches at my hand pushing through my hair.
When I lean against the wall, my hands link behind my back.
“About what?” she asks, hand gripping the door as her eyes dart down the corridor.
The entire Pit is now up in arms.
Rex and Dawson will be going over our plans to enter all locations; we discussed on the way here a plan for every single eventuality. No one will fucking undermine me.
And now I’ve been given the knowledge of an underground passage?
My positions just got a hell of a lot higher on the scoreboard.
I drag in a breath that burns my lungs, my teeth grinding against each other before I speak. “Indie’s been taken—”