Fall Into Me (Into Me Series Book Three)

Chapter Thirty Four - The Unforgiven

Jackson's POV

"Jackson!"

I turn my head in the direction of her voice so quickly that I give myself a little bit of whiplash. Verna lazily jogs up to me, slowing to a stop in front of me.

"Yeah?" I ask.
"You need to take a look at this," she declares, handing me an iPad.

I cock my eyebrow at her, taking the tablet from her hands. Something has been off all morning. I woke up at 4 am with a horrible feeling in my gut and haven't been able to shake it since.

We're about to run a case that Nyx and Veronica have already been working on for a few days (you know, the whole send someone in first to confuse them thing). Issue is, we haven't heard anything back from either of them in 18 hours. That is completely unlike them.

On the screen before me is a map of the city, little, red, flashing dots marking Nyx's and Veronica's locations via the trackers sewn into their pants. The issue is, they haven't moved in four hours. At all. In fact, they no longer are sensing body heat, which means they're not tracking anyone or anything. They're useless to us.

This is not good.

"Connor!" I call out, clicking into the specific metrics for both of their trackers and pulling them up side by side. They haven't moved in four hours, but they haven't sensed body heat for six.
"What's up?" Connor wonders, appearing next to me.
I pass him the iPad and watch his reaction carefully.
"... shit," he mutters. "Shit!" He looks up at me, eyes about to pop out of his fucking head
as he blinks rapidly, his veins bulging out of his neck.

"What? What's wrong?" Riley questions, running over to us once he notices the look on Connor's face. "What's that face for?"
Connor passes him the iPad.
Riley's warm and soft expression hardens and falls, his eyes reaching mine, "Jordan!" he calls.
Jordan holds his hand up to Heath, pausing their conversation and sauntering on over to us. "Yo?"
Riley passes him the iPad. His face falls. "Fuck!"
"What're we gonna do?" Riley asks.
"We're gonna go fucking get them, what do you mean?!" I rage.

Why today?! I'm supposed to go to Jet's appointment with her. Why does it have to be today? I don't know who I pissed off, but I'm sorry. I take it back. Please give me a fucking break!

"Jackson, chill," Connor urges.
"No, I'm not gonna fucking chill!" I snap. "I told you guys that I didn't like the idea of sending people in to get captured. I told you it was stupid! I told you someone was going to get hurt! Turns out I was fucking right! Per fucking usual!"
"We'll just go in and grab them, everything is gonna be okay," Jordan assures me.

For some reason, this only pisses me off more.

"You don't fucking know that!" I shout, getting in his face.
"Jackson! Relax!" Connor demands, stepping between the two of us and pushing us apart.
"What has your fucking deal been lately, huh?" Jordan challenges.
"Come on, guys. This isn't productive," Riley chides, rubbing his temples. "This also isn't helping Nyx or Veronica."
"Riley's right, we need to get them out of there and standing here yelling at each other is not the way to do that," Connor adds.

"We wouldn't even be in this situation if it wasn't for someone being so willing to offer up their teammates as pawns," I sneer, glancing over at Riley.
"Oh no. No. I absolutely do not accept blame here," Riley growls, shaking his head. "Nyx and Veronica asked to be the ones to go in. That's on them. They knew the risk. I also seem to remember you telling me not that long ago about how this was such an ingenious plan."
"Oh, fuck off, kid! Stop acting like you know what it means to run a team and be responsible for those members' lives!"
"I do know what it's like! I'm the mother fucker that stayed behind and ran the damn team while you went off to fucking Cleveland! I'm the person that comforted Jet and helped her back to sleep when the loneliness almost fucking killed her because you left her behind!"
"Shut your fucking mouth! Don't bring Jet into this!"
"Why? Cause you'll finally admit that you almost killed her with your selfishness?"
"Fuck off!"
"Fuck you!"