Broken Warrior

The Way of Things

Eliza 

I glanced at my phone for what was probably the twentieth time within that minute, frowning once more. Surely Reena had returned to the room by now and seen that I was gone, but the woman had not even tried to reach out to me. 

Had I spooked her? Or perhaps it was her offence that I had left so hastily. She had wanted me to stay there.

The more time that passed and the more I went over the event in my head, the more my brain tried to convince me that I had overreacted. There must be logical explanation for what I had found, and it had nothing to do with what I had assumed when I was running out of the room.

"For fuck sakes Daryl! This isn't a game. Where the hell are you?" Ryker snarled into his phone, causing me to jerk my gaze away from my device and over to where he was pacing.

How those two had managed to not be noticed while driving towards New Orleans in a vehicle that was as unique as it was remained a mystery. It had been one of Tim's arguments against them using the thing. 

The vehicle was notable in that the vehicle was brand new and not even on the market. It was easy to track, easy to mark.

We should have been able to pick them up by now, though. I cast a curious glance to Tim and wondered if his mate had anything to do with their ability to go unnoticed. Could a spell blend a vehicle in, prevent it from being seen? An illusion or some sort of distraction technique that caused the eye and camera to shift past it? 

With tempers running high, it wasn't the time to question the theory. The last thing I needed was for Ryker to blame Tim and start one of their famous fights.

"We've got them, just passed a highway weigh station, our cameras picked them up." Tim said suddenly, looking away from the computer he was standing in front of and towards Ryker.

"Yes. No, we're all fine, but there's someone in town who poses a considerable threat." Ryker was still angry, although his voice sounded a bit apologetic. "No. We picked you guys up just a moment ago."

I watched as the team shifted, poised to move, though I distracted myself by feeding in the coordinates to a closer team. The crew was only a couple shifters who had been doing a general patrol of that edge of the city. At least they'd be with Daryl and Meri in just under an hour.

"Ok. Just come straight here, we'll head out to meet you." Ryker paused, baring his teeth at nothing. "No. Absolutely not, tell her to hold it. The Tesla station? Right. We'll head out to meet you. That's not important."

Ryker winced and shifted the phone away from his ear, and I could hear the faint sound of two very angry humans coming out over the phone. Ryker, being the quintessential gentleman that he was, merely hung up and glanced at the team. "Meri needs to pee and his god damned truck doesn't have enough of a charge to make it all the way here. They're stopping at the super charge station just past the state line."

"Let's move." Tim nodded and reached for some of the weapons he had unloaded while sitting at the desk.

I turned my attention back to the screen. "They're two shifters I've redirected there. Still about forty minutes out. You guys will be another twenty behind that."

"What were they angry about?" Tim asked after nodding to me in thanks, drawing a scowl from Ryker.

"I told them who was being targeted wasn't important." Ryker shrugged, pulling on his own vest before stalking towards the elevator with the team, including Carbry. Alesky paused for a moment at my desk, raising a brow.

"You're doing good work, Eliza." He offered softly, looking like he wanted to say more.

A pang of guilt hit me then, knowing that for the first time in a very long while, I had held something back from him. Through the years, I had never not told him about my personal life, good or bad. We had been friends in that way for a long time, and the fact that Reena was whatever she was, I would have normally told him first thing. He would have helped me make sense of it.

But, I didn't know how to explain it without making myself feel like an idiot.

Either they would freak out about her, or they would tell me I was being silly. And, their minds had to be fully focused on the real issue at hand, not on my stupid personal drama.

Still, I felt as if Carbry could see right through me and wanted to ask about what was bothering me.

I shook my head and nodded to the elevator to stall him. "They'll leave you behind, for your own good, Car."

"Not fucking likely." He growled and turned away from me, whatever concerns he had about me gone under the more pressing thoughts of going to his mate.

It wasn't until a couple minutes after I watched their vehicles pulling onto the street through the screens I had pulled up on my computer that another report came through to me, causing me to frown.

Normally I would just have relayed it to Tim to issue the order. But,  I knew what he was going to say, so I typed out a quick directive.

Follow them.

Then I picked up my phone and dialed through to Tim. He answered on the second ring, growling at me. He was in work mode, but he knew I would only call through at a time like this if the updates were important. It was how the team worked. "Tim. One of the teams has noticed Cadman Devlin's people acting out of character. They just got into a convoy and high tailed it out of the compound. They're heading in the same direction you guys are, but they're twenty minutes ahead of our shifters, with traffic and location."

"Tell the team to stay on them."

"Already did."

"Try to get a drone in the sky or something, Liza. If you can get eyes on Meri and Daryl, patch it through to our systems here."

"I'll send it to you when I have it." I was already pulling up what assets Knight Corp had and entering the codes as he said the word, taking control of the closest drone myself. " Tim. They have about five vehicles, loaded with vampires, all armoured."

"Acknowledged." Tim ended the call with a growl, and I turned to my task at hand, though I didn't relish it. One of the tech girls slid into the desk beside mine and started trying to hack the surveillance system at the gas station, though Tesla security was one of the more challenging systems to get through.

"There's a gas station right beside it. I can get their cameras, but they're pretty shitty and the view isn't complete." Nalia mumbled to me, pulling it up on one of the screens while she continued trying Tesla's firewalls.

I just nodded as I changed the flight path of the drone, glancing over and over at the GPS system that tracked our vehicles. The team tailing Devlin were more surveillance than they were fighters, two falcon shifters that were not armed or equipped to stand against whatever Cadman was bringing.

I just tried to hope that whatever Devlin was doing, it had nothing to do with Meri and Daryl. Meri could fight, as could Daryl, but I couldn't imagine that they'd be capable of holding out for twenty minutes against a group of that many vampires.

At that thought, I pulled up Daryl's phone number and called it, frowning when it rang through to voicemail.

Meri's did the same thing. Nothing was going our way today, it would seem.