Copyright © 2012 Kirsty Moseley
Chapter 35 - The Search Begins
~ Sean ~
I watched him tiredly as he shuffled all of his papers, handing out copies to the three of us and the liaison from the British government. As Chief of Police, Michael Connor was a very imposing and important man, that much was easy to see from his confident demeanor as he spoke and talked us through their gathered evidence.
Michael had one of his technicians going through the surveillance footage from the Japanese ‘train crash’. It was pretty clear it wasn’t an accident though - that was just what was told to the press and families of the victims to stop widespread panic. In reality, C4 explosive had been attached to the track, designed so that when the train went over it, it blew up. Over two hundred people had been killed or injured - a lot of them shifters. Apparently, the origin of the train was a shifter only electronics firm, so it mainly consisted of employees and the odd person that got on at the various stops along the way. The Jefferson Organisation had claimed responsibility this morning, so now we were review footage using Scotland Yard’s facial recognition technology.
Roland sat forward in his chair suddenly, pointing at the screen that was main focus. “Isn’t that Bob Parry?”
I squinted at the screen anxiously; the guy in question was only half in view, the image slightly grainy. Charles and Michael leant in too. Daniel, the technician, stopped the tape and backed it up a little, zooming in on the guy. I’d read about Bob Parry in the council’s files, he was the organisation’s explosives man - it totally made sense for him to be there.
“I think it is,” Daniel agreed, pressing a few buttons and scanning the guy’s face as another screen started searching their databases for him.
While that was going on I focussed on Tyler. The feelings coming off of her were of contentment so I forced myself to get back to the task at hand rather than talking to her in my head. The system threw out three possible matches; one of them was indeed Bob Parry.
“Well I think it’s safe to say that their claim on the bombing can be taken as fact,” Charles stated, frowning angrily.
“Let’s see what he does,” Michael suggested. Daniel pressed some more switches, typing in commands quicker than I could read them all. Another five screens flickered to life around us on his console panel, so now we had about ten angles of the train station security footage. He clicked on the guy in question and the cameras started following him immediately, searching him out.
I chewed on my lip, watching avidly as Daniel manoeuvred from camera to camera, following him as he moved freely throughout the station. The guy on the screen made his way confidently through the station, not even looking slightly concerned, a bulky black backpack was casually slung over his shoulder. He suddenly stepped out of view and Daniel frowned, wheeling himself over to another computer console.
He pulled up the blue prints on another screen, pointing at it. “That’s the section of track that was targeted; the last place he was on footage was here.” He pointed to a section just next to where the track started, easily within reach of the where the explosives were set. “There’s some kind of black spot, none of their cameras cover that section of track for about five meters, if they had access to that information then that’s probably why they chose that section to target.”
“How long is he dark for?” Michael asked.
Daniel wheeled himself back to the other console again, speeding through the footage, his facial recognition scan still running over the crowd. It beeped showing a match and we looked at camera four as Bob stepped back into view, his backpack now looking decidedly flatter on his back. He’d been dark for a total of four minutes according to Daniel’s timer. That was plenty of time to set the explosives according to Michael. Daniel tracked the guy out of the station and we watched as he got into a black Jaguar. Daniel quickly logged into the DVLA databases, running the plates of the car as he followed it using speed cameras and CCTV footage of the streets. How fast he worked literally blew my mind, I could barely work a toaster! They lost him twenty minutes later as he went into a tunnel and failed to come out of the other side though.
It was while we were studying blue prints of the tunnel, trying to work out where he would have gone, that it happened. Tyler’s feelings just completely disappeared from me which was an odd feeling and one I’d only experienced once before - when she was given that stupid inhibitor drug yesterday. I groaned and frowned, a little angry. Could Jeremy really not just wait until I was back before he started conducting experiments on her? I hated not being able to feel her; I couldn’t relax at all even though I tried my hardest to remain interested in what was going on around me. I knew I wouldn’t be able to settle until I spoke to her and she told me she was fine. It was a natural part of our bond for me to worry about her so much; my body just seemed to be on high alert all the time. At this rate the girl would cause me to go grey before I reached twenty.
“Excuse me a sec,” I muttered, knowing I just needed to do it so I could get back to helping. I left them avidly checking maps and passages within the tunnel so that they could try and find where Bob came to surface again. I stepped away to get some privacy and pulled out my cellphone, hitting speed dial and calling her. I put it to my ear, waiting for her to complain and tell me I was worrying about her too much. Instead of her answering though I was put through to her automated voicemail. I scowled down at the table as I waited for the beep so I could record my message. “Tyler, it’s me, baby. Call me as soon as you get this.” I hung up and promptly dialled Jeremy’s number instead; maybe Tyler had no reception in the lab or something.
“Hey, Sean,” he chirped.
I sighed and rubbed my forehead, stressed. I really wanted to go home now. This whole thing just felt like we were wasting our time and chasing ghosts. The Jefferson’s were so far underground that it would take a miracle to find them. No one had officially seen Byron Jefferson for almost twenty years - maybe he was already dead and we really were chasing ghosts by continuing to hunt him.
“Hey, Jeremy. Seriously, could you not just wait until I’m back before starting? You know how stressed it makes me not being able to contact her,” I grumbled, trying not to growl my words.
“Huh? Wait for what?” he questioned.
I rolled my eyes. “To pump Tyler full of that shit,” I stated sarcastically. “Look just put her on the line would you? I can’t get through on her cell.”
“Tyler?” he asked sounding confused.
“Of course Tyler! Am I bonded with someone else?” I snapped. Was it really too much to ask for him to pass the phone over to my wife so I could speak to her without going through all of these stupid questions?
“Er, Sean, Tyler’s not with me. We’re not doing any testing today, I haven’t seen her since breakfast,” he replied.
My tired brain struggled to understand. “Not with you? But she’s….” I shook my head, confused. I tried to search my feelings for her and call her in my head, but nothing. “She just up and disappeared from my head; one minute she was there and the next, nothing. Is this some side effect from the drug you gave her yesterday?” I asked. I’d hate it if the drug had somehow made out connection unreliable. It had better not be a long term thing or Jeremy was in serious trouble.
“I… I don’t know. You can’t talk to her? Maybe it is a side effect. Um…. I didn’t give her that much, but maybe….” he trailed off sounding unsure.
I sighed deeply and looked over at the people that were working on the case. I couldn’t just up and leave because I had a problem with controlling my worry about my bond mate, I needed to stay here and finish up. “Page her and tell her to call me,” I said to Jeremy. “You have that loudspeaker thing in the building, right? Just tell her to call me so I can concentrate on this meeting. Oh, and Jeremy, no more tests on Tyler, got it? I’m not having side effects like this pop up again, it’s a shifter drug and shouldn’t be used on humans,” I all but growled. I was putting my foot down now, it was one thing for him to test out that shit on me, but quite another when he pumped that crud into my wife.
“Yeah, I’ll page her now. The last time I saw her she said she was going to read and get some sun,” he replied. “She’s probably outside with no phone signal.”
“Yeah, probably. She did buy a book on the way in this morning,” I agreed before disconnecting the call and heading back over to the others. I was completely unable to focus on what they were saying though; instead I was chewing on my nails, thinking about my girl and waiting for my cellphone to ring. My leg was bouncing on the spot with anticipation.
After twenty minutes of just my own thoughts going on in my head, I started to get really annoyed. Why the hell had she not called me? I checked and rechecked my phone to make sure I had a signal. Just like before it was full strength so there was no reason that my stupid cellphone hadn’t started ringing yet. I didn’t say too much because Michael and Daniel didn’t know anything about my abilities, as far as they were concerned I was a grandson of a council member that would take over at some point in the future, humans weren’t privy to information about the prophesy. I just told them I was waiting for an important call, nothing more.
When I could stand it no longer, I tried her number again, but there was still no answer so I called Jeremy. He answered on the third ring, sounding a little out of breath. “Jeremy, where’s Tyler, put her on the phone,” I snapped.
He cleared his throat before he replied, “Sean, we…. we can’t find her.”
Can’t find her? What the heck did that mean? The building wasn’t that big, she couldn’t have gotten far! “What? What’s that supposed to mean?”
Jeremy sighed. “No one’s seen her since this morning. Tyler’s not answering any pages or anything that I put out for her. The lab staff have done a quick search but we can’t see her anywhere. I’m just heading down to security to talk to them.”
I gulped. That was seriously unlike Tyler not to answer, she knew how important it was for people to know where she was, she was always reachable. “You’re telling me that she’s not there? Like not in the building?” I asked incredulously.
“I…. I don’t know, Sean. I have people looking for her right now and I’m about to speak to a security person when you called,” he replied.
I was on my feet before he’d even finished his sentence, my nerves already fried as I started to panic. Where the hell was my wife? “I’ll be right there. Find her and tell her to call me!” I growled. I disconnected the call and looked at Roland and Charles. “I need to go back. I can’t reach Tyler, they can’t find her in the building,” I muttered, shaking my head. How on earth could she just go missing like that?
Roland frowned and stood up too. “You can’t reach her?” he asked, touching his temple discreetly.
I shook my head and tightened my jaw.
His frown deepened as he turned to The Chief of Police. “We have to cut this meeting short. I’ll call you later and rearrange. I’d appreciate being kept in the loop if you find anything more,” he said, holding out his hand to Michael.
Michael nodded, looking a little confused but apparently him and Roland were old friends. “Sure thing, hope everything’s okay.”
I didn’t wait for them to exchange pleasantries; I was already heading out of the building in an attempt to get back to the lab quicker.
~#~
By the time we got back to the building I was feeling sick. Jeremy had called while we were in the car and told me that one of the security guards in charge of the security room, had been attacked and knocked unconscious. They’d found him in there, still out. The cameras for the building had all been stopped for over an hour. The last footage they had of Tyler was her sitting in the grounds at the back, reading on a bench.
This was it. This was my worst nightmare coming true. They’d somehow taken her, I knew it. Everyone said that I was jumping the gun, that I was being pessimistic but there was nothing pessimistic about the fact that I couldn’t reach Tyler in my head and that someone had knocked out a guard and disabled the security footage. They all thought it too; they were just trying to keep me calm.
I was on edge while police were called, while they searched the building for a third time, while we split up and searched the surrounding streets. But nothing. Tyler was nowhere to be found.
I felt like someone had ripped a part of me away, like someone had literally torn my heart out. Right now I was struggling breathe deeply and not let my anger take over and rip everything and everyone apart.
The whole day we searched, then it started to get dark and I felt even worse. Tyler hated the dark. I tried not to let myself think about what this could mean, or that whoever took her could be hurting her, or maybe they could kill her. I couldn’t think about things like that because I’d go insane, and an insane husband wasn’t what would find her. Everything seemed to be moving so fast, the people around me, the time, the sun disappeared too quickly. I couldn’t keep up with it all. All I could think about was her, her face, her smile and the fact that I’d promised to never let anything hurt her again but right now there was a chance that I was breaking that promise.
Ryce flew to England as soon as I called him and over the course of the next three days, we got organised. Search parties went out combing every inch of London, we handed out fliers with her picture on, we called all of the hospitals - but nothing turned up. It was like she’d vanished and no one had seen a thing. The police were looking too, everyone was, and they were all hopeful that we’d find her. But dread and fear were the only emotions I was capable of feeling at the moment. People’s words of comfort weren’t helpful at all.
I knew the Jefferson’s had her before the package even arrived.
In a way I was grateful to finally have it confirmed, at least now people would stop telling me that she’d gone sightseeing and got lost, or that she’d hit her head and got amnesia. I knew what had happened and the waiting for them to contact me had driven me to the point of madness.
The courier had arrived five minutes ago to the lab. The police had confiscated the package immediately, opening it with protective gloves and immediately sending the packaging off for analysis. The delivery guy, a guy from Parcel Force, had been arrested and was currently being questioned about the sender but it from the looks on the investigating officer’s faces; it didn’t look like a good lead. The package had been addressed to me and contained just one thing, a CD in clear plastic wrapper.
I stood there dumbstruck as people ran around trying to find somewhere to play the disk, I had no words. Over the course of three days I’d been through all the stages of grief, to be perfectly honest I don’t remember them all. I’d obviously been through the anger one pretty recently though because people seemed a little terrified of me, only a couple of people were still talking to me and understood that I was just lashing out - of course Ryce was one of them. He seemed to be able to handle this a lot better than I could even though I knew he loved her too in his own way. I guess he was trained to stay detached, but sometimes I saw him staring at her photo on a flier we were giving out in the street and I knew that he was hurting too.
Something gripped my shoulder and I looked up into the sad eyes of Ryce. “They’ve got a DVD player set up in the board room, you want to watch it or….” He trailed off, looking at me worriedly as he squeezed my shoulder supportively.
Of course I wanted to watch it! I wanted to know what they wanted, if this was money or something then I needed to know what exactly they wanted me to do to get her back! “Yeah,” I croaked. Even my voice didn’t sound like mine anymore; I didn’t feel anything like me at all.
I let him lead me to the board room because I actually had no idea where I was going anymore. All the hallways looked the same to me, one just blurred into another because I hadn’t slept a wink since she disappeared three days ago.
When we got there, police, the seven members of the council and Jeremy were all standing around looking towards a plasma TV on the wall. When the door closed behind me, someone pressed play and the screen went black for a few seconds before it looked like someone pulled off a sheet that was covering the lens.
The focus adjusted and I felt my rage take over. “No! Fucking, mother fuckers!” I screamed shoving the chair in front of me so that it smashed against the table and cracked. People stepped back looking at me warily. I didn’t even know if I could watch it. I turned away from the most heart-breaking thing I had ever seen and looked at Ryce who was standing behind me; he looked like he was struggling to hold it together too.
“Read it,” a guy said on the tape.
When Tyler’s voice started I felt the sob rise up in my throat. I had never heard anyone sound so defeated, she sounded so hurt and sad that I wanted to press my hands over my ears and block it out. But instead I forced myself to look back at the screen. I forced myself to look at my bruised, bloody, pale and tired looking wife that was on the screen. She was tied to a chair, wearing a ripped and dirty t-shirt that barely covered anything. Her legs were bare and looked scratched, bruised and coated in grime and dry blood. As I watched, the camera went from a full view of her, zooming in so that only her face and shoulders were on screen. Her eyes were what killed me inside. She looked so helpless, so broken and vulnerable.
Her gaze flicked to the piece of paper that was being held in front of her. “My name is Tyler Houston and this is a video message for S-Sean,” she croaked, her voice rough and hoarse, as if she’d been crying recently. Her gaze flicked up to someone on her right, her chin trembling. “Please, can’t you just do it? Please?”
A hand moved and slapped her across the face making her yelp and my wolf was fighting to get out, my whole body was shaking and wanting to shift and rip the whole world apart. “Fucking read it!” the guy spat.
Tyler nodded, a tear rolling down her cheek washing away some of the blood on its way down. “Sean, if you’re listening to this then I’m supposed to tell you that I’m… I’m okay, and that I love you.” She took a shaky breath, her eyes darting around as the paper was taken away and screwed into a ball.
The camera panned out again and a guy stepped forward, a black ski mask covered his face as he stepped in front of Tyler and cocked his head to the side. “Sean Houston, as you can see, we have your bond,” he said, waving a hand at Tyler and chuckling. “I work for the Jefferson Organisation. You’ll be contacted again in exactly one week with our demands.” The guy’s mouth pulled up into a smile as he turned and bent closer to Tyler. His hand moved to her bare thigh as he leant in and placed a kiss full on her mouth a second before the camera was turned off.
That was when I lost control and shifted.
~#~
I was no good to anyone after that. I couldn’t shift back, I was too angry and I had no Tyler to calm me down enough to get me back into my human form. I paced the room as some of the technicians and police were reviewing the tape over and over, looking for clues. They’d already made a copy and sent it off to be analysed by Scotland Yard with a hope that they could find some sort of clues to help us find her. I couldn’t wait a week for demands. I couldn’t be without her for another fucking day, let alone a week!
Suddenly one of them sat forward, he was wearing a pair of headphones as his eyes went wide. “Train,” he muttered. Train? “I hear a train in the background! A train sounded its horn in the background! It’s faint but I’m sure that’s what it is!” he cried excitedly.
Ryce stood up and walked over, leaning in. “How would that help?” he asked.
The police guy nodded quickly. “It can help. We’ve already established that this video was shot in some sort of barn, right?” he stated. I cocked my head to the side, wondering where he was going with this. They’d already said the barn thing two hours ago. When the camera had panned back to full view, there were hay bales in the side and the bottom of a ladder that obviously led to some sort of hayloft. All of the experts had agreed she was definitely in a barn of some sort - which didn’t really help because there were apparently almost 300,000 farms across the country.
“If it really is a train in the background then that’ll narrow it down considerably. We can cross match how many farms sit within hearing range of a train track, it’ll definitely narrow it down some. It’s better than nothing,” the policeman said excitedly.
Ryce patted him on the shoulder as one of the other guys called into the station to tell them what to look for and to cross match farms within a mile of a train track.
It didn’t help me shift back though. That little titbit of information was great, but how the fuck was it supposed to help me find my wife before that asshole laid his hand on her again? I refused to think about them hurting her, or the black eye she had, or that her cheek and jaw were swollen and red. I whimpered and looked down at the floor as the excitement died down again and people went back to see if they could do anything else.
As it turns out, the train noise was a pretty helpful hint. Train experts were brought in and just from the sound of the horn they were able to tell the police that it was a specific type of train. Apparently just from the sound and for how long the sound of the train was on camera for, they could tell that it was a High Speed Rail. Currently there was only one High Speed Rail that was completed and it ran from London to Birmingham. That meant that the farm was within hearing distance along that route. That narrowed it down considerably, but was still about a hundred farms along that route and we had no way of knowing which one it would be.
However hopeful this information was, there were still people who suggested that maybe it wasn’t a farm that she was being held in at all, that the kidnappers had set it up like that to throw us off scent and keep us chasing ghosts while they were somewhere else entirely. Maybe a blue screen or something that made it look like the video was shot in a barn when in reality it could have been someone’s lounge.
Three more days passed but we heard nothing else from them. They weren’t due to contact me again for four days. They’d found some more out from the video, analysis showed that in the corner of the barn, hidden under a sheet was a pile of sugar beet. That narrowed it down further because not all farms along the train line grew sugar, so it brought the possibilities down to about forty farms across Watford and Hemel Hempstead which were about an hour and a half from London where we were all based. Ryce and I had been slowly checking them out with a team of police but so far we’d turned up nothing and we were only a few in. My dad wanted to come to England too, and Dan, but I told them not to. To be honest I didn’t need more distractions, I was barely hanging on as it was, and I didn’t need to worry about them getting lost in London.
As we headed out of the latest briefing about where we were to search tomorrow, I spotted a young guy in a bike messenger’s outfit just standing outside the front door of the lab offices. I looked at him curiously, he didn’t look away, he just stared straight back at me.
Ryce was still chatting to the police about the raid we were conducting somewhere in Hertfordshire tomorrow so I headed over to the door and pushed it open, my eyes still locked on the guy.
He chewed on his lip and stepped up to me, looking around cautiously. I frowned as he stretched out his hand to me, holding out a small envelope with my name printed on the front. “You’re Sean, right?” he asked, raising one eyebrow.
“Yeah,” I confirmed, looking at him curiously, trying to work out if I’d seen this guy before, he didn’t look even slightly familiar.
He nodded, pushing the envelope into my hands. “He said I wasn’t to give it to you unless you were on your own. He told me to tell you not to open it with anyone else around,” he stated.
My jaw clenched as I gripped his wrist, maybe a little too hard as he winced and looked a little scared. “Who? Who gave it to you? Where’s Tyler?”
He shrugged, hissing through his teeth at the pain as he shook his head. “I don’t know, I didn’t see the guy he called this morning and said I was to deliver this to you, I got a hundred bucks in with the request. I didn’t ask. I don’t know any Tyler,” he said quickly. I scanned his face, he wasn’t a shifter, he was human that much was obvious from my gift as soon as I touched him. He didn’t look like he was hiding anything, in fact he looked a little confused, so I let go of his wrist. He scuttled out of the door so I looked down at the plain white envelope with my name scrawled on the front in messy handwriting. I ripped it open eagerly wondering why they’d contacted me four days early. Inside was a folded sheet of paper with just a few words scribbled on it:
‘Call this number from a secure line. Trust and tell no one.’
I flipped the paper over, checking for more but the only thing there was a phone number underneath. I frowned. Secure line? What the hell was that supposed to mean? How on earth would I know what a secure line was?
Ryce smiled sympathetically and walked over, gripping my shoulder. “Alright?” he asked, squeezing supportively.
I shrugged. ‘Trust no one’. I looked at him curiously, I wanted to tell him I really did, but for now I’d just go call the number and see what this was all about. “I just need some air, I’ll be right back,” I muttered, nodding towards the glass doors.
“Want me to come?” he offered.
I waved him off and started walking towards the door, crumpling the letter in my hand as I shook my head. “No thanks. I’ll be right back.” As soon as I was out of the doors I headed left, walking to the end of the street, and then jogging. I had no idea what a secure line was in the building and I couldn’t exactly ask someone so I would go one better and use a payphone.
After a minute or so I stepped it up to a full blown run but kept it within human limits so I didn’t attract attention. After about a mile I stopped at a phone booth, not even a little out of breath - that was the beauty of being a shifter.
Jamming my hand into my pocket I pulled out all of the change I had and put it on the shelf. My hands were shaking with anticipation as I put a coin in the slot and dialled the number. This had to be them; finally someone from the organisation was going to tell me what they wanted for her return. At this point, after almost a week, I would literally give them anything.
I tried to control my anger as the line connected, I needed to keep calm, not threaten to tear them all to shreds like I was envisioning in my head.
“Hello?” a guy’s voice answered.
“Who’s this?” I asked through my teeth.
There was silence on the other end of the line and I started to get even angrier. “Tell me your name first,” he finally replied.
Were we fucking twelve or something? “I just got a note to call this number. This is Sean Houston. Now who the fuck is this?” I growled.
I heard a sharp intake of breath. “Just hold on a minute, okay?” Heavy footsteps sounded, then a door closing and more footsteps on gravel or something. My patience was wearing really thin now, all I wanted to do was smash everything up but that clearly wouldn’t help here. “Sorry about that, I had to come outside a little way. If they knew I was talking to you….” He trailed off nervously. The footsteps continued as he obviously carried on walking from whoever ‘they’ were.
“If who knew? What the fuck is this about?” I growled. I purposefully didn’t mention Tyler, I was coached by police a couple of days ago to let them do all of the talking and to not give them any information. I pumped more change into the slot in case it was running low. In my head I was praying for him to say Tyler’s name, to tell me she was okay but that they wanted money, anything, just some small hope because people were starting to believe she was dead and I couldn’t let myself believe that. I pressed for forehead against the side of the booth, my breath fogging up the glass.
The guy on the other end of the line drew in a shaky breath. “My name is Billy Roth and this is about your bond mate, Tyler.”
My hand unconsciously tightened on the phone I was holding, a crack sounded in my ear as the plastic started to give under the strength of my grip so I forced myself to let go. “Where is she? Is she okay?” I barked, squeezing my eyes shut trying to stay in control and not let my wolf take over like he wanted. Staying calm was a lot harder than I thought it would be.
“She’s alive but….” He made a strangled noise and I felt my heart sink. They’d hurt her, she wasn’t okay I already knew that from the video but I was hoping that was just for show, that they wouldn’t hurt her again once they made the video, like it was for dramatic effect or something. “She’s at my farm,” he finished.
“Where, tell me where!” I demanded, slamming my hand down on the shelf, breaking it by accident and sending all of my change to the floor.
“Just hear me out. This isn’t that simple,” he pleaded.
“It is that motherfucking simple!” I shouted. “You tell me where she is, now!”
“Sean, just-”
“What is it you want?” I interjected. “You’re calling me now finally, so what is it you want? You want me to pay or something, what?” I asked, shaking my head not understanding why he wasn’t telling me he wanted a million bucks in unmarked bills to be left in a trash can or something.
“Look, just calm down and listen to me I don’t have long!” the guy responded. I clenched my jaw so I didn’t keep interrupting. “I didn’t want to get involved in this. It’s one thing to blindly believe in something, to believe you’re doing the right thing for your race, but it’s another thing entirely to do what they do. I started to realise the things they did were wrong, but by then I was in too deep with the organisation and I couldn’t get out. They started threatening my little brother so I couldn’t leave. I didn’t want any part of this I swear, but I had no choice,” he said, his voice cracking through emotion. “I’m trying to make things right. What they do, what they’ve done, it’s wrong, I see that now. I want to help you, but in return I need you to help me,” he bargained.
I groaned from exasperation. A reformed organisation member, just freaking awesome. “Help you how?” I asked, trying to hear him out and not tell him to shove it where the sun didn’t shine. Threats of a slow painful death weren’t going to help me get Tyler’s location so I needed to play nice for now. I didn’t want to get involved with anyone from the organisation, but if this guy could help me find Tyler….
“My brother, he’s…. slow. He doesn’t understand what’s going on. Please just make sure that he’s okay and that your people know he’s not part of this, he’s not a threat. I don’t want him hurt, or prosecuted for anything; he’s done nothing wrong here. He gets full immunity,” he stated.
I frowned but agreed anyway, knowing that I didn’t have the power to make that promise. My word wouldn’t make one bit of difference to the police or the council. “Fine. Where are you?”
“There’s something else.”
“For Christ sake, what?” I snapped angrily. I was so freaking close to finding her location that I could almost taste it in my mouth.
“The Jefferson’s have someone on your side, someone who’s feeding back your movements to them. He’s the one that got Tyler out of the lab. He’s been undercover with them for years,” Billy stated matter-of-factly.
My heart was pounding in my ears. Ryce and I had talked about that already, that someone must have cut the security feed so that no one knew where she was, someone knocked out the guard and we suspected an inside job. I was so angry that my whole body was shaking and I didn’t even have Tyler here to calm me down - I was a few seconds away from shifting into my wolf in the middle of the high street.
“Who?” I growled.
“Edward Webster.”
I gulped at the revelation, feeling like someone had dumped a bucket of cold water over my head. I seriously wasn’t expecting that at all. Edward was on the freaking council board! Ryce and I had talked about a security guard, or maybe a lab technician, not a trusted member of the council!
“Seriously?” I questioned.
“Yeah. His family have been supporting the Organisation for two generations. I hear him talking on the phone sometimes about it. He acted like he didn’t believe you were the one, so that the council would do more tests on you. All the time he was feeding back the results to the other side. They know everything about you, all of your abilities, all of your limitations. That’s why they went after Tyler and not you, they know she’s your weakness and that you’d come for her. They want you to come.”
I wanted to kill him, to kill them all, every single one of them. Rage was boiling inside me, and staying in control was actually becoming painful as the shaking got worse. My wolf was demanding blood.
“Oh I’m fucking coming. But first I’m gonna tear Edward into little pieces,” I promised.
“No!”
I frowned. “No?”
“No. You can’t tell him that you know. Sean, they’re ready for you. All of your abilities, they’re useless once you get here. The inhibitor drug has been adapted, it’s airborne now. They have it pumping into the vent going to the basement to stop Tyler from being able to contact you. But they also have it in gas canisters too. They don’t plan on fighting you fairly. As soon as you set foot on the farm, you’ll be bombarded with the drug and your abilities are long gone. That’s their plan. Your only chance is the element of surprise. I’m assuming that you want Byron Jefferson?”
I nodded in confirmation, swallowing the bile that rose in my throat. With the exception of Peter Symons and Edward, I’d never wanted to kill anyone more than Byron. “Hell yeah I want him,” I confirmed, bending and picking up some coins from the floor and pushing them into the phone.
“Well, he stays out of the fighting. He never gets involved, he has stooges for that. He’ll only show up once it’s safe and you’re secured. He wants to kill you personally and end the prophesy once and for all. But he’ll only come once you’re sedated and not a threat.”
I scowled. “Pussy.”
“Yeah exactly, but that why he’s so hard to find. He sits in his nice safe location, moving around every few weeks, giving orders and letting others do all the dangerous jobs while he gets all the glory. He’ll come once you’ve been secured. If you want him then you’re going to have to come alone, and….” He trailed off and I waited for him to finish.
“And?” I prompted when he didn’t continue.
“And let yourself be captured.”