Alice, no doubt. It wasn’t like the police or even most other people would do something like this.
The lump on my head was sensitive, but I didn’t feel sleepy now. The pain seemed to wake me up, intensified my vision slightly, at least for a while.
I twisted my wrists to try to pry the hand ties off, but when I finally got it halfway, someone in a black mask came in and hit me with the back of his hand across his face until I could taste blood on my lip.
“Don’t move.”
That was the last time I saw anyone for hours. I thought I heard a commotion for a bit on the other side of the wall, but it settled quickly.
I assumed I was dead. Needle in my back while I was passed out. Why they kept me in here, I didn’t know. Waiting for me to die?
I’d no idea what happened to Axel, or Liam.
Apparently, I was permitted to lie down or sit up as no one entered when I shifted around. I did both at times, uncomfortable in each position. The ties around my wrists were plastic, hard, cutting off circulation to my hands. I wanted to get them to my front, but I was afraid doing so would bring another guard in.
With the light always on overhead and the high window covered, it was hard to tell when morning arrived, but I suspected it was into the next day before the door opened.
A body was thrown in, black bag over his head.
A large man hovered over the body. He was burly, with a beard and tattoos on his forearms. He looked down at the nude male form. “Try anything funny and you’re a dead man. And so is she.” He reached over and yanked at the black mask.
I didn’t know the man. He had dark hair, cut short, dark skin. Older, maybe early thirties. He struggled to get up and scoot to the opposite wall and cover himself with his legs, positioning away from me. There were bruises around his back, red marks like he’d been struck around his neck and shoulders.
The door closed, and my new roommate looked at me over his shoulder. “You’re Kayli?” he whispered.
I wasn’t ready to talk to anyone I didn’t know. Was he someone they sent in to get cozy with me and get some secrets out of me? Nice try. I just glared at him. I wasn’t going to be intimidated because I was naked and tied up. There was no way I would allow anyone to trick me into saying anything.
He swallowed thickly. “I’m Cornelius Buble. I was watching over the people in the other apartment. One of them was your father. Jack, right?”
He was one of the Academy friends who was supposed to help protect my father and the others? “Why are you talking?” I asked. “They have ears on us.”
He looked up toward the camera and then back down to the floor. His dark eyes shifted like he was trying to think. “It might not matter at this point. They only have one more to catch before they’re done with us.”
“Catch? They want us alive?”
“I don’t know why. And it might not be for long, either.” He swallowed again. “I was with the others in a different room. No water, no food and Natalie… she’s pregnant and it’s not going well.”
I rolled my head back against the wall, shaking it back and forth. I didn’t know him, I didn’t know Natalie. She could be the one that Blake was talking about—his sister-in-law? Buble could be telling the truth or a lie, but I couldn’t know and there wasn’t anything I could do about it from where I was.
So I didn’t say anything, waiting him out. My hair was still in the half made up ponytail from earlier, all a mess, some locks had fallen out around my face. Half of my head on one side tingled with where I had a bump. I shifted around, trying to use the wall to help get strands of hair out of my face but it hurt to put pressure anywhere on that side of my face.
He closed his eyes, licking his lips shortly. “They can’t hurt all of us. All of these bodies dead, it’ll get discovered eventually. And they can’t hide us forever. At least not here.”
“Why did they bring you in here?” I asked. If I kept asking them questions, I couldn’t possibly reveal anything.
His lips twitched and he lowered his head. “I tried to get out. The window…I didn’t realize we were…”
“Still in the Sargent Jasper?”
He looked up shortly and seemed startled, seeing me naked across the room and tied up like him. He looked away, staring at the floor or the wall instead of looking directly at me. “How’d you know? They knocked us out for a while, we were sure we were somewhere else.”
“How do you get ten or so bodies out of a building undetected?” I asked. “No one else was on this floor. They didn’t need to take you far, just into a different room the others wouldn’t recognize. Cover the windows, disorient you. Although it’s the only building with windows that high nearby I think.” I was nearly seething as I said the next part. “We weren’t protecting ourselves. We set ourselves up for them to come get us. Isolating ourselves to make us easier to capture without involving anyone else.”
He breathed in sharply through his nose and let it out. Buble lowered his voice to a stage whisper. “I’m not sure how much time we have left, and they’re holding on to us for a reason. I want to figure it out.”
The door opened again, jarring the doorstop to vibrate shortly and then stop dead.
Another body, nude and tied up as well, but this one was familiar to me. The tattoos around his torso and arms, the piercings...
Raven.
He was motionless with the bag still around his head. There were bruises, cuts along his skin, some blending in with the tattoos.
The man who threw him in looked right at me. Dark face, two-day growth, deep shadows under his eyes like he hadn’t slept in a while. “He should be out for a few hours. Had to tranq him or he’d…”
Someone behind him hissed. “Don’t talk to them.”
He took a step back, but I never saw who spoke. The door closed.
I scooted across the floor, butt sliding until I could get to Raven. I used my feet, hooking my big toe into the black bag, trying to loosen it.
“Who is it?” Buble asked.
He didn’t recognize him? “My husband,” I said and pulled the bag away from his face.
Raven’s lip was bleeding, the ring had been ripped out, causing a gash. There was another one, still bleeding at his brow. More bruisi
ng, especially around his temple, like they were trying to beat him into unconsciousness.
It was hard to tell if he was even still breathing. I flipped around, leaning over him, listening.
It was quiet, but still there. I tried to nudge his face with my head, but no response. If he was going to be unconscious for so long, then escaping would be that much harder. It wasn’t like I could carry him out.
Buble breathed out slowly, his lip trembling. “I should have…” He shook his head, mumbling. “We should never have done this.”
“What do you know?” I asked. Seeing Raven like this, passed out, beaten, I strained against the binds behind me, nervously looking at the camera. I was positive they could hear, but if I didn’t talk about anything, especially not about the Academy…I wanted as much information as I could get. It was the only chance to find a way out. “How many are there?”
“I’ve counted four,” he said. “But there are more. There has to be. There’s someone who gives orders but never shows his face.”
“Not a woman?”
He shook his head. “No. Sounds male to me.”
I bit my lower lip. “Were any of the people you saw…red hair, bright blue eyes?”
He blinked repeatedly. “There was a woman like that with us. In our group. Captured.”
I raised a brow. “Tied up?”
“Yeah. Alice. She was the one trying to help me escape.”
I bit my lip harder, pulled away from Raven to turn around, cursing and tightening my fingers into my numb hands. “She’s one of them.”
His eyes widened, seeming confused. “What? She couldn’t be.”
“She triggered this whole thing. She called me two days ago and started coming after us.”
“She can’t be,” Buble said in a much more assured tone. “I watched them beat her when she demanded giving the pregnant woman some water. I watched her get dragged out by her hair and come back with cuts and…” He blinked rapidly again and shook his head slowly. “No…She can’t be one of them.”
I laughed shortly. “She’s tricked you. Or you’re one of them trying to trick me.”
He swallowed thickly and shook his head. “Or you’re one of them…”