Fuck.
In three strides I was over to her, pulling her into my arms. “Shh, it’s okay.” I stroked my hands up and down her back, feeling her body tremble against me.
“I’m sorry,” she said in a small voice. “I didn’t think it would affect me so much. I just…the memories suddenly hit me. Hearing your voice and not being able to do anything, then trying to escape and getting so close, then…” She buried her face in my chest.
“Listen to me.” Lifting her chin, I pulled up her balaclava, and mine, so we could see each other properly. “I’m not gonna let anything happen to you, okay?” Lowering my head, I kissed her softly. “I’d take a fucking bullet for you, baby.”
Her eyes widened in horror. “Don’t tempt fate by saying things like that.” Then she reached up and kissed me again. “I’d do the same for you.”
Something inside me cracked open at her emphatic words, but I pushed the feeling aside. I had to.
She lifted her hands, tugging my balaclava back down before doing the same to her own. “Thanks for, well, everything. Come on. Let’s see if we can find anything useful here.”
We explored the room, and I learned just how much fucking restraint I had, digging deep into my reserves as she relived the experience of being held captive down here. Yeah, she’d told us all before, but it was one thing to hear it, and another to be standing in the place it had gone down. I needed to break something, really fucking badly, by the time we’d finished and she’d told me the whole story again.
“You’re incredible, you know that?” My voice came out all hoarse, and I cleared my throat, trying to get myself under control. She needed me to be strong; I couldn’t afford to show any chinks in my armour. Not until this shit was over. And maybe not even then.
She squeezed my hand tightly, seeming to sense my mood, tugging me over to a door with a heavy padlock.
“Do you have that lock-picking thingy?”
I nodded and dug around in my zip pocket, pulling out the lock-picking tool. Within a few minutes the lock was open, and we were peering into a storeroom.
“This is a bit weird.” Winter scanned the shelves that lined the room. Blankets, clothing, rolls of toilet paper, camping mats, as well as some more sinister-looking items—thick, heavy ropes, chains, handcuffs, and rolls of duct tape. “If we were anywhere else, I’d say all this stuff—” She waved her hand at the ropes, chains and handcuffs. “—was for some kinky shit. But here, it just seems kind of scary.” We photographed the room, replaced the padlock, took some photos of the main room, then exited as quickly as possible.
As we were lowering the hatch into place, Zayde burst into the room. “We’ve got company.”
We raced out of the building and skidded around the corner, hearing the rumble of an engine drawing closer, then coming to a spluttering stop. An insistent beeping sounded, and I ducked down, looking around the corner.
A small lorry with no number plates had parked next to the pallets, and a forklift truck, where the beeping was coming from, was lifting one of the pallets up. I watched, using my phone to take photos as a figure opened the back of the lorry, then gestured to the forklift truck driver, and one by one, they transferred the pallets into the back of the lorry.
“My leg’s gone dead,” Winter groaned quietly behind me, sinking to the floor and stretching her legs out in front of her, rubbing her thigh to try to get some circulation back into it. Zayde chuckled under his breath, alternating between staring around the corner and texting on his phone.
“They’re almost done,” I commented. The final pallet was eventually loaded, and the back of the lorry was closed. The figure at the back of the lorry spoke to the driver of the forklift truck, and I strained my ears to hear. I couldn’t make out anything they were saying, but what I did know was that they weren’t speaking English.
Once the lorry and the forklift truck had both disappeared, I turned to the others. “Let’s get back to the boat and back to the house. Get all these photos and drone footage on the computer.”
“Cass and West are on their way back.” Z waved his phone in the air.
Winter looked between us both, her gaze all hopeful and determined. “Good. Maybe between the five of us, we can finally get some answers.”
After all the shit we’d been through, we’d better.
TWENTY
We studied the charts that were spread across the table in front of us. Weston sat at the computer, searching for information, a large mug of coffee in hand.
“It says here that Andromeda’s a galaxy, closest one to our galaxy, in fact, and it’s also a constellation.” His eyes scanned the screen, cataloguing all the details, before he sighed in defeat. “I really don’t see anything here that would help us.”
“That was my conclusion, when I googled it.” Winter shifted in my lap, her voice sad. I brushed her hair aside and kissed the back of her neck, and she turned her head and gave me a small smile, before staring back at the charts.
“Yeah. I’ve heard the name before, only in relation to this cybercrime shit that was going on a few years back, but that’s nothing to do with this.” He slumped back in his chair, rubbing a hand across his face, then straightened up. “No. Fuck this. I’m not giving up. I’m gonna speak to Mercury.”
“Snowflake, I’m gonna give West a hand, okay?” She nodded, and I lifted her off me, letting her slide back into my seat, then crossed over to join West at the computers. He was soon connected to the secure chat he used in the deep web, waiting for Mercury to show up. A green light blinked on next to Mercury’s name, finally, and West started typing, with a relieved breath.
NITRO: Need some intel.
MERCURY: Details?