“We’re getting closer?”
“Yes.” We were getting much closer. “Text the pilot. Tell him we’ll give him a destination soon, but we’re on our way.”
For the first time since she’d been taken, I had real hope that I’d be with my mate again soon.
Chapter Eight
DASTIEN
Thirteen Days, Twenty Hours Missing
* * *
It didn’t take long for me to relay to Michael what I found out from Samantha. I was finished by the time we reached the car in the underground parking lot of the hospital.
The car doors unlocked as I touched the handle, but Michael’s hand slammed down on the door, keeping me from opening it.
“I’ll drive.”
“What? Why?” I usually drove, even when we were just going to the store in Texas.
Michael was usually pretty calm and easygoing, but he didn’t like cars or traffic. He kept to rural areas and—until recently—rarely left St. Ailbe’s. He always said he was too old and too set in his ways to deal with the frustrations that came with driving in a big city, and this was Los Angeles. The traffic here was epic.
And yet, he had his hand on the driver’s door. Why?
“Move,” I said. “I’ll drive.”
“No. You won’t be focusing on the road, and you need to plan. By the time we get to the airport, we’ll need our destination.”
“Okay.” Michael would drive slower than I would, but he had a point. I wasn’t going to be able to focus on driving when I wanted to figure out where to go.
I walked to the other side of the car and got in. “Who do you think could do this?”
Michael concentrated on getting around the tight curves as we drove up a bunch of levels to the exit. “I don’t know. We’ve questioned every Alpha already.”
“Do you think Samantha could be wrong?”
“No.” He left it at that.
The whir of the window lowering filled the car, and Michael moved to pay the parking fee.
I stared at my phone, waiting for service to come back online. As soon as I had reception, I was calling everyone. We’d missed someone. Some Alpha somewhere had lied. Clearly.
Three tiny bars showed up on the top of my phone, and I called Chris. “I have info. Start looping everyone on the line,” I said as soon as he answered.
“Finally.” Chris’ raspy voice came through the line. “Hang on. Let’s switch services. I’ll call you back in a few.”
“Wait. What—” The line went quiet, and I pulled my phone away from my face to look at it. “He hung up.”
“Just give him a second. This is good,” Michael said. “We have information. Focus on that.”
I was trying, but I wanted to find her already. We were making progress, but it was too slow. Way too slow. I wasn’t built to do this kind of digging around. I liked to fight, to do, to move. It felt like the last two weeks were filled with too much waiting.
There were a bunch of texts on our group chain, and then my phone started buzzing.
I looked at my phone and saw that Chris was Wi-Fi calling me back from an app. I hit the green button. “Hey.”
“Hey,” Chris said. “You’ve got Cosette, Van, River, Kyra, and Elowen here.”