"I feel like a fucking loser just hiding down here. I'm done. I'm going to go back up there while he has no protection and see who else he's got trapped in here," I growled, grabbing two guns from the pile and checking for ammo before sliding a knife into my boot. When I looked back at Aes, he wore the same determined look.
"I was just about to suggest the same, love," he agreed, a determined smile forming on his face. He clearly wanted revenge, and he was not afraid to work for it.
"I still can't read anything here," I grumbled, trying my powers yet again. Maybe Lennie was out of range by now, but there was no reason I shouldn’t have been able to hear Aes.
“You’re probably just exhausted," Aeson muttered as he secured his knife. "Shout out to our girl for being smart enough to grab these."
"Let's go," is all I answered with, ready to get out there. "He must think we're with her, or some of those goons would have stayed behind. So let's do this."
My hand shook as I reached for the door handle, turning it gingerly and listening for any sound. He likely wasn't back in the room we came from, but I remembered seeing an office just down the hall from it. If we could get to a phone, I could call the Dean for extraction, or the council. Anyone.
A faint scream echoed down the hall, but it was one of rage, not pain. We definitely need backup. Trying to remember which way the office was, I hurried down the hall, and opened the door quickly with my gun trained inside. My pulse thundered in my ears as I swept the room, pulling Aes inside with me as soon as I knew it was clear. He clicked the lock on the door and turned to me, the fear in his pale blue eyes making my heart clench and strengthening my resolve. I will get them out of here. Our kidnappers seemed to be a huge fan of this cat and mouse game, but I was done. Hang in there, Lennie.
Aeson skirted around me and went straight for the phone. My gaze zeroed in on the computer, and I smirked. That I can work with. Sitting down on Aeson's knee, since he’d already taken the desk chair, I got to work on trying to crack the password. My powers were a little less dampened in here, so I rested my hands on the keyboard and tried to pick up any psychic imprints. An image of the asshole who hurt Lennie popped up, and I watched his finger movements and unconsciously mimicked them. The irony of it wasn’t lost on me as the computer unlocked with a cheerful ding. I guess he didn't want
his powers dampened in his own office.
Searching through the desk, I spotted a USB device. Pulling it out, I downloaded his document files and images to the drive, hoping we'd have time to do something with it later. My attention was split between listening to the conversation Aeson was having, and reading through the files I was copying. Lennox's name was easy to spot among them, but the part that had me shaking in anger was the date and year. They were dated a few months over eighteen years ago, meaning she had been born here. How the fuck do I tell her that her whole life was a lie? Who were the people she called her parents?
"Yes sir, we will. No, we don't know our coordinates, but we will send a huge magical burst for the radar," he promised. My eyes closed in defeat. It was a suicide mission. For Aeson to create a big enough burst, he'd drain his entire reserve and his energy right along with it. A selfish part of me didn’t want to be left alone in this godforsaken place.
The ding of the drive pulled my attention back to it, and I slipped the USB into my pocket and shut the computer back down. Rising from his knee, I walked over to the window to look out, my eyes flying wide in shock as I took in the towers of the academy over the trees... across the ocean from where we currently were. That meant this fucker had taken us to one of the outlying islands.
"We're on an island. I can see the school across the ocean, to the east," I reported, Aeson's jaw clenching as he processed and relayed the words. With one last affirmative, he hung up.
"Does the window open?" he asked, walking over and pushing the blinds aside. We ran our hands over the edges to find some sort of lock, but the window was sealed shut instead. "So we break it and run. I'll use just enough energy to do that, then we can leave. We have to get help. It's been too long, and we still haven't heard from Lennox. She might need us."
Without waiting for me to agree, he sent a blast of icy magic at the window, freezing it over, but nothing else happened. The blast wasn't even big enough to bust through. Looking at him in confusion, I noticed he was already grabbing a large paperweight off of the desk. I ducked out of the way, shielding my face as he threw it, the window shattering easily thanks to the ice. I grabbed a leather bag off the doctor’s coat rack and emptied the contents so I could use it to clear the glass. Aeson jumped out first before turning to me, his face going from accomplished to horrified at the same moment a hand wrapped around my ankle.
"Leaving so soon, boys?" the doc asked, a needle piercing my ankle as Aeson yanked me out of reach, thankfully before he could plunge whatever it was into my body. I yanked out the full syringe and threw it on the ground. Fucking, psycho! Aeson pulled me close and fired a shot into the broken window, the scream of pain letting us know it found its mark, before he pulled me into the trees.
May 5th
Morning
Evander
It had been 72 hours since we’d woken up and found the others missing. I faintly remembered whispered voices, but nothing else, the crash was too violent. We had been searching everywhere for them, but the problem was I couldn't sense them, and neither could Lachlan or Calev. I'd never seen Calev so broken either, which didn't help morale.
I blinked my eyes open slowly, pain blooming along my arm and head. Thankfully, the vampire genes were healing me, albeit slowly. I looked around, but all I saw was Lachlan in his bear form, limping around and sniffing the ground. Calev hovered overhead, shielding his eyes from the sun as he searched the area.
"They're gone, there’s no sign of them," he reported as he landed on the ground next to our destroyed SUV, smashing his fist into the door and crumpling it into a contorted mess.
"Fuck, what do we do?" Lachlan said, mid shift. His bear was too close to the surface for a full shift, causing him to look like a ridiculously scary, hairy man.
"What do you mean, they're gone?" I said stupidly, trying to process their words. "Who the fuck took them? How did just a crash knock us out?!"
"That part I can answer. I found this under the hood," Lachlan said, picking up a container with a clawed hand. It had some sort of timer on the end that blinked zero. "They gassed us with something, then hit us at the same time. Probably to play it off as an accident.”
"We've called the Dean. As part of The Regency, he can get help," Calev muttered, pacing back and forth with his wings out, cursing under his breath as he struggled to keep his anger contained. He smashed his hand into the SUV again and again, the grinding of metal filling the air until a procession of SUVs pulled up, the Dean and the rest of the Head Regency guards stepping out.
Shaking myself out of reliving that nightmare yet again, I hurried back inside. I needed air at first, but now I needed to be around the others, to hear them discuss options. Well really, I needed to be out there again, searching. But we'd scoured the entirety of Obsidian Cove on our side and the human side, coming up empty at every turn. There were no tire tracks or cameras out here to find anything.
"Van!" my name echoed down the hall from the conference room, and I sped in as fast as my vampire ability could take me, startling everyone in the process.
"Aeson called in, they're on one of the outer islands," Calev explained before turning to the Dean. "Sir, this would probably be a good time to tell you that she's not just an average supe... she's a mimic. I don’t want to leave anything else out, in case it could help us narrow down the search."
"Excuse me, son? A mimic... those are real?" he questioned, looking suspiciously at Calev. "You boys knew and kept it to yourself?"