Tamsin leaned and looked at the screen. “‘Private Island Market Online’?” she read aloud, sounding amazed. “You think that Ella is on an island?”
She sat back and scoffed, “Well, that’s just great, Zed, because there are only a few islands in the world, right?” She rolled her eyes.
“There are about two million islands in the world, but because they often submerge or break apart, that number…” Zed shut up and shrugged. He didn’t know what he had said was a random fact that we cared nothing about.
“We need more than that,” she added.
I agreed. There were too many islands to search, and we didn’t have time to search them all without risking detection by Laurent and his men. Hopelessness tried to surface within me.
“What about a list of the islands that they highlighted for purchase?” Zed asked excitedly.
I glanced at Tamsin. She looked just as intrigued as I was, both of us sitting on the edges of our seats, waiting for more information.
“Can you get that?” Servitto asked emotionlessly. He sat, devoid of hope or tension. How he had learned to curb his emotion was a mystery to me. I didn’t know much about his past; only that he had a half-brother that he had lost to la Luxure in Spain centuries ago.
Zed looked back at the computer and frowned. “It may take a while. I would have to create a new program so that I can get back into their system undetected.”
I could tell that there was more. Something else was bothering him. “But?” I prodded.
Zed sighed and started to wring his fingers, and I worried that he wouldn’t be able to do what he said he could. Tamsin leaned forward but didn’t touch him to soothe him; she was too wound-up herself.
“Tell us,” she encouraged him sweetly.
“Well, once I’m in there again, there is a chance that I could set off an alarm within their system, and if that happened, if they were holding her on one of the islands that they flagged for purchase, they could move her before we had a chance to figure out which one she is on,” he admitted nervously.
Zed was one of those shy genius types that took everything to heart, including problems that he didn’t create or problems that weren’t his to solve, so when he could be the solution to a problem, he panicked at the thought of failure. Tamsin was often there to pick up the pieces, leaving me to wonder what she and the young boy had in common.
“What was the program that you created the first time, and explain the process?” Servitto leaned forward, his brow knitted with curiosity.
Zed looked up, surprised and excited at the chance to talk about his talents to someone other than Rosie, the introverted second super genius tech that the Council had on-hand.
“Oh,” Servitto added before Zed could start, “explain it so an old man like me would understand it.”
Zed laughed and then stopped to think, a bit puzzled. “Okay, well, the program is called SleeperX. What happened is, for some crazy reason, one of Laurent’s men used a computer in Laurent’s old warehouse—the one we raided a few years ago—without a router or firewall.”
Even if Laurent’s men were mindless idiots, none of them were foolish enough to do something so careless. I didn’t interrupt Zed’s explanation, but I could see the concern in Servitto’s and Tamsin’s expressions, also.
“How can I put this in simple terms?” Zed thought aloud, tapping his chin. He had evidently misjudged our apprehension for confusion. “Well, essentially, all I did was use a key logger to simply watch everything he did on the computer. I installed the program on the PC by hacking his particular network, and then, violà!” Zed still smiled, even as Tamsin, Servitto, and I frowned.
It was a setup. Whoever had logged on with so little care knew that the Council was waiting and watching and that we would monitor their movements online.
“It’s a decoy,” Tamsin said quietly to Servitto.
Zed’s expression fell, and she did pat him on the head. Although it didn’t have the same effect it had earlier, he still brightened a little. “It doesn’t make sense, I know, but mistakes do happen. What if we just checked out a few and sent the others to whatever was left over on the list? We could easily narrow it down to the ones that we know he would use. You know, secluded and cold,” Zed asked hopefully.
I felt for the kid. All he had done was waste his time, hunting down leads that wouldn’t lead us anywhere but back to square one.
“Who would we send to these islands?” Servitto asked. “Tamsin and I are the only ones available for such a task.” Servitto didn’t even spare me an apologetic glance, assuming that I would be taking a flight to Rome and leaving Ella in their hands.
He was wrong. I wasn’t concerned that I’d look like a failure to the Council members; nor was I worried about the demotion from High Guardian to Hunter that was sure to happen if I disobeyed Aleixandre’s direct orders. After meeting Ella and promising to protect her, there was no way I was leaving for Greece. I may have been the reason that Ella was gone, but I sure as hell was going to be there when she was found and brought to the Council, and no one was going to stand in my way.
Zed shook his head. “There has to be a way! We can’t just assume that this isn’t a lead to follow.”
“Have you told Aleixandre yet?” I figured that if he had, Aleix would have told him the same things we were telling him now.
“No, I hadn’t had a chance to. I added it to the database so that the info would be there if we ever needed it, but now I think it’s something that he would want to know.”
“True, Zed.” Tamsin added, “But I think you should know that he will probably agree with us on the subject.”
Zed shook his head and frowned. “Fine, but I think I will see what kind of hacking I can do to get us some satellite footage of some of the islands.” He quickly went to typing on his wireless keyboard.
Though I thought that it was a trap, it was still the only lead that we had, and if the Council wasn’t going to investigate it, I would.
***
After arriving in Alaska, I headed straight from the hangar to my quarters, turned on my personal laptop, and typed in the info that I had received from Zed. After an hour of eliminating certain islands from the list Zed had given me, I narrowed the seven islands down to three islands I knew that Laurent would have use for, a knock at my open door interrupted me.
It was Marieth, one of the Chorý Blood Hunt leaders, and the pissed look on her face was priceless. At five foot eight and one hundred forty pounds of mostly muscle, she was one of the hardest members of the Chorý blood hunters. She was also in charge of new recruit combat training and survival methods.
I was not going to Rome with her, so she didn’t have to worry about me trying to take over her lead as Hunt Leader. If Aleixandre were still giving immortality to Hunt Leaders, she and Santiago would have been neck to neck at the front of the line for the Change.
I turned around and motioned for her to come in. Marieth sauntered over to the steel desk that I had purchased in Germany and crossed her arms, but she didn’t speak. She just eyed me like a piece of meat she was going to throw on the grill and later eat.
“Yeah?” I smirked and leaned back in my chair. Was she sizing me up? When she still didn’t speak, I started, “Look—”
“No, you look! Aleixandre only put you on my team because he is testing me,” she said with in anger.
“Is he?” I asked, amused that my punishment had also become hers.
“Don’t get cocky with me, Vesco!” She sneered. “I haven’t seen Santi in a few days, so I can only assume that he has nothing to worry about, even though it was you and his team that lost the Arc. Yet, I am the one expected to give up the lead in my hunt!”
What did she mean about Santi being missing in action? His group had been sent to help me with Ella’s arrival. I had spoken to him on the sat phone plenty of times before the night Ella went missing. Though Santi was a lower member of the Council and wasn’t privy to all of the details o
f Ella’s departure from Cedar, he had known enough that night and shouldn’t have been missing.
“Wait.” I straightened in my chair. “When did Santi come back from Cedar?”
Marieth looked at me and blinked. “That’s all you got from what I said? That Santi isn’t here now?”
I didn’t have time for her anger. Something wasn’t right. I didn’t remember seeing Santi that night when Ella had gone missing, but his entire team was there.
Maybe I had seen him. I’d been caught up in Kale returning without Ella, and us only having minutes to get her out of the cold safely. I stood up and went out the door, and Marieth quickly followed suit.
“Hey!” she called after me as I headed past the other rooms and toward the west hall. “Vesco, we suit up and leave in an hour. I expect you to be dressed and ready to go by then,” she demanded.
I came to a complete halt and felt her tensing up behind me. Did she really think that I would fight over leading a Blood Hunt? I had been made immortal after only four successful missions, whereas the average member had to complete ten or more.
I faced her just as she crouched into a defensive position.
“Marieth,” I said calmly, though her attitude was starting to tick me off. “Suit up and head out, but get this straight: I will not be going with you.”
I turned on my heels and headed straight to Aleixandre’s office in the complex, leaving Marieth there to stew in her anger and confusion.
Chapter 3
Alex
The next morning was hell. The police had all but destroyed any chance of my mother making breakfast—not that I was hungry after all that had happened, but if she could’ve gotten in the kitchen and cooked, it would have taken her mind off of Ella for a while. She sat in the living room with Leah, whom she still hadn’t let out of her sight. They watched some overly bright and happy cartoon on the Disney Channel while I plotted my escape.
The detectives that had arrived from Elmwood City started a search party for Ella. One of them knew my dad from college and was adamant at first about my father staying behind during the search for Ella, but after my father pulled him aside for a private conversation, I knew that a favor had been called in. His partner was very vocal about how bad an idea it was to have my father along, but he complied. I wasn’t allowed to go; neither was my mom, not that she would have left Leah home or at my aunt’s. Sheriff Making had decided that it would be better if only my dad search with the group while a few of his deputies and a couple officers from Elmwood City stayed behind with Leah, Mom, and me.
I wasn’t sure if the refusal to let me help was because the sheriff still thought I was in some way involved, or if he was truly afraid that they would find Ella’s body. I had decided last night that there was no way I was going to wait a few weeks before calling Mia. Everyone knew that Ella had introduced us, so Kale’s ridiculous claim that it would place Mia in Sheriff Making’s sights could be ignored. I took a shower and grabbed my cell then headed back downstairs.
“Mom,” I called. She looked over, pale as a ghost. I had to remember that I was doing the right thing. My lies seemed to be straining her worse than the death of Ella’s parents. “I’m gonna head over to Mia’s.”
Her eyes widened, and she covered her mouth. I wasn’t sure what I had said that upset her, and I regretted even coming downstairs.
“She might not know what’s happened yet. You should go and check on her,” she urged. “I think your father would be okay with that.”
I’d thought that I was going to have to fight harder to get out of the house, and that might have been the case, had my father been here, but he wasn’t. I kissed my mom on the cheek and headed out the door, only to be stopped by two things.
First, the rental car that Deputy Clae had searched last night; though he found nothing to worry about in it, I wasn’t sure how I was going to explain how it was paid for. Jace and Ella had arranged it, and I prayed that she hadn’t used her credit card to get the vehicle, since I’d told the sheriff that nobody had expected me home.
The second thing that stopped me was Deputy Clae.
“Where you going, son?”
I stifled a chuckle, and it lodged in my throat. Clae was three grades ahead of me in high school, but I didn’t think that put him in the position to call me “son”. I checked my machismo at the door. It wouldn’t get me anywhere, and I didn’t have time to get into a pissing match with a guy who couldn't begin to understand what I was going through.
“Mia’s,” I bit out as I worked the keyless entry to the car and headed in that direction.
Clae smirked and followed me to the car with the gait of a happy seven-year-old.
“Oh yeah, that little hot blonde that worked with Ella at Knope’s?” Clae chuckled low in his throat.
I was annoyed by the thoughts I was sure he’d had about Mia, but I let it go, got in the car. I’d never been to Mia’s house and didn’t have an address to enter into the GPS, so I had to call her. She wasn’t shocked at all that I had ignored Kale’s instructions, and she said she was relieved that I was coming. She’d been seconds away from calling me.
After the quiet thirty-minute drive to Elmwood City, I pulled up to a large three-story home. I parked in the driveway and gawked at the expansive home. Of course, Mia gave off the impression that she came from money, but her home made a statement of wealth all on its own. The house sat adjacent to a small lake, and it was shrouded by the Elmwoods. Only the front and a part of the side of the house was visible from the street. Ella had told me that Mia’s father owned one of the mills in Elmwood City, but I understood that it was one of the smaller ones. People in Elmwood City who owned one of the smaller plants wouldn’t be able to afford a place like this. So where did he get the money?
I walked up the flagstone driveway past Mia’s Beetle and a sleek, pale-as-milk BMW, and knocked on the wrought iron, double-arched doors.
I looked around as I waited to be let inside. The lake seemed to be on Mia’s property. Was it a private lake, was there another entry to it that I just couldn’t see? The small dock had an even smaller boat stationed there.
I headed further into the yard to take a quick peek; the small boat was actually two little white rowboats. One had Mia’s name painted in gold across it, while the other had Vida painted in a vibrant red.
As I lifted my leg to take the next step, I heard someone clear their voice, and I whirled around to see Mia staring at me inquisitively. Stress lines marred her face, and she shook from the cold; she’d come outside without a coat. Her small smile didn’t reach her eyes.
“Do you often knock on a girl’s door then walk away?” she asked, with a hint of amusement. From the dark circles under her eyes and the paleness of her face, she probably hadn’t gotten any sleep. I wished that I had called her earlier to see how she was doing.
I smiled back at her. “Ha, no, normally I throw rocks at windows for attention or stand under a window with a boom box over my head,” I quipped and headed toward her, enjoying the fact that I had made her smile.
“What’s with the lake?” I jerked my head in its direction. “Is it a private one?”
Mia’s gaze went to the lake and then back to me. Once I reached her, she turned and started to walk back to the main entrance, with me in tow. “No, though that doesn’t stop my dad from kicking people off of it.” Her voice held a bit of anger, but she quickly let it go.
The outside of the home did the inside no justice. The hardwood floors were so polished that I could see my reflection in them, and the ceilings were at least nine feet tall. The oversized furniture looked as if no one had ever sat on it. The white fabric looked soft and new. But what took the cake was the waterfall in the corner of the room. I started toward it.
“It’s an illusion,” she explained, stopping me.
I looked back at the waterfall, furrowing my brow in confusion. It looked real to me.
“It’s the way the glass is cut, see.” She pointed to t
he part that I thought was water.
I moved closer to the faux waterfall until I could see the sparkling, ice blue glass. I smiled. It had fooled the crap out of me.
I didn’t notice that Mia had left me in the middle of the room to gawk like an idiot until I met her gaze as she stood on the staircase to the right of the entrance. I took in the sight of her in her yellow sweats and close-fitting white top. Her bright blue eyes, though sad and dark, were pretty as she batted her light blond lashes at me. She had no makeup on, so I could finally see that her skin wasn’t that crazy shade of tan that she painted it, but pale with a dash of freckles lightly dotting the bridge of her nose and the crescents of her cheeks that pinked the longer that I stared at her.
“Your home is beautiful.” I forced myself not to compliment her beauty as well. Emotions were running high, and I didn’t want to complicate things by being a prepubescent boy that didn’t know how to act around a hot girl.
Mia bristled, which confused me. Girls usually liked compliments. “This isn’t my house, it’s my father’s, and if you ask me, it screams ‘give me attention that I don’t rightfully deserve.’”
All I could do was gawk at her. I wanted to disagree, because anyone who could afford a home like that one obviously had a job that deserved some sort of credit.
“Okay,” I said, dumbfounded. I stood in the middle of the foyer, too afraid to speak again.
Finally, her shoulders fell as the tension dissolved, and her pretty face straightened with a smile. “I’m glad you came over, Alex.” She moved up the stairs and motioned for me to follow. “I have been sitting here alone since last night, wondering what the heck happened and why.”
Mia held her arm, which reminded me that she had been hurt. At the time it had bled enough to seem life-threatening, and Kale hadn’t helped the situation by turning pale and leaving at the first sight of Mia’s blood. But Jace had tended it, and Mia hadn’t even needed stitches.
We continued up the stairs and walked through a sitting room with a massive TV. I would have normally freaked out over the size, but I couldn’t bring myself to care.
Awakened Page 3
