Desperate Victory, page 27
Phone back in pocket, he slipped a knife from its sheath. I stuck my hand in my pocket and pulled out the baton. It was the weapon I was the most comfortable with. It was also good in close quarters.
“Moving now.” Bodhi didn’t look back for me or offer me a hand. He trusted me to follow him.
He was just another shadow in the darkness, visible against the faint light outlining the two sconces near the main door. Or at least what I thought was the main door.
No sign of security to warn us off. Even when I searched for them, I didn’t see cameras. That did not mean they weren’t there. We wanted the strike to be surgical, quick and efficient. When I left this place, I wanted it to be with my arm around Andrea.
At the door, Bodhi reached for the handle and tested it. Locked.
“Keep watch,” he said over his shoulder and then he was kneeling. As curious as I was to watch him work, I planted myself against the edge of the alcove so I could scan the darkness.
The seconds ticked toward a minute and then there was a distinct sound of tumblers releasing.
“Eyes,” he warned and I raised a hand to shield my eyes when he turned the hand and pushed the door in. It gave the faintest of squeaks like maintenance on the hinges had been an afterthought.
Lights were on inside, but they were low, night burning lights, tucked up against the ceiling and in little vents along the walls that led up the stairs.
It illuminated a path, but it wasn’t blinding. Bodhi held one hand up to me as he eased inside. I swore, he moved more quietly than a cat. He scanned the left, then the right. With a nod, he curled his fingers to beckon me inside.
I pushed the door too, but I didn’t close it. We left it for the others. Bodhi headed for the stairs and I followed him up.
First floor were classrooms and practice rooms.
Second floor, more of the same. The stairs took us right to a juncture in the center that let you look down below. The fat square opening took up a lot of space. But it also didn’t have the next flight of stairs to take us up higher.
Like the first floor, this one was illuminated with dim track lighting. The pools of light were intermittent, probably because this wasn’t a residential floor. Made sense.
If anything made sense in this insane world.
The stairs were tucked at the end of the hall, these doubling back on each other to get us to the next floor. Bodhi turned to glance at me just as the click of a door touched my ears.
“Down,” Bodhi said and I dropped. The knife he’d been holding flew through the air and slammed into someone. There was a grunt.
A single grunt, but Bodhi was on him, hand wrapped around his throat and dragging him into a room that he’d probably exited.
It wasn’t a class room or practice room at all. It was an office. The man gurgled, but Bodhi didn’t let him make another sound. Then he was dead. I scanned the wall of monitors.
There were a dozen different kids on those monitors. Most of them were in rooms. They had cameras on them in their bedrooms. Cameras with night vision that let them see clearly.
I kind of wished the bastard was alive so we could—
Andrea.
“She’s here,” I whispered, fastening my gaze on my sister where she curled on her side. Hugging her pillow with a white knuckled grip that translated even over the grainy footage.
There were numbers at the bottom of the screens. Room numbers maybe. Andrea’s was 314. That was upstairs.
Bodhi stripped the guard of his weapons, then pulled his knife out so he could wipe it off on him. I scanned the other kids on the screens and blinked before taking a step closer to it.
The angle of the jaw.
The cheekbones.
The—
He looked like Bodhi. We needed to get all of these kids. If Bodhi’s sibling—Levi—was here, then there was a good chance we might have also found the third King child, Theo. It was hard to tell on the screens.
We’d be better off doing it in person. When I pulled away to look at Bodhi, he was checking the computer. “All of the security feeds through here. But there aren't any cameras outside.”
Disgust curled through me and Bodhi’s stony expression reflected my feelings.
“They won’t be in there any longer than absolutely necessary.”
He scooped up keys off the desk and nodded once. “Stay with me.”
“Never losing me,” I promised and that earned me a flash of a grin. On the third floor, the lighting didn’t change, but the doors did.
The locks were all located on the exterior. They weren’t securing their rooms from the inside. No, they were locked from the outside. When I found Juraj Vedriš, I was going to make sure they gutted him slowly.
The first door across from the stairwell was 302. 314 would be at the other end of the hallway. As desperate as I was to rush straight for her, I made myself wait. I let Bodhi lead.
There were eighteen rooms up here. All tiny little dorm rooms, each barricaded by a locked door to keep their prisoners inside. As impatience fountained through me again, I stuck with Bodhi. When we reached a room that didn’t have an exterior lock, he motioned me back.
The knife was in his hand, tucked and hidden against his arm. He tested the door knob and then pushed the door inward. The smell hit me first. The faint odor of too much cleaning product, maybe some mildew, and soap.
So much soap.
It was a communal shower.
There were thin curtains hanging as a suggestion of privacy, but that was it. Just a suggestion. Gritting my teeth, I checked the hallway behind us as Bodhi moved again and then we were at 314.
One by one, he tried the keys from the ring he’d taken from the guard’s office. The fifth one slipped into the lock easily, then the tumblers as the deadbolt released echoed in the silence of the hall.
“Let me,” I said before Bodhi opened the door. She was in there alone and Bodhi might scare her if she woke up to him looming out of the dark with a knife in his hand.
That image sent a shiver right through me. Not the time, I reminded myself. Absolutely not the time.
He nodded and turned the handle to push the door inward. I slipped inside. The room was so tiny. There was barely room for the single bed, an old night stand with a drawer at the top and a shelf at the bottom. No other furniture decorated the room.
My entrance hadn’t woken her. Pocketing the baton, I tried to cross the wooden floor to her quietly but it creaked and groaned with every step.
Andrea let out a sudden shriek as she jerked awake.
“No, no, no,” I chanted, closing the distance. “It’s me, sweetheart. It’s Lainey.”
Panting like she’d just run a marathon, Andrea stared at me wide eyed. The pillow had left a red mark on her cheek. No, that was a bruise.
Someone had hit her in the face hard enough to leave a bruise.
“Lainey?” The half-broken, half-disbelieving whisper refocused all my attention.
“It’s me, sweetheart. Adam’s here too. We’re getting you the hell out of here.”
Then she was lunging forward, crashing into me with a hug that knocked me on my ass. Shouting came from the hallway, someone slamming their fist against a door.
Tears burned in my eyes as I glanced at Bodhi. “I’ll deal with them…”
“No,” Andrea said abruptly, pulling back. “That’s Levi. He’s my friend. Kostya is here and Theo. They aren’t the guards or the man who runs the school.”
“I won’t hurt them,” Bodhi said. “But they heard you scream and—”
There was another slam in the hallway, it sounded like someone was throwing themselves bodily at the door.
“Go,” I told him. “I’m going to get Andrea dressed so we can go.”
More shouting came from outside. It seemed a thousand miles away, but that could have something to do with the shutter barricading the single slit window. When the distinctive pop-pop of gunfire reached me, I pulled Andrea to the floor.
“Is someone shooting?”
Her eyes were wide and the whites were wild. A teenage boy was suddenly filling the doorway.
“Get away from her,” he ordered as he charged to where we were. He never made it, Bodhi hauled him backwards and Andrea waved her arms.
“Levi no, this is my sister,” she told him, tears coating every word and it made my heart jerk painfully in my chest.
“Let me go,” Levi argued with Bodhi who had him in an armlock he couldn’t break.
“I will when you calm down.”
He had pressed against the wall, one hand flat against his shoulder blades to keep him there.
“I heard her scream,” Levi argued. “After what happened—”
“They startled me,” Andrea said as I pulled her to her feet. “But I told you they would find me.”
She sniffled and Levi seemed to calm down. “You’re okay though?” He studied Andrea like he was looking for signs of injury.
“Yes,” she said. “Now get out, I gotta put clothes on.” The familiarity and the order made me snort.
Bodhi eased up and then backed off a step as he let go of Levi. The teen pivoted to face him and the light from the hallway cast across his face just like it was Bodhi’s.
Yeah, there was no mistaking the resemblance.
If I saw it, Bodhi had to, though his expression didn’t shift. He studied the kid in front of him with narrowed eyes.
“Let’s go, kid,” Bodhi said in a gruff voice darkening with emotion. I doubted anyone else would hear it but finding Levi was messing with him. “We’re gonna let the others out. Help me do a head count.”
It didn’t take long to find Andrea’s meager clothing. The thin tops and pants were not meant for colder temps outside. She also didn’t have a coat. Had they taken all of her clothes from her too?
A pair of ballet slippers fell out of the cabinet where she stacked her clothes as she rooted around and finally came out with a pair of low boots.
“Are we really going home?” Andrea asked me and I dragged my attention from the room back to her.
“Yes,” I said, nodding. “We’re going home.”
The sound of multiple male voices in the hallway drifted inside. There was more thumping.
“We can take the guys with us, right?” Andrea said and I didn’t have a direct answer for that one. Levi for sure. Maybe Theo if he was here. But the others?
We’d need to find their families.
“One thing at a time,” I told her and then I was back at the door and opening it now that she was dressed.
“Lainey…” Adam called my name and I turned to find him striding down the hall. I stepped out of the room and beckoned to Andrea. She didn’t even make it across the threshold before Adam swallowed her up in a hug.
The tears burning in my eyes made the whole thing waver. We found her.
We found her.
Chapter
Thirty-Three
BODHI
Counting the guard I took out on our way in, we found a total of four men on the grounds. They were all low-level men, hired more for brawn than brains. The people who ran the school, including Juraj Vedriš, were nowhere to be found.
A sweep of the offices showed they’d left in a hurry. Papers were scattered, computers were broken, and files had been shredded.
Someone warned Juraj Vedriš we were coming. I couldn’t even get that angry about it. Too many people were involved the moment Margareta Waldemar and her people involved themselves.
The operation wasn’t shut down. I could only imagine they hadn’t taken the kids with them because they lacked the time to get them all into vehicles without threats of bodily harm.
Despite the locks on the doors, the kids didn’t seem afraid. Uneasy? Yes. Unsettled? Definitely. They were more worried about us, though, than their captors.
Levi—Levente Cassidine Noble—matched the picture Hans had sent through. He’d finally arrived in Prague an hour earlier with many apologies. He’d been tracking down more physical data on the boys.
As it turned out, we’d found them on our own. But there was a lot to do. Margareta Waldemar had brought in more people. Lainey had Andrea wrapped up in a blanket and parked inside a car where she was still speaking to her.
In addition to Andrea, there were five boys and three girls in residence. The girls were silent as ghosts, they barely made eye contact, and didn’t respond to English.
Adam hovered near Lainey and Andrea both, but he was letting the girls talk. A lot had changed in Andrea’s world. Ezra was inside with the Vandals, tearing the place apart for any information they could find.
Levi had been standing with his arms folded and a mutinous expression on his face while he watched Andrea. He clearly wanted to go over there but he didn’t. The other boys were all beginning to isolate themselves from each other.
Abruptly, Levi left that grouping and headed toward me. I spared him a look and took a sip of coffee. The only thing it had going for it was that it was hot.
“Are they really her family?” It came out more a hostile demand than a question. “Like her actual family?”
“Yes,” I told him. “Adam is her brother. Lainey is her sister.”
He blew out a breath, deflating a little. “So they’ll take her back to the States.”
“That’s the plan.” I studied him. “What about you?”
Frowning, Levi twisted to face me. “What about me?”
“Where do you want to go?”
Levi snorted. “Nowhere. Pretty much where I’ve been my whole life.” He waved his hand back at the building that seemed even uglier with the floodlights that someone had set up. “This place…just the latest in a long line of places that take me and eventually don’t want me. I’ll skip the next one.”
I couldn’t blame him. Yet, I wanted to know more. More about what happened to him. Who…
I would need to make another list.
At the same time, I couldn’t stop staring at him. Years of looking. Years of searching. Years of wondering whether he really existed. Now I could reach out and touch him.
“You could take a picture, it might last longer.” The sarcasm fit, but the hostility and the damage shouldn’t. Finally, he shifted and glanced behind him before looking at me again. “Why are you staring at me?”
“Debating how to tell you something.” No point in lying.
“If you’re about to tell me I’ve been sold or something—”
“No,” I said, cutting off that train of thought before he could pick up any speed. “You said you have nowhere to go. That’s not true.”
“Unlike Andi over there, I don’t have any family.”
“Also not true.”
He scowled at me. “You know something I don’t?”
“I know a great many things that you don’t. I will tell you if you let me finish.” I could see elements of me in him. The belligerence. The need to challenge authority. To push back.
My mother—our mother loved to rebel. Apparently, she gave it to both of us.
“Look, I get you’re trying to you know comfort me or something. I’m not a little kid. I figured out how the world works a very long time ago. My mother dumped me on someone to pay a debt. Sold me for service. I just had to grow up to be useful.”
Cold rage spread out from my center. The lies. The lies told to everyone. Him. Mother. Me. “Your mother’s name was Isla.”
Levi blinked. “What?”
“Her name was Isla Cavendish. You were born in New York, in the United States. She was the wife of a powerful man, but unsuited to the pressures of his cut throat world. The first time she exhibited signs of distress and mental exhaustion, he had her packed away to a facility where he didn’t have to see or acknowledge her.”
This time, Levi did not interrupt. He stared at me, and I could read the thoughts running through his head like he had a banner scrolling. This is bullshit. This has to be bullshit.
“Isla loved many things, mysteries. Stories. Adventures. She loved to build adventures and to tackle the bad guys and save the good guys. Some of it was painfully simple, yet the answers to some of life’s most complicated issues can often be found in the simplest of games.”
An ache opened under the bruise on my heart. One that was always there. Probably always would be.
“She was moved from a couple of facilities. She got pregnant once, or so she said. The baby was lost. She was never sure about the story. I confirmed it—eventually—that the first time she was pregnant in one of the facilities, she miscarried when she was about four and a half months along.”
It had been in the records the doctor had kept.
“Did her husband go to see her or something?” Levi asked, a fierce frown tightening his brows. “Facility sounds like a mental hospital or something.”
“No, to my knowledge, he hasn’t seen her since the day he had her committed.” Soon, that bill would be coming due. “He didn’t want to be bothered. He paid generously to make sure she was looked after. But only one or two people ever really visited. As time went on, people forgot she was there. They stopped asking about her.”
“So you’re saying that someone raped her…”
“I don’t know the answer to that. She never called it rape. All I know is, she got pregnant a second time. She was determined to keep this baby. She didn’t want them to take it away again. She did everything she could to hide the pregnancy from her doctors and her caretakers…”
“Kind of hard to do after a while.” Levi raked a hand through his dark hair.
I took another long drink of the terrible coffee. It kept me grounded to this place, the here and the now. It helped keep some of my rage at bay.
“Eventually they found out, right?”
“Yes. The baby was taken. Though everyone tried to say she was never pregnant. The records were erased. Her caretakers were reassigned or retired, they disappeared, one by one. Until the only thing left was a memory…” A memory and a letter she’d left with Lainey’s grandfather.
“So how do you know that she’s really my mother?” Levi stared at me and as hard as he tried to disguise it, there was a rawness to him. A hunger for the knowledge. The world had given him a lot to be angry about. Too much, really.
