Amelie is nowhere to be seen. We’ve searched the entire back lawns and we have a team in the trees scouring for her, everyone is trying to make sure she hasn’t been found or taken off of school property, but I’m starting to get worried. No one has seen her.
Frost comes racing up to me.
“We have an issue. Somehow the vehicles that breached the perimeter with Harold's men scrambled the signals, so we have no way of knowing if she’s been taken out that way. I have my men securing them again now so that if anyone exits once it’s back up, we’ll know.”
“Thanks, Frost. Keep us informed.”
We part ways. I saw Kalen go into the back building not that long ago and he hasn’t come back out, so I can head that way in my search for Amelie and hopefully kill two birds with one stone.
Think, Slate, where the hell would Amelie go? She’d want to make sure that her family is safe, us too. So why the fuck haven’t we seen her yet? Unless she was injured, she would find a place to hide.
Adrianne rushes towards me, blood pouring from her nose. “Fuck! Someone sucker punched me in the damn nose! Has anyone found her yet?”
I shake my head no. “Why are you still here? You were supposed to leave the second anything went down. You need to think about your brother.”
“He’s safe. Frost has his daughter watching her at the new safe house.”
“That isn’t the point. You can’t die,” I insist.
“This is what I signed up for, so that he can have the best damn life possible. So if that means I have to die for that to happen, then I will. I know he’d be looked after, and I owe all that to Amelie.”
“You owe it to Kalen, actually.”
She sneers at me through blood filled teeth.
“Go and get that nose looked at and then go.”
She begrudgingly agrees, leaving me to my search.
The first door inside the building is locked. I kick at it, but the damn thing doesn’t budge. I really don't want to draw attention to myself too much right now, but I use my gun to smash the small glass window anyway, moving the blinds out of the way and opening the door.
Blood doesn’t bother me. After a while it’s something you just deal with. The smell is the same if it’s fresh.
The front of the room looks like someone was shot at close range.
I panic, searching the room frantically. Blood pools behind a door at the back of the room and I suddenly approach very slowly. Apprehensive. Scared. I don’t know what I’ll do if it’s her. Onyx wouldn’t survive it…I don’t know if any of us would.
Time slows to a standstill as I hesitate. I run a hand through my hair before I reach out and pull the door open. My heart hammers inside my chest and my palms are sweaty as a body slumps forward.
It’s not Amelie.
Life returns to my bones as I realise it’s Laura. Relief floods me. We had planned on dealing with her after today. If she went missing before graduation, Harold would have gotten suspicious and changed his plans. But right now I’m kind of pissed that we didn’t. We didn’t expect helicopters. I’m not entirely sure what we did expect, but we were blindsided. The massive off-road vehicles some of his damn team came in is more the style we were expecting.
“Laura is dead,” I say over the earpiece.
“Did you kill her?” Onyx asks.
“Nope, she was stuffed in a small supply closet, gun-shot wound to the head.”
“Good riddance, she was next on our list anyway. Saves us the trouble,” Onyx barks back.
“Has anyone heard from Kalen?” Sawyer asks.
“He came in here about ten minutes ago, I haven’t seen him since,” I reply.
“I’ll head around to the back of the building, you go back through the side exit and check there.”
“On it,” I state.
I leave Laura's lifeless body lying on the ground and head back out of the room. We can have a clean up team deal with her later. Right now, Amelie and Kalen haven't been seen and we need to find them.
I make my way to the side exit and through the emergency doors that are wide open. There’s no one there. I head down to the school lines to check the perimeter. There’s a patch of shrubs along the back fence where the weed smokers think that they can hide because there’s a gap between the trees and the fence. Pity that shit can be smelt from a mile away. The shrubs run parallel to the entire fence line on this side of the school. I’m sure it’s a way to stop onlookers from the road behind peering in and seeing into the school grounds.
“Serves you right for being a cock muncher!”
I hear Bex and run towards the sound of her voice, being careful to keep myself hidden. I see the SUV and Amelie with a potato sack over her head being thrown into the vehicle. I don’t care about being seen now; I run as fast as my legs can take me, still inside the fence line. I couldn’t climb over it in time. There’s a massive hole just up ahead – again the stoners escaping to do god knows what.
The car pulls out and speeds off down the road. I watch to see which way they turn at the fork in the road before I radio it in. No point running, even Onyx couldn’t catch a car moving at that speed.
“I found Amelie, but—”
“But what?” Onyx growls. “But what Slate? Answer me!”
“She was taken and Bex too. A black SUV by the stoner’s hedge. They took a right at the fork.”
“Everyone meet in the back car park where our vehicles are. We’ll head out.”
“I’ve called in some backup in the air, we can follow them from the sky,” Baxter chimes in. Finally! He’s been silent until now.
“Fuck, I have eyes on Kalen and it isn’t good. Everyone go and find Amelie. I will deal with this,” Sawyer informs us.
“Is he hurt?” I ask, that unshakable sense of dread growing more with every minute.
“No, but Harold has made an appearance,” Sawyer answers. I sigh in relief. We can deal with that.
“Don’t kill him! He has a lot to answer for,” Onyx snaps.
“Wouldn’t dream of it. A clean up team is on their way now, all Order members are being transported to HQ as we speak. Be safe. Call me with a location when you have it. I’ll take Harold and make sure he’s awaiting your return, now go and save our girl.”
I follow orders and make my way to Frost’s and Sawyer’s cars. I’m just hoping that Baxter pulls through with his eye in the sky contact, because the only way we’ll find that car now is from above.