She wasn’t the only one with that thought. Before Kelan and his newest challenger could begin their fight, men swarmed the floor. She and Kelan were hurried to a door where an SUV awaited. They were rushed inside. The windows were so heavily tinted that they could see nothing out of them. A black divider separated them from the front seat.
Fiona was shaking. She tried to open the door, but it was locked. What now? Where were they being taken? How were they going to get out of this?
*
Val pulled the back doors of the semitruck open. It was empty, but what a strange setup inside. A thick acrylic window separated two portions of the cargo area. The larger one was covered in pristine white padding. The back portion nearest the doors was left in its raw state.
Kit shined a flashlight into the cargo hold. “What the fuck?”
Angel held up one of the team’s comm units. “Found his earpiece. It was lodged in the bumper.”
“Max, what do we know about his tractor trailer?” Kit asked via his comm unit.
“The truck was reported missing two weeks ago. The tags were stolen a day ago. We can process it for fingerprints, but that’s about all the info we’re going to get from it.”
Kit shook his head. “Great. So now we’ve got two missing people.”
Val jumped down from the truck. “Kelan kept the earpiece I gave him off until it pinged ten miles from here. Either he couldn’t safely turn it on, or he was in the truck and the signal wasn’t getting picked up. Let’s go see what there is where the signal first came online.”
Kit called the truck in to Lobo for processing, then they made the drive out east, deep into the prairie. The original ping had come from what looked like a big steel horse arena. There were no vehicles in the parking area, but it was clear that there had been a lot of them there recently.
“Max, what other buildings are near here?” Kit asked.
“Nothing. Not for a good two miles in any direction. That building is the only thing in that whole section.”
The door wasn’t locked. Angel and Val entered from the front, Kit from the back. As soon as they cleared the building and knew it was empty, they flipped the lights on. Stadium rows stood like aluminum skeletons in the dusty arena floor.
“Kelan was here,” Angel said, holding up his abandoned clothes and boots.
“Shit, look at this,” Val said in the center of the stadium seating. “A fucking throne. Was King here?”
Kit was looking around the compacted dirt…and all the blood that stained it. He frowned. “I don’t know, but I got a bad feeling about how much time those two have left. If any. We need to find them, fast.”
Chapter Seven
Kelan wore only his boxer briefs. They’d left in such a hurry that he hadn’t been able to grab his clothes. He’d lost his earpiece during the fight in the truck. Hopefully, it hadn’t broken. If the guys could pick up its signal, they’d be after them quickly.
He reached over and squeezed Fiona’s hand. He couldn’t make out much of her features, but he could tell that she turned to him. He didn’t smile, because it didn’t seem appropriate given where they were, and she would see it anyway.
He’d seen a blanket folded on the back seat when he got in. He grabbed it and put it around her, getting her to fold her legs so that her feet were tucked in. She leaned against him. He kissed her forehead, pulling in her scent. She didn’t smell like her usual strawberries, but some foreign soap he didn’t recognize. Beneath it all, he could still catch her essence in the mix, and he focused on that. It was unimaginably fine having her in his arms, even if they were still snagged in their captor’s crazy world.
They drove far out into the country. The roads in this part of rural Colorado were divided into square sections two miles by two miles. When they’d left the arena, they were headed south. The driver took occasional turns off then back on the same road, either to confuse Kelan or to dodge anyone following them.
At last, they pulled off the road onto a driveway more gravelly than the dirt road. The vehicle stopped, but no one got out. After a moment, they pulled forward a short distance, then stopped again. Kelan felt the vehicle jerk, then had a distinct feeling they were descending…down, down, down.
The air in the cab of the SUV stopped smelling like newly harvested fields and started smelling like recycled air, as if from inside a building.
When their descent ended, the driver pulled forward and turned into what had to be a parking spot. He shut the engine off.
Fiona’s hand tightened on his. If they were to die, if there was no way to get out of this, they would die together. It was the only comforting thought he could summon at the moment.
The two men in the front of the SUV got out and opened their doors. “Get out and come with us.”
The guards separated them, each taking an arm, and guided them across a parking garage. They entered an elevator and again descended. How many floors, Kelan couldn’t determine because each level had a name not a number.
Their handlers’ disposition changed as the group stepped out of the elevator. They didn’t jerk, pull, or prod them anymore. Now their hold was light on their arms. Kelan sent a look around the place, awed by its elegance. The floor was polished marble topped with a red runner that went the whole length of the hall. Tall marble columns stood like sentinels every fifteen feet. Between each column was either a long banner with a slogan supporting the principles of a new world order or a sculpture or a painting. Except for the banners, the whole place looked like a museum that might be found in any large city.
“Where are we?” Kelan asked.
“King’s Warren.”
And that was about as helpful as anything the rabbit might have said to Alice when she fell into his burrow. They walked through a few corridors, went down some stairs, turned into another hallway, and soon came to a stop. His guard unlocked a door and led them inside.