“Where the fuck is she?!” Hawk snarls, echoing my inner thoughts. He spins, pinning West with his intense stare. “Where else would they be holding her?”
West’s tablet is already in his hand, and lines furrow his forehead as he pulls up an image on the screen. Leaning in so I can get a better look, I notice he’s looking at a much more comprehensive layout of the compound than the half-complete one we drew up several days ago.
“There’s a couple of places, but I don’t know for sure.” Beck leans in over his shoulder to study the blueprints too, and West spares him a glance before focusing back on the screen. “You don’t know where they conduct punishments?”
“No,” Beck murmurs, staring just as intently at the tablet. He reaches out to touch the screen, zooming in on a particular part of the map. “But if I had to guess, I’d say it’s there.”
The rest of us move closer so we can see where he’s pointing at. “Why?” I ask, trying to work out how he’s narrowed it down to that corner of the compound. The area he’s pointed out on the blueprint isn’t labeled as any particular sector. It could be a storage room or anything.
He grimaces. “Because there’s a small morgue beside it and a loading dock out back.”
His words make my stomach revolt, and a desperate need to find Hadley claws at my insides. Tension fills the air as the guys shift uncomfortably, and I can feel the molten hot anger pouring off Hawk as he restrains himself from storming out of here until we’ve got a plan.
Still deep in thought as he stares at the screen, Beck ponders, “Hadley mentioned once about being taken to a room when Lawrence visited her.”
“You think my father is here?” I snarl, my own anger flaring.
He shakes his head. “What I mean is, Lawrence would have ensured whatever room she was taken to for his visits was secure, so they might be holding her there, away from any other guards or recruits.
I grit my teeth in anger, itching to get a move on. “Okay, so she might be there, or wherever they take recruits to punish them.” My nose wrinkles just saying those words, and I try not to picture young children being dragged kicking and screaming to some hellish corner of this place, where they can be tortured. It doesn’t work, and vomit blocks my airway as I struggle to swallow it down.
West, whose gaze hasn’t once left the tablet while the rest of us talk around him, points to another unlabeled area of the blueprint. “There are a few blanked out areas; they could be keeping her in any of them.”
“We need to split up.” Hawk’s words are sharp. He’s just as keen as I am—as we all are—to get a move on. We can’t afford to waste time just standing around.
West nods his head in agreement. “You guys check out the blank areas on the map, I can go back to the control room and go over the security footage, see if I can track her movements.”
“You’re not going there alone,” Mason snaps. “I’ll go with you.”
“Wilder and I will check out the blank area beside the morgue,” Hawk states before West can argue with Mason. “Cam, you and Beck go through the other unlabeled areas. We’ll all meet back here in twenty minutes.”
We all nod, and snapping a picture of the blueprint on West’s tablet, Beck and I take off, heading for the closest area on the map.
Please be there, baby.
Reaching the first unmarked area, I share a glance with Beck, and guns at the ready, we pull open the steel door. Nothing but an empty space lies beyond, with doors leading off of it. A pit forms in my stomach. God, please let this just be a storage space.
Each of us take a side of the room, and I enter the code and pull open the first door, ready to shoot any fucker who lunges at me. I breathe out a sigh of relief when I find the room empty. My brows pull together in confusion as I glance around the small space. There’s nothing but a bed in the room. Maybe it’s a sleeping quarters for guards on duty?
My gaze catches on chains dangling from the wall above the headboard, following them down to metal cuffs that are resting on the mattress, and any hopeful thoughts I had quickly dissipate.
“Beck.” My voice sounds strained even to my own ears.
“I see it.” The heavy weight in his tone only makes me feel more ill, and I hurriedly shut the door, spinning around in the small space as I stare at each of the closed doors. One, two…five, six. Six. There are six rooms in here, and I’m guessing each one is laid out the same.
As my thoughts spiral, I stare wide-eyed at Beck, taking in the ticking of his jaw and the darkened color of his eyes. I’m too shocked to move, instead watching him as he clears the rest of the rooms. As soon as he enters the code for the last room, the door flies open, and a guard comes crashing through it, colliding with Beck. The two of them go tumbling to the ground in a brawl, fists flying as Beck wrestles to gain the upper hand.
Frozen for a second, I stand and watch them, before raising my gun and aiming it, but I can’t get a clear shot. Tucking it back in my pants, I’m about to dive in and help when I hear a frightened whimper coming from the darkened room behind me. Forgetting about the fight happening in front of me, I take a hesitant step, then another, toward the noise.
Stepping into the doorway, my jaw drops when I find a young boy, no older than ten or eleven, wearing only a pair of briefs, chained to the bed. His eyes widen in fear, giving him an owlish appearance, as he stares at me. When his lower lip trembles, it unfreezes my feet to the floor, and I rush toward him.
“Hey, you’re okay,” I try to reassure him in a low, calm tone. My eyes roam over the chains, and the cuffs fastened around his wrists. “I’m going to get these off you. Do you know where the key is?”
The kid looks at me for a long second, before he glances behind me. Turning, I notice the guard’s uniform shirt and holster in a pile on the floor. Moving over to them, there’s a key sitting on top of the pile, and I grab it and the shirt, and hurry back to the bed, quickly undoing the cuffs.
“Here, put this on.” I hand the kid the guard’s shirt so he can cover up, and he doesn’t hesitate before taking it from my outstretched hand.
As he’s doing up the buttons, a shadow darkens the doorway, and the kid freezes.
“He okay?” Beck’s deep voice seems to echo around the small room.
“Yeah, he’s fine. You?” I notice he’s got blood trickling from a cut to his brow, and his lip is split, but he nods his head.
The kid’s eyes bounce between the two of us, filled with wary suspicion.
“What are we going to do with him?” I whisper to Beck. “We can’t just leave him here.”
Beck nods his head as he thinks, before moving to the bed where the kid is sitting, and crouching down in front of him.