Chapter 16

It was easier than I expected to get Dipshit to agree to our plan. Even my pride mates—and Simon, too—put up minimal complaints. It was a testament to how annoying and frustrating the situation was. And possibly how deadly it was becoming with how many people the Red Cloth had killed over the past few months.

Cos and I decided to pull in another set of teams so we could have two TRD teams at each location, so Cos made a call to Benton, my magi friend Rylen’s shifter boyfriend. Benton worked for TRD, too, so he didn’t have a problem taking this to his team captain. After figuring out the details, Benton’s team and the team they were grouped with went to one location while my team and Simon’s went to the other.

Currently, my whole team was sitting in an apartment across the street from the first address Renata had given me. The shades were drawn, but we had one person in the back bedroom using their rifle to look, and I was currently using the binoculars we had sitting on a stand to look through the dining room window. We didn’t want the shades moving and drawing attention, hence the binocular stand and the rifle one. It also made it easier to snap photos.

We’d been here for hours already, everyone taking turns on watch while the others sat or lay on the ground or moved around the apartment by bending over or even crawling. We didn’t want shadows moving and catching the enemy’s eye, either. Sure, they might just think it was people who lived here going about their night, but it was the middle of the night, and we had no idea how closely they were watching the surrounding buildings. For all we knew, they knew no one lived here and would therefore know someone was in here who shouldn’t be.

“See any movement yet?” I asked into my HID.

Dare’s voice said, “Nope. Nothing at all. You?”

I sighed. “Not a single thing. What about you, Simon?”

“Nothing. Ash reports seeing nothing from his spot, either. Do you think the source gave the wrong address on purpose?”

I shrugged even though no one could see me. “Maybe, but maybe they’re just sleeping. We have no idea if they’re typically active during the day, night, or both.”

“True enough. At least we’re cleared to continue recon throughout the day, too.”

“Agreed.”

And I did agree, only I’d been hoping we wouldn’t need to continue doing this all day tomorrow, too. Even if we’d been treating the situation as if we were by making the people who weren’t on watch sleep.

When it was my turn to sleep, I thought I’d have trouble, but Cos had made sure we were on the same shift, so he curled around me and his scent seemed to lull me under.

We woke hours later to the smell of food, and I’d turned in his arms so my head was tucked under his chin. Someone had gone out to get takeout, and my stomach was already growling up a storm before Cos and I had even fully woken.

He chuckled in my ear, giving my waist a squeeze. “Your stomach’s talking again. Not surprising at all.”

I flicked his arm. “I’m hungry.”

“That has never been in question.”

I snorted and smacked a kiss to his scruffy chin. “Let me up before I decide to eat you instead.” I pretended to nibble on his chin.

He opened his mouth to respond, but Zara dramatically whisper-yelled, “Oh, my ears. The horror. The flirting. Bleach. I need bleach, stat! Please don’t say another word before I throw up all over you two.” Then she proceeded to fake-gag.

I flipped her off. “I didn’t even mean it like that.”

Cos chuckled. “Sounded like you did with your voice all husky.”

“That’s because I just woke up!”

“Mhm. I’m sure that’s why, baby.” It was his voice that was all sleepy-husky right now. Damn.

I accidentally let out a small groan-whimper thing because hello, sexy lion alert.

“Oh my god, Cos, stop,” Zara whisper-yelled again. “You’re grossing the rest of us out.”

This time, it was my mate who flipped her off, which made me and most of the others laugh.

I stretched and rolled away from my mate even though most of me wanted to stay curled up in his arms for the rest of the day. A yawn escaped as I sat up, staying low and mindful of not making shadows.

“Any movement?” I asked no one in particular.

Jude answered. “Nope. Not a single shadow move, curtain flinch, or anything.”

I frowned and checked the time on my HID. It was mid-afternoon. “Are we thinking there’s no one there, then?”

“That’s my best guess,” Jude said as he passed me a Chinese takeout container that I gratefully took. Not a typical breakfast but a damn sure delicious one. Well, and I suppose we went to bed at like seven in the morning, so it was lunchtime by now. But still breakfast for me.

“So then what’s the plan?”

“Harriet and Simon want to talk to Cos before we make any official plans, but we all want to go inside. Harriet hasn’t picked up any heat signatures in the building this entire time, which is even stranger.”

“Could be magic.” I shrugged before taking a bite and humming in approval.

Cos took his own container from Jude and asked, “Have we run into that kind of witch magic before?”

“No, but that doesn’t mean anything. They keep creating new spells and moving around the city like they’re wearing invisibility shields or something.”

He conceded the point with a nod. “True, but if we haven’t seen any movement, either, in nearly twenty-four hours in a place that’s supposed to be packed with witches, I can’t help but think the place is empty.”

I shrugged. “I agree, but I wanted to point it out so everyone’s prepared for anything when we go inside.”

He nudged me with a small grin. “Of course we’ll be ready.”

I rolled my eyes and looked back at Jude. “Anything at the other location?”

“Nope. Not a single flutter or heat signature from them, either.”

Well, shit.

“This is a trap.”

Jude sighed. “Seems like it. I’m not sure I want to know what’s waiting for us inside that building.”

Honestly, I wasn’t sure, either, but we were going to have to go inside anyway.

We finished eating, cleaned up, and went back to waiting and watching. At the official twenty-four-hour mark, Director Dipshit gave her approval to infiltrate the building.

When we pushed our way inside, there wasn’t a single person left alive.

There were, however, several bodies drained of life force and blood.

The sad thing was that I wasn’t even surprised. Finding drained bodies was becoming commonplace.

Simon came over to me and waved me to follow him, which I did without hesitation now that the building had been cleared. “You need to see this.”

Another message in blood.

We see everything. You can’t hide from us.

My brow furrowed as I read the message three times because this one didn’t seem very personal like the others had. Which was curious since Anderson’s cryptic messages seemed to be getting more personal, not less.

We see everything. You can’t hide from us.

I stared at the message and ran it through my head a few times, trying to understand its meaning. They see everything? Creepy, but okay. We can’t hide from them? I mean… have they actually been looking for us? Pretty sure they could find us easily enough since they knew where we worked and had our address—we had evidence that they had the pride address. It may have been a long time ago, but it wasn’t like we’d moved.

But then the realization hit.

That message wasn’t made for me. It wasn’t made for anyone in the TRD or NHSO.

Oh. Fuck.

I sucked in a breath as I opened my HID and placed a call.

It kept ringing and ringing until it went to voicemail, so I hung up and tried again. And again. And again.

It wasn’t until my fifth vid call that someone picked up.

Renata’s face was worried, her hair was a mess, and she was covered in grime and what could possibly be blood. “Mads,” she whispered, and my heart sank.

“The witches are?—”

“I know. They… they… I barely made it out of there alive, and Tina, she… they killed her, Mads.” A few tears ran down her face, making streaks in what I could now see was definitely dried blood. “I couldn’t save her.”

Tina… I could only assume had been her source.

How the hell did they find her?

I didn’t know what to do or how to help Renata. “You need to get yourself to a hospital, Renata.”

She waved me away.

“Renata, you need to call an ambulance. Tell me where you are, and I’ll call for you.”

She blinked, her eyes narrowing. “Ambulance.”

”Yes. Call one.”

She sniffled a few times and nodded her head. “There’s an ambulance on the way. I called for one, I think. Wait, did I?” She blinked slowly. “Oh! I did because I was trying to save her. I thought if I stopped the bleeding…” She trailed off, crying again, and I felt my stomach drop.

She seemed a little confused? But maybe it was the situation stressing her out? This was freaking me out, that was for sure. I’d never seen this woman cry before, and it wasn’t something I’d ever hope to see again. Especially from a distance where I wasn’t any help at all.

“Is there anyone else with you?” I asked as gently as possible.

“Huh?”

She was acting a little off, but I repeated myself. “Is there anyone else there with you?”

She nodded. “Dan’s putting pressure on Julie’s shoulder.”

“That’s good.”

“I hope they’re both okay. Everyone else is…”

I grimaced. “Okay, why don’t you go help Dan until the paramedics get there?”

She nodded absently and turned her head, assumedly toward these Dan and Julie people. That was when I saw the large head wound on the back of her head. I sucked in a breath.

“Renata?” When she didn’t look back, I said her name louder. “Renata?”

She turned to me, looking confused. “Mads? How’d you get here?”

Oh goddess. “You have a head wound, hun. You need to find a cloth to press on the back of your head.”

“A… cloth.”

Okay, then. Definitely concussed. Her earlier confusion made a little more sense, but made me a million times more worried.

Luckily, I heard a male voice call out in the distance, “She has a head wound?”

“Yes!” I yelled back, hoping he could hear me. “Please help her. It looks really bad.”

“I don’t look bad,” Renata said with a huff of indignation.

“You always look good, Renata,” I said, not wanting her to get angry and hang up.

A few seconds later, legs came into view and that same male voice said, “Oh, Rena. You should’ve told me you’re hurt.”

I could only see what they were doing when the man moved his legs out of the way, but it was clear that he was wrapping gauze around her head.

A face I’d seen in passing a few times moved in front of her HID. “Mads, right?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll give you my number. Send me a text so I have yours, and I’ll give you an update once we’re at the hospital.” He rattled off his number, so I sent a text to him with my name. “I’ve got her, okay? She’ll be fine.”

“Thanks. Keep me posted.”

“Will do.” He hung up, and I blew out a frustrated breath.

Cos moved over to me—I’d been so focused that I hadn’t been paying attention to my surroundings, which was honestly a little scary—and he kissed my temple. “She’s in good hands. Dan’s a good guy.”

I sagged against him. “Yeah?”

“Yes. I’ve spoken to him a few times in the past, and he’s always been nice. His pride looks up to him and respects him. They don’t fear him at all.”

“He’s an alpha?”

“Yes.”

“Oh.”

He kissed my temple again. “She’ll be okay. Let’s finish up here, and we can stop by the hospital, if you want.”

I nodded. “Thank you.”

“How many times do I have to tell you not to thank me for things like this?”

“Maybe once, twice, a million times more.”

He rolled his eyes and gave me a very small and a tiny bit sad smile. “Don’t thank me.”

I huffed. “Whatever.”

After one more temple kiss, Cos went to help finish up the job, and I followed behind him, listening to orders from him, Jude, Harriet, and Simon without much thought.

She’d be okay.

She had to.

She was Renata. The Renata. The person who’d been so damn instrumental in gaining our freedom. One of the leaders of the Cloaked Freeway.

She had to be okay.

Renata’s headwound required stitches, but no surgery. Which we all took as a good sign even though she most definitely had a concussion, so they were keeping her overnight.

Seven people had been killed, including the ex-Red Cloth member that Renata had called Tina. The rest were a mix of humans, shifters, and one mage.

I wasn’t allowed in last night, but I went to see her in the hospital today once she was allowed visitors, and I spoke to Dan in person—he seemed like a nice guy. Renata had reassured me and told me not to worry about her for even a minute more.

Not that simply saying that would help.

I couldn’t exactly turn off the worrywart in me. Goddess, wouldn’t that be awesome if I could?

We had no idea how the Red Cloth had not only found Tina but had somehow known we were coming to their hideouts and fled before we’d arrived. All the conclusions I’d come up with weren’t good, and the most likely even less so.

I thought that maybe Tina had been a trap. That she’d really still been a Red Cloth member, had given us outdated information, and had told the enemy where they were keeping her. The fact she was killed during the attack didn’t seem to mean much one way or another considering how often the Red Cloth used their own people as cannon fodder.

I wasn’t sure we’d ever know the truth.

As far as anyone could tell, Tina hadn’t had a tracker on her person, magically or electronically. But that didn’t mean she didn’t tell them where she was. But… it also didn’t mean that she was guilty. So again, we’d probably never know.

Part of me felt bad putting all the blame on her because for all I knew she really had been trying to escape them, but it was the only thing any of us could come up with.

It sucked, the not knowing. Especially because we didn’t know how to prevent it from happening again if we didn’t even know what we were looking for.

I was sure there truly were humans who wanted to escape the terrorist organization they were a part of. But I hoped they all stayed far, far away from us, Renata, and what was left of the Cloaked Freeway.

The thing was, though, that I had a feeling that if someone came to Renata with a similar story, she wouldn’t hesitate to put them into hiding, protect them, and get them out of the country. Even after all of this, she would help someone in a heartbeat, just because they asked.

“You know she’s going to be okay, baby. They’re only keeping her for one more night, just to be sure. She’s going to be fine,” Cos said from the driver’s seat, placing a hand on my thigh. We were in one of the smaller vehicles since it was just us, Jude, and Kulani.

“I know.” She’d be okay this time. But what about the next time?

Jude and Kulani were talking quietly to each other in the back, and I knew Jude was having similar worries as me. This sucked.

Cos was quiet for a few minutes, but he eventually said, “If we have to wait until next month to complete the tying ceremony, it won’t hurt anything to leave the tying ropes on for that long.”

My head whipped around to stare at him in shock. “You don’t want to do it tomorrow?”

He shook his head, and my heart sank for a moment until he said, “Of course I do, but I don’t want this to be an extra stress for you.”

My eyes widened. “This is the only thing that’s not stressful right now.”

He glanced at me with a small smile. “So you’re okay to go through with it tomorrow night?”

“Yes.”

His smile widened. “Good.”

I picked his hand up off my leg and threaded our fingers together, giving them a squeeze. “Good.”

At least there was one thing in the world I could make right—finally proving to Cos how much I loved him and that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him.

I could set aside all the other shit for one night and just enjoy my mate. I’d make sure of it.