Chapter Three

Trick

"H ow're you getting on with the camera?" Cash asks, changing the subject and getting a grateful look from Luc.

Jensen glances up, "Erm, it's slightly more complicated than I remember it being, but I'm getting there."

"Are you going to get there before we have to explain what we're doing to someone?" Luc asks with a smirk, crossing his arms over his chest.

Jensen scowls and says, "Haha, yes, I'm going to get it done before then." He pauses and adds quietly, "I hope."

I pinch my nose as I take a deep breath. I really shouldn't be surprised; it's Jensen. I should have asked more questions when he said that he could do this, but I got distracted by the talk of the Pit. It's been playing on my mind how much of a risk it's going to be, but we've had a few calls about fights needing to be broken up, and it's needed. We'll just deal with it if it all goes to shit.

Ten more minutes go by, and there's still no progress from Jensen, although he is continually tapping away, and he's stopped answering us, so I know that he's fully in the zone.

We've pretty much all given up and are all sitting on the ground, waiting for him to be done. He was right; there was no way that we could do this at the main entrance to town. It's not quick enough, and it's too exposed; we'd get seen almost immediately, and there's no plausible legal excuse that I can come up with that would cover us as to why we'd be there.

"I'm in!" He exclaims sometime later.

I glance at Rafe and Riot, "No one has driven past this whole time. Why don't you come and watch it."

They make their way over to us with no complaints, and we gather behind Jensen.

"So, I've set it for the day that he left, and I've assumed that he left overnight or in the early morning hours."

"Fair assumption," Riot replies.

"I've quickly fast-forwarded through the footage, which was really boring by the way, no one comes out this way." When we just stare at him, he clears his throat and adds, "This is what I've found."

We all watch the screen and see Atlas's car follow another one out.

"That's his uncle's car, right?" Jensen asks.

I nod, "Yeah."

"Well, no one is chasing them, and they aren't speeding." Cash points out.

"So, at least we know that he left of his own free will," Rafe signs, although he's frowning at the same time.

"Yeah, I still think we're missing something," I muse thoughtfully, "Atlas wouldn't have just left like that, not without telling us first."

"No, he wouldn't." Cash agrees. "But he would also let us know if there was something that he needed help with. So we're just going to have to trust that he had a good reason, and if he can, he'll message."

Even though what he's said is true the words still rub me the wrong way. I don't like the idea of one of us being out there and being in danger.

"I agree, but," Luc starts, and we all look at him, "we all know that he's not safe. There was always something going on behind the scenes that he wouldn't tell us about."

"That's why I don't like it; if something had happened with his father, we're more than capable of helping no matter what it is," Jensen replies, as he just pulls the wire out of the camera instead of taking it out properly which just shows how angry he is.

"Knowing Atlas, it's probably something to do with wanting to keep us safe," I reply, even though I don't like the answer.

"What do we do now, then?" Riot asks.

I shrug, "What Cash said, I guess; we wait and hope that he messages when he can."

"We could check his cabin?" Jensen suggests, and I know that he just wants to make sure that we've covered all bases and that we're one hundred percent sure that he's okay and has just disappeared.

I look around at the others and see that they all want to go up there as well.

I shrug, "Sure, we can head up there."

Cash looks at his watch, "We've got enough time before curfew."

"Not that it's ever stopped us before," Luc adds with a smirk.

"Come on then, let's head up before it gets too late," I reply.

As we all head back to the truck, I can't help but think that this is a waste of time, but if it makes Jensen feel better about Atlas's sudden disappearance, then we'll go.

We know where he lived because we dropped him off a couple of times, but honestly, we have never been inside. Hell, in all the time that we knew him, we only ever saw his uncle from a distance. I couldn't point him out in a lineup, and actually, now that I'm thinking about it, I think that it was definitely for a reason.

The cabin where they were living is only just inside the town limits and is pretty much as far away from everything else as they could get it. I have to admit that I have lived here all of my life, and I had no idea that there were even cabins up here until Atlas said this was where he was living.

The driveway is long, winding, and very overgrown. If you didn't know any better, you'd assume that the cabin had been abandoned for a lot longer than a couple of weeks. All of these things were signs that something else was going on with Atlas but we trusted that he'd tell us when he was ready and he is one of us so we were willing to wait as long as it took.

"Is everyone armed?" I ask in the silence of the truck.

"Always," Jensen grins, producing a knife from somewhere unknown and spinning it in his fingers.

He really should cut himself a lot more often than he does.

Everyone else quickly replies that they're armed as well. I'm not surprised; we never go anywhere without a weapon on us. It's a lot better to need a weapon and have one than to need one and not have one, and because of the kind of people we are, we need weapons more often than we don't.

"Good. They may have left willingly, but we don't know if something happened first in order to make them leave." I reply.

"Good point," Riot agrees.

"The place looks abandoned," Cash says as we pull up outside.

"It always has," Jensen replies, not wasting any time as he hops out of the truck.

We're silent as we approach the cabin, our eyes scanning our surroundings to make sure that we're the only ones here. Not that any of us would turn down a fight; we're all on edge. As he watches the front of the small cabin, Jensen bounces on his toes; he is more on edge than the rest of us, although he always is. I can't remember the last time that darkness wasn't in his eyes; even when he's laughing and messing around, they're still shadowed.

"There's no signs of a struggle or anything like that," Luc comments, his eyes sharp.

Riot is the first one to reach the door, and he jiggles the handle, "It's locked, Jensen. You're up."

"On it," he replies with a grin, his lock-picking set already in his hands.

Within less than a minute, he has it unlocked and is pushing the door open.

Without me needing to tell them, they all pull out their weapons before we head inside. None of us are willing to take the risk of being ambushed, especially since he left so suddenly.

The cabin is small, but then there were only two of them living here, so it didn't need to be big. The downstairs area is just one big room, with a kitchen at one end and a living area at the other. The furniture is still here, but there's nothing else, no personal effects or anything like that, which makes sense because they left, and there's no one living here anymore. The upstairs is just as empty as the downstairs, with two bedrooms and a bathroom, that's it.

"The place is empty," Cash says as we gather in the front room area of the downstairs.

"And clean," Rafe adds, "and I mean a hell of a lot cleaner than it should be."

"You think they wiped the place?" Riot asks, following Rafe's train of thought quicker than the rest of us do.

"Well, we know that there was something going on with him," Rafe replies with a shrug, his hands moving quickly as he signs, "Something more than just a shitty home life. He had skills that he shouldn't have, and he was more than comfortable in our world, especially considering the fact that most of what we do isn't legal. It's not a stretch to think that he would need to wipe a place of prints before he left."