Chapter Sixteen

Ever

E veryone agrees with Trick’s statement, but his phone starts ringing loudly before Trick can say anything else. He looks at the screen and frowns.

“Mr R,” he greets, letting us know who is calling, “yeah one moment,” he presses a few buttons and then says, “Okay you’re on speaker.”

“Emmerson’s missing,” he says bluntly, and I immediately sit up in my seat, “she’s still not supposed to leave headquarters, but we’ve lost her in the last hour or so; I wouldn’t be concerned; she’s just lost her mom it would be understandable if she wanted to have some time alone, but I didn’t realize that she was outside of my office while I was talking to Rylie about a possible location for Hunt. There is a chance that she heard us and has gone after him.”

“Fuck, I knew something was off with her when I saw her the other day. It would surprise me more if she were just hidden at headquarters somewhere,” I curse.

We all get up, leaving the table and heading to our weapons room, where we keep all of our gear, and the equipment that we are likely to need when we get called out on a last-minute job, including go bags.

“What's the location? We will go and check it out,” Trick asks and then adds, “how long ago did she leave?”

“Well that’s one of the reasons why we were calling you,” Mr R starts to explain, “you are the closest team, if she has gone to where we got the intel that Hunt was sighted then the location is only two hours away from you. I will send you the location now.”

While Trick carries on talking to Mr R, we all get our weapons on and make sure that we’ve got the kit we need while we head out to the trucks and climb in, Trick puts his phone down as he connects to the truck that we’re in and Mr R’s voice comes through the speakers.

“Got it,” Cash says from the passenger seat as he types the address into the sat nav.

The others are all in the second truck, pulling out behind us. As soon as Trick is done on the phone with Mr R, he will call Atlas so we can fill them all in on what is going on.

“She’s going to be there before we get there,” I mutter.

“We called you as soon as we could,” Mr R replies, worry in his tone. “Just to be clear, she is not a suspect or the bad guy in this situation. She is a woman in pain who, if she is there, made a silly choice and needs to be brought back home.”

“Got it,” Trick replies, “we’ll call you as soon as we have her.”

“I hope we’re not too late,” Rafe says anxiously.

“Me too,” Mr R replies and hangs up the phone.

Trick looks in the rear-view mirror at Peter, who is sitting next to me, his tablet already out as he taps away at the screen although I'm unsure what he’s doing.

“Pete, can you pull up the aerial view of the location, so we know what we’re dealing with, and find me a safe place to put our cars?”

Pete nods, “Already on it. I can direct you to a safe place to park once we are closer to the location.”

“Great, thanks man,” Trick replies.

Cash interrupts their conversation, “Before you tell us what you can about the location, let me call the other car, they’re going to need to know too.”

We wait as he dials the other car using Trick’s phone.

“Hey, we’ve got the location; she’s got quite a head start on us, so we need to be prepared for what we might find,” Cash says, brutally honest as always.

“Understood,” Atlas replies.

“Hopefully, Hunt is once again one step ahead of us, and he’s not there, which means Emmerson will be safe and just pissed off,” Luc suggests, his voice coming through the speakers clearly.

“I think that’s the best outcome that we can hope for,” Riot replies from the other car.

“Alright, let’s stop the speculation for a moment. I don’t want to distract us from what we have got to do,” Trick interrupts.

It’s a good job too, because we all need to be focused on what is happening now and not the what ifs, just like every job that we do. Of course, not focusing on the what ifs is a little bit harder than it usually is because it is Emmerson, we all know and like her.

I am kicking myself; I knew that there was something off with her when I saw her. I even mentioned it to the guys, and we just put it down to the fact that she had just lost her mom. I should have asked, I should have made certain that she was really okay. Of course, when we saw her, she hadn’t yet heard Mr R and Rylie talking, but she wasn’t herself and I just wish that I had done something or said something.

Peter nudges me slightly, a knowing look as he shakes his head silently, telling me that there is nothing that we could have done about it.

“Alright, Pete,” Trick says, interrupting our silent conversation, “what can you tell us about the location?”

Peter clears his throat and looks down at the screen, “I can show you all properly when we stop, but it looks like it is in the warehouse district, so there shouldn’t be too many people around since they all shut down for the workday. The warehouse that we are looking at is one that we have suspected belongs to Hunt, but we haven’t had any solid evidence that he is actually there.”

Cash interrupts, “We’ve had so many more definite leads that we’ve not bothered to check this one out yet, but when we got intel that Hunt would be there it was decided to check it out.”

“That makes sense,” Rage says.

“Anyway, the warehouse where he’s supposed to be is a pretty standard one, there’s three entrances that we can take so I suggest that we split up and come at it from all angles,” Peter continues to explain, “I don’t like the area, there’s a lot of places that we could be ambushed from, so we’re going to have to move as quickly and carefully as we can.”

“Understood,” Trick says, while everyone else makes sounds of agreement as well.

It has been a long time since it has happened to me, but hearing that Peter doesn’t like the area, makes a shiver of apprehension go down my spine. I steel myself, we have got this.

Emmerson will be fine because she has to be.

Fortunately, she has made a great impression at headquarters in a short amount of time, and everyone is really quite fond of her; she has proven herself incredibly valuable and an actual genius when it comes to all thing's tech and weaponry, and we know that she is a victim. We know that she had no choice but to help Hunt and that as soon as she was somewhere that she could fight against him, that is what she chose to do, which says a lot about the kind of person that she is.

It is for all of those reasons, that she is not going to get in trouble for getting out of Headquarters when she is supposed to be staying put, and going after Hunt. Don’t get me wrong, I am sure Mr R is going to have a long discussion with her about how dangerous it was to go after Hunt with absolutely no training and knowing how valuable she is to him, but that is about it.

I kind of feel like Mr R is going to insist on her training as an agent after this, at least for his own peace of mind. Everyone who works at headquarters has a certain level of training just in case something happens to the place, and because they are all highly sought after and know a lot of important information, so it would be to the organization's detriment if they didn't know how to protect themselves and weren't property trained.

Of course, all of this is assuming that she is okay, there is a chance that Hunt really was there and has either taken her, or killed her, for escaping him in the first place. Neither option bears thinking about.

The drive is tense, and I feel like it is taking forever, even though Trick is driving as fast as he can possibly go safely. My knee is bouncing up and down, and Rafe’s big hand lands on my thigh. He doesn’t try to stop my nervous bouncing, acknowledging that I need to let my excess energy out somehow; all he does is offer me his support, and rubs circles on my leg with his thumb. It is surprisingly relaxing, and it makes me take a deep breath and calm my unease. It does absolutely no good to go into a job nervous; the only thing that does is cause you to make mistakes, and in our line of work, you can’t afford to make mistakes. It could cost lives.

I glance outside the window just in time to see a road sign, we haven’t got long left until we get to the town where the warehouses are.

“Peter, can you navigate from this point?” Cash asks.

“Yeah, sure,” he says, as he turns his tablet on again and pulls up the map of the town. “Take the next left.”

Rage

T he town is a lot smaller than I thought it was going to be, and I feel a little bit like I don’t have nearly the amount of information that I need, and I don’t like it.

I get why she has gone after him, I do. I would probably do the same if I were in her situation. The difference is that I am well-trained and have years of experience under my belt in this kind of work. Emmerson doesn’t. I know that she has picked up a few things simply from being in that world, but she doesn’t know enough to protect her, and she absolutely doesn’t know enough to go up against someone like Hunt. She would realize that if she were thinking clearly and not blinded by her grief.

“Shit, should we let Quinn know that Emmerson’s gone off? They knew each other, didn’t they?” Riot suddenly asks.

Luc shakes his head, “I can’t remember.”

“I think they did,” Ever’s voice comes over the speakers from the other car, “I don’t think it would be a good idea to tell him until we know what’s going on and until we know what we’re dealing with.”

“Good point,” Riot replies, “we have no idea what we’re walking into.”

“I have messaged Rylie.” Ever says and then goes on to explain, “She’s gotten really close with Emmerson recently, but she’s been on so many jobs recently, getting as many of Hunt’s associates as possible that she hasn’t really spent much time at headquarters, choosing to crash at her place instead, wherever that is.”

“That makes sense,” Peter replies. “She’s spent quite a lot of time with Emmerson.”

“Yeah, she’s making her way to headquarters now so that she can be there when we get back,” Ever says. “Depending on how long this takes she should hopefully be back by the time that we get back with Emmerson.”

“That’s lovely of her,” Cash says, “I have a feeling that Emmerson is most likely going to need some support, and that’s probably better coming from someone she’s comfortable with.”

“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking too,” Ever replies. “I just hope that it’s only emotional support that she needs and not a hospital.”

“Let’s just get there and figure this out,” Rafe replies.

It doesn’t escape any of our notice that he doesn’t tell Ever that he’s sure Emmerson's going to be fine. We never make false promises in these situations and Ever knows that. She wouldn’t give us false promises either.

“We need to pull into the left here,” Peter suggests, “there is a small dead-end road that we should be able to leave the cars in, and the warehouse we want is a couple of blocks away. We can get there by foot, it will be a lot less conspicuous.”

“Got it,” Trick replies.

Atlas follows him and we quickly get out of the car, checking our weapons and then gathering around Peter so he can show us the warehouse and the details.

“Alright, so this is the warehouse, as far as I can tell, it is a usual warehouse, nothing special about it. It stands in its own yard, but I checked the specs, and there is no security that I can tell; there is a chance that it is just not listed, so we still need to be careful.” Peter starts to explain, “There are three points of entry: one here, here, and here. I suggest that we split up and come in from all angles. I can’t get a live view of the place, especially now it is dark, so I have no idea what we are dealing with, and although I triple-checked, there don’t seem to be any cameras in the area that I can hack into.”

“Wouldn’t that suggest that something is going on there and that Hunt has done something to the cameras that were in the area?” Luc asks thoughtfully.

Peter nods, “Yeah, it could do, or it could just not have cameras, either way, we need to be extremely careful. The team going to the back entrance need to split off here and go this way, the team that is going in the side door need go further up and then split off here and the team going in the front needs to carry straight on.”

I smile. It's amazing how far we have come over the years and how efficiently we do our jobs and have settled into our roles. I am proud of us.

Trick nods, “Anything else?”

Peter shakes his head, “Nope, that’s everything.”

“Great, thanks Pete. Ever, Luc and Atlas, you go through this door around the back,” Trick starts, and they nod, “Rafe, Riot, and Peter, you go through this door on the side, and Rage, Cash, and I will go through the front. Try to get in as stealthily as possible. We have no idea what we are walking into.”

“Got it,” I reply.

“Yes, Boss,” Jensen grins.

“Let’s go get Emmerson,” Trick replies.

“Wait, do we need to split up now, so we don’t draw attention to ourselves?” Rafe asks.

“He has got a point. We are a big group.” I agree.

Peter shakes his head, “No, I thought that on the way up so I did some quick research, as I suspected might be the case they throw warehouse parties quite often around this area, if anyone sees us, they’ll just assume that we’re going to one of them.”

We all start walking, since Peter gave us the go-ahead and we all start talking amongst ourselves. We need to remain calm and relaxed, so we don’t arose any suspicions in anyone, not that I have seen a single soul since we have started walking. Just because I haven’t seen them doesn’t mean that we are not being watched, and that is why we need to look like some normal, twenty-somethings going to the club.

“Good thinking,” Jensen compliments Peter and then looks down at his outfit, “although my outfit doesn’t exactly scream club-ready.”

Peter chuckles, running his hand through his mousey brown and blonde hair, his newest colour choice, and adds, “And you think I am? I would never be seen dead in a club in this outfit.”

“Guy’s we aren’t actually going to a club,” Ever interrupts with a smile, as Jensen and Pete start to get into it, about what they would wear.

“Shit, yeah,” Jensen replies and then adds, “we should go soon though.”

“I’m up for that,” Pete agrees with a grin and then becomes serious again.

“I can't remember the last time that I actually went dancing,” Ever says somewhat wistfully.

The guys and I share a look at the longing in her voice and without words it becomes a unanimous decision that we are going to need to take her soon. I can guarantee that those of us that hadn’t intended to go with Pete and Jensen, are now happily going to go now that they realise that it is something that Ever wants to do.

I have no idea how we’re going to swing it, or when we will have the time but we will find the time, we need to find time to do these sorts of things as often as possible, we can’t just work all of the time and expect that to be it.

The walk is longer than it looked on the map, and I find my thoughts drifting to Jynx. It is very unlike her to tell Ever that she may call us in, I will still be extremely surprised if she actually does, Jynx doesn’t want to involve us in the illegal shit because we are now technically on the legal side. To be honest, she never really liked to involve Atlas and me in her stuff either, we would be on the periphery, but never fully involved and never knowing all the details.

Back then, I think it was because we were still relatively young, and we had our plates pretty fucking full, taking down everything to do with Liam, which turned out to mostly be things to do with Blake. I think what it really comes down to is that she worries, and she doesn’t want to involve us in dangerous shit. She is a thousand times worse than Atlas ever was about the guys being involved, and that’s saying a lot, considering he was pretty fucking awful about it. I understood his reasoning, but at the same time, he had told me enough stories about the guys back then that I knew that not only could they handle the shit that we do, but they would also be a massive help.

They proved that when they finally were brought in, against Atlas’s wishes, we got shit done quicker with them involved than we did without them.

“Alright, Ever, Luc, and Atlas, it’s your turn to split off,” Peter says, and they nod, heading down the small road next to the building; they have to take a few streets so they can circle around the area that buildings in and approach it from the back.

“Don’t forget to turn your earpieces on as you approach the building so we can hear where you are, and if you’ve found anything,” Cash reminds them.

“Got it,” Ever replies.