Chapter Eighteen

Ever

P eter grins, “Yes, you are.” When she sighs sadly, he crouches down next to her and adds, “But you are also kind, generous, fun, and incredibly talented when it comes to all things tech. You have made a lot of friends in the short time you have spent with us. There is no way that Mr R is going to not allow you to come back, not only because we all want you there, we recognize a mistake, and more importantly, you do too, but because it would now be incredibly unsafe to have you anywhere else.”

“He’s right, even in the unlikely event that he didn’t want you back at headquarters, he absolutely wouldn’t just abandon you; that’s not how he or we work,” Trick adds.

“You really think he’s going to let me carry on working there?” she asks, hope flooding her features and making her look a lot younger than her nineteen years.

I nod, “Absolutely, although I have to warn you, I think he’s most likely going to insist that you get some proper training, just in case something like this happens again.”

Emmerson nods, “I’d actually really like that.”

“You won’t by the time he’s done,” Jensen says, a shiver running through him.

He was not a fan of our training. A fact that still amuses me, especially since he was actually the top of our class in most of the training exercises. He just fucking hated it.

“Someone should probably go outside and wait for the teams to arrive,” Cash suggests.

“I’ll go,” Rage says.

“I’ll come with you,” Luc says.

We watch as they walk away, and then I turn to Pete, “Do you have your wand thing that checks for microchips?”

Pete nods, “Yeah, we should probably start checking them. We should also get the handlers to check for anything in their mouths that could be broken and end their lives.”

“Good point,” Trick agrees.

I decide to go around with Pete and see if any of them have any chips; as we approach the first one, I ask, “What’s the protocol for if we do find microchips in one of them?”

“We deactivate it, which these things can do as well as detect them, and then we cut it out,” Peter says and then, seeing my raised eyebrows, chuckles slightly before adding, “They aren’t that deep under the skin, all you need is a little shot of topical anesthetic and a tiny slice, then you take some tweezers and take it out, you don’t even need stitches after.”

“Oh, okay, that doesn’t sound too bad. Not that I'm usually opposed to the bad guys suffering a bit of pain, but we know that he blackmails a lot of people, so some of them are innocent.” I explain.

“I know,” Peter grins.

It doesn’t take long for us to go through the ones in the warehouse, and I am unsurprised that all of them have chips in them.

“Cash?” Pete calls.

“Yeah, man?” he replies as he jogs over.

“All of these have the chips,” Peter replies.

Cash takes a bag off his back that I didn’t even know that he was carrying and says, “Okay, I can start removing some of them now, since Luc’s gone to meet the others and I brought my kit as well, the last thing we need is for these guys to start dropping like flies.”

Pete nods, “We need to check the ones outside. Do you have a pen in there?”

Cash nods, and pulls it out handing it to Pete with a slightly confused frown. Peter takes it with a brief thank you and then goes around the group of hostiles again, he scans them and then places a mark, in pen, where the microchip is.

Once he is done, he comes back and hands the pen back to Cash, as he explains, “This way I don’t need to scan them with you, you can get to work removing them while I head outside and scan the others.”

Realization dawns on Cash’s face and he says, “Good idea. Take the pen and mark the others as well if they have the microchips, that way we can get them out a lot quicker when the others get here, we don’t really want them to be leaving this area with the chips still in them even if we manage to deactivate them.”

Peter nods and takes the pen, I follow him back out the way we came, coming to the back entrance of the building, when we open the door, we come face to face with some of our people.

I hold up my hand, “Before we move them, we need to scan for microchips and remove them.”

“Okay, Ever.” One of them says, “I have got my medic bag with me just in case any of you needed assistance, and so has Felix, who is with the team that has gone to collect the hostiles from the side entrance. We have both been trained in removing them.”

“Great,” Peter says and holds up the pen and the scanner, “I'm going to scan and deactivate the chips, then I will mark the exact area on each one where the chip is. That way, you can remove them without me needing to wait for you to do one before you move on to the next.”

“And we can move more quickly onto the hostiles at the side door, so they don’t move them before we can get the chips out,” I add.

“Got it,” he says.

I watch as Pete goes around and marks every single one of them.

“We better get to the side door quickly,” I say as Pete nods, and we jog around to the side entrance.

We go through the same thing there, explaining the plan and then getting on with it.

“Alright, let’s head back in and see if the guys are ready to head back, wherever back is, I don’t know if we’re supposed to go back to headquarters,” I mutter, starting to ramble as we go through the entrance and into the vast space filled with giant shelves of crates.

“We will probably need to take Emmerson back, I know that she drove here, but she’s in no condition to drive back and is most likely exhausted,” Peter says and then adds, “Mr R most likely wants us to ensure that she goes back and doesn’t try to go after Hunt again.”

I shake my head, “I don’t think she would, not with the way that this turned out. I think she is damn lucky that she managed to fight them off for as long as she did, and I think she knows that.”

Pete hums in agreement, “Yeah, I think you’re probably right.”

I glance up at the crates around us, and say, “We should probably have a look in a couple of these crates and see exactly what they were guarding.”

“Good point,” Peter says and then frowns, “we’re going to need crowbars.”

“Oh, I love a good crowbar,” I grin.

“You are so weird sometimes,” he smirks, as we start to search for something to open the crates with.

“That’s why you love me,” I retort with a cheesy grin that makes him chuckle. I spot a piece of scrap metal sticking out from one of the stacks and hold it up, “What about this? We could wedge it under the lid and see if we can leverage it like a crowbar would?”

Peter shrugs, “I mean it could work? We could try, if it doesn’t work, we can see if any of the support teams brought anything that we could use.”

I shrug and stride over to the nearest crate, this one is about waist height so still fairly big, but not big enough that I'm not going to be able to get any leverage to open.

As I start to pry the piece of metal under the edge of the lid of the crate, Peter says, “Why am I really nervous about what could be in there?”

I pause, “I don’t know, but I’m now nervous too. I mean, Hunt is a fucking psycho. It could be anything.”

“I think the more that we sit here and think about it, the worse we’re going to freak ourselves out, especially since it’s been a long day already, so we should probably just get on with it,” Peter suggests.

I nod, “Yeah, you make a good point.”

I take a deep breath because I am far more nervous than I should be and resume my task of opening up the crate. It takes longer than I thought since I have to get all around it in order to open it from every angle and get the lid off safely. There could be anything in here, guns, drugs, explosives, and some of those things are really quite volatile, and not things that you want to set off.

The explosives are the main thing that you don’t want to go bang; that would be bad, really bad. I think I'm getting tired; my own thoughts are stating the obvious now.

“What are you guys doing?” Atlas asks.

I pop my head out from behind the box, making him chuckle, “We’re trying to get into this box to see what Hunt is storing here.”

“Ah, okay, that makes sense,” Atlas replies and then says, “Do you want a hand?”

I shake my head, “Nope, I’ve got this. I'm nearly done now, anyway. If I let you take over now, you would get credit for me doing all the hard work, and that doesn’t seem fair.”

Both Atlas and Peter burst out laughing but they both know I am right. While they talk and Atlas updates us on what is going on with everyone else, I carry on working on the crate, determined to make it work just to prove that I can and because I'm stubborn.

“They are starting to load the hostiles into the vans now ready to take them to the Cottage,” Atlas starts to explain, “it was decided that they would have to check them for the poison teeth when they get them there as that requires more equipment than we currently have.”

“Yeah, that makes sense,” Peter replies, “is Emmerson okay?”

“Come on, you fucker,” I mutter quietly as I try to get the last corner open. Fortunately, they don’t hear me, or they would definitely be laughing their asses off.

“Yeah, she is fine. She wants us to take her back to headquarters, though. The adrenaline has started to wear off, and she is beginning to feel a bit shaky and emotional; I think she feels safest with us.” Atlas explains, “We’ve sent someone to go and get the car she drove here, Trick Cash and Rage found it before they arrived, apparently it was one of headquarters.”

“She stole a car?” I ask loud enough so that they can hear me, “Nice. I am weirdly proud of her.”

“Me too,” Atlas chuckles.

Before anyone can say anything else or Atlas can offer to help me again, the lid finally pops free.

“I fucking did it,” I exclaim happily.

“Well done, Princess,” Atlas says, sounding proud of me even though it is really not a big deal that I opened a box.

“Thank you,” I reply anyway because I kind of like the praise and I melt every time he calls me princess. “You guys need to come and help me lift the lid off though, one because it looks really fucking heavy and two because I’m terrified about what’s in here.”

“Alright, give us a second,” Atlas says as they both move around the box so we can pick it up easier. Once they are in place, Atlas adds, “Okay, I’m going to lift this corner slightly, and I need one of you to just shine a torch under it without lifting it any more so that we can make sure that there aren’t any trip wires or anything in here, that could be set off if we lift the lid any higher.”

“Got it,” I reply.

I move over to where Atlas is standing and crouch slightly getting ready to shine the torch inside. Fortunately, we always carry a small one on us wherever we go, as we need them more often than you would think.

“Ready?” Atlas asks, and Pete moves next to me so that he can see too, we both nod.

I shine my torch under and scream, launching myself backward as Peter yells as well, and Atlas quickly shuts the lid; I am fucking shaking and absolutely terrified.

Atlas crouches down in front of me as a thunder of boots heads our way, “Ever, what is wrong? What did you see?”

“Eyes,” I reply, finally moving my gaze away from the box and looking at him, his eyes widen.

“What’s going on?” Trick demands, as he arrives with the rest of my guys and a couple of other agents.

“Eyes,” I repeat. When everyone looks at me curiously and slightly disturbed, I realize that I need to put my big girl pants on and tell them in more detail what happened. I glance at Pete who is white as a ghost, and hold out my hand to him, he grips it tightly. I would stand up so they aren’t all towering over me but quite honestly, I am completely unsure whether my legs will hold me right now, so sitting on the floor it is.

“Ever?” Cash says gently, kneeling next to Atlas.

Both of them look extremely concerned, and I know that I must be showing my fear on my face.

I take a deep calming breath and push everything away, burying it slightly, not like I used to do but enough that I can talk and explain things properly.

I start from the beginning since no one else was with us, “We decided to open up one of the crates to see what was inside and what Hunt has been up to in here. When we finally pried the lid free enough to lift, Atlas suggested that we lift one corner and shine the torch underneath to see if they were booby-trapped and if we could trigger something by lifting the lid any further. Pete and I both got in position and shone the torches in the small gap,” I swallow, and Pete squeezes my hand, “the torch showed eyes, human eyes.”

“There’s a person in the box?” Riot asks, sounding horrified.

I nod.

“Dead?” Jensen asks.

“I have no idea, it shocked the shit out of me, and I screamed,” I reply honestly; I would feel ashamed about my reaction, but honestly, I challenge anyone to look into a box and see dark eyes staring back at you and not freak the fuck out.

Trick stands tall, and immediately starts issuing orders, “Okay, those who aren’t a part of my team, head back to the vehicles and see if you can find some crowbars or something to open the other crates, if there is a body in this crate then we’re going to need to open some more to confirm whether it’s a one off or if they have all got bodies in them, and if not then we still need to open a few to get an idea of we’re dealing with.”

They all nod and jog away, we need to know what is in these boxes and what we are dealing with once we are alone Trick drops his leader persona entirely.

“We’ll figure it out, Sweetheart,” he says, “you and Pete stand back, and we’ll lift the lid and see what we’re dealing with.”

“I need to see, I know what’s in there now, or at least what I think is in there, I need to see for myself,” I reply.

Trick studies me closely, clearly not liking the idea since I reacted how I did the first time, but he nods, “Okay. We will lift it.”

“Did you see anything that would indicate that it was rigged?” Luc asks me gently.

“No, I didn’t but I was startled by the eyes so double check,” I reply and then add, “I really hope I was seeing things and there weren’t any eyes.”

“I hope so, too,” Luc says as he pulls me into a comforting embrace and kisses the top of my head. “We will sort it, no matter what’s in there, it’s what we do, okay?”

I nod, and stand up pulling Pete to stand up with me, while the guys move back over to the crate I turn to him and say, “You don’t have to look again, you can stay over here and I’ll just look and tell you what’s in there if you want me to.”

He looks uncertain for a moment before he pushes his shoulders back and shakes his head, “No, I’m with you I need to see too. I think my mind will make up something ten times worse if I don’t see it with my own eyes. You never know we might be wrong.”

“Both of us?” I ask and then add in a whisper, “I’m worried that my mind is actually being kind and what we’re about to find is so much worse than we thought.”

“Me too,” Pete whispers back.

Still holding each other's hands in a tight grip, we step closer to the crate again, angling ourselves so that we have got a good view of the inside.

“On the count of three, we lift,” Trick says.

“Did you check it for trip wires? Just in case I missed something?” I ask, before Trick can start counting.

Trick glances over at me and nods, “Yeah, we did. We didn’t see anything to be concerned about.”

I want to ask him if he saw the eyes but before I can he is back to counting, when it hits three, my heart launches itself into my throat and Pete’s grip on my hand becomes painful. I'm not about to tell him that he has to let go though, because I think he is the only thing that is keeping me mildly sane right now; he saw the eyes too, so I know they are in there. Something like this wouldn’t usually freak me out as much as it has, but it is so unexpected that it has thrown me.