Something gripped my shoulder and I looked up into the sad eyes of Ryce. “They’ve got a DVD
player set up in the board room, you want to watch it or….” He trailed off, looking at me worriedly as he squeezed my shoulder supportively.
Of course I wanted to watch it! I wanted to know what they wanted, if this was money or something then I needed to know what exactly they wanted me to do to get her back! “Yeah,” I croaked. Even my voice didn’t sound like mine anymore; I didn’t feel anything like me at all.
I let him lead me to the board room because I actually had no idea where I was going anymore. All the hallways looked the same to me, one just blurred into another because I hadn’t slept a wink since she disappeared three days ago.
When we got there, police, the seven members of the council and Jeremy were all standing around looking towards a plasma TV on the wall. When the door closed behind me, someone pressed play and the screen went black for a few seconds before it looked like someone pulled off a sheet that was covering the lens.
The focus adjusted and I felt my rage take over. “No! Fucking, mother fuckers!” I screamed shoving the chair in front of me so that it smashed against the table and cracked. People stepped back looking at me warily. I didn’t even know if I could watch it. I turned away from the most heartbreaking thing I had ever seen and looked at Ryce who was standing behind me; he looked like he was struggling to hold it together too.
“Read it,” a guy said on the tape.
When Tyler’s voice started I felt the sob rise up in my throat. I had never heard anyone sound so defeated, she sounded so hurt and sad that I wanted to press my hands over my ears and block it out.
But instead I forced myself to look back at the screen. I forced myself to look at my bruised, bloody, pale and tired looking wife that was on the screen. She was tied to a chair, wearing a ripped and dirty t-shirt that barely covered anything. Her legs were bare and looked scratched, bruised and coated in grime and dry blood. As I watched, the camera went from a full view of her, zooming in so that only her face and shoulders were on screen. Her eyes were what killed me inside. She looked so helpless, so broken and vulnerable.
Her gaze flicked to the piece of paper that was being held in front of her. “My name is Tyler Houston and this is a video message for S-Sean,” she croaked, her voice rough and hoarse, as if she’d been crying recently. Her gaze flicked up to someone on her right, her chin trembling.
“Please, can’t you just do it? Please?”
A hand moved and slapped her across the face making her yelp and my wolf was fighting to get out, my whole body was shaking and wanting to shift and rip the whole world apart. “Fucking read it!”
the guy spat.
Tyler nodded, a tear rolling down her cheek washing away some of the blood on its way down.
“Sean, if you’re listening to this then I’m supposed to tell you that I’m… I’m okay, and that I love you.” She took a shaky breath, her eyes darting around as the paper was taken away and screwed into a ball.
The camera panned out again and a guy stepped forward, a black ski mask covered his face as he stepped in front of Tyler and cocked his head to the side. “Sean Houston, as you can see, we have your bond,” he said, waving a hand at Tyler and chuckling. “I work for the Jefferson Organisation.
You’ll be contacted again in exactly one week with our demands.” The guy’s mouth pulled up into a smile as he turned and bent closer to Tyler. His hand moved to her bare thigh as he leant in and placed a kiss full on her mouth a second before the camera was turned off.
That was when I lost control and shifted.
~#~
I was no good to anyone after that. I couldn’t shift back, I was too angry and I had no Tyler to calm me down enough to get me back into my human form. I paced the room as some of the technicians and police were reviewing the tape over and over, looking for clues. They’d already made a copy and sent it off to be analysed by Scotland Yard with a hope that they could find some sort of clues to help us find her. I couldn’t wait a week for demands. I couldn’t be without her for another fucking day, let alone a week!
Suddenly one of them sat forward, he was wearing a pair of headphones as his eyes went wide.
“Train,” he muttered. Train? “I hear a train in the background! A train sounded its horn in the background! It’s faint but I’m sure that’s what it is!” he cried excitedly.
Ryce stood up and walked over, leaning in. “How would that help?” he asked.
The police guy nodded quickly. “It can help. We’ve already established that this video was shot in some sort of barn, right?” he stated. I cocked my head to the side, wondering where he was going with this. They’d already said the barn thing two hours ago. When the camera had panned back to full view, there were hay bales in the side and the bottom of a ladder that obviously led to some sort of hayloft. All of the experts had agreed she was definitely in a barn of some sort - which didn’t really help because there were apparently almost 300,000 farms across the country.
“If it really is a train in the background then that’ll narrow it down considerably. We can cross match how many farms sit within hearing range of a train track, it’ll definitely narrow it down some. It’s better than nothing,” the policeman said excitedly.
Ryce patted him on the shoulder as one of the other guys called into the station to tell them what to look for and to cross match farms within a mile of a train track.
It didn’t help me shift back though. That little titbit of information was great, but how the fuck was it supposed to help me find my wife before that asshole laid his hand on her again? I refused to think about them hurting her, or the black eye she had, or that her cheek and jaw were swollen and red. I whimpered and looked down at the floor as the excitement died down again and people went back to see if they could do anything else.
As it turns out, the train noise was a pretty helpful hint. Train experts were brought in and just from the sound of the horn they were able to tell the police that it was a specific type of train. Apparently just from the sound and for how long the sound of the train was on camera for, they could tell that it was a High Speed Rail. Currently there was only one High Speed Rail that was completed and it ran from London to Birmingham. That meant that the farm was within hearing distance along that route. That narrowed it down considerably, but was still about a hundred farms along that route and we had no way of knowing which one it would be.
However hopeful this information was, there were still people who suggested that maybe it wasn’t a farm that she was being held in at all, that the kidnappers had set it up like that to throw us off scent and keep us chasing ghosts while they were somewhere else entirely. Maybe a blue screen or something that made it look like the video was shot in a barn when in reality it could have been someone’s lounge.
Three more days passed but we heard nothing else from them. They weren’t due to contact me again for four days. They’d found some more out from the video, analysis showed that in the corner of the barn, hidden under a sheet was a pile of sugar beet. That narrowed it down further because not all farms along the train line grew sugar, so it brought the possibilities down to about forty farms across Watford and Hemel Hempstead which were about an hour and a half from London where we were all based. Ryce and I had been slowly checking them out with a team of police but so far we’d turned up nothing and we were only a few in. My dad wanted to come to England too, and Dan, but I told them not to. To be honest I didn’t need more distractions, I was barely hanging on as it was, and I didn’t need to worry about them getting lost in London.
As we headed out of the latest briefing about where we were to search tomorrow, I spotted a young guy in a bike messenger’s outfit just standing outside the front door of the lab offices. I looked at him curiously, he didn’t look away, he just stared straight back at me.
Ryce was still chatting to the police about the raid we were conducting somewhere in Hertford
shire tomorrow so I headed over to the door and pushed it open, my eyes still locked on the guy.
He chewed on his lip and stepped up to me, looking around cautiously. I frowned as he stretched out his hand to me, holding out a small envelope with my name printed on the front. “You’re Sean, right?” he asked, raising one eyebrow.
“Yeah,” I confirmed, looking at him curiously, trying to work out if I’d seen this guy before, he didn’t look even slightly familiar.
He nodded, pushing the envelope into my hands. “He said I wasn’t to give it to you unless you were on your own. He told me to tell you not to open it with anyone else around,” he stated.
My jaw clenched as I gripped his wrist, maybe a little too hard as he winced and looked a little scared. “Who? Who gave it to you? Where’s Tyler?”
He shrugged, hissing through his teeth at the pain as he shook his head. “I don’t know, I didn’t see the guy he called this morning and said I was to deliver this to you, I got a hundred bucks in with the request. I didn’t ask. I don’t know any Tyler,” he said quickly. I scanned his face, he wasn’t a shifter, he was human that much was obvious from my gift as soon as I touched him. He didn’t look like he was hiding anything, in fact he looked a little confused, so I let go of his wrist. He scuttled out of the door so I looked down at the plain white envelope with my name scrawled on the front in messy handwriting. I ripped it open eagerly wondering why they’d contacted me four days early.
Inside was a folded sheet of paper with just a few words scribbled on it:
‘Call this number from a secure line. Trust and tell no one.’
I flipped the paper over, checking for more but the only thing there was a phone number underneath. I frowned. Secure line? What the hell was that supposed to mean? How on earth would I know what a secure line was?
Ryce smiled sympathetically and walked over, gripping my shoulder. “Alright?” he asked, squeezing supportively.
I shrugged. ‘Trust no one’. I looked at him curiously, I wanted to tell him I really did, but for now I’d just go call the number and see what this was all about. “I just need some air, I’ll be right back,”
I muttered, nodding towards the glass doors.
“Want me to come?” he offered.
I waved him off and started walking towards the door, crumpling the letter in my hand as I shook my head. “No thanks. I’ll be right back.” As soon as I was out of the doors I headed left, walking to the end of the street, and then jogging. I had no idea what a secure line was in the building and I couldn’t exactly ask someone so I would go one better and use a payphone.
After a minute or so I stepped it up to a full blown run but kept it within human limits so I didn’t attract attention. After about a mile I stopped at a phone booth, not even a little out of breath - that was the beauty of being a shifter.
Jamming my hand into my pocket I pulled out all of the change I had and put it on the shelf. My hands were shaking with anticipation as I put a coin in the slot and dialled the number. This had to be them; finally someone from the organisation was going to tell me what they wanted for her return. At this point, after almost a week, I would literally give them anything.
I tried to control my anger as the line connected, I needed to keep calm, not threaten to tear them all to shreds like I was envisioning in my head.
“Hello?” a guy’s voice answered.
“Who’s this?” I asked through my teeth.
There was silence on the other end of the line and I started to get even angrier. “Tell me your name first,” he finally replied.
Were we fucking twelve or something? “I just got a note to call this number. This is Sean Houston.
Now who the fuck is this?” I growled.
I heard a sharp intake of breath. “Just hold on a minute, okay?” Heavy footsteps sounded, then a door closing and more footsteps on gravel or something. My patience was wearing really thin now, all I wanted to do was smash everything up but that clearly wouldn’t help here. “Sorry about that, I had to come outside a little way. If they knew I was talking to you….” He trailed off nervously. The footsteps continued as he obviously carried on walking from whoever ‘they’ were.
“If who knew? What the fuck is this about?” I growled. I purposefully didn’t mention Tyler, I was coached by police a couple of days ago to let them do all of the talking and to not give them any information. I pumped more change into the slot in case it was running low. In my head I was praying for him to say Tyler’s name, to tell me she was okay but that they wanted money, anything, just some small hope because people were starting to believe she was dead and I couldn’t let myself believe that. I pressed for forehead against the side of the booth, my breath fogging up the glass.
The guy on the other end of the line drew in a shaky breath. “My name is Billy Roth and this is about your bond mate, Tyler.”
My hand unconsciously tightened on the phone I was holding, a crack sounded in my ear as the plastic started to give under the strength of my grip so I forced myself to let go. “Where is she? Is she okay?” I barked, squeezing my eyes shut trying to stay in control and not let my wolf take over like he wanted. Staying calm was a lot harder than I thought it would be.
“She’s alive but….” He made a strangled noise and I felt my heart sink. They’d hurt her, she wasn’t okay I already knew that from the video but I was hoping that was just for show, that they wouldn’t hurt her again once they made the video, like it was for dramatic effect or something. “She’s at my farm,” he finished.
“Where, tell me where!” I demanded, slamming my hand down on the shelf, breaking it by accident and sending all of my change to the floor.
“Just hear me out. This isn’t that simple,” he pleaded.
“It is that motherfucking simple!” I shouted. “You tell me where she is, now!”
“Sean, just-”
“What is it you want?” I interjected. “You’re calling me now finally, so what is it you want? You want me to pay or something, what?” I asked, shaking my head not understanding why he wasn’t telling me he wanted a million bucks in unmarked bills to be left in a trash can or something.
“Look, just calm down and listen to me I don’t have long!” the guy responded. I clenched my jaw so I didn’t keep interrupting. “I didn’t want to get involved in this. It’s one thing to blindly believe in something, to believe you’re doing the right thing for your race, but it’s another thing entirely to do what they do. I started to realise the things they did were wrong, but by then I was in too deep with the organisation and I couldn’t get out. They started threatening my little brother so I couldn’t leave. I didn’t want any part of this I swear, but I had no choice,” he said, his voice cracking through emotion. “I’m trying to make things right. What they do, what they’ve done, it’s wrong, I see that now. I want to help you, but in return I need you to help me,” he bargained.
I groaned from exasperation. A reformed organisation member, just freaking awesome. “Help you how?” I asked, trying to hear him out and not tell him to shove it where the sun didn’t shine.
Threats of a slow painful death weren’t going to help me get Tyler’s location so I needed to play nice for now. I didn’t want to get involved with anyone from the organisation, but if this guy could help me find Tyler….
“My brother, he’s…. slow. He doesn’t understand what’s going on. Please just make sure that he’s okay and that your people know he’s not part of this, he’s not a threat. I don’t want him hurt, or prosecuted for anything; he’s done nothing wrong here. He gets full immunity,” he stated.
I frowned but agreed anyway, knowing that I didn’t have the power to make that promise. My word wouldn’t make one bit of difference to the police or the council. “Fine. Where are you?”
“There’s something else.”
“For Christ sake, what?” I snapped angrily. I was so freaking close to finding her location that I could almost taste it in my mouth.
/>
“The Jefferson’s have someone on your side, someone who’s feeding back your movements to them. He’s the one that got Tyler out of the lab. He’s been undercover with them for years,” Billy stated matter-of-factly.
My heart was pounding in my ears. Ryce and I had talked about that already, that someone must have cut the security feed so that no one knew where she was, someone knocked out the guard and we suspected an inside job. I was so angry that my whole body was shaking and I didn’t even have Tyler here to calm me down - I was a few seconds away from shifting into my wolf in the middle of the high street.
“Who?” I growled.
“Edward Webster.”
I gulped at the revelation, feeling like someone had dumped a bucket of cold water over my head. I seriously wasn’t expecting that at all. Edward was on the freaking council board! Ryce and I had talked about a security guard, or maybe a lab technician, not a trusted member of the council!
“Seriously?” I questioned.
“Yeah. His family have been supporting the Organisation for two generations. I hear him talking on the phone sometimes about it. He acted like he didn’t believe you were the one, so that the council would do more tests on you. All the time he was feeding back the results to the other side. They know everything about you, all of your abilities, all of your limitations. That’s why they went after Tyler and not you, they know she’s your weakness and that you’d come for her. They want you to come.”
I wanted to kill him, to kill them all, every single one of them. Rage was boiling inside me, and staying in control was actually becoming painful as the shaking got worse. My wolf was demanding blood.
“Oh I’m fucking coming. But first I’m gonna tear Edward into little pieces,” I promised.
“No!”
I frowned. “No?”
“No. You can’t tell him that you know. Sean, they’re ready for you. All of your abilities, they’re useless once you get here. The inhibitor drug has been adapted, it’s airborne now. They have it pumping into the vent going to the basement to stop Tyler from being able to contact you. But they also have it in gas canisters too. They don’t plan on fighting you fairly. As soon as you set foot on the farm, you’ll be bombarded with the drug and your abilities are long gone. That’s their plan. Your only chance is the element of surprise. I’m assuming that you want Byron Jefferson?”