Page 18 of BounBound By Scars

She hesitated. “Yeah. I saw your message.”

The moment the elevator dinged, I sprinted out, ignoring the way her voice followed behind me.

The Command Center was quiet. Too quiet. But I spotted Zane in my peripheral vision.

“You saw?” I demanded.

Zane frowned. “Saw what?”

I stilled.

“You didn’t see the Sentrix alert?”

Zane blinked before turning toward the empty conference room behind him.

“I was going to see it eventually. Calm down, Kabir.”

My jaw clenched.

“We don’t have time foreventually.”

I exhaled sharply, rubbing a hand over my face. “The team is coming in a few.”

I stormed toward my desk, grabbed my laptop, and shoved open the conference room doors.

And froze.

There, standing inside, was some nervous, wide-eyed analyst.

Michael? Mitchell? Something with an M.

I snapped. “Out.”

He scrambled and bolted out.

A few minutes later, the whole team was assembled.

Everyone except Ronan Hayden.

I stood at the head of the room, feeling every single eye on me.

“At approximately 1100 hours,” I began, steadying my voice, but my gaze lingered too long on Sebastian. Lingering on the way he was looking at Amelia.

Focus.

“We received a red alert.”

I swallowed. “We didn’t have a way to track Squad Two members. Pedro Becerra and Lancaster Brewer.”

The room went still.

“So…” I forced myself to look at Kaylan. “When I found them in Missouri, I had contacted them. Just a coded message. Gave them enough details to send us an SOS if… if things went bad. They never confirmed they received my message. But today’s alert means they did.”

Kaylan’s eyes glassed over before I even finished the sentence.

I saw Logan’s arms wrap around her.

I needed to get this out. Fast.