Page 79 of Ravaged Soul

CHAPTER 11

EMBER

ZOMBIE – YUNGBLUD

I abandoned her to die.

Bickering voices wash over me, converging into a senseless wave that fails to drown out my own hate-filled chant. The pins and needles burrowing into my tight, hot skin drive the torture home.

I left Gracie behind.

Between Warner and Hyland trading information with the intelligence department and Axel talking non-stop to ease the tension screaming off the Falcon Team, the debrief room is riotous. It almost rivals the chaos ripping me apart on the inside.

If I had to explain what living with a chronic illness is like, I’d struggle to describe the sense of wrongness. Like your body isn’t your own. Organs feel alien. Limbs disobedient. The anxiety of waiting for an attack to take hold feels like balancing on a knife’s edge.

My palms sear where I’m digging my nails in to conceal the shaking, worsening by the hour. I haven’t slept more than a few hours since we got Tom back. The constant fear, exhaustion and adrenaline are taking their toll.

“He’s toying with us!” Hyland booms across the room.

“Gael’s intentions are irrelevant,” Warner argues.

“Dangling Gracie Livingstone in our faces is a distraction technique. Gael lost his leverage, so he found more. He wants us to look for her.”

With a wince, I rub my temples. Hyland’s deep voice is slicing into my fucking brain, and I can’t see straight as it is.

“We don’t even have a location yet.” The strain in Warner’s words tells me he’s struggling to keep his cool. “There’s no need to jump to conclusions.”

“You’re playing into his hands.”

“We’re following up a lead on a missing person relevant to our case. That’s it.”

“Rayna,” Axel chimes in, bizarrely acting as the peacekeeper. “What do we know?”

“From what we can tell so far, the package passed through three European countries.” She clicks her laptop, deep in concentration. “Awaiting further analysis on two of the images.”

“Can we tell where Gracie is being held from them?”

“Hard copies lack the metadata of digital photographs, but we’re looking into the spatial clues we identified. We may be able to deduce a rough location. A country, at least.”

“Then what?” Hyland throws his big hands. “We’re going to waltz into another trap?”

“No.” Warner gnaws his bottom lip.

“You were all ready to go in guns blazing a moment ago.”

“Will you just sit down and take a breath?”

“No! We’ve already lost someone, and we’re no closer to tracing Gael or his estate overseas. Carlos is dead. Dominic and his honeypots are headed for prison. We should be focusing on bringing Gael to us next, not taking his bait.”

The loud screeching of a chair being shoved back precedes Archer abruptly stalking from the debrief room. He doesn’t look at anyone—not even his remaining teammates—as he leaves.

Oscar and Kyle stare down at their note-cluttered paperwork. Neither offers a word nor dares to lift their heads. To their credit, the team hasn’t missed a day since Josh’s death. They’ve picked up the slack while we’ve been with Tom.

Warner dons a mask of pure frustration. “We’re here to discuss our next steps, Hy. I know you’re hurting, but be professional or leave. That’s an order.”

“How dare you make this about me?”

“We lost a man on our watch.”