Tracker (13 page)

TWENTY-SIX

Alice

After Jason left it took several minutes for any of us to move. His leaving, though expected, had thrown us, and we needed time to process it. Somehow, even for Dan and me, Jason had become a sort of leader for our little group. The kids were plainly shell-shocked by everything that had happened in the last few days. Hannah… well, Hannah cared deeply for Jason, and I think she was worried that he wouldn’t come back to her in one piece. Physically or emotionally, this task would take a toll, and it was doubtful he would return as the same person.

“We need to plan our next step,” Dan spoke up. He had less of an emotional investment in Jason than the rest of us, but he still seemed at a loss. It was possible I was projecting my own emotions onto him, or reading into him incorrectly. It could be that he was still trying to work through the fact that this street kid had special powers that could easily get him off the street if he used it right. I know when I had found out about Jason’s powers it had spooked me for quite a while. And Jason’s revelation to me wasn’t nearly as sudden as Dan’s walking into the torn up yard as he was creating an earth-shield.

“I think we should go back out on the streets,” Paul said, standing from his seat on the couch and crossing his arms in front of him. “We know the area and people, and we can disappear.”

“Bad idea,” I said calmly. “Remember, the streets are where Erin and Sam were taken from. And Mason could pay off the other street people to tell him where you are. He knows you guys are important to Jason, and he doesn’t need to get any more ammunition. Sam’s enough. Besides, Jason doesn’t need the added stress of not knowing you guys are safe somewhere.”

“Then where do we go?” Jeffrey asked timidly. “If we aren’t safe here, where will we be?”

Paul scowled at all of us, but he returned to his seat and didn’t bring up going to the streets again. I think he knew it was a bad idea, but he wanted to be able to make Jason proud of him for being able to protect the others in his absence. I looked at Dan, hoping he’d have an idea, but he shrugged. “We could stay at a hotel, but I think this particular group would be kind of memorable if anyone came looking.”

I yawned, and noticed a few of the others doing the same. “For tonight, I think we should all stay here. Dan and I will stand guard on shifts so you guys can get some sleep.”

Hannah spoke up for the first time since Jason had walked out. “I think someone else should stay awake with you guys. Or maybe we should have two people each on two shifts so everyone can have some sleep. It would probably make it easier for the guards to stay awake.”

“That’s not a bad idea, Han. Okay, any volunteers to join the guards?”

Paul raised his hand, as did Hannah. “All right. I’ll take the first watch with Hannah, and Dan and Paul can take the next watch in four hours.”

My partner shook his head. “Alice, you’re almost falling asleep right now, and Hannah is exhausted. Paul and I are more awake than you. We’ll take the first watch. Go get some sleep.” Dan had a look in his eye that I could never argue with, so I nodded.

“Okay, everyone, let’s try to get some sleep. We should be able to plan things out better in the morning.”

Ginny and Jeffrey went to their room without a word and Hannah, to my surprise, headed down the basement. “Han? Where are you going?”

“I just… I want to feel close to him. He’s out there alone…” Her voice trailed off as tears drifted silently down her cheeks.

“He’ll be fine, Hannah. He’s going to call us in the morning. Dan and I will be staying in contact with him until this is over. We’ll tail him if necessary.”

She nodded, but kept moving toward the basement. “I need to be sure,” she said.

I frowned, not knowing what she meant, but chalking it up to her worry and exhaustion talking. Maybe Jason had planned on sending her a message somehow if she stayed in the basement that night. If so, I hoped it worked so Hannah could relax and sleep. I let her go, yawned, and waved to my partner and Paul as I headed to my own bedroom. As wound up as I was, it took me only a couple minutes to fall asleep.

The rest of the night passed uneventfully. Dan tried to make me sleep through my watch, but I had set an alarm and so foiled his plan. He and Paul seemed to have gotten along pretty well, considering their differences and Paul’s aversion to authority. The young man seemed more relaxed than he had since he’d arrived at my house, and I wondered what they had talked about during their watch.

Hannah had been quiet when she’d come up to join me for our turn at keeping watch, so I assumed that whatever message she’d been expecting she hadn’t received. By the time everyone else got up, I was tired again, but I knew we needed to figure out a plan. Hannah and I set out various cereals, milk, and juice on the table for breakfast and everyone gathered around. They were all more rested, but continued to be too quiet. Still in shock over recent events, they mechanically ate their breakfast. Once they were done they sat and waited for Dan and me to let them know the plan.

Paul still seemed angry, but hadn’t argued about returning to the streets. Truthfully, I wondered if he was right. If the kids went back to the streets and stayed away from their normal haunts, they might be safer than staying in one place where Mason’s men could find them. I shook my head; Jason would kill me if he thought I had left the kids out on the street without protection. He had begun working on this case as a favor to me, so I would do what I could to lessen the risk to the kids. I would have done the same no matter what, but I felt even more obligated because I had gotten him into this mess.

“Dan, we should talk,” I said as he finished his bowl of cereal and cup of coffee. He nodded, and the look he gave me told me he hadn’t come up with anything either.

He followed me into the living room, indicating that we needed the time to ourselves for a few minutes. He spoke first as we stood near the picture window. “Alice, I’ve been trying to figure out what we can do, but honestly our options are limited. All of those kids are runaways, and legally we should be talking to social services about them. However, they’re also involved in a murder investigation, which means we need to keep them where we can talk to them. We can go to the captain and request that social services grant temporary custody to us in the interest of protecting them, but in all likelihood they’d be sent back to their parents or put into foster homes after our investigation is over.”

It was the longest speech I’d heard my partner make, and he was right. “We either have to keep them here and continue guarding in shifts or we need to have them go back to the streets where they can move freely and easily. I don’t want to leave them unprotected.” I heard the phone ring, but Hannah answered so I continued my conversation with Dan.

“I know you want to protect them,” he was saying. “I do too. You’re right. Those are the two best options if we don’t want social services to take over. But I’m not sure we’ll be able to stop them from being called at some point.”

“ALICE!” Hannah yelled, sounding excited and a bit scared as she ran into the room holding the phone in her hand.

“What…?”

“They found Sam! It’s your captain, by the way,” she said after taking a deep breath.

“Sir?” I said as I took the phone. I listened for a moment. “When can we talk to him?” I waited for another moment as the captain spoke. “All right, we’ll be there soon,” I said as I hung up the phone.

“Sam was found unconscious in an alley early this morning,” I told Dan when he gave me a questioning look. “He has some cuts, bruises, and a broken arm, but he should be okay. We’ll be able to talk to him as soon as he wakes up, but the captain wants us at the precinct in an hour. All of us…”

“I guess we should get ready then,” Hannah said. “And you should call Jason. He’ll be thrilled to hear Sam is safe.”

I mentally kicked myself for not thinking of it right away. “You’re right; I’ll call him right now.” I got out my cell phone and hit speed dial number two for Jason’s phone and waited as it rang. I got his voicemail and figured he had found a place to get some sleep, so I left a message for him to call me back as soon as he got the message. If he didn’t call back within an hour or so, I’d try again.

In the meantime, I still needed to tell the others what had happened. “Paul, we need to go down to the hospital. They found Sam and my captain wants us all to come in.”

For the first time, I saw a genuine smile on Paul’s face. It was the first time he had looked truly happy, and his entire face lit up. The moment was brief and he soon frowned in confusion. “Why would Mason have let Sam go? I thought he was supposed to be bait for Jason. Without the need to find Sam, Jason has no reason to continue the hunt, right?”

I felt my spirit sink as I realized the implications, and I saw from Dan’s frown that he was thinking along the same lines. I immediately tried to call Jason again with the same result. “He could just be sleeping,” I suggested, not really believing it.

“No way,” Paul argued. “He sleeps really lightly. If a phone rang right by him, there’s no way he’d sleep through it, even if it were on vibrate.”

We all stood silently for a moment; the idea that something terrible had happened was sinking in and it brought down the happy mood of a moment earlier.

“Unfortunately, there’s not much we can do for Jason right now,” Dan sounded upset by the revelation, but he was right.

“We need to get ready to get to the hospital,” I said, breaking the glum silence as everyone went to their rooms to change clothes. Hopefully Sam would wake up soon so we’d be able to find out if he knew anything about why Mason had let him go.

TWENTY-SEVEN

Jason

A big bump in the road dragged me back into awareness as something hard slid into my back. Opening my eyes was worthless as it was pitch black in the trunk, so I kept them closed and tried to stay relaxed. Whatever strength I could conserve would be useful no matter what waited for me at the end of this drive. I had no idea what was coming, or how long I would be on my own, but I didn’t dare try to use my abilities to stop the car. Anything I did would likely end up in a bad crash where I’d get hurt as badly as the people who’d grabbed me. I felt around me with my cuffed hands, trying to find my bag in the hopes that I’d be able to get to the phone Alice had given me.

Unfortunately, my bag was either still on the street where I’d dropped it or in the hands of my captors. Either way, I wasn’t going to be able to be able to get to my phone for a while. All I found was the hard object that was still digging into my back. There was nothing that would help me escape, and the… whatever was in the trunk with me… was too awkward for me to use as a weapon. I sighed and gave up my thoughts of escape for the time being. Maybe all I needed to do was try to figure out where we were heading.

The car was traveling along a rough road and I wondered how long we’d been driving. I had fallen asleep despite myself as the car had cruised away from my city. Based on the fact we were still driving, I held out little hope that we were near home. From what the little I could feel it seemed like we were in the country. There was very little traffic, and I felt absolutely no people moving around.

I slumped down, unable to figure out where we were. Yes, I could tell we were in the country, but there was farmland all around the city. I had no way to tell which direction we had gone. I could only hope that an opportunity to escape would come up once they got me out of the trunk.

I wiggled my fingers, hoping to keep circulation going and was relieved when I noticed that the cuffs were not on as tightly as what my father’s accomplice had put them earlier that night. My hands weren’t numb from lack of blood flow. Not a very positive silver lining, but still better than I’d had in the past. At least I wouldn’t get the pins and needles feeling, or the sharp burning of circulation returning to my hands once the restraints were removed.

The car rumbled onto what sounded like a dirt road, and some dust made its way into the trunk. There were several areas outside of town that had farmland and dirt roads, but we’d been on the road long enough that we could be pretty far away by now. I sneezed as more dust flew around the trunk, and then cringed, not wanting to draw too much attention to myself. I wasn’t sure who was driving, but whichever of them it was took a turn too quickly, causing me to slide painfully into the side of the trunk, the tool behind me slamming into my back. They must have heard the thump, because I heard muted laughter. Glaring at them did no good, but it felt right to send evil thoughts in their direction so I glowered toward them.

I tensed as the car pulled to a stop and the rumble of the engine died. Whatever was waiting for me wasn’t good, and I had no desire to just sit in the trunk and let it happen. With all my anger and fear built up, my powers were coiled and ready to strike once the trunk was opened. As much as I wanted to strike right when it was unlatched, I needed to wait so I could be out of the car and ready to run once I was able to incapacitate the men who’d grabbed me.

The doors slammed and the Bulldog’s voice rumbled, but I was unable to hear what he said. Clearly we were in the country somewhere, and I might actually have a shot of escaping. In open land, I wouldn’t have to worry too much about innocent bystanders getting hurt if I let loose, but somehow I needed to take Mason’s men by surprise.

The men finally came to the trunk, the keys jingling against the lock, and I pushed all my aggressive feelings towards the Bulldog to the little part of my mind that controls my powers. Now it was a huge struggle to hold back and I was shaking with the effort. The scrape of the key in the lock was followed by a creak as the lid was raised. Once the lid was raised there was a loud rumble as the ground rose in front of them, pushing them away from the car and keeping them from getting in the way as I escaped.

What I found out: climbing out of a trunk with your hands cuffed behind your back is a good way to fall flat on your face. I sent more power into the earth as I scrambled to get up, and kept a wall between myself and the men surrounding me. Apparently they had reinforcements waiting here, because there were several sets of footsteps moving quickly towards us. I took a look around the area behind me; a long gravel driveway, woods on one side, and a wide-open space on the other. There were thick pine trees all along the edge of the property, preventing people from seeing the land owned by Trevor Mason. Any buildings were probably in front of me, and I didn’t want to go there.

It was what I expected to see based on what I had felt, but I was still confused. With his knowledge of my abilities, why would Mason bring me to a place like this? I sent power in all directions, searching for anyone not trying to hurt me, but I felt nothing. Even the men in front of me had seemingly vanished. That brought a frown to my face; I didn’t believe they would just give up. I sent more energy into the earth in front of me, and finally felt several men who had managed to get almost all the way around my barrier and one who had appeared behind me. I spun, directing the earth to protect me, but felt the prongs from a stun gun hit me in the side right before electricity coursed through my body, disconnecting my mind from the power and dropping the wall instantly. The men around us yelled as the huge amount of dirt crashed back to the ground, but I couldn’t take pleasure in their fear as I fought the effects of the stun gun.

The man waited until I dropped to the ground to stop the flow, but left me conscious. I looked up, expecting to see him standing over me, but he had vanished, replaced by the sneering face of the Bulldog. He seemed a bit shaken, and I almost smiled at the thought of scaring him, but I realized I was in real trouble and the smile died before anyone saw it.

“Nice try, Freak,” he hissed as he pulled me to my feet.

“That is your last escape attempt,” another man added spitefully.

My powers were weakened, but I still attempted to find someone who could help me, sending weak tendrils in all directions. I sagged in the Bulldog’s grasp when I recognized the truth.

There was no one.