Page 51 of Out of Peril

“Damn it!”

“Report,” Silas said.

“Shot fired. It's a miss. I underestimated her speed. How the hell did she move so fast with three passengers like that?”

“It's okay. We've got a tracker on him. Stand down.”

“What the hell just happened?” Tarren asked through coms.

“Some beast of a witch just flew off with him,” Taylor replied.

“Tay, remember your role,” Walker said.

She scoffed.

“Dude, you've just been kidnapped and that’s what you're worried about?”

“Are we able to track him?” Silas asked the team.

“Yes, sir,” Tarron confirmed. “Coms are currently holding too.”

“We're going to get you back,” Silas assured him.

“She's flying fast. He'll be completely out of range soon. Don't worry, we can still track you,” Tarron said, but there was no response. “Damn it! I think we just lost him on coms. He's too far out.”

“How about the tracker?” Silas asked.

“Holding for now, but if he's over open water for too long, we'll lose that too.”

“I thought we had international scope on that thing,” my boss said angrily.

“We do, as long as it doesn't lose a cellular connection for too long. There was no need to fit him with a satellite tracker. Or so we thought,” Tarron explained.

I hit the open coms button on my jacket. “Are you telling me we may have just lost him for good?”

“If his tracker drops offline, then we'll have to wait until he's back in service range and near a device to connect him through.”

I just laid there in shock.

What the hell was I going to tell Shelby?

*****

Roughly 48 hours later.

We’d been over everything a million times. We had thought we'd prepared for absolutely everything. But there was no way for us to have seen this coming. Even as what had unfolded started to sink in, none of us could comprehend how or why it had happened.

Tarron had tracked him to a deserted island but by the time we got there, they had taken off again and there was absolutely no trace left aside from a fire pit and small shelter we assumed Walker had built. He had a fondness for kids so it was highly probable that he was trying to take care of them.

Footprints and disturbances in the sand confirmed that it had to be where they'd spent the first night. We'd all been too shocked to move fast enough to intercept him there. And now he was gone.

Silas ran our debrief on the flight back. I didn't envy him having to explain this mess to Michael and Delta team. And I'd do just about anything not to have to explain this one to Shelby. How do you tell the woman you love that you just lost her best friend?

“Daddy!” Mary Alice squealed and ran to jump into my arms as I walked into the house.

“Hey. Why didn't you tell me you were coming back today? I thought this mission was going to take a few weeks at least.”

She rose up and kissed me, then pulled back and really looked at my face.

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