Page 19 of The Awakening

“Whoa, easy, baby girl. Are you alright? You hit your head when you passed out,” Dean asks as he positions himself to the side of me, so I don’t roll off the sofa. I rub my eyes with the palms of my hands and hear someone arguing behind me. Turning my head, I see Everett talking with someone I’ve never seen before.

“You’re telling me you didn’t check his identification tag before you put him in the fucking ground?” Everett bellows at the man who looks just as frustrated as Everett. He’s an older man, maybe in his mid-fifties, and he’s wearing black slacks and a long-sleeved, white button-up shirt. As Everett questions him, his hands are out in front of him in a surrender-type gesture, as if to try to calm Everett down.

“The tags are in place to identify those we can’t identify visually. It looked just like Colson, we figured we didn’t need to check the tag,” the man says to Everett, but my attention is suddenly on Arno who appears from beside Everett in a fury.

“That’s your fucking job!” Arno’s tone is murderous as he raises his hands in the air before stomping away. The end of the sofa is jostled as Dean stands up and makes his way over to the man everyone is currently yelling at.

“It’s been six months—six fucking months! No telling what they’re doing to him, that is, if he’s even still alive at this point.” Dean is in the man’s face now, and I half expect him to end the man’s life right here in the lounge room. Everett places his hand on Dean’s shoulder before speaking again.

“Go do what you have to do. You’ll inform us immediately either way if it’s Colson or if it isn’t. Understood?” The man nods once to Everett and then turns to leave, not saying another word. I swing my legs over the sofa and rest my head in my hands. Six months. It’s been six months since we left Ireland. Could he really be alive? Why switch him out with a decoy? What could they possibly need with Colson?

“What have we done?” I whisper in my hands, the feeling of guilt pooling in my stomach as I try not to imagine Colson and what he could possibly be going through at this exact moment. The room is quiet except for the footsteps of Dean, who is pacing the length of the small room as we all wait for the confirmation.

In my head, I play back the simulation step by step, visualizing everything I saw and everything I missed that day on the plane. His tattoos for certain were not his tattoos. The scar behind his ear, and his tongue ring—everything was different. But his face...he looked just like Colson. He looked so much like Colson that everyone that day believed it to be him, Arno, Stefan, Jei, and me. Everett and Dean were unconscious, so they weren’t able to identify him, but how could he have fooled so many of us?

Minutes turn into hours and my stomach is in such a knot I can hardly stand. Arno left about a half hour ago to rewatch my simulation to try to pinpoint anything we may have missed. Dean and Everett are huddled around their laptop to watch the camera footage from the body cams The Shadows were wearing that day as well. And me, well I’m still sitting on the couch, my hands shaking as I wait for the door to open and someone to tell me that Colson is in fact not the person laying six feet underground.

“We’ve watched this clip five times already, mate, there’s nothing there.” I hear Dean say to Everett as he rewinds the same clip again.

“There’s always something, we just have to find it,” Everett retorts as he hits play on the clip for the sixth time. It’s a clip of Cara talking with the three of them as they all take blow after blow after blow. The sound of the whip hitting Dean makes my stomach twist, and I can’t take it any longer. Standing from the sofa, I make my way out of the room.

I don’t know where I’m going. I decide to walk the hallway, anywhere, is better than listening to my guys being tortured because of me. Before I reach the end of the hallway, I hear Everett’s voice behind me.

“We’ve found something, love.” I turn to face him, his hands in his pants pockets, but his expression is unreadable. He’s calm, but the way his eyes are narrowed slightly shows he is trying to hide his true emotions. He waits for me to reach him as I make my way back down the hallway. Stopping in front of him, I crane my neck up towards his and wait. Pulling a hand out from his pocket, he wraps it around my lower back and pulls me flush to his chest. His other hand cradles my neck, and he kisses my lips so softly, so gently, that I lose myself for a moment.

I kiss him back. The stress and tension I was holding onto slowly begins to melt away, like a candle dripping its hot wax. His hand squeezes my hip as our kiss deepens. I can think of a million other things we need to do right now, but at this moment, we both need this. A moment where nothing else matters, where there is no stress, no anxiety, just a moment of peace.

I lean into Everett harder, needing him more than I realized. I snake my hands up his shirt and glide them across his chest. He flexes his abdomen against my touch, making all the crevices and grooves of his muscles poke out. I’m suddenly spun around, my back flush to the wall as Everett presses his body against mine, the bulge in his pants showing me how much he truly needs this. The click of the door snaps me out of my paradise with Everett as Dean steps into the hallway.

“Sorry, love, but you’re going to need to see this,” Dean says to the both of us. I rest my forehead on Everett’s chest for a moment, soaking in his touch and allowing him to fully calm my nerves before I reluctantly peel myself away from him. Dean sits at the table with the laptop and pulls out a chair to sit beside him. Everett follows suit and takes a seat on my other side. Dean faces the laptop screen towards me, the mouse hovering over the play button.

“Now, it’s fast, but watch the trapdoor to the far right of the screen right before the camera goes out.” I nod my understanding as Dean hits the play button. I focus all my attention on the corner of the screen. The picture is wobbly as the Shadow member fumbles with the camera that’s pinched between two stones of the wall and the building the guys were held in. Just as the gunshot pierces the air in the room, the camera jerks to the side, and I catch a glimpse of the trapdoor.

“You see it?” Everett says from my side, but I’m confused.

“No. All I saw was the trapdoor. What am I missing?”

“Here, I’ll play it again frame by frame,” Dean says to me, turning the laptop towards him a bit to control the settings. The picture moves in slow motion, frame by frame, until the trapdoor comes into view once again. As the frame stops, I can make out the image of a man’s face hiding beneath the door. The next frame comes, and the door opens more, allowing me to see the profile of a man who looks familiar. My jaw opens wide as I turn to face Everett.

“Is that—?” I don’t have to say his name. Everett is already nodding his answer as I take in a sharp gasp.

“Callum?”

January 12, 2022

What the fuck is happening? My mind can’t keep up with the nonsense we’ve experienced these past few months. Since getting the job to kidnap Sloan, everything has been complete and utter chaos. We have never been so confused and uncertain about something as we all are now. Dean and Sloan were taken, and fuck, Dean almost died. Who is doing this and why?! I’m starting to lose my patience, and I know Everett and Dean are as well. We don’t know what to do. We know we have to find Van and torture and kill the fuck out of him for what he did in the warehouse, but we need to understand why he did it in the first place. There are too many unanswered questions, and I’m not sure how to get the answers. I have another job coming up, and I have a strong suspicion I’ll be able to get a few answers then.

I haven’t said a word since seeing Callum on the video. I truly have no words. Everett’s twin brother, his fucking brother, is behind all this shit somehow. But why? Everett is his brother, and to allow the torture of him and his closest friends under his watch is one of the purest forms of evil. I’m staring at Callum’s profile—the sounds of Everett and Dean conversing behind me are muffled by the chaos swirling in my head. It’s not until Dean raises his voice in the realization of something that I turn my head from the laptop to see what they are talking about.

“It was him, mate! It was fucking Cal who put the job up for Sloan! He is the only other person that could have infiltrated the system without being detected. You and I both know he is proficient at hacking and computers. It has to be him.” Dean’s speaking so fast it’s hard for me to keep up. I look between both of them, realizing it does make sense. He would have the knowledge to do such a thing, but the question still stands as to why?

Everett brushes his hand through his hair, frustration etched across his face. I never had siblings growing up, so I can’t even begin to imagine the betrayal he must feel knowing his brother was a part of the most brutal torture he’s ever gone through. The hurt and pain of knowing your own blood wanted to inflict excruciating pain without a single bit of remorse is heart-wrenching. I don’t know how close they were growing up, but I can imagine being a twin would create a bond that no other siblings would understand. They share the same DNA. They look identical. They are one and the same. As much as Everett claims he has no connection or relationship with his brother, I have a feeling deep down this whole situation hurts in a way that is unique to him.

I stand from where I’m sitting at the table and make my way over to where Everett’s standing. Before I can wrap my arms around him and try to ease the hurricane that is building within him, the door opens in a whirl. Arno stands in the doorway with dirt and mud caked to his hands and extending up his arms. Sweat is trailing down his face as he tries to catch his breath. The three of us stare at him anxiously waiting for him to speak and explain why he’s in such a state. He doesn’t get the chance before the man who is responsible for identifying the deceased members of the organization trails in behind him.

He is equally dirty, but his demeanor is calmer as he runs a white cloth through his hands, removing the dirt that was once there. Moving past Arno, he makes his way into the lounge, his head hanging low as he continues with the now dirt-covered cloth.

“I’m not sure if this news will be considered good or bad,” the man starts, his head still hanging low before he takes a deep breath. Lifting his head, he exposes the pained look in his eyes. “The man who is currently buried outside is, in fact, not Colson Cain.” The room is silent, I swear I can hear my own blood flowing in my veins. As if this has all been a bad dream, my mind whirls with the hope that Colson could still be alive.

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