Page 26 of Twisted Empire

8

Elias

I wokeup without opening my eyes. I hadn’t slept more than a few hours of fitful dozing, and by the time I reached up and rubbed my heavy eyelids, my mouth was dry and my pulse was racing in the feverish, erratic way that always seemed to accompany insomnia. As usual, I’d stayed awake most of the night worrying about Tatum and what the fuck we were going to do now that we’d successfully extracted her from the Lodge.

I was no closer to a solution.

With a yawn, I finally opened my eyes and slung my arm over the other side of the narrow mattress, expecting to see and feel Tatum right beside me.

She wasn’t there.

I sat up straight and looked around, panic flooding my veins. She wasn’t anywhere else in the van, either. My eyes went to the box by our disguises, and my heart dropped as I realized my gun was missing. Some of the other boxes were in disarray, as if someone had knocked them over in a struggle to get out.

“Fuck!”

I put my shoes on and ripped the van’s side door open. There was no sign of a struggle outside, but that didn’t mean Tatum hadn’t been taken.

A thousand terrible images filled my head as a sickly feeling of pure fear set in. Crown and Dagger could’ve tracked us down already, and one of them could’ve sneaked into the van and dragged Tatum out at gunpoint while I snored. They could be torturing her right now. Raping her. Killing her.

My mouth filled with bile at the thought. This was my fault. I knew I shouldn’t have gone to fucking sleep for even a second.

When we arrived at the rural camping ground late last night, we were both exhausted, and I figured it would be safe to get a few hours of rest. I’d scouted around a bit, and no one else was around aside from some teenagers getting high at a little spot down by the lake and the owner of the grounds who lived in a cabin by the entrance.

I couldn’t think of any way my family or the society could know about this spot. My friends and I used to come up here on weekends when we were high-schoolers, whenever we felt like escaping the vapid hum-drum of elite parties. It was the perfect spot for teens to get high. The owner never asked for ID or a credit card, only cash on entry to his land, and there were never any cops sniffing around the place. There was also a decently-maintained bathroom block near the front of the land which campers were welcome to use, in case any of us wanted to clean up after getting blitzed and deciding to swim in the lake.

I never told my father about the spot, or any of my other family members either. So how the hell could anyone have found us already?

I was in the middle of deciding what to do next when a familiar sight appeared in the early morning light—a woman with wavy red hair, trudging toward me.

It was Tatum in her new wig.

As she drew closer, I saw that she’d put the contact lenses in, and she’d also applied some dark makeup. She was holding a towel and a small bag, and she was wearing some of the new clothes I’d bought for her.

I uttered a soft curse and dashed toward her. “Where the fuck have you been?” I asked, gripping her arm and marching her back toward the van.

“I went to that bathroom block you mentioned last night. I woke up and really needed to pee, and I figured I may as well shower and change while I was there.”

My eyes narrowed. “You were supposed to wake me before going anywhere, so I could go with you. You promised you wouldn’t go out alone.”

She gave me a sheepish smile as she climbed back into the van. “Sorry. You looked so peaceful sleeping, and I figured you deserved a rest because you’ve barely slept in three days. You said there was no one here except for those kids near the lake, so I thought it was safe.”

“You were supposed to wake me anyway. Do you have any idea how fucking worried I was?” I said, my voice like thunder.

Just because it seemed safe enough last night didn’t mean it actually was. Anyone could have come and abducted her in the last hour or so, while she was all alone in the bathroom, and I wouldn’t have been able to do a damn thing about it because she hadn’t told me where she was going.

“I said I was sorry. I took your gun just in case,” she said, letting the towel fall to the van floor to reveal my pistol.

“Do you even know how to use it?” I asked in an acid tone.

She shrugged. “Yeah. Aim and pull the trigger.”

“What about turning the safety off? You know how to do that?”

She crossed her arms and stared at me indignantly. “Yes, I do. So if anyone tried to attack me, I’m pretty sure I could’ve defended myself.”

I shook my head, my jaw tightening. “That’s not fucking good enough, Tatum. I thought you’d been taken. I woke up and you were missing, my gun was gone, and half the boxes at the front were knocked over. You know what that looked like to me?”

She sighed. “I accidentally knocked the boxes over when I was looking for a towel. I was going to clean it all up when you were finally awake. I would’ve done it before, but I didn’t want to disturb you with any more noise.”

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