Page 5 of Ravage

We quickly head back to Damon's room, the three of us barreling inside and locking the door behind us. Jillian and Byrone are already here, sitting on the bed as they smash their fingers down on the keys of their laptops.

"Well?" Damon demands, leaning against his desk. "Anything?"

Jillian looks up, shaking her head slowly. "They've installed new firewall software. The encryption is hard to break through…"

"But?" I snap, sensing her hesitation.

Byrone sighs, putting his hand on Jillian's knee at my outburst. "We can seeonefile."

"What's the file?" I ask quickly.

They fall silent, the small flicker of hope in my chest starting to be smothered out. Damon breaks the silence, laughing dryly as he hisses angrily.

"Those motherfuckers."

I whip my attention over to him, watching as he rubs his hand over his face. "What?"

"It'sourfile, isn't it?" he asks Byrone in a knowing tone.

The two of them nod slowly. "It's a collection of our saved recordings from the cameras," Byrone confirms.

"They accessed our files?" I ask Damon.

He shakes his head. "They were watching us the whole time. They waited to boot us out of the system. It makes sense—Arthur fired the old IT people months ago. The new ones must have gotten through our security and been lurking until they were given the go ahead."

"Someone better start giving me some answers because my patience is wearing fucking thin," Theo growls from the corner near the doorway.

Jillian and Byrone look over, slightly alarmed at his temper. Damon gives him a curt nod, slumping slightly in his place.

"Arthur has been desperate to resume testing for quite some time. We initially overrode their IT systems so we could see who was being admitted to the facility and keep tabs on the cameras. They led us to believe they didn't have access, but clearly they did. Christopher said Avery has been on their radar for a while, which we also assumed. That's why we kept her close to the society."

"But you used her," I mutter angrily under my breath, glancing over to him. "You dangled her right in front of their faces like prey."

Damon raises an eyebrow at me. "Iusedtheir own tactics against them. They were trying to get information from Avery about us, so I returned the favor. It was the smart choice, even you agreed—despite your motives being different to mine."

"What the fuck does that mean?" I snap, louder.

"You fucking fell in love with her," he retorts, frustrated. "Your focus became cloudy and went off-track. You had no problem supporting me because it meant you could stay close to her. The goal was to keep everyone in the facility safe, not just her."

"Don't youdaretalk to me about getting close to her," I warn, noticing Jillian and Byrone shift awkwardly on the bed at our rising voices. "You're one to judge, Damon. And so much for keeping her safe. Look how well that turned out!"

He raises his hand, taking a sharp breath in frustration. "Enough, Grey! This is not the time nor the place to discuss anything other than our plan. We don't have much time. Two patients are now missing. Arthur has already told everyone that Capello is dead. He's likely going to run with the same story for Avery. We all need to be focused and stay in control. You can't lose your shit right now."

I lean against the wall, falling into deep thought. "What do we do then? They've never done it during the day before. We need to go underground."

"To the closed rooms?" Theo interjects. "Is that where she will be?" There's an edge to his tone, threatening to leave this room right now to go hunting. Damon senses it too, choosing his words carefully.

"Possibly," he says slowly. "But they also know that we know the locations of those rooms. Besides being heavily guarded, I wouldn't put it past them to have relocated."

Byrone nods. "A trap."

"Precisely. They want us to go down there. They will be waiting and ready."

Sighing, I look at Theo, noticing the same pained expression behind his eyes as mine. "We'll get her back," I tell him. "We have to."

He glances over at me. "How much time do we have?"

Damon kicks off from the desk, crossing the room over to Byrone. He holds out his hand, reaching for the laptop that Byrone offers. "A few days, likely."

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