Page 46 of Catching Fire

“He took Marina.” The emotion burbled in her voice, coming out even though she fought to keep it back. “He hurt her in her own home.”

Her fake own home,Seline thought, but didn't say. “And then he had her and he told us she was alive. Then he led us to this place.”

Maggie interrupted again. “He didn't lead us. We found it.”

“Do you really think he didn't lead us here?” Seline turned in her seat as best she could, the seat belt still trying to keep her straight.

“It was Ivy who found that information,” Maggie countered.

But Seline smacked right back with, “It was Sanders who gave us the phone call. He had to think we'd have it traced.” But she had to agree with Maggie, too, and she’d been bitchy in her response. Seline conceded a bit. “I don't know. He did seem ready for us at the farm.”

“He definitely had cameras and lookouts,” Maggie pointed out between bites of the fries she was still slowly working on.

“So he probably knew we were there—” Kalan chimed in from where he hung forward between the front seats, the last of his food having disappeared, “—when we first entered the property. So while the whole place looked abandoned, he had plenty of time to be working in the back while we were checking the front house.”

That made Seline want to vomit again. Once again, she fought the urge down as best she could.Had Marina been there—had she been alive—when they arrived?

It might be a question she would never answer.

She filled the space of her grief with knowledge. It was just how she worked. She balanced chemicals and made new products. If she could just balance this equation, she could make something better from it.

As she opened her mouth, the car with the FBI agents who’d been escorting them pulled into the spot beside her. She ignored them. When they didn’t get out of their car, and seemed to act as if nothing had gone wrong, Seline began speaking. “Here's the thing—and no one's mentioned this! Not you guys, not Verner or Rossi—Why?”

Both Maggie and Kalan looked at her expectantly. She’d worked herself up before she’d even told them what she was talking about. So she took a deep breath that—even to her—sounded more like a heavy sigh. “The tracker!”

They looked at her as if she was still off her rocker.

“When he got Marina, the first thing he did was take the tracker out of her arm and throw it under my house. Heknewshe had a tracker in her! Heknewshe was an officer.”

As Seline watched, Maggie's eyes grew wide. But she kept pushing, because this had been bothering her for a while. She’d wondered if no one was talking about it because it was so obvious and she was the only one missing it. From the look on Maggie’s and Kalan’s faces, Seline realized that was not the case.

“He knew she was an officer. He knew she had a tracker. There was minimal blood at the Gutierrez house. It was there, but it wasn't much. So he didn't spend time searching her for it,” Seline concluded. When her friends didn’t speak, she said the words they were all thinking now. “He knew where it was before he started.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

The first one up the next morning, Seline made herself another bowl of instant oatmeal. The two minutes it took the water to boil in the microwave seemed an eternity. She waited a second era while her oatmeal steeped. Cringing at her memories the whole time.

Her hair probably looked a fright, but it didn't matter because her head pounded with each pulse of her blood. Though she'd come home and been grateful to sleep in her own bed last night, she hadn't rested. The few times she did fall asleep, the only reason she knew she hadn't actually screamed herself awake was because no one had rushed to her door.

She was surprised she’d slept at all. The entire day had been a disaster, right up until she’d seen Maggie and Sebastian to their room last night then headed up the stairs. Her adrenaline hadn’t worn off … at least that’s what she told herself for the monumentally poor decision making she’d displayed.

Seline had knocked lightly on Kalan’s door. Though he’d opened it, he hadn’t motioned for her to come inside. He didn’t want her, and she’d missed every signal.

Though her reckless fantasy had her sitting next to him on the bed and her fingers tracing his chest, she hadn’t gotten much further than that. So when he’d stood there filling the doorway, far too clothed for her taste, and blocked her way to the bed, she’d lifted onto her toes.

Without a word or a further thought, she’d pressed her mouth to his.

He’d sighed, and she’d taken it to be a cue.

What a fool.

She’d moved closer, letting her breasts brush against his chest through their clothing, he’d stiffened at the motion, and she’d again taken it as a sign for more. Throwing her arms around him, she’d melted into a kiss that lasted all of two seconds.

He’d politely taken her arms away from his neck and stepped back.

The kindness had been the worst part. The soft words, “You should get to bed,” still echoed in her throbbing brain this morning.

And she couldn’t get away from him. He was still sleeping in the room across the hall from hers. Maggie and Sebastian hadn’t even left yet. So they could see the awkward fallout of her stupid actions last night, too.

---