Page 57 of Hacker Identified

“I don’t think that is a thing. Where are we?” I groaned as I stood. My right ankle felt like I’d twisted it.

“I woke up when the plane landed, but with you still out, I couldn’t make an escape and protect you at the same time. We are near Haven Ridge. I thought we were headed for the Crimson Creed compound, but he took us a few miles south.”

“You’re awake.” Tim’s voice echoed. I glanced at the person to his right and squinted. What the hell, my mind had to be playing tricks. The woman looked so much like me, and she had the same bright green eyes as my sister. Her hand rested on her pregnant belly as she eyed me.

“Hazel?” I asked.

“Yes, this is your dear sister. If you hadn’t caused so many issues years ago, you would’ve been by her side…and be my wife as well. I would have even more kids.”

Hazel’s shoulders dropped, and she stared down at the ground.

I shoved at the metal bars. “I don’t understand. How have you had my sister? Do you work for Watson?”

“Watson is only a pawn. My father was the reason he had so much power. After everything my dad did for him, he tried to back out on the deal of turning you and Hazel over to my family. That’s when my father helped me take her. You were supposed to be next, but your dumb ass got sent away. Then it took years of planning and tracking, but one day your face flashed across the television screen. That’s when I knew I had my chance.”

I racked my brain, trying to place his voice. His father wasn’t my dad’s second-in-command. “I’ve never seen you before.”

He stomped across the walkway to my cell. “My family helped your father traffic women and kids. You might not have seen me, but I saw a lot of you.”

Kat hadn’t said a word. She was propped up against the bars watching them. I wasn’t sure what I expected her to do with us locked up. But from all the crazy stories, I figured she would magically produce a gun, kill Tim, and unlock our cell.

Hazel glanced at me with tears streaming down her face. The spitfire sister I’d once known looked like a shell of her former self. “What now? Are you going to leave me locked down here?”

“Hazel is going to explain what I expect from you. And if you fuck up, she will pay the price. While you sisters have a chat, I need to take care of a couple of things.” He yanked the door to the cell next to mine open and pushed Hazel inside. She fell to the ground and landed on her knees.

Hazel didn’t move until the steel door Tim strode out of slammed shut. The moment the door clicked, something changed in my sister. She sprang from the floor, and her eyes were filled with fire, not tears. “We don’t have much time.”

“What’s the guard situation like?” Kat asked as she pulled off her high heeled shoe and unscrewed the heel.

“I have so many other questions. Hazel, your alive.” I only wanted to hug my sister.

A woman in the cell across from us spoke up. “I overheard the shipment of new women coming in now. He’ll need to take guards from here to for the added security he needs. With the raid of the Creed Compound, he doesn’t have extra help from them anymore. My guess is they will leave maybe three here with us.”

“Any alarm systems or anything else I need to worry about?”

“What the hell!” I waved my hands in the air. “Can we rewind for a moment?”

“I want nothing more than to hug you.” Hazel winced and pressed her hand against her stomach. “But I’m going into labor soon, and I don’t want to let him ship away another one of my children. Since Tim found you, I’ve worked even harder to take him down. He complained about the friends you made, and that’s when I learned of Sophie. I slipped her information when I could, but it was hard…I had to be careful. I’d learned Watson stored a bunch of his servers at this compound, so I sent Sophie the information. I really believed the feds could have tied the cult back to this place. Except they didn’t and Tim got angrier when Watson went down, because he needed him to run his own business. I overheard his plan to take you, but I couldn’t do anything to stop him. I’m so sorry…”

I can’t believe my own sister is the unknown hacker. None of that mattered because we were all locked behind metal bars. The sun sank low, causing the little light we had to slowly disappear. Maybe this was the world saying me and Zack weren’t meant to be together?

“I almost have it open.” Kat had the heel of her shoe pressed into the lock, and as she twisted, the mechanism clicked, and her door opened. “Okay. Let’s get everyone out of here. I’m sure my fabulous husband is working to find us, but it’s so much more fun when I save the day and prove what a kick-ass operative I am.”

“That was impressive, but we still have to get through the locked door over there,” Hazel said as Kat worked to open all the cell doors. The women were hugging each other and crying.

Only Kat didn’t head for the locked door. Instead, she pushed the large filing cabinet on the far wall three feet to the right to show a small hatch. “I guessed we are in the basement. Men like Tim can’t always bring people or leave through the front doors, so they create secondary escape routes.”

For the next hour, we crawled along a dark dirt tunnel. Only sniffles filled the air. I thought we would never get to the end when the person at the front said there was a hatch. She opened it carefully. One by one, we crawled up a ladder and through the small hatch into an office. We were now at the Creed Compound in Watson’s study.

I rushed to the desk, picked up the phone, and was relieved when there was a dial tone. After I lost my phone in Vegas, I’d made myself memorize a few numbers. Zack’s was one of them. I immediately dialed his number and waited to hear his voice.

“Hello?”

“Zack. We need help. Can you send people to the compound? I’ll explain everything in time.”

“Fuck it’s good to hear your voice. We are on our way.”

“It will take too long for you to get here from Florida to Virginia.”

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