Page 27 of Escape into the Night

“Well, that was something.”

A young woman stifled a laugh that sounded more manic than humorous. “We’ll worry about tear-down tomorrow. I'll make sure the doors are secured. Once the sun rises, my staff can pack everything and I'll make sure it's locked up tight.”

“You're a gem,” Caleb crooned, his eyes darting back toward Elias from across their circle of friends. “Can you get us home safe, boss man?”

Despite himself, Elias chuckled. “That you even have to ask that question is laughable, love.”

The shared laughter was quiet and apprehensive, more of an automatic response in their bodies trying to come to grips with the terrifying unknown. Their small group moved as one, carefully navigating around toppled chairs, taped wires that had come loose, and abandoned personal effects that had been lost in the evacuation. Keys jangled in locks behind them at every section of escape they moved through until finally, they were at the edge of a parking lot that stretched like a gaping maw of darkness only barely illuminated by ambient starlight in the absence of light pollution.

“I'd say give us a ring to let us know you made it home,” Matthew hedged, his voice even quieter. The natural inclination to speak in hushed tones was like an innate animal instinct when faced with the great unknown and the suffocating darkness.

“I'm sure it’ll all be sorted in an hour or so.” Cynthia’s words came out shaky. Elias was inclined to disagree with her hopefulness. Nothing about this felt like a simple, easily rectified thing, but none of them wanted to be the one to say it out loud.

“I'm sure. Just a little hiccup.” Caleb's arm wound around Elias’ waist as he talked. He was glad for the closeness as the remaining staff from the venue parted ways, their small beams of cell phone light breaking away to float into the ethereal shadows, growing smaller as they moved farther away.

“Please get home safe.” Elias glanced toward Matt and Cynthia both, nodding just once before stepping back with Caleb beside him and Parker clinging tight to his shoulders. “We’ll be in touch.”

Quietly murmured partings and well-wishes felt too loud as the last car pulled away from the parking lot to leave only theirs and the Dresdon's vehicles behind. Eventually, with no reason to linger longer, the two families went their separate ways, and as Elias followed the eerie red aura of Matt’s tail lights through the shadowy landscape, he grappled over the center console until hefound Caleb's hand, squeezing tight to keep him tethered and grounded as the gravity of it all sank deep in his chest.

Chapter Fifteen

Abriella

Cold,meagerlightbathedthe small room in flickering light, the emergency fluorescents threatening to fail at any moment as Bella stalked past the white boards that held monochromatic pictures and printouts that she didn't have time to examine. In the wake of the most recent incident, the ‘big picture’ was too massive to worry about the original focus of the investigation. The headquarters felt like a war room on the losing side of a battle too big to fight, usually a fortress of efficiency filled to the brim with the hum of electricity, the glow of screens flooded with intelligence feeds, the continual clatter of keystrokes and phone calls filling the air with perpetual sound. Now, the most powerful intelligence agency in the country was filled with an energy just shy of panic. Screens were dark. Phones were unreliable. Systems that should have been failsafe were failing left and right. Bella was not having a good fucking day.

Pacing the perimeter of the room like a caged animal, her high heels clacked with an echo against the surreal quietude. Her hair was a frizzy mess, her blazer was a wrinkled disaster, and thecoffee clutched in her hand was cold as ice because there was no way to reheat it. She was one impulsive decision away from throwing the entire carafe at the nearest blank screen.

“Mierda!” Her mug hit the metal surface of the table with a sharp clank. “Porfa, someone tell me something!”

Taz’ face lifted at her outburst, his features gaunt in the blue glow of a lone laptop hooked up to something that looked a lot like a rigged up car battery with a strange metal arm grotesquely attached to the top. Bella knew it was actually some sort of advanced device to keep the device running so he could do his job, but the monstrosity looked more like a McGyver-esque disaster than a piece of equipment utilized by the FBI. He grunted and returned his intense gaze to the screen without a response.

Luke, his body just as tightly wound as Abriella’s, stood behind him like a stone sentinel. The man’s jaw was tense enough to make her teeth ache in sympathy. She expelled a strained sigh and turned her gaze toward the only other occupant of their fortress of frustration—Marissa Robbins. Today's hair color was a dark black. Fitting, she thought to herself. Black like their collective mood. She, too, remained silent as death.

“Someone? Anyone? Bueller?!” Abriella's hands flew up with an exasperated flail.

“What do you want me to fucking say? This was a surgically precise cyberattack against the goddamn infrastructure of the entire fucking city! When I know more, you'll know more!” Taz snapped, his eyes promising murder over the edge of the laptop.

Bella leaned forward, one hand flat against the surface of the table as she stabbed a finger at his face with the other. “Ay, dios mio. Explain to me like I am sixty-five and do not understand how Wi-Fi works!”

“Except you're twenty-nine and don’t know how Wi-Fi works,” he bit back with a venomous tone. Nevertheless, his long fingersdanced over the keyboard as his eyes took on that familiar unfocused focus that meant he was staring at six different things all at once, processing information faster than she could ever hope to herself. “They didn't concentrate on the power grid alone. It's financial networks, transportation systems, government databases, fucking everything. Not a minor inconvenience, this was a whole ass fucking destabilization tactic.”

“They, they, they. Who the fuck is they, T?”

“Bell, I don't know!” Taz pushed his chair back with a screech of metal against linoleum before rocking forward to rest his elbows on his knees and drop his head into his hands. “I don't know.”

Luke sprang into action, gripping the back of Taz’ neck in a broad palm, kneading gently as he loomed over the hunched figure and shot Bella a warning glance. They were all on a hair-trigger, but Taz more so than any of them. She knew better. She really did. Connor had been at his wit’s end with terror when he showed up at her apartment with the news about Theo. Taz had witnessed the flight first hand and she chided herself silently over the insensitivity of her actions. If they lost Taz to a spiral, they'd be truly fucked.

“Pequeño, lo siento. I'm sorry.” Bella shifted around the table to perch a hip on the edge, running her long nails through Taz’ tangled hair. “We will figure this out. We will get him back.”

“No one is taking credit yet?” Marissa’s voice cut through the heavy stillness with sharp precision. Taz recovered with an exhausted exhalation, shifting upright before tucking his chair closer to the whining laptop that sounded like it desperately wanted to die an explosive death.

“No. No chatter from the usual suspects, no foreign rogue nation whipping their dick around, no bragging terrorist cells.Which means one of two things: they're either waiting to use this as leverage, or—”

“Or it's someone on the inside.” Marissa sank back in her chair with a grim expression.

“Gold star for Mary fucking Poppins,” Taz groused bitterly as he resumed his endless gauntlet of scouring the world's largest biome accessible through a screen powered by a goddamn car battery.

Bella turned her attention to Marissa. “You're telling me someone in our own government took down the capital of the country?”

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