Page 87 of Coerced

“So many teams have gone missing.” Travis dropped his arm. “The Council isn’t announcing it, but professional teams, too. More than just junior teams. Do you think this is related?”

“Maybe, maybe not. Hard to say right now.” Rome looked over at me. “What do you think?”

“I don’t care. I just need to find Gem—” My throat tightened and cut my words off.

Thankfully, Gigi came back into the room. While Rome and Travis filled her in on what we figured out so far, I got myself under control. Well,bettercontrol. Control enough to at least apologize to Travis.

“Sorry, Dragon. I’m on edge right now.”

“No worries. We’realledgy. Look, I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m exhausted. I need to crash for a while.”

“All of us need to rest.” Gigi looked tired, too. Like the heart-and-soul kinda tired. “Recharge while we have a chance. Plus, it’ll be dark in an hour. This seems like the kind of town that rolls up the sidewalks at dusk.”

“I agree.” Rome looked at me. “Hopefully, by morning, we’ll have a better idea of what to do and where to go. What do you say?”

I shrugged and went back to our room with Rome, but, knowing I’d never be settled enough to sleep, I got out my sketchbook and sat down at the table by the window. Thumbing to a blank page, I looked around for an idea. My eyes fell on Rome’s sleeping face and I started to sketch.

23. Care and Feeding of Kerry Harker

Gemma

Although it shamed me to admit it, I was glad I hadn’t been the only one captured. It would have been more than I could bear to be alone among the enemy.

And the others had trained much longer than I had for situations like this; their calm acceptance helped me keep panic at bay.

The demons had tossed us through the portal to land on a grassy yard in front of a strange building with metal letters running across the entrance. Some of the letters were missing, but enough remained for me to see it once said, “Science of the Future.” More demons had come out of that building and carried us across a gravel road to a metal building that had the look of a garage or repair shop of some kind.

Now, left lying on the concrete floor still swaddled in blankets, we struggled to free ourselves, but were “wrapped up tighter than burritos,” as Jax put it. Even the yellow color of the material added to the image and everyone had laughed, except Maddy, who had started to unravel. The constricting fabric triggered some sort of claustrophobia for her, and I tried to soothe her with songs while the others brainstormed ideas.

I looked around as I sang, getting a feel for our prison. Industrial lighting glared down almost too brightly from the metal ceiling. Dominating the room was a huge workstation with several stools still looking in usable condition. Most of the large space’s long walls were lined with metal shelving units and workbenches littered with odds and ends.

Several cots huddled in the rear of the building near a door marked as a bathroom. Also in that area was a metal contraption she thought might be a heating unit. I could feel warmth coming from that direction, anyway. An overhead garage door was next to the door we’d come in and two windows high up were probably more for ventilation than the view, I figured.

No escape there, I thought as I eyed them.Too high and narrow.

Fighting against the fabric was exhausting, and I eventually stopped struggling. Jax theorized that maybe there was some kind of power woven into the blankets. It took the better part of an hour, but Spin at last wiggled and squirmed his way over to Chance, who’d used his teeth to find a loose end of the blanket. He pulled at it until Spin could unroll himself like a clown doing a circus trick.

He freed Maddy first, then the rest of us.

“Let’s not do that again,” Jax muttered as he and Spin gathered up the blankets and threw them in one corner.

My arm around Maddy, I agreed.

“I wonder if we can destroy these.” Tara kicked her blanket onto the pile. “I’d like to burn mine.”

“We should take stock of what we have to work with here,” Spin suggested. “We may not have our powers, but we have our brains. Surely we can come up with some ideas to help the others find us. Rome will be on our trail as soon as he has a clue or a lead.”

“Kerry, too.” Jax smiled grimly. “And when he finds us, nothing will be left standing.”

Hearing his name, my chest clenched with misery and I slid to the floor, huddling against the wall.

“I’m worried about him. He was so upset before the ambush.” Tears pricked my eyes and the more I talked, the faster they flowed. “Now he has this to deal with, too. I’m scared about what he’ll do. What he’s thinking.”

Half-aware of the others gathering around me, I fought the hysteria rising up to claw my throat, but it was a losing battle from the beginning. I wanted to scream and fine tremors raced up and down my spine.

Jax plopped down, put his arms around me, and tucked my face into his throat. He was almost a foot shorter than Kerry, which actually made it easier to cry all over his shoulder.

“Gemma,” Chance said, “your imagination is running away with you. Do you honestly think he would abandon you to an enemy? Especially a Diabolical one? If you believe that, why—”

---