Page 77 of Guarded from Havoc

“Okay,” Matt replies. “After putting together the clues from over a dozen encrypted messages I found so far, it’s pretty clear what’s going on. The island was a game called Mouse Hunt. The people who were captured and left there were referred to as the mice. The traps… well, I think we all know what that means. As for the rules of the game—I believe people placed bids to take part. To trigger the traps, as it was. They’d get access to the video feeds and trigger their given trap when amousegot close.”

My body goes ice cold. Then hot. Then cold again. “People paid money to try tokillus?”

“That’s what we think,” Dante answers. His eyes are dark with barely tamped anger. “You and Erik were two of the mice. Along with those four other people.”

Erik frowns. “But this post is from three days ago. We escaped the island long before that.”

A beat later, his hand tightens around mine. Not painfully. But almost like he’s afraid someone will take me away from him. “This isn’t about the island, is it?” he asks. “It’s about a new game.”

“I think so,” Matt agrees. “I think there’s a new Mouse Hunt in the works. Which is bad, in one sense. But?—”

“Good in the other,” Xavier finishes. “Because now we can go in and stop it. Trace the camera feeds before this fucker can shut them down. Rescue everyone and put an end to this fucked up game.” Fury blazes in his eyes. “These fucking games. Playing with people’s lives. And these monsters behind them…”

“You’re right,” Dante says. “About all of it. The monsters who pull this shit. And going in to stop them.”

“I found one post looking for potential mice,” Matt adds. “Kind of like a… nomination. So if we want to get inside…”

“We can set a trap,” Erik continues. “Create false identities. Matt, you can work your magic to make sure the other nominations are deleted. So it’ll have to be us going in.”

My head is on a swivel, following their conversation. So it takes a few seconds for what Erik said to sink in.

The moment it does, fear explodes inside me.

My nails dig into his hand hard enough to draw blood. “No,” I blurt out. “No, Erik. No. You’re not going back in there. You can’t.” Voice wobbling, I plead, “Please. We barely got out of there the first time. I can’t…”

“Tate.” Erik’s voice gentles as he turns to me. “I know. It’s scary. But before, I wasn’t prepared. I didn’t know what we were up against. Now I do.Wedo.”

“But…” Tears burn behind my eyes.“Erik…”

“We’ll make a plan, Tatum,” Dante interjects. “We won’t be going in blind. It’ll be like any of our other missions.”

Before I heard about Erik’s brush with death in the Middle East, that might have been comforting. Now, not so much.

“We can handle this,” Erik says. Understanding fills his gaze. But along with it is a fierce determination. “I promise, Tate. We’ll get in there and put an end to this. Make sure the people who did this are punished. You’ll be safe to go anywhere you want again.”

But what if I want to stay here? With Erik and his friends? What if I don’t care about going anyplace else if it puts Erik at risk?

I can’t say that, though. Not when I know Erik wants to be a part of it. When I think heneedsto be there at the end of it.

So I swallow back my fear and sniff back my tears. “Okay. But please, be careful.Please.”

CHAPTER 15

ERIK

“I’m unencryptingthe camera feed now.”

Matt glances up from his phone, cautious triumph in his eyes. “This asshole thinks he’s so smart,” he continues. “But he made a critical error when he set up these cameras. He used symmetric encryption, so it was relatively easy to decipher the code using one of the live feeds on the dark web. If he’d used asymmetric, on the other hand?—”

“No offense,” Niall interjects. “But I have no idea what you’re talking about, Matt. Could you break that down for the rest of us?”

“Right.” Matt makes an apologetic grimace. “Sorry.” Keeping his voice pitched low, like the rest of us, he explains, “All it means is the guy who set up the feeds used an encryption method that makes it easier for us. Not that I couldn’t get in, regardless, but with time being of the essence…”

Dante gives a sharp nod. “You’re doing great.” Pausing, he presses a finger to the comm in his ear for a second. Then he says quietly, “Affirmative. Stay where you are. Matt says we’re closeto accessing the source of the camera feed. We’ll be heading in shortly.”

While Matt taps away on his phone, Dante turns to the rest of us. “Rafe is on the northeast side, and he has one of the other captives with him. Tyler is closer to us, in the southeast sector. He found a female captive and convinced her to stick with him. Until we get in there with thermal cameras, we won’t know how many more are in there.”

“And they’re all in good shape?” I ask. “No significant injuries?”

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