The Society (A Broken World Book 1) (28 page)

Tyrell pursed his lips. "No, I expect you're right. Our standing patrols and guard posts would have noticed if someone had cut a hole through the compound fence. The only logical explanation is that there's some kind of underground passage accessible by way of that particular building.

"I truly wish that some kind of map had survived all of these years—knowledge of all of the tunnels that crisscross the city would be invaluable, but I suppose there isn't any use asking for things that we know we can't have. The real question is where they'll come back up. If their tunnel runs all of the way outside of our territory then we'll never track them down."

Jax had been pacing, but now he stopped and stuck his head outside of my room. "Alan, get teams of two guards each headed out to the guard posts on the outer edges of our territory, I want teams walking the perimeter looking for anywhere a group of people could use to get past the barricade. Make sure the guards walking the perimeter go in teams of at least three, and that they keep their eyes peeled—the last thing we need right now is to lose a bunch more people trying and failing to stop the grab team if they haven't already made it out of our territory."

Tyrell had been lost in thought—his fingers tapping on his leg—while Jax talked to Alan, but now he looked up.

"That's a good start, but we should get someone to take a read on each of our neighbors before we do anything that can be noticed from the other side of the barricades. If any of the other territories are functioning under a higher state of readiness than normal, that will give us a pretty good idea which of the local despots ordered the grab. Let's go—I'll take a read on one of the neighboring territories myself."

I stood, desperately hoping against hope that they would let me go out there and help, but Jax brought his rifle up against his shoulder in one smooth motion.

"If you take another step, I'll shoot you myself."

Chapter 22

The next twelve hours crawled by. Despite the risk involved in opening my door, I only made it an hour before desperation for some kind of update drove me to do so. By that point I'd conjured up ten thousand different fates for Brennan, and each of them was worse than the one before.

The doors weren't made to lock from the outside—apparently none of the doors in the compound were or Jax would have convinced Tyrell to lock me up somewhere more secure—but if Jax had left orders for my guards to shoot me on sight, I was lucky that the two he'd assigned me weren't as cold-blooded as he was.

They brought their rifles up and trained them on me, but when I made no motion to step over the threshold to my room, they didn't actually pull their triggers. The one on the left, a massive red-headed guy whose rifle looked like some kind of toy in his bulky arms, scowled at me.

"You're not supposed to be out here."

"I know—I'm sorry—but I just have to know what's happening with Brennan. Have they found him yet? It's bad enough that I can't be out there helping look for him, it's a hundred times worse not even knowing what's going on."

"I said get back into your room."

I backed up, hands still in the air. "You guys have to know something—all I'm asking is for you to keep me in the loop."

Both guards moved forward, the smaller one covering the redhead as he grabbed the handle to my door and pulled it closed.

"If you open that door again, we'll shoot you."

The words were faint with the heavy metal door between us, but there was no mistaking the tone to them. I'd just burned up any credit with my captors.

I made a good-faith effort to obey, but things didn't get any easier as time passed. An hour or two later I yelled through the door, asking them if they'd heard anything else. All I got back in exchange was curses. I tried again after another hour or so, and this time someone slammed the butt of their rifle against my door.

My money was on the redhead again. He was going to ruin his rifle before he would put a hole in the door, but there wasn't any guarantee that he would stop at threats and yelling. I debated egging him on in the hopes of forcing some kind of confrontation, but as badly as I wanted to do just that, I couldn't come up with a good reason to act on the urge.

In close quarters, with the element of surprise on my side, there was a very good chance that I could take both of them out, but all that would do was make Jax positive that I was involved in the grab. I would be free, but I'd be smack dab in the middle of hostile territory, surrounded by guards who were on high alert, and completely without the resources I would need to stage any kind of rescue for Brennan.

I locked my door, yelled through the metal one last time that I wanted to help—or at least to know what was going on—and then forced myself to lie down in my hammock. It was late enough that I should have been asleep, but I knew I wouldn't be able to nod off. Instead, I was conserving my energy and giving my nanites a chance to finish repairing the damage I'd sustained when Brennan had been kidnapped.

When I finally heard a knock on my door hours later, it felt like days had passed, but the alarm clock in my room told a different story.

"Who is it?"

"Alan. I've brought you something to eat—can you unlock the door, please?"

I'd been hoping for Tyrell, but I should have known that Brennan's number two wouldn't have the time to come visit me while he was trying to figure out which of the neighboring warlords had Brennan. I padded over to the door and unlocked it.

"I would have expected Tyrell to give you the master key before sending you here."

Alan had a tray full of food balanced in one hand. He nodded as he waited for me to back up far enough that I couldn't be any kind of threat.

"They did, but it didn't seem polite to just unlock it without at least giving you a chance to answer the door first. I brought dinner and Tyrell's apology for not getting you something to eat hours ago."

As he set the tray down on the floor just inside of my room, I nearly made some kind of wisecrack about the danger of letting me eat food down here where I'd just attract cockroaches, but there wasn't time for that.

"What do you know, Alan? Have they figured out where Brennan is yet? Is Jax putting together a rescue mission?"

He looked at me hesitantly. He probably didn't have explicit orders not to talk to me, but it didn't take a genius to know that Jax thought I was the reason Brennan had been captured. There were plenty of reasons for him not to trust me, but there was one reason for him to believe me.

He'd been there when Brennan had stepped in front of that belt to save me. He'd seen how badly it had shaken me up, and he'd watched as I did everything I could to care for Brennan when he'd been unconscious.

I looked him in the eyes and willed him to see just how worried I was about Brennan.

"It's—it's not good, Skye. We've got a team inside of the building looking for the tunnel that they used to get in and out of the compound, but so far we haven't found anything. We'll find it eventually, but it could take days—days that Brennan might not have."

I started pacing, desperate to come up with a solution. "There hasn't been any kind of ransom demand then? What about the efforts to dig up a way in and out of our territory?"

"No ransom demands yet. We've found half a dozen different spots where people could have crossed over. We already know about a couple, but we had trustworthy people stationed there watching to see who used them."

"How is that possible?"

"The city is riddled with tunnels. Everybody knows it, we just don't know where to find most of them, or how many there really are. Brennan had people tasked with identifying the smuggling routes, but a lot of the time it's our own people who are the most eager to keep that kind of stuff hidden. Smuggling is profitable for both sides of the operation. Tyrell and Jax put the screws on some people we knew had to be involved in the unsanctioned activities on our side of the border and that is the only reason that we found the paths we did, but everyone is swearing that they didn't have anything to do with Brennan's capture."

"Which is exactly what they'd do if Jax was torturing them. If they admit to something like that they'll be dead within the hour."

Alan nodded. "Yeah."

"So what are Tyrell and Jax going to do? They aren't just going to sit around and hope for a ransom demand, are they?"

"I don't think so. The jury is still out. All of the territories that border us were on high alert by the time you got back here."

"They're all involved?"

"That or they were just tipped off by whoever grabbed Brennan. The territory to the north of us—the one controlled by a gang called the Muertos—seems to be the most edgy though. Jax thinks that's where we should start. Either they have Brennan or they know that they are the most vulnerable."

"So what, he's just going to lead a group in and start killing people until he's convinced that Brennan isn't there?"

Alan refused to meet my eyes, but he nodded. "We don't have many options, Skye. If we just sit here without doing anything, then we look weak. We can't afford that—not right now, not when we don't have Brennan. It's not ideal, but going into the Muertos' territory and executing the entire gang will make things better for an awful lot of people."

"And it could get Brennan killed. A rescue operation doesn't work unless you've got solid information regarding where the hostage is being held, and even then it's a long shot."

"Like I said, we don't have any choice."

It hit me all of a sudden. All of the pieces that hadn't been making sense clicked into place.

"There isn't going to be a ransom demand, Alan. This was never about extorting guns or technology out of us. Someone predicted that Jax and Tyrell would do exactly what they are about to do. They don't want Brennan, not really—they just want to push us into taking down our neighbors. Grabbing Brennan was just the push that started the dominos falling."

Alan looked at me strangely. "How would you know that, Skye?"

"Because it's the only thing that makes sense. Tyrell and Jax are going at this all wrong. They should be trying to identify the territory that looks least like a threat, the one that they would leave for last. If they go in after the Muertos, all they'll be doing is weakening our forces at precisely the time when we can least afford to lose people. One of our other neighbors is massing forces at our border so that they can move in and take us down as soon as our people are worn out from fighting the Muertos."

I moved toward Alan, planning on shaking him if that was what it took to make him listen, but the guards behind him—including the redhead who'd given me such a hard time nearly twenty-four hours earlier—brought their weapons the rest of the way up and trained them on me. I stopped, teeth grinding at the fact that after everything I'd learned, after all of the training and the nanites, I was still helpless, still unable to make a difference when it mattered most.

"Please, Alan. You have to tell Tyrell and Jax. I'm not a spy, I don't know anything more than what you've told me, but it's the only logical explanation for all of this. Holding Brennan hostage is a losing proposition for our neighbors. Brennan has been trading them guns and ammo at an incredibly favorable rate of exchange. The longer things continue on as they are, the stronger they get in relation to everyone else on
their
borders.

"Nothing Piter or any of the others could hope to get out of taking Brennan is enough to justify losing their ongoing access to our guns—nothing but a chance to take over our territory altogether. They don't care about the textiles factory or the farms, or anything else, they want the ability to make more guns and guarantee themselves an infinite supply of ammunition. If Jax and Tyrell go in against the wrong target, they'll be handing our territory and everything Brennan has been working for over to whoever is behind the grab."

Alan had been slowly backing away the entire time I'd been talking. He was at the threshold now, still shaking his head.

"Is this why you were sent here? So you could prep for the kidnapping and then sow doubt into our ranks? Is that the last piece of your mission, to paralyze us while Brennan is worked over for the knowledge inside of his head?"

"No, Alan. I'm on your side, I'm—"

He cut me off with a gesture and then shut the door before I could cross the distance between us. I put my ear up to the door and listened as he walked away.

They were all looking in the wrong place, and I was the only one who had the tools necessary to save Brennan, Lexis and everyone else inside of the compound. I just had to be willing to pay the price and betray my Society along the way.

Chapter 23

I knew that time was short, but that didn't stop me from stripping out of my ruined dress and showering. Brennan could already be dead, and if he wasn't, every minute counted, but I couldn't pull off my plan looking like I'd just been beaten to within an inch of my life.

Once I was clean, I dressed in my last clean guard uniform and ate some of the food that Alan had left for me—not enough to slow me down, but enough to give my nanites something other than my muscles and connective tissue to break down. Then there was nothing left to do but hope that the redhead hadn't gotten to the end of his shift while I was showering.

I got right up next to my door and called out. "Please tell me that Alan took my concerns to Tyrell! I'm just as worried about Brennan as the rest of you."

It took the redhead exactly one second to cross the hall and slam the butt of his rifle into my door. A fraction of a second later I threw my door open with every ounce of my nanite-infused strength. Timing was everything. I needed to get him while his weight was still shifted forward, before he recovered and set himself.

I could probably match up with him on even footing just based on pure muscle power, but I couldn't keep up when it came to weight. Luckily I didn't have to.