Chapter 28

I glanced over the screen to Paisley. “What do you mean longer life?”

She grinned. “Your life expectancy is longer, like theirs after your mated.”

Bethany nodded when I looked to her for clarification.

I straightened up, “how much longer?”

Daxx shrugged. “No one asks.”

I frowned.

“You don’t want to live longer? Do more?” Alona asked, leaning against the table with papers in her hand.

I shrugged. “I guess.” I sat back in the chair. “I just always thought maybe in my next life I could be a mom and wife—” I rolled my eyes. “Shit like that. Survive the odds in this one and then have a smooth sailing one.”

Alona smiled. “I don’t think you’ll be or have been a complacent housewife going to PTA meetings in any life.”

I grinned. “You know what I mean.”

Paisley laughed. “I’m pretty sure you’ve been on the kick-ass side of history in every life.”

“I think Michael is being an ass, the way he’s acting.” Daxx said. “And trust me as far as the mating process goes, I had the biggest one in the bunch.”

“Yeah,” Beth gave me a sympathetic look, “I thought after the mark and all he’d be more…” she glanced to the other, “warm toward you.”

I blew out a breath, still not ready to face the new reality that was my life. We’d talked about it when I’d first followed Daxx to avoid being alone with my thoughts. Mating usually meant happily-ever-after, well, various versions of it. I was mated to a man that didn’t want to be mated to me, or anyone—ever. I couldn’t find fault in what he’d done because I was still here breathing. The fact that now that he’d bound us together meant neither of us would ever be intimate with anyone else, was a huge sacrifice on his part, in my opinion. Me though, I wanted the man on the other end of my new tattoo, so it was going to be all moony eyes and cravings for something I couldn’t have.

“She’s lost again.” Bethany said.

I blinked and gave her a startled look. “Yeah.” I touched my head. “Left-over stew up here.”

Beth grinned.

Crissy jumped up and jogged to the table and set papers on it. “Sorting helps, reading, will take you out of your head.” She nodded, then gave me a sappy teary-eyed look.

I held up my hand. “Do not thank me again.”

She clamped her mouth together and nodded, then quickly sat back down.

I sighed and looked at the screen in front of me. This was so far out of my comfort zone. I looked at Paisley. “Show me this again.” I motioned to the screen and papers, determined to be helpful.

She got up to come over and lean on the desk. “Most of these files are garbled-guck to all of us too, so don’t let it get to you.” She pointed to the words on the screen. “Mixed in the long lines of mashed up code,” she gave me an exasperated look, “when we grabbed this, there was no time to just download relevant files, so we got the whole shebang of old deleted files and everything.” Shaking her head, she motioned to the screen. “We go through, highlight the important information, names, addresses and so on, then print them.” She pointed to the pages sitting beside the laptop. “That top page was right,” she scrolled back on the screen, “here.” With skill she highlighted the part that was now printed.

I picked up the page and looked at it, then to the screen, comparing it, hoping it would become clearer to me. “So, what are these numbers?” I pointed to them on the paper in my hand. “Do we add that, or does the printer?”

“Numbers?” Beth looked at the paper, then to the screen. She glanced around at the others and then looked again.

Crissy jumped up and came over quickly. I pointed to the numbers on the page a few lines above names. Her eyes squinted together as she picked up the page and looked at it. She almost shoved me back on the wheeled chair to look at the screen. Clutching the page, she went over to the table with the piles all over it. She flipped through a few. “I didn’t see it. How could I not see it? I should have seen it.” She said something I couldn’t make out. “They’re hidden, on the screen, not the printout. Some kind of hidden system...”

“See what?” Alona asked.

“The numbers.” She mumbled and slid down to the end pile of pages. Almost frantically she flipped through them, pausing and looking at the board.

“We’ve all seen the numbers, Crissy.” Bethany said.

“Random numbers…”

“They’re not.” She shook her head, then turned to Daxx, “random. They’re not.” She waved the page in her hand so fast it was a white blur. “It’s their system that shows which are found and which are not. I don’t know how it’s hidden on the screen though.” She looked back at the page. “If I take these and compare them, I should see a pattern to tell us which were found that we haven’t gotten yet.” She nodded and grabbed a stack, then ran over to the other end of the room and started spreading them out on the floor. “You are so smart, Autumn.”

I looked at Paisley, having no clue what she was talking about, she shook her head, not having any idea either, which made me feel less uneducated.

“I think we should call the men.” Alona suggested.

Daxx was frowning and watching Crissy carefully. She nodded her head and pulled an earpiece out of her pocket.

~

I sat at the desk with a front row seat, watching Crissy run back and forth from the map on the wall, the pages all over the floor and whatever it was she was doing at her desk. All of the brothers were in the room, a few guards now as well. Leone and Rafael were on the floor moving pages around.

“I feel like I missed the instructional portion of what we’re doing here.” Chase said giving Troy an odd look.

“That’s because there wasn’t any.” Troy motioned to the papers on the floor. “She can’t explain it, if she doesn’t know yet.”

“Leave it up to Cutie to find some secret code.” Chase smiled.

Crissy stopped moving. “I didn’t find it. Autumn did.” She was on the move again. “It was right in front of my face and I didn’t see it.” She frowned and then knelt down checking what Rafael and Leone had done.

Quinton pushed away from the wall and went over, looking to see what his brothers were doing. “When did you two get good at math?”

Leone smirked. “It’s not math. It’s a cypher.”

Quinton crossed his arms over his chest. “A cypher?”

Leone nodded. “Yeah. Remember that movie about during the war when they’d use a cypher to pass messages in case they fell into enemy hands?”

“And you guys think Willis is smart enough to do this?” Arius gave Michael a quick look.

Crissy got up and went back to the map. “No. Well,” she waved her hand to the map, “I don’t know if they are.” She shrugged. “It wasn’t to hide from us, it was for them to keep information straight.” She nodded. “They tracked down so many, they had to use some sort of system to know which were located or not.”

“Have you figured out that system, heart?” Victor crossed his arms over his chest, but gave her a patient look.

Crissy puffed out her cheeks, then exhaled quickly. “I’m not sure. I mean I can’t check most of the ones already found… or not found, by them,” she gave him a wide-eyed look, “but if I can confirm one or two and check the pattern…”

“Criss, yes or no?” Daxx got up and went over to look at the map, probably trying to figure out what she’d been doing. I couldn’t follow any of it, so I was staying where I sat.

“I…” Crissy paused then pointed to the map, “think the first four numbers are the grid reference from the map.” She nodded and looked around at everyone. No one moved. “I don’t have enough of the pages of those we found to confirm what I think the last four numbers mean.”

Victor looked over her shoulder at the map, then to the page in her hand. “Zero nine would be h on the map?” He leaned closer, “and zero six, so,” he stepped to her side and touched the line on the top of the map, “six and h,” he followed the two points until they met, “here.”

Everyone moved closer to see what he was doing. I stood up, so I could at least pretend I knew what they were talking about.

“Yes.” Crissy looked excited. “We found her there too, but I don’t know what the end numbers mean.”

“The fact that you figure out the first four is phenomenal.” Alona hugged her arms around her waist. “So, we know map coordinates, now what do we do?”

“Get help.” Michael pulled out his phone. “We have scholars and mathematicians, surely they can be of some assistance with all this.” He tapped the screen, then put the phone to his ear and walked out of the crowd of bodies.

“We need to start marking the map with those we haven’t found.” Daxx said.

Troy was typing on his phone. “I’m getting a larger map brought in here.”

“We’ll need a new color system.” Paisley went over and looked at the pages on the floor. “Green for those we’ve found. Yellow for the ones we’ve confirmed, but haven’t moved yet. Red for an unchecked site.”

Alona went over and got her phone. “I need to get in touch with Liza, we may need more space soon.”

I looked away from the map to her, “have you thought of finding an old apartment building or empty school or something and have it converted into apartments? There’s so many empty buildings just crumbling to the ground.”

Troy pointed at me and nodded. “We’ll help with that.”

Alona took a deep breath and then exhaled and smiled. “It would save looking for new houses.” She bit her lip. “It might take some time…” she looked at Chase, her mouth dropping, “I saw a listing for something like that…” She spun around and dashed over to her desk.

Chase turned and looked at me, then to his twin, “we may have to buy a construction company, brother.”

Troy grinned, “it would save us time and issues.”

Rafael nodded. “I’m going to go through the teams and see if we need to adjust patrols to come up with a few more around the clock teams for the houses.”

Arius kissed the top of Paisley’s head, “I’m going to go through the lists of those we’ve found with women again… someone has to have something useful in their head.”

“I’ll help with that.” Troy gave Daxx a quick glance.

I watched Crissy sticking pins in the map. Now that some of the bodies had dispersed, I was able to see the whole map. I went over. “So, the red means it’s a place we suspect a woman might be held?”

Crissy nodded. “We can check, then change it to yellow before we send teams in.”

I pointed to a red pin. “So, there’s a woman there?”

Crissy checked which one I was pointing to. “I’m going to mark the map when it gets here so the numbers that correspond with the letters are easier to see.” She moved a few pages. “Yes. There’s a woman there, here’s her name.” She handed me the paper. “Only some have addresses with them, that’s why there are so many not found…by us.” She frowned, “I have to check the numbers with the ones that have addresses,” her eyes went huge, “maybe it’s the location they’re moved to.”

I took it and looked down at it. There was a name, no address. “Maybe get a street view map on the computer so we can see where that is?” I motioned the map. “That means nothing to me.”

She nodded. “Good idea.” I had meant later, but she ran over and unplugged the closest laptop and brought it back. She opened a window and typed something. A street view map came up. “Right there.”

I leaned down and looked at it. “I know that area. It’s not the best, but could be worse.”

Bethany came over, “I think that describes most of the city.”

I turned to see Michael come back in the room and go over to talk to Chase. The feeling of wanting to go and hug Michael hit me. I frowned, it was going to be a long day-night, whatever it was, working with him.

Woods stood by the door with Felix, both looking bored.

“So,” I glanced at the map again, or more precisely the red pin in the map, “we confirm they’re there, change the pin to yellow and a team is sent?”

Beth shrugged; Crissy nodded.

“The teams take a female guard, so they don’t scare the women. The other guards go to deal with any problems.” Beth said.

I gnawed on my lip for a second. “You send a recon team to check?”

“We were just showing up, ready for a fight, but now that we know the system…”

I nodded and cut of Beth. “Sounds good.” I looked at the building on the laptop screen, then turned to watch Michael for a second. “I think I’ll be good for the recon.” I turned and went over to Woods. “Up for an adventure?” I glanced at his wrist to make sure he had a device on.

He nodded.

“Excellent.” I inhaled deep as I put my hand on his arm. Closing my eyes, I blew it out and pictured the diner near the building. I was just about to open my eyes and see why it wasn’t working when my stomach tightened.

I opened my eyes to see it had worked. Mostly. We were in the alley behind the diner, not at the front as I had pictured. I’d have to fine tune that part later.

Woods shook his head. “That’s new. When did you learn that?”

I checked which way the alley went. “Earlier. Come on.” We walked down the litter strewn alley, both of us alert to everything around us. I was really liking how the guards from Alterealm were quiet, focused people.

As we reached the street, my phone buzzed in my pocket, I pulled it out and answered it without looking.

“Autumn.” It was Daxx.

“Yeah. I’ll have an answer for you in a minute—hopefully.”

“You ported to that address?”

She sounded stressed, which was odd for Daxx, she was usually sarcastic or blunt. I motioned to Woods to cross the street. “Yeah. Figured I’d get the recon started while everyone gets things set up there.”

“Uh, well we don’t just pop somewhere without planning and—”

“Is Michael glaring at you right now?” That would explain her behavior. “I’m getting this weird feeling of being annoyed, but I’m not feeling that myself.”

“Yes, and I’m jealous that you can pick up on that when the rest of us can’t.” She whispered.

We reached the address the code had given us. I stared at the buzzer list. There were twelve apartments in the building. “Daxx, can you do me a favor and see what the other numbers were, that go with this address.”

“Ah, yeah, hang on.” I could hear voices in the background. Some of the clearer than others. From the sounds of it Victor was taking control there. “Okay, after the coordinates its one, one, zero, zero.”

I stared at the list of apartments. “What was her last name?”

“Hall. Autumn you need—”

“Apartment eleven or one, one is listed with Hall.” I told her.

“What? Really? Wait, I’m putting you on speaker. Everyone shut up.”

I tried the door, it wasn’t locked. With a shrug to Woods we went in.

“Autumn is at the building that Criss marked on the map. The numbers after the coordinates are one, one, zero, zero. A tenant with the last name Hall lives in apartment eleven.”

There was a lot of talking, I couldn’t make out what anyone was saying. “We’re going up there now.”

“You shouldn’t be there with only one guard.” Michael sounded very angry.

I looked over my shoulder at Woods following me up the stairs. “Easier to blend in with only one, than a pack of large dudes.”

“They know you, Autumn…Hubert and his crew.” Paisley said quietly.

“I’m not running down the street saying here I am. I just want to see if she’s here and all right, then we’ll be back.” I touched the device on my wrist. “If we run into any problems, we’ll use the watch things and pop back.”

“How are you going to ascertain if she’s all right?” That was Victor.

I stopped and looked back at Woods. “Okay, I hadn’t gotten that far.”

“Oh.”

I’d recognize Crissy’s oh anywhere.

“You can say you are canvassing about your self-defence classes.” She said sounding excited.

I nodded. “That’s good. That’ll work.” I continued up the stairs.

“Stay on the call and mute your speaker.” Michael all but barked, sounding like he was inside the phone.

“Got it.” I looked at the phone for the button. “Okay you’re muted,” I grinned, “but you’ll hear everything.” I waited for a reply, then realized if they did, I wouldn’t hear it.

We reached the fourth floor and headed to the end of the hallway. “Maybe start figuring out the zero, zero while you’re listening.” I shrugged. I stopped at apartment eleven and glanced to Woods, “try to look smaller and less scary.” I smiled at him when he stepped back and stood there. I knocked on the door, humming. I don’t know what I was humming, with Paisley there was always music playing, so it must have been something she had on.

There was the sound of locks opening, then the door opened a crack, a chain preventing it from opening further. A scared woman looked out at me.

“Hey there. My name is Autumn.” I smiled. “We’re just going around to tell people about a free self defense class I hold at parks around the city.”

She looked at me, then to Woods, warily.

“I’m sorry, what’s your name?” I shrugged. “I tend to talk to fast and not give people a chance to answer.

“Melanie.” She whispered.

That was the name on the page Crissy had handed me. I smiled again. “Hi, Melanie. So,” I frowned, “hey, are you all right?”

She gave me a hesitant glance; the kind people give you when they don’t want to lie to your face and then she nodded.

“Okay. Well, the class at the park just around the corner will be tomorrow if you’d like to attend.” I pointed to Woods, “I’ll show you how to take down guys as big as him.” I smiled again and held up my phone. “Can I put you down?” I shrugged. “I’ll just add your name in my phone, then I’ll remember the face that goes with it.”

She gave a half non-committal nod.

“Awesome. Okay, so Melanie…” I opened the bottom of the screen and brought up Daxx’s name so I could message her. Something not right here.

“Hall.” Melanie whispered.

I smiled at her. “Melanie is a pretty name.” I typed, need someone here asap I think. “Okay, you’re on the list.” I nodded. “Oh, hey if someone else shows up here for the same thing, they’re part of my crew, so don’t be alarmed. We’re all over the place today.”

“Oh, okay.” She said in a quiet voice.

“Nice to meet you, Melanie, hope to see you soon.” I wanted to stay and do something, but I’d all but promised I’d behave and go back as soon as I’d done this. I gave her another smile and backed away from the door. It closed, and locks clicked into place.

Woods and I turned and headed down the stairs. I hit the speaker on the phone and put it to my ear. “You guys get that?”

“Yes. The guys are getting the team. Get back here. Rafael knows that area and will take them over.” Daxx said sounding like a queen for once.

I nodded. “Okay. Tell them to hurry, something has really scared her.” We hit the landing and I reached over and touched Woods arm. Closing my eyes, I pictured the woman cave.

My stomach hit my pelvis. I opened my eyes to see a very unhappy looking Michael a foot away. I blew out a breath to settle my stomach. “Guess I’ve got the knack for this porting thing, huh?” I looked away from his glare to Paisley, she gave me a half grin, then grimaced and looked at Michael.

“I’d like to speak to you.” He said in a quiet tone.

“Yeah, I gathered that.” I answered.

He motioned to the door, then inclined his head.

Yeah, he was pissed. I gave Daxx a quick look, she was smirking, then turned and went out into the hallway.

Michael came out and turned, walking toward the corner.

I followed. When he stopped, I stood there. “So, what’s up?” Maybe if I played dumb, he’d settle down. I could feel anger, or something worse, bouncing off me and it took a bit to stay calm and not react. He still didn’t speak. “Okay, so this link between us,” I motioned back and forth among us, “it’s feeling pretty heavy right now, like almost choking me.”

His brows drew together as he looked down at me.

Then the feeling was gone, like he’d shut it off.

I nodded. “Better. Now spill before you explode and blow the veins out in your forehead.”

Michael lifted his hand and pointed to me, then dropped it. “You cannot just port somewhere without thinking it through.”

“I just wanted to do something helpful, while you guys set everything up here.” I pointed to the door of the cave, “there’s a lot of information in there. If each one turns out to be a woman in trouble, then—” I stopped, the expression on his face told me regardless of how I reasoned this out, he wasn’t buying it. “I’m drowning here, iceman.” I held up my tattooed arm, “this, another realm, women being taken…”

He moved so fast I didn’t see it coming. Grasping my chin in a firm hold, he kissed me so hard and fast I didn’t have time to do a thing. Releasing me, his red eyes locked on mine. “If you port into unknown circumstances again, I will lock you in a cell.” He stepped back. “For your own good.” Turning on his heel, he strode back down the hall.

I stood there, my chin was probably on the floor, offended he’d even think such a thing, but completely turned on by the alpha pouring off him. I blew out a breath and looked to see Daxx and Paisley standing in the woman cave doorway. “He said he’d lock me in a cell.” I frowned, “I can’t port out of one can I?”

Daxx shook her head, a smirk on her face. She looked in the direction he’d walked. “Who knew Michael was all he-man.”

Paisley gave me a wide-eyed look. “Please don’t get locked in a cell.”

I put my hands on my hips and inhaled deeply, not sure what I was, or wasn’t, willing to do yet.