Page 20 of Dismantle & Prevail
“Taylor. Do not engage. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
Lie.
Boone is delusional as hell if he thinks I’m going to wait for backup. Aries may have seconds left to live if he isn’t already dead. Every second matters and Boone is a fool to think I’d wait a millisecond longer to get my eyes on Ari.
The engine on my bike purrs to life and my tires throw gravel behind me as I make my way onto the road.
“Taylor. I fucking mean it.”
“I know.”
The call disconnects and I push my bike to its limit.
Not the smartest idea as I drive further up the mountain, but I pay no attention to it. The roads are still slick from the horrendous rainstorm we had last night. Power lines were down all over town and I can only imagine that it’s going to be worse the further I get into the dense mountain town.
As if the universe is listening, a raindrop hits my visor, and the sky opens up. Lightning strikes somewhere in the distance.
I pass a downed power line and it clicks.
Is that why Aries’ phone is back online? The power outage reset everything in our systems, so I imagine it must have done the same for Aries’ captor.
Rain falls at a rapid rate and any other day, I’d curse Mother Nature herself, but not this time. Whatever hell she brought down last night may just have given Aries a second chance.
My GPS signals I am less than five minutes away, and a wave of panic hits me.
What if he isn’t here? What if he’s dead? What if he is no longer the man we once knew?
Fear threatens to consume me as I drive closer and closer to the blinking red dot on the map, but I push it down and drive faster.
Focus Taylor.
Aries saved me when I thought I could only trust myself to make it to the next day. And now is my chance to return the favor. I may hate his overly watchful eye some days, but doing everything in my power to save him will make me feel as if the favor has been repaid. Even if running in blind gets me killed.
Chapter Nine
Taylor
Turningontoalongdirt road which is nothing but one big puddle, I pull to the only dry patch and kill the engine on my bike.
A drive that should have taken around an hour was cut in half when the skies cleared, giving me a safe and direct path here. But I know without a doubt, I would have still gone full throttle if I was riding through a hurricane. My mind was on a one track mission and a little water sure wasn’t going to stop me.
Boone is right, this may be our one and only chance, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to sit here and wait for backup to show.
I walk a few hundred yards up the road, the excess rainfall seeping into my shoes, the cold water chilling my feet to the bone. But I don’t care. My only thought is to get to Aries.
As I crest over the top of a small hill, a small, modern, one-story house comes into view. It looks fairly normal, but if I’ve learned anything from my time at Braveheart, I know that this isn’t just some random house in the middle of nowhere. I’ve seen countless places that look innocent or small and easy to overtake from the outside, but once you get inside, it’s like a maze with a convoluted path to destruction. And I have no doubt in my mind that this is going to be the same thing.
Movement from around the side of the house catches my eye, and I dart behind a tree. From the safety of my hiding spot, I watch as a guard, holding a gun, walks the perimeter multiple times before returning to walk back behind the house.
If I was a betting woman, I would assume that if they are guarding that back door or whatever lies beyond what I can see, that is where Ari is.
As soon as the guard disappears behind the house, I make a break for the next line of trees to get a better view. I can feel my phone going off in my pocket, but I ignore it. I know it’s Boone and I know he’s going to tell me to wait.
Sorry Boone, not going to happen.
My movements are slow and calculated because of the unknown. The last thing I want to do is get this far and make the mistake of moving too fast, blowing my cover and causing all hell to break loose before getting eyes on Aries. There is no telling if that guard was one of five or one of fifty. My guess is the latter because there is no possible way the orchestrator of this disaster would keep Aries hostage with a minimal amount of guards.
