Page 95 of Wicked Deceit
Please, god, help me do the right fucking thing.
The door behind me clicks open and shuts swiftly, and my body stiffens. I sit rigidly in my chair and watch the black-robed figure march toward me with determination. Whoever the fuck it is, their mask obscures their face, not giving me any clues. Fuck, they could be here to kill me or take me to Kaycee.
Heavy breaths echo from beneath the mask, sounding scared and frantic. My breath hitches when she lifts it, and I’m greeted by a pair of familiar big brown eyes. I curl my fists in my lap, examining the face staring back at me. The shock takes over when she leans over the desk with frantic movements. From here, I can count the angry scars lining her face, giving me the impression she’s already been through one Hell of a battle at one point in her life.
“I don’t have much time,” she whispers, holding out her hand. “Hand me your phone, call the number I dial, and ask for Agent Zero. Tell him Agent Seven is incapacitated and to send in the forces to the location at the back of the school grounds. Tell him it’s nowhere we looked.” Her voice quivers when she relays the information to my shocked ears. “Carter!” she barks again, snapping me back to her. “We have to move quickly!” she hisses, curling her fingers and gesturing for the phone still hidden in my waistband.
Shock grabs hold of me, and I’m frozen to the chair. Even my blood turns cold as it pumps through my veins. Not when she mentioned him—Agent Zero—the same agent that has been on my ass for the past few months for information. The same fucking agent I contacted at the beginning of all this, trying to find a solution before someone else got hurt. And look at that, someone is getting hurt.
“What the fuck?” I growl, staring at her extended hand like it might strike me.
“You called us, but you weren’t the only one. I know you have her phone. They took mine. If I run for help, if I leave….” Fear grabs her by the neck, strangling her voice. Espie, the newest student and Apocalypse recruit, is the Veritas insider Agent Zero spoke of before. She’s the reason I’m sitting in this chair, waiting this out for Veritas or my time to escape with Kaycee.
She shakes her head. “I can’t blow my cover. I’ve worked too long and too hard to blow it now. They’ll kill me if I’m gone any longer. They literally let me go because I said I had to pee,” she hisses, rolling her eyes toward the ceiling at that one, and shakes her head. “For a controlling cult, they’re the most trusting group of psychopaths I have ever seen, but they’re still deadly. Now, give me her phone so that you can call him.” Her teeth grit, but I sense the urgency.
“Fucking bring them here now! Before she dies!” I jump to my feet, getting into her face. “How could you stand back and let all this happen right under your nose?! Where’s the rest of Veritas?” I growl, fisting her robe in my hand, and pull her nose to mine. She doesn’t flinch when my nostrils flare, and she again rolls her eyes at me.
“Carter Cunningham, owner and operator of CC Tech. You were involved in a car accident, killing a family of four, including two children. Your father has used this accident against you from the beginning to bend you to his will, and now he thinks he can trust you. And if our records and research have been any indication, your father also set the whole incident up. If you call my superior, we can end this right now. Veritas is on standby, waiting for my word. But we need to move.” My fist unclenches from her robes, and she falls away from me, stumbling over her feet. Quickly, she rights herself but stares back at me with compassion.
“I will call them if you promise to protect her. You keep her under your damn nose! Because I can’t fucking be in there right now,” I snarl, beating my fist into the desk again, letting the pain I inflict on myself ground me to the spot.
A slow smile spreads across her face. “I knew you were one of the innocent ones, a good guy with a good heart. I promise to protect her within my abilities. But I cannot out myself as an agent, and you have to understand that. Just like you couldn’t tell them you’ve been protecting her this entire time.”
Staring down at the phone, she hands it back. A single local phone number sits on the screen, and she nods.
“Who called you before?” I ask, raising my eyes to hers. She smiles, lowering her black mask to blend in.
“A fellow student in desperate need. She, too, was coerced in by unfortunate circumstances and forced into submission by a heinous act, using her body against her. Know this, Carter Cunningham. You are not the only one who was used. Goodbye. Agent Zero is waiting for my call. Hurry now, before it’s too late,” she says in a soft but urgent voice.
Espie’s retreating footsteps slip through the static of my ears. Of-fucking-course, this was the agent Veritas planted in the mix. Fuck. All our hard work is about to pay off. My heart rate skyrockets into oblivion at the prospect of getting us the fuck out of here.
I recheck the monitors, spying everyone’s movements one last time. They’re still in the room with Kaycee, talking, laughing, and just waiting for the event to start. The psychos whisper to each other, never taking their eyes off Kaycee. Thankfully, none of them notice when Espie walks into the room on silent feet. She moves like a trained assassin with precise, quiet, undetected footsteps. And it makes sense. Her association with Veritas makes her a deadly weapon. A breath of relief rocks my body when Espie saunters to Kaycee and picks her head up off her chest. Resting a hand under her chin, she keeps it there and allows her chest to expand more. Silently, I thank her for helping my girl breathe easier. But now, I have a phone call and an agent to make my bitch.
For one singular moment, the idea that this is another fucking fucked up test floats through my mind, and I quickly shake it off. This is too damn urgent to question. Without any more thought about it, I dial the number while keeping a watchful eye on my passed-out girlfriend through the screen. After a few rings, the other line picks up in silence. No hello comes through, only a slight hissing. Clearing my throat, I pinch the bridge of my nose.
“Agent Zero, it’s me,” I rasp, forcing my voice to work. All these emotions—this rage boils like fucking water, ready to push the top off. “Agent Seven is incapacitated. She asked me to call and pass along the message. They took her phone and mine. I’m all that’s fucking left. Send in the damn army! Send in, everyone! The love of my fucking life is about to die at their hands. We. Fucking. Need. You!” My heavy breaths pour from my nose, expanding my heaving chest. Sweat drips from my brow onto the table beneath me as I lean against it. Praying to a God I don’t know exists. My love’s life depends on these bastards right now.
“Jesus, kid,” he replies in a gruff voice with the sounds of other agents swarming behind him. “I was beginning to think….” He trails off and sighs. “I was beginning to think we’d lost you and Agent Seven for good when you hadn’t gotten back to me.”
I frown, rechecking the cameras. They’re moving all around the room, talking as Kaycee watches them. They use a blowtorch on Francesca’s face and chest. I swallow hard at her screams of pain.
“Well, are you coming or not?” I shout as loud as I can without alerting the others in the room down the hall. “I’m in the woods, behind the school. It’s on the school’s grounds and has been this entire fucking time. Somewhere! Fuck! I don’t know the exact location! A fucking psychotic ass bitch led me here,” I growl, punching the table again. Fuck being quiet. Fuck all this. They need to get here now.
“Your location is impossible to locate,” he says in a low voice, cracking with emotions. “We tried through the website, leading us to one address that does not exist. We’ve scoured everything to locate it.”
He doesn’t even have to fucking say the address for me to know. I’ve scoured the damn internet to break through, but I’ve never been able to find this shit hole. Forty-four Rosebud Drive. That’s the fucking address no one can locate. It pings back to it repeatedly, but on the map, it’s impossible.
“Impossible? Impossible to fucking locate? Are you deaf? Are you blind? Track this fucking phone! Ping off the damn towers!” He sighs through the phone at my antics, but he should be fucking used to it by now.
“The address is impossible and untraceable. Your phone’s location pings to an address in Montana. I’m assuming, Carter, you are not in the mountains at a resort in Montana, correct?”
I swallow hard, taking a deep breath before I reach through this phone and suffocate Agent Zero. “No, Agent Zero. Does it sound like I’m in the mountains of fucking Montana? I’m at East Point Prep! In a fucking dilapidated house on the edge of the property! Please,” I whisper the last part, losing hold of everything. “My…”
“Yes, kid. We’ve been trying to track the live stream for hours using your formulas, but nothing has led us there. You two aren’t the only ones we need to retrieve. My agent and our informant are there as well. We are trying everything.” He swallows hard, taking a deep breath. “We need you to continue doing what you are doing. Our agent is unarmed, stripped of her weapons, phone, and tracking devices.” Vulnerability leaks into his voice, and my spine stiffens. “My agents are on their way. You said through the woods?”
That’s just fucking great. A secret government agent is worried, and he’s showing it. This whole thing is so fucked up.
“Yeah, we traveled through the woods for a good ten minutes before we came upon the fucking house. Trees and weeds are growing everywhere around it. You blink, and you fucking miss it. But I think that’s all a part of their plans.” I blow out a breath, trying to remember every detail of our walk.
