Undercover

27. Give Me a Sign

Aiden's P.O.V

Everyone was standing around the room looking at the board that held Natalia's picture. It had been nearly three weeks since her abduction and there was still nothing. There were no clues. The only thing that the powder had told us what they were possibly at a shipyard but there were many around the city that held the same composition as the one that the powder did. That was a dead end and without anything else to single out the one that they were at, we were back to square one: nothing.

All I wanted was for her to come back. I didn't care if I had to leave her again for her to be okay. I just wanted her to be alright and I knew that in his hands, she was in danger. Three weeks is a long time to keep a person and I could only imagine what he's doing to her. He's trying to break her. I know that he is, because he's trying to break me too. He figured that killing my sister wasn't enough to break me, now he had to kill her too. He knew how much she meant to me. He knows that the main reason I never contacted her again was to keep her safe from him. And I ruined all that effort when I came back, insisting she listened to me. Nothing is ever going to change that. I can't just pretend like it was harmless interaction. My heart had stopped the moment I saw her, and all I wanted to do was be near her again. I didn't care in what way, I just needed to be okay with her. And look where it had gotten her.

Her siblings were growing desperate with each day that passed and I understood them more than they knew. They would always stop by the station, hope always present in their eyes when they asked me if we had found anything. And I also saw it fade away every time we told them that there was nothing. She had disappeared without a trace, except for that one note Daniels had left for me. But I couldn't use it as a clue. Everything we had led to a dead end.

Finn had been trying hard to keep my spirits up. But even I could tell that it was hard for him to keep it together at this point. I was sure that he had also blamed himself for what had happened.

As I was standing there, a package arrived and at this point, I was scared to open it. But Finn being sure that it was something from the lab grabbed it and opened it up. His face fell and he immediately put the envelope away.

"What?" I asked him, suspicious now that it was something he didn't want me to see. And that only meant that it had to do with Natalia.

"Nothing, Aiden. Just get back to work. We need more ideas and none of that is happening if you're just standing there."

"I swear to everything you find holy, Finn, if you don't show me that damn envelope, I'm going to have them fire you."

"You can't do that."

"That is not the point here. Show me the damn envelope."

I snatched it away from him and I opened it up. Inside were pictures of her. Her hands were being held by the chains above her and you could tell that there were bruises. Not just on her face but on her arms and probably the rest of her body. She didn't look very good and judging by the way she was barely standing up, she had been there a while. The elegant dress she was wearing was something I hadn't seen him use on anyone else. And yet, it seemed like I knew that dress from somewhere. I knew that it did not belong to Natalia. I would have seen it at least once. But I didn't know where I had seen it. If anything, this might be another clue that I could use to help me find her, but I came onto a dead end once again.

She looked frail. And it was killing me to see her like this. All the other pictures were of the same thing. He had them set up all around the place. Each camera is set up to take pictures after a certain interval. The last one was of him in front of her. His hand was centimeters away from making contact with her cheek.