Never Look Back

Chapter Ten

Ash

Travis was the one who found her laying in a pool of blood. He was crying by the time we got to him, then stone-faced when the black car arrived.

"Lassie, if you take me to one of those damn doctor's, I will rip your head off." Jade had told him as she shoved her phone into his hand, "Call Clovacc. He will know what to do."

Jade wasn't wrong. This older man showed up with a team of men in black suits. They shuffled all of us into the car and rushed us to an underground warehouse that was set up like a really shady hospital. All of the proper equipment was there, but it was rough looking as if they were used improperly.

A strange, foreign looking man took an unconscious Jade from us without uttering a word. Travis had tried to intervene, or at least go with her, but Clovacc stopped him. He was decent looking man with grayed hair and a scarred face, "I think it's best you all wait out here. Maybe it's time for you to hear a part of Jade's story."

Down the hall from the 'operation room' was a rinky dink office where three chairs awaited us. Ethan had been silent since the accident, but Travis didn't waste any goddamn time, "Who are you and how do we know you're not one of them?"

"You don't." Clovacc said, "All you need to know is that I am a friend of Jade's. She is quite something, that woman. I've known her ever since she was a little girl."

He peered at us through bushy eyebrows, "What I am about to tell you is highly classified, and if you tell anyone else, I promise you that you will not live long enough to finish your sentence."

"Jade is going to be okay, right? You guys aren't just harvesting her organs or something, right?" I spoke up.

Clovacc chuckled, "No, we are not harvesting Jade's organs, and it's going to take a lot more than a bullet to kill her. She's had a hard life."

Ethan slammed his fist on the desk, and growled "So have we all! I want to know where the hell Carlos is, and how to get to Sam and Austin!"

"You need to learn patience, son. Turner, take him to the surveillance station and debrief him on 'them'." Clovacc grunted, "You two can either go with him or stay with me and hear about Jade."

"Jade." Travis and I said at the same time. Maybe it was because we knew her better, maybe it was something else, I don't know. Ethan left with the only other person in the room, leaving Travis and I alone with this mysterious man.

"As I said before, Jade has had a hard life. It's not my place to tell you everything about her, but since it will be you two seeing after her as she heals, there are some things you must know." Clovacc paused to catch his breath, "Before Jade's grandparents got custody over her, she and her sister were entrusted into the care of a man named Wyrus Filk, who was a noted drunkard and close friend to their father. He got into some trouble with a gambling ring and as payment, sold Jade to them. Now, she thinks she was kidnapped for ransom, and I plan to keep it that way. She doesn't deserve to suffer any more pain than she already has. Only she knows what happened in that dark basement of a casino in Vegas, but she escaped after six months of captivity. Her sister, on the other hand, had quit school and her job trying to find her. She was holding campaigns to look for her and was following the whole missing persons procedures when her father came back into town with a new woman."

"I dont mean to interrupt, but is it right for us to be hearing this?" Travis squeaked. He was rubbing his left arm, picking at the scabbing over his wounds.