Off With His Head

36. We make a good team, Zacharias

By the time I get to the control room to find Matthew, I'm seething at Caleb.

How dare he turn this into a jealousy thing? Zach is his partner, his friend, and Caleb's more concerned that I might have feelings for him than saving his life? My anger increases with each step I take, until it's boiling over, threatening to overwhelm me as I remember Caleb's refusal to help me.

Both his and Lideri's reactions to Zach being gone have shocked me to my core and I'm left wondering if I really want this life after all. I don't know if I want to be a part of an organisation that gives up on people so easily.

"Have you found anything?" I ask as soon as I enter the control room. I try to keep the irritation out of my voice but I can tell from the way Matthew glances up at me that I failed. He pauses the screen he's watching and shakes his head sadly.

"There has to be something." I sit down next to him, opening the endless files of footage and trying to remember if Zach or Caleb told me where they were going so I know where to begin. But if they did, I can't recall where it was, so I have to settle with starting at the place where the vampire they went after was last spotted.

After another two fruitless hours I'm feeling so antsy I might jump out of my skin. Each failed piece of footage chips away at my heart. It's been more than six hours since they took him. Who knows what could have happened in the interim? And here I am, wasting even more time going through surveillance when I should be out there looking for him.

"Jennings." Caleb's voice in the doorway makes me jump. I turn towards him, pausing a video of an abandoned parking lot.

"Not now Caleb." I scowl, annoyed at the interruption, my earlier anger flaring up again. "I don't have time for your accusations."

"The underground tunnel on Clover Street," he says, entering the room slowly, as though each step causes him pain.

"Excuse me?"

"That's where they took him from," he explains. "It's probably the best place to start."

"Thank you." I turn back to the screen and type in Clover Street, seeing that we have three cameras in that area. I click one that seems to have the best view and rewind the tape until I see Zach and Caleb enter the frame.

They confront the lone vampire; seemingly winning the battle until from nowhere, more enter the screen. They easily overpower Caleb and Zach in a brutal fight that ends with Caleb bleeding on the floor and Zach being pulled away, his feet dragging along the tar.

The Caleb in the footage reaches a hand out as though he can save Zach, but one of the vampires knocks him on the head with a metal pole and he collapses back to the floor, unconscious. A pool of blood slowly spreads beneath him, joining the splatters and streaks that cover the ground.

With burry vision, I glance back at the present Caleb, standing behind me. His fists are clenched on the back of my chair, his eyes squeezed shut. Pain and regret are etched across his face as though with permanent ink. "I should have saved him."

I hastily wipe the tears from my cheeks, pressing pause on the footage. "There was nothing you could do."

"I could have tried harder," he insists. "I could have saved him."

"Then help me." I place my hand on his and look into his eyes, pleading with him. "Help me save him now."

He sighs heavily, his gaze never leaving mine. He turns his hand over, interlacing his fingers with mine and squeezing tightly. "What do you need me to do?"

I let out a breath of relief, the crushing ache in my chest releasing slightly. "I need you to convince Lideri to let us go out and look for Zach. The monitors aren't going to tell us much, but if we go back to where he was taken from, we can try trace what happened."