The whole study was filled with Valen’s fury. It was so thick that the few people who had been summoned struggled to even breathe, not helped at all by the dead body of the predecessor who still hadn’t been removed from the space, instead just shoved to the side as a grim reminder to the few who work on the computer that their failure is unacceptable.Arden didn’t attempt to recover the footage for long. He saw what his father was after, and he wanted to see it just as badly and there was no way he wanted to risk losing what little they had with his lack of experience.A stream of people who were too nervous to touch anything with far too much at stake bow out quickly before there is someone competent enough or maybe foolhardy enough to attempt such a thing. It took far too long, but finally, the vision is pulled back on the screen, the last few moments before it went black, and then sifting through the brief glimpse to pause on the clearest image of the wall and then to try and zoom
The vision on the screen tilts up from the floor and the broken door. It is only maybe a couple of steps in from where they were before they lost contact. It seems about right. The first thing to do when entering would be to look around, so they probably took that extra moment."Thatcher? Taylen?…"There is still no reply. Valen glances at Trenton, who is still furiously trying to get through to his sons on the phone. Trenton can only shake his head as he continues to try. Valen looks to Arden."...Fix it"Arden can only grit his teeth, stepping around the body on the ground. The only one in the room who was capable of doing such a thing is now nothing more than a tripping hazard. He can’t fix it. He leaned on his brothers for this, concentrating his efforts on other things but it doesn’t stop him from trying. He just does exactly what the other man did, with much the same result. He doesn’t want to do too much because they might just lose the little they have."I can’t do much more"
Valen tries to keep his back pressed against the cushioned office chair, but even with concentrated effort he finds himself leaning forward closer to the screens. He takes a deep shuddering breath, even with the continued lack of sleep, the anticipation is enough to get the adrenaline flowing through his veins.He adjusts the microphone on the headset once more, as if one millimeter either way will make the difference in his ability to control of situation."Is everyone in position?""Ready"A chorus comes back at him, and he grits his teeth, giving up the fight and leaning closer to the screens. He is still in the safety of the Autumn pack within the confines of the alpha office. He can't help but second guess himself about sending others to do the task. He is anxious, but he isn’t foolhardy. There was only so much he could find out. An address isn’t enough to make up for the lack of knowledge for the last three years. This is a reconnaissance mission.Arden is leaning over his fathe
It doesn’t matter to Valen that Jaxson and Alaska haven’t even equaled the death toll of what was taken from them. The Barrow’s don’t lose. Retribution needs to be taken for what was lost and this is about self-preservation. Fatigue still plagues him and, at the end, nothing can ever be the same, but he will never bow down. He still has his life, and he refuses to let it all fall. Valen stands up, they have wasted enough time."...Lets go""Where are we going?""The autumn pack"They need to know where Jaxson and Alaska are, they need to make up all this ground quickly and the pairs first advantage is that they are hidden, while they know every part of the seasons packs inner workings. They are able to work on the outskirts, avoiding detection, which is how they were able to succeed. They can no longer be the enigma.Arden barely glossed over the problems within the businesses. Draven had picked it up and the oldest set of twins had flagged it enough to make them suspect Jax’s involve
Valen rubs his hands down his face. He has done it so many times in the past half an hour that he's scared at least one layer of skin has been removed with the rigorous motion. He might actually have at some point. He just can’t feel it and, with the situation in front of him now, he couldn't care less if he rubbed off every layer until his jaw bone is showing. He isn't sure if he would even feel it at all. It still wouldn’t be his biggest loss of the day.Arden has calmed down enough and has taken a seat and finally managed to explain a little more clearly. Even though clear would be the overstatement of the century, Arden really knows very little and is concentrating far more on the loss of his twin and the culprits than how they actually managed to get there in the first place.Valen has gone through the first stage of grief in such a short time, straight through to anger. Frustration is pulsing through his veins.They just left the summer pack without saying a single thing to him.
The fight that Arden worries about doesn't happen. They scour the edge of the forest, following the direction that the two were seen taking and even though the ground is in the ideal conditions for tracking they seem to lose any trace of the two unreasonably quickly.Jaxson was meant to be weak. What was done to his fate was supposed to be enough to cripple the man and even though they know now that it was a ruse, it is still impossible to think that the man who was flailing about and screaming in pain could escape as flawlessly as that. The group in pursuit are the ones lagging.The sodden ground which should hold the tracks so much more effectively has been covered, the rain doing everything to cover every other trace of the pairs quick departure and the groups incoherent and desperate pursuit filled with anger and very little reason has done everything else to trample any sign that might have been left.Their messy minds unable to focus, they could have missed something or there co