Page 113 of Travis
Chapter 29
Travis
The four-year-old had both fists locked in Beckett’s shirt and would not let go.
The other five children were huddled against the far wall of the room, some sobbing, some trembling, their faces streaked and hollow in the dim light. But the smallest one, a girl with dark hair matted against her forehead, had latched on to Beckett the moment he’d crouched beside her and hadn’t loosened her grip since. Her fingers were white-knuckled in the fabric over his chest, her face buried against his shoulder, her whole body pressed into him as though she could disappear inside the safety of him if she just held on hard enough.
Beckett had his arm wrapped around her, his jaw set so hard I could see the muscle jumping from across the room. He’d seen things in his career. We all had. But the strength in those tiny hands, the desperation in the way she clung to the first person who’d knelt down to her level, said everything about what these children had been living through.
I was on comms with Hunter and Coop, coordinating the ground floor sweep while keeping my voice low enough not to frighten the children further. Hunter had cleared the east corridor. Coop was holding the south entrance. Lachlan and the perimeter team were still keeping the outside secure.
The operation was on schedule. Clean. Controlled. Everything running the way we’d planned it.
Then Sera’s voice came through my earpiece, and the floor dropped out from under me.
“Travis. Anyone. This is Sera.”
She was on the encrypted channel. The channel that required proximity to the relay node the team carried inside this building. She was supposed to be a mile away in the equipment shed, listening. Receiving only. She could not transmit from that distance.
Which meant she wasn’t at that distance anymore.
“The FBI has located the hub. They are staging a tactical operation eight miles southeast. You have less than thirty minutes before they?—”
Scuffling. Her voice again, sharper, desperate. “Travis, did you hear me? The FBI is on their way. You have to?—”
Something hard and sudden. A grunt of pain that wasn’t voluntary.
Silence.
The channel went dead.
I stood in that room with six children, and Beckett’s eyes found mine. The world tore open.They had Sera. Suddenly there wasn’t enough air. I could feel the hives breaking out all over my body, and it had nothing to do with agoraphobia.
I forced it down. I forced all of it down because six children were watching me, and Beckett was holding the smallest one and there was no room in this moment for my body to betray me.
Sera was somewhere on this property—and Kindt’s men had her. Beckett and I were surrounded by a half dozen terrified children. And the FBI was thirty minutes out.
Fuck.
“You need to go find her.” Beckett’s voice was steady, but his eyes had changed.
“I can’t leave you with them.”
“We can make it. Get the rest of the team up here.”
I keyed the channel. “Hunter, Coop, I need you on the second floor with these kids. I’m going after Sera. Lachlan, pull your perimeter team to the exits to receive. We have less than thirty minutes.”
Hunter’s response was immediate. “Copy. On our way up.”
“Copy,” Lachlan said. “Moving now.”
Beckett’s eyes were already on me. “Go. Now.”
I looked at him one more time. The four-year-old’s face was pressed against his shoulder. The other five children watched us, huddled together.
Beckett met my eyes over the dark hair of the child in his arms. He nodded once.
I went.
