The Belial Stone(85)

Tom stared at her for a moment and then looked away. “I thought I was on my own,” he whispered, tears gathering in his eyes.

She reached over and gently squeezed his arm before quickly pulling it away. Glancing around, she grabbed one of the brushes and started brushing the dirt from one of the symbols at the bottom of the monolith.

“No, Tom, you’re not alone.. Jake tracked you here. He’s only a few miles away. They were supposed to infiltrate this place tonight, but then Gideon grabbed me. I’m not sure what the plan is now. Whatever it is, though, Jake is not going to leave you here.” Or me either.

Tom turned to the structure and started shoveling dirt from the bottom. Tears streamed down his cheeks. “I thought this was it for me. I thought I was dead. This place, it’s just, just…”

“I know,” Laney whispered. “I saw the ditch out front and the cage where they keep you. It’s inhuman what they’re doing.”

“You don’t know the half of it. Sometimes for sport, the guards make the inmates fight each other. If both inmates are alive at the end, they’re usually in such bad shape that they’re dead within a few days.”

He glanced over at his dig partner and Laney took a good look at the poor man. It was obvious he'd been severely beaten. Bruises poked through the dirt in his face and he seemed to favor his left side. Through his tattered shirt, she could see dark splotches across his chest. He needed medical attention as soon as possible. She was amazed he was still conscious. The man dropped his tool and couldn't seem to locate it on the ground right in front of him.

Reaching over, Tom handed it to him with a gentle shoulder pat, before his eyes returned to Laney. “The guards think it’s funny to spit in our food, or drop it on the ground, and make us eat like dogs. Whatever I’ve done in this life, I’ve never done anything as bad as these guards.”

“I think there’s a special kind of hell for people like that.”

He nodded. “But for now, we’re the ones in hell.”





CHAPTER 68



Patrick went through the rest of the afternoon in slow motion. He knew he was in shock, but he couldn’t shake himself out of it. Laney was in the hands of that madman. He couldn’t focus on anything except that one single thought.

He shook his head. Man. That isn’t even the right term, is it?

Henry had arranged for the group to move to an old farmhouse about fifteen minutes from the Kensington compound. The farmhouse sat on a hundred and twenty acres, and it had been sitting empty since it had been foreclosed on six months earlier. They hadn’t contacted anyone about it. They’d just moved in.

No one knew they were there. Henry didn’t think Gideon would try another assault, but if he did, he wanted to make it as tough as possible to find them.

Jordan stayed behind to deal with the local police. As far as the police knew, he was the only member of the Chandler Group alive.

Time was now more critical than ever, and they couldn't waste it walking the police through everything that had happened. And besides, they needed to keep a lid on things if they were going to keep Laney alive.

Now, sitting at the old kitchen table, Patrick pushed the food on his plate around before giving up. He couldn’t stomach it. He hadn’t protected her. From what they had figured out, she had, in fact, protected him.

He was sitting here safe and sound. And they didn’t even know where she was. And worse, now her life hung in the balance against the lives of all the men at the site, including Jake’s brother.

Jake, Yoni, and Henry sat with him. Their food grew cold along with his. The security detail had been split into two shifts and half patrolled the new homestead while the other half slept. No one was talking.

They had been debating what to do next. Henry argued they should just follow the instructions and do nothing for now. Yoni voted for finding Laney. Jake had stayed silent. Now they all sat watching their plates.

Patrick watched Jake, who sat across from him. He’d said very little since they’d received the call about Laney. The failure to protect her weighed on him. Patrick didn’t know how to lessen that burden. It hadn’t been his fault, but he knew Jake was blaming himself. Hell, they all seemed to be blaming themselves.

He took a deep breath. The next step was up to him. He couldn’t add the burden of this decision to anyone else. It was his to bear.

He cleared his throat. “You all know that Laney isn’t just my niece. She is, in every practical way, my daughter. And I know her better than almost anyone. I remember this one time when she was eleven years old, a kid at school was being bullied. Laney wasn’t even friends with the child, but it didn’t stop her from intervening even though there were three bullies. She got a black eye that day. They told Laney to stay out of it and if she tried to stop them again, they’d do worse to her the next day. So the next day came, and what do you think she did?”