Gabe was out of the room in a second. Reyna felt her heart race, wondering who was there. What could possibly have happened.
“It’s Tye,” Tony confirmed. “He just scanned in.”
Reyna deflated. Tye. Thank God. She was so relieved for her friend. He had helped her escape. She couldn’t imagine what would happen if the others were…
She didn’t even know. Caught? Captured? Killed? She shuddered at that thought.
Gabe burst back into the room, holding Tye up. He looked like utter shit. He was favoring his right ankle. His clothes were covered in black soot. He coughed and collapsed into a chair. Meghan was at his side in an instant.
“Oh my God, Tye,” she gasped. Her hands fluttered over him. All of her calm demeanor had dissolved.
“I’m okay, Meghan. It’s just my ankle, and I inhaled something.” He coughed again violently. “Knocked most of us out, but I covered my face with my jacket and got far enough away.”
“Tell us what happened,” Sydney said, only slightly gentler than her normal command.
Reyna took a wary step forward. Her eyes were wide with terror and barely concealed hope.
“It was a decoy,” he gasped. He clutched his lungs. Meghan brought him a glass of water. He took a long drink, draining the entire glass before continuing. “They knew we were coming the entire time. I don’t know how they did, but they did. I should have known it was too easy to get past the guards on duty. Too easy to get over their fence and inside the perimeter. All my training for shit.” He ran a hand through his black hair. “We split up. Carpenter took one team. I took another. Xavier took the third.”
“Carpenter,” she whispered.
“Brian,” Tye said with a grimace.
Reyna hadn’t known he was leading a team. It made her even sicker.
“My team had only just made it inside when we noticed none of our comms were working. That was my first sign. But when we got inside, it was empty.”
“Empty?” Sydney asked.
“Just a warehouse. I mean, it had shit in it. But like, building supplies. Guarded and all that shit for some building supplies. They’d set us up. And then the smoke rained down.” He coughed again, trying to expel whatever toxins they’d hit him with. “I called a retreat. Tried to warn the other teams, but there was no way.”
“What happened to your team?” Meghan whispered.
“We scattered.”
“You had a rendezvous point, right?” Gabe asked.
Tye nodded. “No one showed.”
“Fuck,” Gabe spat.
Meghan covered her mouth. Reyna’s eyes welled with tears. Washington sat back hard in his chair.
“I don’t know if anyone else got out.”
“Drew did,” Reyna said softly. Tye’s eyes snapped to her. “He was able to radio us right before everything went out.”
“Anyone else?”
“We don’t know,” Sydney answered for her.
There was a long silence in the room as the possibilities swept over them. An ambush. All communication down. Tye and Drew the only people they’d heard from. It would be an incredible loss to their cause.
“We should get that leg looked at,” Meghan said.
“I’m fine,” Tye said.
Meghan glared at him. “You need medical attention. We have a long night ahead of us. I don’t want you to do more damage to yourself than necessary.”
