I can’t see her face anymore, but I don’t need to. I know what it would look like. Evan punches me in the arm again. “Fucking idiot,” he mumbles and starts shaking the mouse around again. The shot of the cafeteria remains on four of the screens so we can see Quinn, but the others flicker as he adjusts the times and camera angles on display.
Jon slips into the cafeteria and takes a seat on the opposite side of the room from Quinn. She doesn’t notice him coming in behind her or even lift her head from her hands with his arrival. She’s way too trusting. Hell, I knew that the first night she came to Havenfall and let me into her room. Anyone who got within a hundred feet of her would scent Evan and me all over her. Usually, I would think that would be a deterrent for anyone to mess with Quinn, fearing our wrath, but I’m not taking anything for granted right now. I’m having a hard time not focusing on just her. If I would have kept my mouth shut, she would still be right here next to me.
Like Evan knows exactly what I’m thinking, or maybe he knows since I have my eyes trained on her, he grouses, “Watch the feed so we can get this over with.” I slide my gaze to the right, but every other second, I make sure Quinn hasn’t moved. Evan leans back and crosses his arms over his chest while watching the screens. There are several rolling at sped up rates, but my eyes have no problem tracking them. “There,” I blurt, but Evan is already reaching for the mouse. The time stamp in the corner slows to a normal speed, and I see all seven unblooded vampires heading out of the main building through a back door. They’re all sporting grins and acting like this is something they do every day. Little shits. Caleb—the boy too familiar with Quinn—has his arm around one of the girls, and she’s looking up at him with coy glances.
The feed switches to an outside camera, and we follow them until they head down a wide set of stairs and disappear once they reach the bottom. “Do you have another angle?”
“No,” Evan grumbles. “It’s just an alcove, it doesn’t lead anywhere.” He pushes a few more buttons and the cameras bounce to other shots, but none show what’s happening under the stairs. No wonder they were never spotted.
“Speed it up until they come out.” I watch the screen intently, waiting for anything, but it’s a fucking waste. It’s several hours before anyone emerges, and when they do, it’s only to try the doors to get back into the building.
After numerous failed attempts and what looks like a few unanswered texts, the kids head back under the stairs. None of them look particularly happy this time though. Evan speeds up the recording again, and a few minutes pass with nothing happening. “Wait!” Evan hits stop and looks over at me. “Roll it back slowly.”
“There.” I point to the screen when a face peers out into the darkness from a window. There’s not enough to make out who it is, but someone knew right where to look for the kids. There’s no other reason anyone would be looking out that particular window. I check the time stamp and note it’s before anyone realized the kids were missing. “Who the fuck is that?”
“No idea.” Evan blows up the image, but the face just turns paler and pixelated, making it even hard to guess. “I don’t even know how you saw it.”
“I was looking away to check on her.” I don’t bother saying her name. We both know who I’m talking about. Evan grunts out an unintelligible reply. “Let it roll again. I’ll keep my eyes on the windows.”
The video resumes, but we don’t see anything else until much later in the morning when the kids try to sneak back into the dorms. “Look at that,” Evan murmurs and points. The recording is playing in real time, so it’s easy to see Letty standing near the back entrance, almost as if she’s waiting for something to happen.
Before the kids even touch the door, she pushes it open and ushers them all back the way they came instead of admitting them to the building, which is what Caleb said happened. There’s no sound, but I can see her brisk movements as she points toward the back half of the property.
“Why would she direct them back out? Why not just let them in and tell everyone she found them?” It’s not like I expect an answer, I’m just talking out loud, but Evan gives me one.
“The only thing I could think of would be if she wanted to know what they were going to say and was worried about what they might know.” Our eyes meet, and seconds later, Evan is playing the rest of the short recording. We lose sight of them as Letty follows them across the property. Evan adjusts the cameras, and we see them walking up to the hangar. All the kids look dejected and tired.
“This doesn’t make sense.” I wave at the monitors. “She had to know someone would see this. Why not allow the kids back into the school? There has to be a reason she took them to the hangar.”
“I have no fucking clue what she was thinking.” Evan folds his arms over his chest, and we watch the video until our arrival. Viewing Quinn moving around on the screen is just as enchanting as watching her move in real life. I notice the way she stays close to Evan and me, and the way her hand lifts so I can capture it in my own as if she knows before I reach for her that I will.
“She must have taken their phones sometime before this,” Evan observes as he bends over the desk. He hits a few more keys on the keyboard and pulls open a drawer with unopened boxes of thumb drives. “This all gets backed up into the cloud, but I just want to be safe.”
It only takes a few more minutes, and then he’s pulling out the little device from the side of the computer monitor and sliding it into his pocket.
“We need to talk to her,” Evan states.
“How mad do you think she will be?”
“I’m talking about Letty,” he snaps like I’m a dumbass. I ignore it.
“Should we go get Quinn first?” I’m watching her on the camera. She’s still in the dining hall, and she has a mug in front of her that I’m assuming is tea.
“No, let her be. She needs to be around other people besides just us.”
“She’s just sitting there alone,” I counter. Now I know why he was so reluctant to leave her this morning. I don’t like thinking of her being mad at me.
“She asked for a little time alone, Griff. Give it to her, okay?” Evan reasons, sounding less dickish.
“Fine,” I grumble unhappily.
Evan
Reaching for my phone, I pull up my contacts. I have everyone on the security team in my cell, and one massive group chat for notifications. It only takes me a minute to locate Letty’s number and hit the phone icon. It rings twice before she picks up.
“Hello?”
“I need to see you in the surveillance room.” I don’t bother announcing who I am, I’m sure she knew it was me before she picked up the phone.
