The Gender Plan (The Gender Game #6)(10)

Jeff shook his head, his mustache drooping sadly. “No. We keep trying to reach her, but she isn’t picking up. Do you think…?”

I met his eyes, noting the shimmering fear lurking in the shadowed recesses of his gaze. “We don’t know anything yet, and before we left, the place was turning into a madhouse. She might be on the run, or trying to hide—we just don’t know. Make sure whoever’s on guard duty knows to keep the handheld on them at all times, and get one of us if she calls.”

Amber nodded. “I’ll handle that.”

“Excellent. Now, do you mind if I use that thing to call Violet? I want to let her know we’re all right.”

Thomas extended the handheld he had been holding. “I didn’t do it yet. It occurred to me that if I did I would be denying you an emotional outlet.”

I smiled, resisting the urge to pat him on the shoulder. I wasn’t entirely sure how he’d react to that. “Thanks.”

Tapping the screen, I selected the handheld designation that connected to the one they kept at our base and waited for the call to connect. Amber shifted, catching my attention. She had a bemused expression on her face, her finger tapping the corner of her eye. I gave her a confused look, and her smile grew, her finger still tapping… I reached up and touched my eye, thinking something was stuck there, and my fingers were brought to a halt by the spectacles I was still wearing. I snatched them off just as the handheld connected. I shoved the glasses into a pocket and looked down, surprised to see Dr. Tierney’s heart-shaped face filling the screen.

“Dr. Tierney? Where’s Violet?”

Dr. Tierney frowned, a crease forming in the middle of her forehead. “She left. I thought you knew.”

I froze, trying to process what she was saying. “What do you mean, she left?”

“Owen came for her. Said Thomas sent him information on where Tim could be. That he was going to go looking and Violet could join. I think they went out around five, five thirty. Was that not… Viggo?”

I wasn’t looking at the screen anymore, which was probably why Dr. Tierney was calling my name. I didn’t care. Thomas shifted under my gaze, his posture screaming his discomfort to me. “You sent it to Owen?”

“I thought it would be best,” he replied defensively. “That he was the best choice, all things considered.”

“Owen’s brother just died, Thomas. He isn’t exactly thinking straight.”

“But he wouldn’t do anything crazy. He probably just took her to look.”

“Yes—in the countryside, where sightings of other people become slimmer every day, and… more importantly, we have soldiers who are going to be hunting for us very, very soon, if they haven’t started already.”

“I see.” Thomas frowned pensively, his eyes shifting back and forth as if deep in thought. After a moment, he squared his shoulders. “I may have miscalculated, although to be fair, I asked Owen to check it out and hold off on telling Violet, as you asked me to.”

I blinked, absorbing this information. “Then why would he take her?”

Thomas shrugged, looking completely baffled. “I have no idea.”

The wrongness of everything about this was causing my gut to churn. “I’ve got to find them,” I said.

Looking down at Dr. Tierney, who was still trying to get my attention on the handheld, I bade her a quick goodbye and shut the device down. “Send me the coordinates to those sightings and keep things going here,” I said to the assembled group, then turned toward the cars. “Try to get out in an hour or less—any longer and we’re pushing it. I’ve got a radio in my bag. I’ll be on channel three.”

I shouted the last part behind me, breaking into a jog, and then a run, across the dew-soaked grass toward the group of cars we’d brought here from our home base. I checked my watch. It was seven thirty. She’d been gone for hours, and it was dark. Something was terribly wrong—I wasn’t even sure how I knew it, I just did.

Throwing my bag into the backseat, I leapt into the driver’s seat and started the engine with the keys that still dangled from the ignition. It turned over with a dull roar, and I threw it in reverse. Turning so I could see behind me, I started to accelerate, when the sound of the passenger-side door opened and Ms. Dale hopped in.

“Ms. Dale, I—”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Viggo,” she chided as she buckled her seatbelt with a click. She met my gaze, her eyes unmoving. “I’m responsible for her too.”

It took me a moment to absorb what she was saying, but once it hit me, I closed my mouth and nodded. “Right.”

The engine roared as I hit the gas, propelling us backward until we could turn around. I quickly turned the car, threw it into drive, and then headed out, trying to let the motion of the vehicle and the fact I was out here, trying to find Violet as soon as possible, soothe the worried knot in my stomach.

It didn’t help.





5





Viggo





I gazed out the window, the road flying under us as I held down the accelerator. It took everything I had not to just speed up, but I didn’t want to miss a single thing in the dark. Ms. Dale sat behind me, her eyes on our map of the country roads, surveying it and comparing it to the information Thomas had recovered about Tim’s possible location.