Cross Fire (Book #2) GirlXGirl

Three

                   

All was silent. Chapman looked at me as if he was now worried about telling them what I already knew. Derik spotted the strangeness of the situation and turned to me.

"Lex?"

I felt my pulse speed up. None of this had been my fault, so why did I feel slightly responsible?

"Uh, well Mel-"

But before I could finish my sentence the devil herself walked through the door. Everyone's attention fell onto her and off of me. I was grateful. Now that she was here, the reason behind all of this could come from the reason herself.

I raised my hand towards her. "Why don't you ask Melissa what happened?"

Her eyes switched to me and then scanned the other three in the room She dropped her guard. Just for a moment I felt sympathetic, but when I remembered my time in prison the pity was gone.

But instead of cowering in the corner like I assumed she would, she stood tall and held her ground.

"I was working with the GIB," she revealed. The tension in the room shifted. "They were holding my father hostage and threatened that if I didn't help them find Victoria, they would kill him."

I wanted to look away and see what expression lied on Derik's face, or maybe even Willi's, but I found myself captivated. A hunger for the truth kept my attention locked on her.

"They only wanted Victoria at first, but after Stanley's arrest they changed their conditions. They wanted you too, and at that point I didn't feel like I had much time to make a different decision."

Eventually I was able to pull my eyes away and look over to Derik, who looked like he wanted to be angry but was instead confused. Willi on the other hand looked more shocked than anything.

"Kyle's alive?" Willi asked in a whisper.

Melissa just nodded. I could see tears threatening to fall.

I watched Willi take a seat in one of Chapman's chairs as Derik did the same. It had to be much harder for them than it had been for me. I had gone to prison already knowing the truth. They had been completely blindsided the night of the arrest.

Then Derik looked at Chapman. "Where's Victoria?"

That's when I felt the atmosphere darken. A darkness thickened the air in this room. I knew Victoria had been kidnapped, but there was a haunting realization that Chapman hadn't told me any information on her possible whereabouts.

Chapman shook his head. "I couldn't tell you."

My heart fell to the floor. The look on Melissa's face was sad enough to make you believe she had a heart. You could practically feel anger radiating from Derik, and Willi was dead silent. Everything was now much worse after the two months of being locked away in prison, and in the month of Chapman being in charge he had found absolutely no leads on where Victoria could be.

"We're working on locating her, but when the government wants something kept under wraps it's really hard to find leads," Chapman admitted.

I tried my best to control my anger. None of this was his fault. After we helped him close his case he wasn't obligated to continue helping us, but he had. He didn't have to help break me and my friends out of prison, but he did. And he didn't have to keep looking for Victoria, but he was. So getting angry with him felt wrong. There was only one other person I could direct my anger towards.

"We have to find her," Derik demanded. Did he felt responsible for all of this too? I believed so considering we had all trusted Melissa.

"We will," Chapman answered. "But until my team can find any trace of where they could have her, we're at a dead end."