Chapter 18: Wednesday 21st February

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I had arrived at the corner of Mackenbury Lane in less than ten minutes. Which gave me no insight into where they had taken Zoella; so I cast a tracking spell.

It was an old spell, one I had learnt years ago. And though it wasn't very precise, and sometimes unreliable, it was the only one I knew.
It had led me to an old, rustic, shipping dock in The Glades - which surprisingly was still in operation.

I scaled and jumped over the twisted wire fence with ease, landing in a crouch in the hard, cracked concrete. The massiveness of the shipping containers that were crowded into the compound looked over me as I walked.

My feet hardly made any noise as I navigated the labyrinth of the giant, dull, metal boxes. I stopped occasionally, where a row of crates would come to an end, to check for any possible enemies.

As I came to the end of my fourth row of the giant crates, I heard voices approaching. Slinking back I it the shadows, but not shifting into one, I slowly crept towards the source of noise. Just as I was about peek around the side, my arms were pinned behind my back and I was thrown to the ground front first.

"Shadow?" The voice; one I recognised instantly, beat me to speaking my shock.

The pressure on my limbs was released, and I was able to get on my feet, turning to meet my teammate.

"Artemis, what are you doing here?" I asked.

"I could ask you the same question." She responded. "Robin told me you weren't coming on the mission."

"I'm not..." I trailed off. Had the team been called in to help Zoella? "I saw a video, of Zoella getting kidnapped by the those three criminal girls."

Artemis' face shadowed over. "This mission was about finding secret bases that the Riddler has been operating in." She told me gravely.

"And," I gravely continued for her, "Riddler's niece is one of the three who took Zoella."

Before Artemis could continue, Connor and M'gann stepped around the corner. Artemis must have told them I was here through the mind link, because they didn't seemed suprised to see me. But they did look extremely grimm.

"Robin and Kidflash found something." M'gann stated.

Artemis and I shared a worried look, then hastily followed the other two along a route that was unknown to me.

"Shadow, you're on the mind link." M'gann thought.

"Thanks Miss Martian." I thought back.

"We're around the back of the central building." Robin thought. "There a light on inside, in the middle of the warehouse."

"We'll be right there." M'gann replied.

I knew that missions were strictly professional, but I desperately wanted to talk to Robin right now, had since I was wandering around Janet's warehouse; to apologise for running out on him in the library, and refusing a mission that I ended up coming to anyway. Those thoughts didn't become any easier to handle as a I heard his voice, but made me feel worse.

Even so, I knew I had to focus on getting Zoella back.

We approached the massive building, with wood panels loose from the storm and wide windows misted with fog. Wally stood beside a stack of boxes, an open metal door to his left.

"Robin's already inside, checking out the place." Wally said.

"Yeah." Robin's voice entered my mind. "But what I found doesn't exactly make any sense."

"Well there's been an adjustment in the mission." Artemis told him.

"Adjustment?"

"Shadow saw footage of her friend Zoella being taken by 'the three', a tracking spell led her here."

The line went silent, and I knew Robin had found something of importance to my search.

"Come in then." Robin finally said. "You'll want to see this."

"The three?" I whispered to Artemis, as Wally started through the door.

"It's what we're calling Wildcard and her friends." She whispered back.

We walked in, single file so our sides didn't brush the the rusted door frame. Robin stood in the middle of the room, next to a thin wooden table underneath a single, dimming, hanging light. In his gloved hands was a crinkled piece of paper, that his masked eyes were glaring holes through.

"What's on it?" I thought as I walked over to him.

His face was almost blank, but I could see he was trying to suppress his emotions, some of which contained sympathy. "It's a note." He thought back. "From The Three."

He held it out for me to take, which I hesitantly did, scared to see what they'd written on there. It read:

You expected to find us here, didn't you? Well, I'm pleased to say that a few towards some of Gotham's magicians can be helpful in hiding your real location.

I was surprised to learn that she was alive; Daddy was as well, so he ordered me kill her - for real this time.

She isn't dead though. Not yet anyway. Don't even try to come and rescue her, you'll never find us, and even if you did, we'd just kill you.

What's the point in leaving this note? I want to make sure that there's nothing you can do. You failed - again. You let her die - again. It's all your fault - again. The only thing you can do is sit on the sidelines and watch, like last time.

-Wildcard

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Hello.

Oh, the cliffhangers. Ebony's trying to find Zoella. She's also feeling bad about ditching Robin. Seriously, the feels are overwhelming.

We went to the beach for sport today. We weren't allowed to go into the water (not that I wanted to), but we had to play cricket and go for a walk. One thing I hate is trying to run on sand. I didn't like that sports lesson. At all. But I got to chill with my friends so I guess that okay...

As always, thank you for reading my story and continue when I post the next chapter :)

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