Her Titans by Genevieve Jasper

Quincy

30

Fuck, there’s so much blood.

“Someone call two ambulances!” Max roars behind me. Guys are swarming the place now that we’ve called them all back.

“Lai, gorgeous, can you hear me? At?” I check both of them for a pulse and my hands come away red.

We saw both of their cars here and searched the house, but we wouldn’t have even checked the basement if the door in the conference room hadn’t been open. What we saw as we came down the stairs will haunt me forever. Atlas in an upturned chair with Lai splayed across his chest at an unnatural angle. Neither of them seemed conscious, and they were laying in a pool of blood. An enormous pool of blood.

“Quincy, you’re ruining the scene.”

I whirl on the guy behind me and grab him by the scruff of his shirt, coating him in the blood from my hands. “I don’t give a fuck if I’m causing the sky to come down. If you try to tell me to leave them there bleeding, you can dig your own grave.”

“Understood,” he stutters as I throw him away from me.

I turn back to Lai and Atlas, and two guys have taken my place, pulling Lai off of him and searching them both. They cut through the rope tying Atlas’s hands and then through their tops, and when it becomes apparent the blood is Lai’s, my heart almost stops in my chest. There’s a hole in her shoulder, pulsating with blood. The guy working on her rips his shirt off and balls it up, stemming the flow, but it’s everywhere already. It doesn’t look as if Atlas has any serious injuries other than his busted nose, but he’s non-responsive and we don’t know how long he’s been down here.

The paramedics arrive and wisely don’t ask questions, getting to work as quickly as possible. One takes over the pressure on Lai’s shoulder as they attach oxygen to her and Atlas, strapping them both onto stretchers. They’re carried up the stairs and I follow them up, finding Max upstairs barking orders at the guys. We’ve got about two-thirds here in front of us but some, including Jeremy, are still on their way back.

“How do they look?” Max asks once he’s dismissed everyone. He’s a calculated weapon when he needs to be, but since his mum passed away, loved ones being hurt really gets to him. I sugarcoat nothing, though; I have way too much respect for him to think for a second he can’t handle it all.

“Atlas has a pulse, but they’re worried about how long he’s been unconscious. Lai has lost a lot of blood and her pulse was way weaker. Are we following them to the hospital?”

“Yeah, of course. You shower and we’ll go.”

I look down at myself, having forgotten that I look like I bathed in blood. “Okay, give me two minutes.”

We get to the hospital twenty minutes later and they direct us to Atlas’s room. Lai hasn’t been assigned one yet. As we head down the corridor, we hear shouting from that way and up our pace.

“I don’t give a fuck, I need some answers!” Atlas bellows as we push into the room. There’s a terrified looking doctor standing at the end of Atlas’s bed. Atlas is still coated in sticky red and looks outwardly furious, but I can see the worry pulling at his eyes.

“What’s going on?” I ask them both.

“I want an update on Madelaine.”

“I was just explaining to Mr Grayson that she’s in surgery, so I know nothing else at this stage, and he can’t move at the moment,” the doctor offers. “It looks as if he’s been drugged with something that causes paralysis, we’ve taken blood for analysis. We think movement should come back pretty quickly now that he’s alert but it's not returned just yet. That’s probably a good thing, considering the state of your hands.”

“What’s wrong with your hands?” I direct at Atlas.

He shrugs like it’s not a big deal, but the doctor informs us. “They’re both severely bruised from the fall. It seems as if they were tied behind his back when he and Miss Noxx fell, causing their combined weight to crush them under the chair-back. It’s a miracle nothing’s broken, but they should heal fine with some rest and time.”

“Jesus.” I shake my head, not believing any of this shit has actually happened. “And Lai?”

“Miss Noxx is in surgery. She has a gunshot wound just below her shoulder and the bullet remained inside.”

“How’s she doing?” Max asks, though I’m sure we know everything we can at the moment.

“Her pulse was extremely weak when she went in and she had lost an extensive amount of blood, but she’s pulling through so far.”

“And she will pull through,” Atlas growls.

“Yes, sir, I’m sure she will.”

“How long until I can get out of here?”

“We’d like you to stay at least 24 hours for observation.”

“That’s not happening.”

“Atlas, come on,” Max entreats. “We’ll be staying with Madelaine, anyway.” They share a look, and I know Atlas only gives in for Max’s peace of mind.

“We’ll share a room,” he concedes.

“That’s not-” Glares from all three of us stop the doctor from finishing his sentence. “I’ll see what I can do. If you’ll excuse me.” He shuffles quickly out the door, relieved to get out of the crushing tension in this room. Max and I pull up chairs on either side of Atlas’s bed, prepping for the long haul.

“Do you know what happened?” I ask him.

“I know that fucker got one over on me. I woke up in the basement not able to move.”

“Jeremy’s sending over the CCTV footage as soon as he’s collated it. There’s obviously no footage in the basement, but we should be able to see before and after,” Max explains.

“He spouted a load of shit, then Madelaine came home and he brought her down.”

“Why didn’t he just leave with her?” Nothing he did today made any sense.

“He wanted me to hear his explanation, thinks we’ll all understand that she belongs to him once we’ve heard the truth.” He must not know we’ve heard his ridiculous reasoning from Causus already.

“But why did he hurt her, then?” Max asks, equally perplexed.

“I don’t think he did, I think she put herself in front of me.”

“What?!”

“It’s all really fuzzy, but something distracted him and then the next thing I know, she’s running at me. We got knocked over and it put me out again.”

“So, what? Something makes him point a gun at you and she throws herself in front of the bullet?” I ask, shocked at that.

“I don’t know! I can’t fucking remember shit. I think so.” Atlas’s frustration is boiling over and I get it, he’s going to blame himself for not being able to protect Lai.

“Okay, everyone, just relax. Jeremy will send the footage over soon and hopefully it’ll answer at least some questions.” Max was always the voice of reason between us. Any further discussion is interjected by Causus storming through the door.

“What the fuck happened?” he asks when he spots Atlas covered head-to-toe in red.

“What are you doing here?”

“I got one of the guys to call him to meet us here,” Max explains.

“Your fucking lunatic of a Viper happened,” Atlas snarls.

“You got him?”

“No, he got me and our girl.”

Causus looks confused, so we recap what we know so far. “Fucking hell,” he says, rubbing a hand down his face.

“Tell me about it,” I reply with a gigantic sigh, just as Max’s phone dings.

“It’s the footage from Jeremy.” He only has his phone screen to watch it on so we all crowd round the head of Atlas’s bed and prop it on his tray.

We watch silently as Leighton strolls through the garage into the conference room like he fucking owns the place. He inspects the wall and when Atlas wraps up a call and walks out of the office, Leighton walks in, standing behind the door to the rest of the house. Atlas walks back in and is stuck by a needle. Simple as that. Even as he spins, he falls, hitting the floor with a bang. Leighton then drags him through the office and the conference room, through the door to the basement where we lose him. The video then skips to Madelaine walking into the office, calling Atlas’s name. Leighton appears again and follows her out to the kitchen area where she’s at the sink. She spins and drops her glass of water when she sees Leighton there, holding his gun at her. For an excruciating moment, the only sound was the smash of the glass.

“Hi, Madelaine,” he says cheerily. “I’m so glad to finally officially meet you.” Madelaine says nothing in response, standing statue-still. “I know you’re probably scared right now, but this is just for protection,” he explains, waving the gun around. “If you’ll come with me, I can explain everything.” Madelaine still doesn’t move or speak, clearly testing Leighton’s patience. “Come on!” he shouts and Madelaine jumps out of her trance. “Sorry, love, but we don’t have time to waste. I want Atlas to hear what I have to say before we go.”

“Atlas?” she squeaks, the first we hear from her since she called his name the first time.

“Yeah, unless you’d rather I just kill him now and we can get going?”

She slowly walks towards Leighton. “Great. Through the office, love, and don’t run. Surely you know by now I can always find you.”

She doesn’t try to run and doesn’t speak again, following Leighton’s instructions silently until they both disappear into the basement. The video skips again to Max and me entering the house, checking the office quickly before retreating. We then see Leighton come rushing out of the basement door and through the garage before the guys check the conference room a minute later, spotting the open door.

“Well, that’s pretty self-explanatory,” Causus says. “So your rat told him it would be empty.”

“He definitely has help,” Atlas adds. “Someone followed Madelaine in Jeremy’s place and was keeping him informed by text.”

“But how did he know when to go?”

“Maybe they told him you’d ordered everyone home?”

“The timing’s too close to be a coincidence. We ordered them home when we left the city, he would’ve had plenty of time to take Madelaine and run. I doubt his help stuck around outside and risked being spotted.”

“How did he know Atlas had left the office in the beginning? It’s soundproof.”

“He’s got it bugged,” Atlas declares.

“What?”

“The office. That’s how I heard Madelaine so clearly down there. How he knew you were back when you checked the office. He can hear everything we say in there.”

“Fucking hell,” Max says, grabbing his phone off the tray. “I’ll call Jeremy.”

“Wait,” Causus says. “Whatever is said in there now, Leighton will hear.”

“So? He’s going to be alerted when we cut it off anyway, whether or not he hears Jeremy finding out.”

“But then we’re still waiting for him to come to us again,” Atlas adds.

“So what’s the plan?” I ask.

“We use it to our advantage.”

“Exactly,” Causus agrees. “Lure him out.”

“We’re listening.”