Arriving at base, the team got changed out of their uniform and went into the office for a debrief.
Pulling up chairs and looking defeated, they all sit there in silence waiting, none of them game enough to voice their concerns for their friends.
Walking into the office, Kerry see's their defeated looks as well as Lawson who had a tortured expression on his face.
"Alright guys, there isn't any right way to start this meeting, so I am going to start off with Michael's condition, so you all know he received a spear wound into his lower abdomen, now there was poison found in his system which was on the tip of the spear, he was treated for that and also had surgery to repair the damage, he had massive internal bleeding from his spleen which was taken out and it also nicked an artery, now he has been placed under a medical induced coma, they are hoping to bring him out of that in about 3 to 5 days if all goes well." Kerry says as everyone breathes a sigh of relief.
"So he will be okay then?" Stella asked.
"All things going to plan he should be just fine, he won't be back at work for about 4 to 6 weeks depending how his body recuperates." Kerry says.
"What about Shannon?" Christian asks knowing that everyone is just as hesitant as him to find out what happened to her but also needing to know.
"Well I will hand you over to Leon for that one." Kerry says while leaning up against the wall.
"Well as you know, Shannon went missing, now we are still a bit unsure of the details, finding her will prove to be difficult, but we have had contact from a member of general duties that manned that island that has only just managed to report this back to the right people, apparently a lot of the people ended up with some form of food poisoning, so they were sent back to Melbourne to be treated now this took a day before they evacuated the island, now all we have is that this guys is named Fletcher, he went in a bit of a rampage with the others and murdered them, they all ended up with spear wound injuries and being trapped on that island meant they couldn't get the medical help they needed, this took place 3 days ago, all we know is he is dangerous and we don't know what his motive is." Leon says.
"This means we are dealing with a serious situation, now we have been informed a boat has gone missing from that island, meaning that the chances of Shannon being on that island is pretty slim, we can't track where she is as she doesn't have anything on her, all we can do is alert all the right authorities and hope for the best, we can't do much else, now Shannon is well trained enough to keep herself safe and out of harm's way for a little bit, she isn't just a trained negotiator, when an opportunity arises she will use it to her advantage to get out of wherever they are, until she comes back to us we need to keep our eyes and ears open." Kerry says.
"So what, we are just expected to sit here and do nothing to help her." Josh says outraged they have given up the search already.
"Josh, there is nothing we can do for her, we have no idea where she is, she could be overseas by now for all we know, the water police have been made aware of the situation, if they find a boat that looks suspicious they will pull them over, until then all we can do is do our jobs." Kerry says.
"How long till they find a replacement then?" Josh asks.
"Josh, they aren't going to replace Shannon straight away mate." Christian says.
"You heard her, after 3 hours of trying to find Shannon they gave up and called of the search, they will find someone, and they won't let us run two team members down for too long." Josh says.
"Josh is right, I know it sucks but Michael is out of action to so it makes this situation tricky, Elliot will be coming back to fill Michael's spot until he can come back to work, and we have another negotiator joining the team to fill Shannon's position until we know what has happened to her, his a Senior Constable and his name is Lincoln, he has worked for special ops and worked alongside Shannon for a bit so he can hit the ground running." Kerry says.
"This is just disgusting, replacing them already." Christian says before walking out.
"I'm going to get going to." Josh says and Stella silently follows alongside Leon and Audrey, while Lawson sits in his chair with his head in his hands.
Sighing as she finally gets the confirmation to her suspicions; Kerry pulls up a chair next to Lawson and places a hand on his shoulder.
"How long have you and Shannon been seeing each other?" she asks.
"Since that bodyguard business." Lawson says.
"Oh Lawson." Kerry said.
"The worst thing is she wanted to know what we were, and I just brushed it off as being one of those conversations, now I wish I had told her exactly how I feel about her." He says.
"Well I am sure Shannon knew how you felt, and you can tell her once we find her and she comes back to us." Kerry says.
…
3 days later.
Having been brought out of his medical induced coma that afternoon and having all the tests done, Michael was relieved when the team finally arrived and all of them visited him in pairs but he noticed two team members missing from the visitors who also seemed happy he was back with them but they were glum about something and they didn't hid it well enough.
"Hey why haven't Shannon and Lawson visited yet?" Michael asked Stella as she sat next to his bed staring out of space.
"Oh they just couldn't make it." Stella said.
"Stella, don't give me that crap, what has happened that has made everyone so depressing." He said rubbing circles around the back of her hand.
"Shannon is missing and we don't know where she was taken." Stella says.
"What do you mean she was taken?" he asked.
"She went to check the next building while Christian and Lawson did a once over at the station on the island, they went to find her only to find her uniform lying on the floor along with her coms being destroyed, her weapons were taken and she must have been taken on a boat as that went missing too, and we searched everywhere on the island and she isn't there, it isn't looking good Michael." Stella says.
"Shit." Michael says.
"We have Elliot back on the team to fill in your spot while your recovering and then there is this Lincoln guy who worked with Shannon in special ops, he keeps reminiscing about old times with her as if she is dead already, it just makes us all angry, don't get me wrong his a great guy and all but we don't need to hear that, and Lawson is beating himself over Shannon enough as it is." Stella says.
Feeling bad for what he did to Shannon and Lawson with the footage, he asks "Can you get Lawson in to see me; I need to chat to him about something."
"He said he would swing past in the morning." Stella said.
"Okay, Stella I need to ask you something." Michael says.
"Yeah what is it?" she asks.
"When I finally get out of here and recover can I take you out on a proper date and we try and make a real go of things between us?" he asks.
"Sure I would love to." She said smiling the first smile she has since the island.
"Good, now go home and get some sleep, you need to rest for work tomorrow." Michael says.
"Okay, I will swing past tomorrow, get some rest, don't stress about any of us, just focus on getting better." Stella says.
"Okay, see ya later." He said giving her a smile before she walked out.