Chapter 156

Valkyrie couldn't find a single clue in the house. Not a single thing to indicate what exactly the raiders had tried to find when they were pulling the place apart, nor an indication of where they went. There were a few blood spots in the living room which they suspected came from either Myra or Nadia, or from someone Tanith had cut. Tanith had also been here because her sword was on the dining room floor.

"What about Laila?" Dexter asked as he came back down the stairs.

Valkyrie bit her lip. "I– I don't know. Tanith wouldn't pick up her sword with Laila around, but it was an emergency, she might have had to. The buggy's still here."

"Did she say anything this morning?" Ghastly asked. He was pale but he was holding it together.

"Nothing. She was asleep when we left, remember? So was Laila. She has been going on walks in the morning, but she wouldn't have just left Laila outside. She's definitely not hidden upstairs?"

"Nothing," Dexter repeated.

Valkyrie told them to all sit down so she could look around again and they did that. She was going through the dining room when she was suddenly called over by Saracen.

"Her phone!" He exclaimed, holding Nadia's smartphone out to Valkyrie. She snatched it, unlocked it quickly and looked through the messages and phone log. It was empty. She sagged and then pressed the 'tabs' button and noticed the camera as a recently opened app. She pulled up the photo album.

"It's Tanith and Laila. They went for a walk this morning, but she took her in the carrier," she told them quickly.

"The carrier isn't here, I'm sure," Dexter said, but Valkyrie ran to her room to check. Sure enough, Tanith's carrier was gone, but she checked the window and found the lock had been broken just as only Tanith could have done. So she had to have known something was up to sneak in. The question was, where was the baby? With Tanith, or with someone else that got free? That person could be Nadia or Myra, surely not a neighbour.

Saracen, at least, knew that she wasn't with neighbours, but he didn't seem to have any other indication and was getting frustrated. While he tried his hardest to influence his magic, she and Fletcher searched his and Myra's bedroom and didn't find a struggle or anything useful at all. That meant both Myra and Nadia hadn't seemed to have fought.

Narrowing her eyes, she surveyed her family on the sofa's. She had a suspicious, though small, and wanted to check it.

"Fletcher," she said, turning to him. He was still on the bottom step, waiting for her to move. "Can you call Myra please?"

He frowned but pulled it out and quickly called her. It almost rang through, letting Valkyrie's suspicion die out, and at the last moment, picked up. They went to the kitchen, Valkyrie staying silent and Fletcher put it on speakerphone.

"Fletch, are you okay?" Myra's voice said.

"Pretend we're still there and won," Valkyrie mouthed.

He nodded. "Err, I'm fine babe. We're all done here, waiting for everyone to finish up so I can leave and come meet you. Are you still at the house?"

"Actually, I've gone for a walk with Tanith and Nadia," she said. Fletcher and Valkyrie locked eyes. "We won't be gone for too long. Hey, how long do you think it's going to be?"

"Oh, like–" Valkyrie indicated ten fingers "–ten minutes? Y-you know, I'd love to meet you guys, maybe we can all go to lunch?! It went so well, we should celebrate."

There was a very short pause. "That would be great babe!" There was a small cry down the line.

"Is that Laila?" Fletcher asked quickly.

"Yeah, she's a bit grumpy," Myra said, a smile in her voice. "Hey, I'll talk to you soon, we're all a little busy at the moment, is that okay? I love you, see you soon!"

She hung up quickly. The second the line closed Valkyrie stormed into the living room.

"Myra was the fucking spy!" She growled. "She has Laila!"

"Where is she?" Dexter asked, standing up immediately.

"I don't know, it sounded like outside, and she isn't with Tanith and Nadia if they're in public, neither of them would let her leave with Laila without a fight. She was in on the whole fucking thing! I can't believe this!" That was a lie. She hadn't completely liked Myra from the start, and now she wished she had trusted her guts more. How could she have guessed that her dislike of a person meant that they would kidnap a baby and organise her family to be held captive and tortured though? She had been dating Fletcher and she didn't believe for a second he was in on it. "She must be going to meet with whoever her boss is. They know we'll give ourselves up for Laila."

"We need to find where she's going," Saracen said.

That meant he had no ideas. "Right. Look, we know that there has to be someone in our mission location today that was aware of us coming, so maybe whoever orchestrated that is also Myra's boss – and we know that when two separate groups come together, there could be two separate bosses and she likely only works for one. Everyone at the mission site today has been killed or arrested so most likely chance is the bosses don't know we won that. So we have time, and we already know about Grievers involvement."

"Or she's working for a third party," Ghastly pointed out.

"Also a possibility, but we can't think of that right now. The only definite player we have his Grievers. What do we know about him?"

"Other than his teleporting dark alternative to the Midnight Hotel? Not a bunch. He's American I think, and if he's the one we're looking for he'll be stationed nearby," Dexter said quickly.

"Right. Dexter, call all your contacts and everyone else to see if they know where he might be around here. Saracen, you call Aurora and Saile and see what they might know about places with criminal activity nearby that might lead to Grievers. Anton, you should stick with Erskine and you two should sit this out. Fletcher, tell Ghastly everything Myra has ever said or done that might in any way be suspicious. I'm going to drive around and see if Myra or anyone suspicious is nearby. Keep your phones on!"

She was rushing from the house before anyone could say if they agreed.

They still had their large van, having been teleported to the Sanctuary that morning, so she got in and started driving around, finding it rather difficult to stay on the wrong side of the road. Thoughts went through her head on what she had to do to get to Myra and Laila, and then to Tanith and Nadia. She was worried about the women, but the baby was more important right now. Tanith and Nadia would never forgive her if she found them and didn't have Laila already safe.

She drove erratically, going in any circle she could while looking up places on her phone Tanith might have wondered to. She found a few parks but no Myra, she found a community centre that was closed for the day, a café that she stopped at and found that no women and baby in a carrier had come in that day. At one point she found a police vehicle and followed it for a little bit but it was just patrolling so she cut away and kept looking around. Unfortunately, it was all residential streets and she had no idea which way around the residential area Myra would have taken. She was outside when Fletcher called her, Valkyrie just had to hope she still was. It wouldn't be too hard to apprehend her if she got there before anyone else did.

It just so happened that Valkyrie spotted a woman walking around looking quite worried and red in the face. She slowed to a stop, got out and jogged over to the women, noticing suddenly that she wasn't red in the face so much as bloody.

"Excuse me!" She shouted, going up to her. The women stopped dead and looked as if she might cry but didn't speak. "I'm so sorry, what happened to you? I'm looking for someone who is a little bit mentally ill, perhaps you ran into them? They should have a baby in a carrier with them."

The woman immediately started nodding and began to cry. "Yes, I saw her! She was with me and– I took her to my house like the blonde woman, Tanith, told me to after she left to help someone and then that girl hit me! She really hurt me and I remember calling for help and then I woke up and she was gone. I've been looking for her and the baby."

"Take me to your house."

.*****.

Valkyrie drove herself and the woman to her house, which she thankfully remembered despite her obvious head injury. Valkyrie did feel guilty, trying to make this woman talk when she needed a doctor, but at the same time a baby was on the line and she just had to prioritise. It didn't even seem selfish when she thought of it as a grown adult in danger versus a baby in danger, so she stuck with that reasoning.

At the house, having learnt absolutely nothing other than the fact that Tanith gave the baby to Myra after Myra turned up saying Nadia was under attack, and then she had beat this strange mortal woman and left the house with Tanith's baby, Valkyrie noticed the camera's in the corners of the house.

"I need to see your CCTV footage," she demanded, and the wounded women ran quickly to do as she was commanded. Valkyrie followed behind.

Valkyrie took over at the computer which was in the living room of this woman's house. Somewhere in the house there were screaming children playing rough and every once in a while some man would shout at them to shut up which did absolutely nothing as the children continued to scream.

She looked back and found the times Myra went to the house with the lady and Laila, plus the lady's children. Then just five minutes later Myra left the house casually walking up the street, the opposite way to how Valkyrie had come. Sometime later a car arrived and at the same time, the freshly bloodied woman came out of the house and went wandering. Her husband only looked at his phone and didn't notice her dazed, bloody face.

Only thirty minutes later was the present time, so that means in thirty minutes Myra left with Laila, had a phone call and kept walking. Valkyrie had been gone from the house for almost thirty minutes also. She couldn't have gotten that far.

"You were at that playgroup when you met Myra, right? How long was the session?"

"Two hours?" The woman asked back.

So, two hours of the session, however long it took to get back, five minutes in the house, an immediate phone call from Fletcher as she left and half an hour to get somewhere.

She thanked the woman and told her to go to her husband and tell him she was attacked before wiping the footage clean. She left, took the car and phoned Fletcher as she drove.

He picked up after a moment. "Call Myra again and try to meet with her. Tell her you're alone and will be a little while. Tell her the Dead Men are looking for Griever's hideout and that they said you could go for the day because you got hurt or something. Be quick."

"Okay, do you want to know what the others found?" He asked her hurriedly.

"Please," she sighed, turning right on a whim.

Ghastly came on the line. "We think we know where Grievers is. But we need to get our source one hundred thousand dollars within the hour or he'll tell everyone where we're going."

"Use my card, do you have it? We'll bust them back for it later." They took a few moments to establish where her card was and then they continued. "What else do we know?"

"The American's weren't in on the plan; they're offering us all their help now they've found out about Laila. They seem to be trying to avoid an international scandal."

"If anything happens to Laila I'll make it a fucking scandal."

"I know," he said fiercely. "We plan to move on Griever's house soon so we can secure it and move onto the second enemy group if Griever isn't responsible. We've already found cars, but we're avoiding talking to the Sanctuaries in case of more spies."

"That's good."

"I want to join you Val, but I have to leave you to find Laila so I can get Griever. Saracen seems to think the two are linked but he can't work out why or how. We're assuming it's to keep Tanith and Nadia compliant so he can use them in Griever's Down."

"I killed his fighter before. They might want Tanith for that."

"That was our thoughts too. I doubt we have long. We're going to leave in a moment."

"Okay, keep me updated. Fletcher needs to call Myra," she said, and he hung up.

She drove for five minutes before getting a call back. Fletcher had found out that she was on her way into the city with 'Nadia and Tanith' but 'both of their phones had died'. There were only two main ways into the city, and they were both on the highway. Only one of them went in the direction of Griever's house, so she sped that way. Fletcher said there had been a racket in the background and Myra said she was on a bus with the others – they believed her. Laila had also been crying.

She sped as fast as the car could go towards the city.

Oof it's been a while. My exam is done and it took all my motivation with it. I've not given up on the story, I'm just trying to recalibrate and find my drive again. It's a bad place in the story for that type of stuff but I'm doing my best :)

Demise Rim: I will absolutely PM you when I continue down the Tanith road, right now I have to do just this but my next story will either be Valith or Fletchyrie, so we'll see which ship wins when the time comes! I think this chapter confirmed your fears about Myra though and honestly, I think we both knew that was about to happen! ;)

Lord Duck: Fancy name! I'm really glad you're enjoying it and thank you for taking the time to read all these chapters, some people hate long fanfics so I appreciate the time you put in, and for the reviews. 93/100 is a full one point more than my best university grade so I think that's a great score! I agree some things could be more in-depth but with so many chapters and people and scenarios... we'd still be with fifteen-year-old Valkyrie if I went that deep. I don't have that kind of patience, even though those are my favourite reads. Still, I will have more sit down dialogue 'filler' chapters to space out the crap 'work' stuff in the future so I guess that's like going further in-depth, in a certain way! Thank you for reviewing, I'd love to hear more as the chapters come, and on what you'd like to see in the future or as a One Shot as it may inspire me :)