It didn’t take as long as Ashton expected to explain the situation to the people who needed to know. It took even less time to add his team to the task force that was already set to move on Jargon’s suspected locations. None of them wanted to risk aggravating Maskz more than necessary in this situation.

  “Last night they were able to use some of the information MysteriousMaskz gave us to narrow down the potential locations of Jargon,” Ashton explained, “We will be assisting the task force in ambushing the most suspicious location. If you aren’t prepared to do so, I can go alone. Maskz only wants me to be involved, so you don’t have to go through with this.”

  “Of course we are going!” Kai snapped, “Did you really think we would stand by and watch as you become a real villain’s puppet?”

  “True. There is no way this isn’t some kind of trap,” Levi agreed, “If you go we are all going.”

  “Let’s get ready,” Kayla said, lightly grabbing Summer’s wrist.

  In just a moment, Ashton was left alone. He didn’t give himself a moment to dwell in his thoughts and got ready himself. Unfortunately, the moment he was alone in his room he felt the buzzing of his phone again. Given the situation, it was hard to imagine it was good news.

  One glance at his phone and he could already tell it was a message from Maskz. Perhaps the fiend already thought Ashton was well and truly understand his thumb because the message sounded oddly smug.

  "Don't forget to bring the serum. You will be the one to catch Jargon today."

  Ashton didn't want to think about what Ned might do if someone else got to Jargon first. He was intimidating enough normally, but this time he had a hostage. Ashton wouldn't be able to forgive himself if his stubborn pride caused Summer to lose someone precious to her. However, he couldn't shake the concern that eventually Maskz would ask him to do something that truly was impossible for him.

  He had already given the tech team both of the numbers Maskz had used previously with no luck. No information. No hope of tracking anything from unregistered numbers like those. Still, there had to be something he could do to turn this situation around. He had long had his fill of playing puppet.

  Jared arrived shortly, and handed over the serum without question when Ashton asked. It was likely no secret exactly what sort of complicated situation he was facing. MysteriousMaskz had made that clear the night before.

  "Just be careful," Jared advised, "I am getting a bad feeling about this. Not a terrible feeling. Just bad."

  Just bad? That meant something serious was going to happen but not necessarily to them. Not death. That would probably count as something terrible. If things continued as they were, the main bad thing to happen would be dancing to Ned's tune.

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  Once the rest of the team arrived, Jared gave them a quick briefing. “We need to get moving. We plan to strike all of the suspected hideouts at the same time to reduce any chances he has of getting away or using his victims as shields. We still don’t know how close his relationship is with Checkmate.”

  Right, Checkmate. Ashton had almost forgotten about him in all of the chaos. He might have something, or everything, to do with the bad feeling Jared had gotten. Then again, if Checkmate was on Ned’s side rather than Jargon’s, things might work to their advantage. That thought caused Ashton to cringe. Whatever happened he could not allow himself to fall into the trap of relying on MysteriousMaskz.

  They arrived at the destination, a warehouse in the Old Town. The place looked even more ghostly now that SI had fallen. Fake or not, enough terrible things had happened here that most people steered clear. On the flip side, without SI’s intervention it had drawn in a different kind of crowd. Criminals, crooks, and those who were desperate enough not to care if they became one. Something about it seemed too obvious a place for someone like Jargon to hide in.

  As if responding to those thoughts, his phone buzzed again. Ashton begrudgingly pulled it out to find exactly what he had expected. A new message from Maskz.

  “Wrong answer. You should guess again if you don’t want to die.”

  “This isn’t the right place,” Ashton announced before anyone could leave the van, “It’s a trap, and a deadly one. Were there any other locations that needed to be covered?”

  Jared frowned and glanced at the phone in Ashton’s hand. “I don’t like how you got that tip, but my gut is telling me you are right. I will take us to the next location.”

  However, now that he had sent the first message, Masks began to give orders disguised as hints near constantly. Though each thing was simple, if they refused or ignored any of them, things took an immediate bad turn. Even something as simple as going straight when Maskz had told them to turn left nearly resulted in a collision.

  In the end, they ended up parked outside an old office building that was not even included in the strike list Gale Research had prepared. Once they did, Ashton got what he hoped was the last message for a while.

  “Congratulations! Just remember to watch your step. These old buildings aren’t as sound as they used to be.”

  After everything that had happened on the drive there, this felt more like a threat than a warning, but Ashton relayed it nonetheless.Just like before, Jared agreed that this was definitely where Jargon was hiding. The building had several floors and was covered in windows. Ashton had no doubt they had long lost the element of surprise.

  “We need to come up with a plan before we head inside,” Ashton decided, “Maskz mentioned something about the building being unstable so I don’t want to be in there any longer than necessary.”

  “Maybe there is a way for us to not go in at all,” Levi suggested.

  “Smoke him out?” Kai guessed.

  “We can’t risk it,” Jared shot down immediately, “There might be hostages. I still haven’t had a chance to report on what is going on. No one will make a move to do anything until someone else at least knows where we are in case we need backup, or even a rescue.”