Ensnared (Brutes of Bristlebrook, #1)(80)

It’s only knowing him as well as I do that I can see the worry in the tightness of his jaw. The slight defensiveness. He’s been distracted these last few days. We all have.

And there’s only one reason why.

Lucky turns to regard Jasper, with surprising evenness for him, maybe even a hint of chill. He doesn’t even blush. “I didn’t say you missed anything. I’m just wondering how they did it. Are we going to suddenly have more guys crawling up our ass?”

Jasper’s eyes narrow, but I speak up before he can cut into Lucky. This is not the fucking time. Soldiers. We’re meant to be soldiers.

“He’s right,” I say seriously, funneling my irritation into the problem, the solution. One of us needs to keep our head. “Pull up the motion cameras—we have two more in the north region. Then pull up four of the closest static cameras on screens four to seven.”

Thin lipped, Jasper nods once and bends over the keyboard. The screens around us flicker to life. The two other motion cameras peer into silent greenery. Leaves flicker in the light breeze, but that’s not enough to set off the sensors.

Of the four static cameras, only one screen shows an image.

The cameras need a decent amount of maintenance—about half our trips are just to keep them functioning and free of wildlife—so it’s not that unusual for one to go down every now and then.

But not three.

At least they’re set up to record remotely, so we should still have the data up until the point they broke down. Or were cut off.

Jaykob grunts a curse and tension bunches Jasper’s shoulders. “They were up this morning. I only paused long enough for one game of chess. One. But I was still catching up on footage from the night before.”

Frustration ticks over me, but I force it down, reminding myself that he wasn’t trained for this. He’s only one man and we have over thirty cameras in operation. There’s no way he can monitor them all twenty-four seven—his focus was on the main threat to the south, and even keeping up with that seems to have run him down to exhaustion. Damn it, I wish he’d spoken up sooner.

“Go back three days,” I order.

A moment later, all screens show an image. It takes some fiddling, but we manage to pinpoint when the cameras cut out.

First the northernmost, then the other two, each one progressively closer to Bristlebrook. There are no shots of any of the men, the cameras simply cut out, but in the footage from the second camera, just before it shuts off, there are four tall shadows cast against the small patch of grass.

These men are coming from the north. Not the south. Four men, connected with the group that had chased Eden. Connected with the men Beau and I buried two days later.

But how do they know about our cameras?

“Pull up the southern cameras.”

Beau enters the room without knocking and no one flinches. There’s no way anyone can get in this room without the code— getting past the wall panel in the bookcase is tricky enough. I raise a brow, and he gives me a small nod, though the cool distance in his eyes has something stinging my gut. Our argument the other day still isn’t sitting right with me.

But he’s asking too much.

I cut my eyes back to the center screen as it changes to a view of a small stream. At the rightmost side of the frame, just in view, is the edge of a large camp. Two men are visible, facing away from the stream and into the woods, talking and laughing raucously. I can make out the snake tattoo on the rightmost man’s hand where he’s turned toward the camera. There’s no sound, but I would lay money that there are more of them in that camp.

“I’ve been monitoring this group since we last spoke. They haven’t moved. They seem to spend most of their time in their camp, but every now and then they duck out like this,” Jasper says.

“Could they be leaving the camp without this camera catching them?” Beau asks, peering at the screen with a slight frown.

“They could,” Jasper admits. “However, the cameras on five and seven would likely catch them if they were to move toward Bristlebrook. And one of the cameras on two, four, or six would likely catch them if they were to move north. There has been no sign of any activity on any of these cameras. It’s impossible to know for sure, of course, but we placed them carefully.

Any other route would be incredibly difficult for them to traverse.”

“And none of the southern cameras are down?” Lucky asks worriedly.

Jasper doesn’t reply, but the screens flicker as he runs through all the southern cameras. All show varying images of dense, dark woods.

We watch the cameras for a moment as I think. How did they know where the cameras were? They’re concealed. Not easy to stumble on.

And how are they heading in a direct line for Bristlebrook?

“Bullshit,” Jayk growls. “Maybe they got themselves equipment good enough to sense our gear. Maybe. But they don’t have a fucking invisibility cloak. No way they don’t show on any one of the cameras before they cut the feed. They knew where they were. And they knew the tech well enough to stop it tripping our sensors.”

Lucky examines Jayk with a sudden half-grin. “Was that a Harry Potter reference?”

Jayk scowls. “I had a childhood too, you know.”

“Did you identify with the basilisk?” Lucky asks seriously.

Ignoring them, Beau edges toward the screens. “So they knew where the cameras were but, what? Except for one?”