When the message ended, I clicked back to the communicator's main menu to find that Daniel and Haley's calls had made it to the League communicator too, and that they'd left messages.

Deciding that I'd have to look into why there would be a lag between the League phones and League communicators, I was about to listen to Daniel's message when the communicator started to ping again.

It identified the caller as Lucas Hardwick.

That had to be good news -- well, unless it meant that they'd killed Lucas and were calling to let us know.

I answered, setting the communicator to distort my voice.

"This is the Rocket."

"The Rocket? Thank god. I'm in bad shape. Not like when I got shot, but do you have someplace I can go? Someplace out of sight?"

He was breathing heavily.

"Uh... Yeah. The League office. It's downtown?"

"Right. Not far from the hospital."

"I can be there in half an hour. I just got up."

"Sleeping in? God, that's crazy. I'll be waiting."

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

He hung up, and maybe at that point I should have been springing into action, throwing on the stealth suit, and running out the door.

I intended to, but instead I sat on the bed holding the jacket, and staring at the communicator, thinking how much it sucked that I wasn't even going to get a moment to relax after three days of putting the new suits together.

After maybe five minutes of that, I asked myself who I was going to call back first--Daniel, Haley, Chris, or Lt. Van Kley?

Haley answered the question by calling me again.

"Hey--" I began, speaking into my League phone.

I didn't get to finish the sentence.

"Nick, have you seen the TV?"

"No. I just got up."

"It's after ten."

"I know. I've been working on the suits for days, and I've barely had a chance to sleep."

She started whispering.

"Sydney's here, Nick. Prime's people broke into the hotel room where they were hiding, and kidnapped her mom. Sydney escaped."

"What happened to Sean?"

"I don't know. She doesn't know either. He wasn't in the room when they came. I think Prime's people attacked everyone in Justice Fist."

"Van Kley said the same thing."

"Are the police going after them? Nick, they'll be slaughtered."

"I didn't talk to her. She left the League a voice mail. I haven't called her back yet. They want us to handle it."

"Oh. We were already."

"Yeah. I'm just not sure how. But anyway, I got a call from Lucas. I'm meeting him at the office downtown."

"Lucas is alive?"

"Shouldn't he be?"

"They trashed his house, and took his parents. I saw it on the news. They killed the guards from Protection Force, and no one knows what happened to him or his sisters."

"Wow. So that's why he sounded tired. Do you want to come with me?"

"I can't leave Sydney. She's lying on my bed and crying."

"Maybe we need to bring her along too... But how do we do it without letting her know that you're... you?"

"I don't know... It would be so much simpler if I could tell her."

"She'd never keep it from Sean."

"Look, I know. I just wish I could. Maybe Jaclyn or someone could come here and pick her up?"

"That might work."