The Black Swan Behind

252 Saving Emma

After waiting for about five minutes, Emma was still nowhere to be found. So far, Calvin had counted and found there were already seven girls who came out of the toilet. He didn’t know how many cubicles were in the toilet. However, the toilet wasn’t big. And the men’s toilet had only three toilet cubicles.

“Where is she exactly? Is she mad at me? Did I do something wrong?” Calvin muttered under his breath.

Feeling Emma was not in the toilet, Calvin decided to go back to their seat. Maybe Emma had been back and waiting there. But it seemed Calvin’s hopes didn’t come true because the place was still empty.

The location outside the venue was not as busy as before. People were heading home, while Calvin was still there, wandering around like a madman. He kept thinking about what he had done wrong that Emma left without saying anything to him, even though she knew that Calvin was buying food for the two of them.

But if he thought about it logically, Emma was not that type of girl. Calvin felt that he knew her well enough. Emma was a polite and respectful girl. She was also very open about her feelings and did not like to pretend. She would immediately speak if she was not happy about something.

Emma had been looking happily all night. Not once did she show that she was in a bad mood. If she did, Calvin would have noticed it right away. Calvin also felt confident that he was the type of guy who was quite sensitive to women’s feelings and moods.

There was no way Emma Hilland would suddenly leave without any information just because she was angry with someone. Emma would definitely feel bad if she did that. After all, leaving suddenly was a very classless act. And Emma Hilland seemed unlikely to do such a thing.

“There is something wrong,” Calvin muttered.

Then, Calvin continued to look for Emma in that place. He didn’t care if people were leaving the place was closing soon. He was sure Emma didn’t go home alone. He was sure something had happened to her; maybe something terrible was going on.

.....

Calvin got into his car to check the outside of the venue while trying to contact Emma. The place was already very quiet.

Then, Calvin’s car arrived at the railing fence at the back of the venue. The place was quite dark with a lot of trees growing on the inside of the fence.

One thing made Calvin stop his car which from the start was moving at low speed. He saw a door that was oddly half open. His feelings told him that he should check the place out.

Calvin pulled over to his car and got out of there. He walked over to the fence and stepped inside. The place was quite dark, though there was still some light to see from some of the lampposts blocked by tree branches.

He walked a few steps, following the path and realized that it led to the large sitting area, near the entrance of the concert venue.

Finding nothing, Calvin decided to return to his car. Not to forget, he tried to call Emma’s cell phone again. The dial tone kept ringing from the Bluetooth earphone he wore in one ear.

Besides the sound of the night bugs and the trees swaying by the wind, Calvin heard a very faint strain of music. He immediately stopped walking. He took off his earphone and tried to sharpen his hearing.

Suddenly, the faint music stopped playing. Calvin glanced at his phone screen. His call to Emma’s had been cut off automatically because it had not been answered. He immediately called her phone again. As soon as the dial tone rang, he heard the faint music playing again.

Calvin’s face suddenly turned tense. He immediately stepped to find the source of the sound. “Emma! Emma! Are you here?” he exclaimed. But there was no answer.

Calvin tried to focus on listening to where the source of the music was, until he saw a thin light among the short grass. He quickened his pace and grabbed the object which was a cell phone that had been lying on the ground with the screen facing down.

He immediately studied the cell phone screen that was still on. He didn’t know what Emma’s cell phone was like because he never paid attention to it as a form of respecting her privacy.

But one thing that made Calvin know that the phone was Emma’s; was an incoming call notification from a person with the name ‘Calvin Lee’. As soon as the call was disconnected, the incoming call notification disappeared and turned into eighty missed call notifications.

Calvin’s grip tightened on the phone. He immediately ran back into the car and drove away. While driving, he grabbed his cell phone and hurriedly called someone.

“Christ! Pick up the phone, you bastards!” He cried to his cell phone with his jaw clenched because the person he was calling did not answer it.

“Yes?” The call was answered by a man’s deep voice that sounded very hoarse. It looked like he was sleeping but was awakened by a call.

“Troy! Emma was kidnapped! She’s gone!” Calvin said directly.

“What?!” Troy’s voice instantly sounded fresh.

Calvin nodded. “He disappeared around the Benjamin Hederric Stadium.”

“Are you sure she was kidnapped?” Troy asked. His voice sounded as if he was getting out of bed and striding roughly on the wooden floor of his house.

“I found her phone on the ground! The empty garden! Don’t waste time. Just hurry up and have the guys look for her!” Calvin exclaimed impatiently.

The truth about whether Emma was kidnapped or not didn’t really matter to Calvin. To be sure, the girl was in danger and they had to help her.

“Alright. I’ll call the boys,” Troy answered before hanging up the phone.

Calvin hit the steering wheel. It was as if he had forgotten that it was Ian’s car. Besides, he didn’t care about it. Now, everything that went through Calvin’s mind was: Where was Emma? Where was she taken? What should he do now?

All those thoughts drove Calvin almost crazy. He was extremely worried about Emma; thinking why it must be her who was now a victim of kidnapping. He knew clearly what the Beast Empire did to the girls they kidnapped. It was a nightmare. Calvin would definitely kill those people if they did anything bad to Emma.

In his heart, Calvin hoped that Emma wasn’t actually kidnapped. He did not mind if he had to accept the anger of the guys for disturbing them at this time of night.

Calvin kept trying to think positively that Emma was just wandering into a strange place and accidentally dropped her phone and left it there. However..

‘That doesn’t make sense, Calvin! Are you that stupid?!’ His brain exclaimed.

Suddenly, Calvin’s phone rang. Quickly, his hand grabbed the cell phone that he placed on the dashboard of the car. “Yes?”

“Louis said Black made another attack on the Beast Empire car. It’s on Noah East Road. We’re on our way,” Troy said.

“All right. I’ll be there soon,” Calvin hung up the phone.

**

“Emma!” Kathy called out to the masked girl who was talking to Ava behind the minivan they were looting.

“You should see this,” Kathy said as soon as Emma had approached her.

Kathy was an additional team leader who brought four motorbikes sent by Rachel. It only took them a few minutes to get to the scene of the incident which happened to be quite close to The Black Swan’s headquarters.

“What is it?” Emma asked, following Kathy to peek into the car in the driver’s seat.

“Look at this,” She pointed to a red button the size of a finger press on the side of the car radio. “Looks like this is an emergency button,”

“Emergency button?” Emma repeated with a frown. The reason was that such a button did not exist in the car they previously attacked. Then, Emma’s face turned tense. “Is it to call for help?”

“I can’t say for sure yet, but that’s what I think,” Kathy replied.

Emma pulled her body out of the car. She looked at the four men who were in a state of unconsciousness after being beaten badly. They were also tied up with duct tape covering their mouths and eyes.

They were seated in a circle on the asphalt with their backs to each other, experiencing what it was like to be in the position of the victim they kidnapped.

“They must have pressed it when their car was under attack,” Emma muttered.

Kathy nodded. “Beast Empire modified their car to prevent something like the last time from happening again.”

“Sorry, guys. You’d better get out of the way,” said one of two girls who was holding a big hammer.

Emma and Kathy took a few steps back from the front car door, letting their team work.

The two girls who were carrying the hammer started breaking the dashboard of the car. Thanks to the training that Linda recently taught, they had become masters in quickly disassembling the contents of cars.

It happened that Linda’s father had a car spare parts factory and a large car repair shop that had many branches. Therefore, the knowledge she had about four-wheeled vehicles was quite a lot.

“Kathy, take a look at this. Is this a tracking machine?” One of the girls got out of the car with a black square object the size of a matchbox with two cut wires sticking out.