It was almost torturous to watch the raids from a distance. Caspian chewed anxiously on the inside of his lip as he watched the screens that had been set up for him in the palace’s security office.  He wished he could have gone with Jacob to make sure they got Iris back unharmed. He may not have had experience with this particular kind of mission, but he’d been to the districts before and had survived practically on his own. Was it really so much worse to go back with a fully equipped military unit?

[i]Team one is approaching the target.[/i]

The crackled sound of the team commander’s voice over the comm device pulled him out of his moping, and he sat up straighter, his eyes flicking to the live feed on his left. The drone was hovering over a row of dilapidated buildings at the end of a cul-de-sac, above which a transport vehicle was lowering itself to deposit seven armed men and women in the street. The king could feel his heart thudding in his chest, and he leaned forward in his seat, as if he could get closer to them if he only pressed himself nearer to the screen.

As he watched, the team jogged toward the first building and jimmied the door open—since they were small groups, they didn’t want to draw attention to themselves by being too loud—before they slipped inside with their guns in their hands. The soldier piloting the drone steered it lower to follow them at a distance, so Cas could see as they explored every part of the house and eventually declared it abandoned. From there, they did the same with the rest of the buildings on the street until they could confirm that there were no members of the rebellion hiding in the area. The only people around were poor civilian families, whom the team left alone.

[i]Hawthorn Circle is clear,[/i] the commander reported as he led his team back to their hovercar.

[i]Copy. Team two is descending on Parkside now.[/i]

This time, it was Jacob’s voice that Caspian could hear over his earpiece, and he turned to the other screen in the office. This one had to be it. If his security guard was right that Iris could only be in one of these two neighborhoods, then the houses the second team was approaching were the only possible places left. He felt a rush of nervousness and excitement, and he brought a hand to his comm device. [color=#b97703]“Make sure our target stays safe. That’s top priority. We’re bringing her back alive.”[/color]

[i]Yes, sir,[/i] Jacob replied. His eyes flicked to the drone hovering beside the transport vehicle before turning back to the houses below. The image of Iris’s heavily wounded body was still ingrained in his mind, but he kept to himself his doubts that they would find her alive. He just wanted to bring her tormentor to justice, even if she was dead by the time they found her. With that plan in mind, he switched the safety off on his rifle and led the way down to the street once the craft was low enough that he could jump out, jogging quietly up to the first house on the block with the rest of his team close behind.