Chapter 63
AXEL
There it is.
My eyes burned with relief at the sight of Dakota’s apartment building. In the distance, I could hear police sirens wailing through the night. They were close. But not close enough.
Not yet.
I screeched up onto the sidewalk in front of the building and dropped the bike right there. Didn’t even bother turning it off. The engine continued its angry rumble as I sprinted toward the entrance.
Slamming the front door open so hard that it bounced off the wall behind it, I made my way to the stairwell, taking steps three at a time. My dress shoes slipped on the worn concrete, but I caught myself on the railing and kept climbing.
Please, Dakota. Please be okay.
The familiar smell of the building hit me: old carpet, cooking oil, the faint mustiness of too many people living too close together. Smells that might’ve meant home had I been visiting her on another occasion. Now they just meant desperation.
I glanced down at my phone screen during the rush up the stairs, and my blood turned to ice.
The live stream on her primary platform had ended. Or been shut off due to violence?
Oh God.
What if I’m too late?
Images flashed through my mind: Mathew with that knife, Dakota’s terrified face, the way she’d looked so small, tied to that chair. What if the last thing I’d see of her was through a phone screen?
I charged up the stairs even faster, my lungs burning, and finally bolted down the hallway toward her apartment door.
Please don’t be too late. Please, please, please.
The hallway stretched endlessly in front of me, each step echoing off the walls like gunshots. Her door was just ahead: 3B. A place that had been her sanctuary.
Now it was her prison.
I reached for the handle.
Locked.