Chapter 21
TWENTY-ONE
They got her.
They’ve got her.
He.
Has.
Her.
Adrenaline leaves room for nothing else. Every part of me is locked in, tight and teeming with the need to drown the life from their eyes. The moment the phone screen went dark after Landon’s face filled it, I lost any control I thought I had.
My gun slammed against the dashboard, a savage scream tearing from my throat.
It only stops when my voice cracks and my throat is raw. Nausea fucking rolls through me, and my head falls, gun thumping against my hair. All I hear on repeat is the sound of her screams.
Jesse whips the car onto the narrow drive toward the house, calling my name to shake me back to attention. Our eyes strain the trees as the house comes into sight, the headlights of the other cars trailing us as our engines roar through the night.
I can’t even look at my cousin, guilt flaying at my goddamn organs, my skin, my fucking heart. We’d been fooled by someone so close to us. Now, the two people we loved are gone. Fucking gone. Dragged from the house. Bo tried his best, but there were just too many to fight.
And my Angel, terrified, a stranger’s hands on her like I'd sworn would never happen again. I bash the gun against the window at the image of a man touching her sets me on fire. My beautiful girl.
I can only imagine what is happening to her, and what they might have planned.
All reasonable thought has collapsed, like shrapnel flinging itself around the inside of my skull.
She’s gone.
The driveway’s empty and my last hope at intervening shatters. Still, I tear from the car, bursting through the front door as if the men might have changed their mind and left them here for us.
But of course not.
The house is in shambles, furniture overthrown, windows busted. I walk over to the couch where their wine glasses sit, unfinished. Christmas movies on the table and ribbons on the floor where they fucking waited for us to come back to them.
If I could cry, I would. But instead, my eyes burn from the strain of taking in as much information as I can. Every detail of the room, the house. The video.
In the corner, I realize a masked man is curled up against the wall, clutching a spot on his side. My body goes numb. I stare at him for a moment as the men enter the house behind me.
The feral, bloodthirsty animal in me almost breaks free. Only decades of practice keeping my cool—the conditioning my father put me through to lead, to take charge— keep me from duct taping his mouth to the edge of the table and kicking his skull in.
Jesse, however, never received that same training. As soon as he spots the man trying to hide in the corner, he grabs the knife block and throws the whole damn thing across the room, hitting him square in the side of his head.
Blood coats the wall, and his father tries to hold him back.
I stalk over calmly, crouching down to his level and rip off his mask.
“Don’t kill him yet,” Dad reminds me, all caution as he can see I’m fighting to stay in control.
The man looks at me, sneering in an attempt to look strong. “Might as well, why waste time?”
A gunshot goes off behind me right before I hear Jesse being tackled by both Patrick and his dad.
He’s a great shot, Jesse. The man screams as his groin quickly soaks in blood, and I take a step back to avoid the mess he’s trying to clamor his hands over.
The sound of his screaming helps me feel slightly more in control, and I take a shaky breath. Centering. I can’t help them if I’m a fucking wreck.
“Where are they taking them?” I ask.
He doesn’t stop screaming, his hands trying to put pressure on the widening blood spot, as if it would somehow bring back the dick that Jesse destroyed.
I point my own gun at his kneecap and shoot, the man looking up in fresh shock at the serene expression I wear.
“Noah,” my dad says again.
“Where are they taking them?” I repeat.
“I don’t know, you crazy fuck!” he screams, spit flying. Whatever Bundy told his men to do if they were caught, this man cannot remember. He’s losing his shit as he starts to realize that he won't be leaving this house. Panic is all that he can feel around the pain.
That’s exactly how I want my interrogation subjects. Losing the ability to reason. Debased to the point that their allegiances falter.
“How do you not fucking know? You were taking her there.”
“We were just supposed to take her to a drop point. Another car was coming to get them. They’re probably already there. I don’t know anything else, I fucking swear to God.”
I put a hole in his other kneecap for inspiration.
“Fuck! You psycho bastard! I told you what you asked!
“That was just to make me feel better.”
His eyes bulge as he starts to barter with me, but I put a bullet in the space between his eyes and he drops to the floor.
They didn’t listen to Emma’s pleas, how dare they think I would grant mercy on them?
“No,” Jesse growls, fighting to my side.
“I wanted to do it. Noah, I wanted that.” His hand grips the man’s hair, yanking his head back to see if any life remains on his face.
“Fuck,” he shouts, dropping the body as he stands.
“Fuck!” He turns, hands tight in his hair as he crouches back down. “I can’t breathe.”
Shit. Schooling my features, I see Dad nod, approving my stoicism. I put my hand on Jesse’s shoulder and grip him, blood pounding in my ears. “We’ll find them, Jesse. Where’s your inhaler?”
His hands shake under mine, but finally release their death grip on his hair to steeple in front of his face. His jaw clenches, a strangled growl all that escapes from the howl I know he’s trying to trap inside his chest.
I look back to my dad. He’s rubbing his forehead, the only tell he has for trying to come up with the best path forward.
Aiden walks back into the room with Jesse’s inhaler and helps him quietly by the couch.
It’s been so long since he’s needed it—Bo stopped most of his attacks before they could even reach this point.
“We have to go after her,” I demand.
“Noah, you very seriously need to consider how fucking stupid that would be,” Aiden says, and I look down at him as he forces Jesse to inhale the medicine. Seeing my cousin this way is killing me. It’s Lily all over again.
“I should just let them go? Do nothing while they’re—”
Dad grabs my arm and pulls me back to the front doors, to the porch. “It’s not a good time to be saying that in front of Jesse or he’s gonna go off the deep end, do you understand? You have to stay strong for him if you want us to figure this out.”
I clench my jaw but nod, feeling every bit as ragged as my cousin. I’ve spent so long numbing myself to this life that breaking down just isn’t an option. I need to move, plan, think. Organize.
This is what I've trained for since I was a kid. Do what’s needed, keep your head.
Emma wanted to get us away from this. To give me a chance to thaw. Feel. I’ve already started to, because she made it feel like the weight of the world isn’t sitting on my shoulders.
It does, and now it’s heavier. Crushing. I kill my panic until my heartbeat evens out.
“Yeah, I’ve got it.”
“Listen, we’re gonna get them. How many people have we saved, huh?
We never abandon victims, but we aren’t going to be stupid.
You know as well as I do, they aren’t going to be kept at one of their regular harems. And if you go in guns blasting, they could kill them both before you even figure out where they are. ”
My eyes squeeze close, and I stare at the ground as the truth assaults me. He’s right. I know he’s right. But the thought of doing nothing?
“I made her a target, this is my fault.”
“No. Everything we know about them points to Bundy wanting her before you stepped in. She would be where she is regardless. But now at least she knows she has someone who will come and get her.”
It’s barely reassuring. But it’s true, she does know that. If she knows anything, Emma can hang onto the fact that I’ll fucking burn the world down to get back to them.
“Try to get in contact with our informant. I know he hasn’t been given much clearance yet, but he needs to give us all the information he has on every building they use.” I turn for the woods instead of the house. “Please.”
Like fuck can I sit in there with all these people when I feel like I’m about to implode. This feeling—helplessness—I haven't felt it since Lily died. Another failure.
I won't let this one end in death.
My fisted hands itch to beat someone into their grave. When I close my eyes, all I see is Bundy. On and on, this rage burns in my stomach like a sick acid that I don’t know how to expel.
“Noah?” Jesse says, boots crunching through the pine needles to where I crouch. He’s able to talk at least, though his voice sounds like shit. “I tried to steal dad’s car but he talked me down. I don’t know how we can get them without risking them getting killed.”
My breath huffs out, the only noise I can make as my heart careens off a fucking cliff.
I need to hold it together or we’ll both be useless.
“Bo is with her. They’ve protected each other until now, and they’ll keep doing it.
” I swallow when my voice sounds less than strong, and try again.
“They’re going to survive until we can get there. We just need a few days.”
There’s a heavy pause as we both fight to keep the thoughts from entering our head. A few days is forever when it’s Bundy’s hands they’ve been placed in.
“Come on,” Jesse says, voice dead. “Let’s go home. I can’t stay in this place another night.”
I follow him back to the house, but there’s nothing there to hold me here.
The axis of my entire world has shifted, and with Emma gone, all the good has left with her.
Maybe she would never see it this way, but she’s been it.
All of it. The new center of my world. With her gone, I’m a marionette in the dirt, and Bundy has slashed every last string.