48. Keagan
Chapter forty-eight
Keagan
K eagan Aged 24
No one has seen her today. I know we agreed to give her space, but this is crap. I’m not doing anything technically wrong.
I jiggle my lock picks until the lock disengages and then open the door.
All the lights are out.
So I turn them on.
If she finds me, she finds me.
I search her house but find nothing. I get to her bedroom and push open the door.
“Aspyn?”
It’s the softest groan.
I charge into the room and find her lying on her stomach on the floor. It looks like she’s tried to crawl from the bathroom to the bed but hasn’t made it.
I crouch beside her.
“Aspyn, are you hurt? How bad is it?”
She shakes her head and lets out a sob.
Fuck. This.
I scoop her up as carefully as I can and carry her to the bed, where I cover her up and quickly fire off a message to Shale. I climb up with her and curl my body around hers.
As long as she is breathing, I will be here. I will never leave her alone again.
P resent Day
The house is trashed, and my omega and alpha are gone. My chest heaves as I try to take it in while I struggle with the rage. I’m going to tear this town apart. I’m going to kill everyone.
What did they do?
When we got that message from Mitch, it had done something to me. I was scared. And I don’t like being scared. I was terrified and helpless in that tin can of a plane. But now I’m on the island I’ve lived on since I was fourteen, and there is nowhere they can take them that my pack and I can’t find them.
I rush around the house just to be sure they haven’t left any clues or indications of where they are going and then jog out the back. Shale comes out from the trees, while Kelly appears from her old house.
“House is empty,” Kelly says unnecessarily.
“So is the cave,” Shale growls from behind me.
My phone rings, and I answer it without looking. Where is she? “What?”
“She broke Gael out of jail last night,” Ezy says in a deadly voice.
“That’s my girl!” Beau’s voice says in dark satisfaction from the phone. He and Ezy went to find answers from Sonny while we came here to search.
My blood runs cold.
“Mitch helped her. They were supposed to get off the island today, but it looks like they were stopped,” Ezy says and hisses for the person wailing in the background to shut up.
I’m silent, letting that soak in. Our omega was desperate enough to break into a jail to rescue her alpha. What is going on here? Did they think they could get away with it?
“No, from what Sonny is saying, Typhor bought the island a few weeks ago and came over this morning with one thing on his mind,” Ezy explains. I hear the thuds of fists connecting with a body.
Beau growls. “Our omega is being hunted,” he says in a dark voice through the phone. “And you helped them!”
Someone squeals, but the thuds don’t stop.
“We need to get to him first, cut him off before he can reach her. Why is everyone helping him?” Kelly growls.
That is the question. One that will serve a reckoning this island has never seen before.
“Sonny has been threatened by a lot of people and is currently drunk on pain and spilling everything.” Ezy explains. “I think he knows he’s lost Mitch.”
“Put him on,” Shale says in the coldest, most malevolent voice I’ve ever heard.
There’s a commotion on the other end of the line, and then I hear Sonny’s weak hello.
“You’re dead,” he says slowly.
Sonny wails. For several moments, there’s nothing but the horrified wails of the cop, but then he says two words that may save his life.
“Lover’s Lookout.”
I still. “What did he say?”
“That’s where they are?” Ezy snarls with a new found savagery that I’m super proud of.
“Lover’s lookout. Mitch has a boat.” Sonny’s despair-filled voice comes through the phone. “They just left. You can catch them.”
There’s two ways off that beach, by water or road. Aspyn wouldn’t go by water, would she? There’s no way they’d be that desperate?
I reach out, and my hand finds Shale’s. He squeezes my fingers as hard as I squeeze his.
Aspyn in the ocean? She wouldn’t be able to swim, she’d drown in minutes.
“We’ll meet you on main street,” I shout into the phone but pause when Sonny keeps talking in the background.
“I’m sorry. The whole town smashing windows and scaring them. It got out of control. It wasn’t meant to be like that. She was just supposed to be kept away from the pack until he arrived. He promised he wouldn’t hurt her.”
“Ezy,” Shale says in a voice of such menace it gives me goosebumps. “Who was messaging us from Gael’s phone?”
Sonny’s hysterical tears are enough of an answer for me that I don’t need to ask anything else.
“Put him back in the cell. I’ll deal with him and the rest of the village when she’s safe,” Shale growls.
There is no doubt in my mind I’m not losing her. We will make it.
I rush for the car, climbing in the back as Beau drives as fast as possible. At main street, we pause long enough for Ezy and a bloody Beau to be pulled into the car.
“These fuckers,” Ezy growls.
It takes too long to get there. I throw myself out of the car just in time to see the boat go up and come crashing down, dumping everyone inside into the ocean.
“NO! ASPYN!” I scream so loud my throat aches.
My entire world surges up and collapses into the violent tempest that is the ocean. I can’t lose her!
We’ve only just started living. There’s so much I want to show her.
NO! I’m not done! And neither is she!
That’s when it starts to rain. Thick curtains of it. A drenching rain. A blinding rain.
I could lose her. I need to be faster, stronger, smarter. Aspyn is my world, the shining light that has stopped me from becoming a monster, and I love her more than anything.
I run like my life depends on it.
My life does depend on it. Her life is my life.
The threat of the waves compete with the men ranging around. Six huge thugs with muscles charge towards us, trying to intercept us and stop us getting to the water.
I’ll kill them all.
“We have her!” Kelly shouts and throws himself past me, diving into the ocean.
Trust. I need to trust my pack. We each have skills. It kills me, but I turn away from the water to deal with the threat on land.
I launch myself at the first guy, throwing a punch that wrenches his entire head around. Two guys come at me, but Beau is there kicking out hard. In the corner of my eye, I spot Ezy diving into the ocean, while Shale joins the fight with brutal force.
There is no sign of her.
I trust my pack. My life is in their hands.