Chapter 36
Chapter Thirty-Six
Eli
We already know something is up when we get to work to find the entire building ablaze. Firefighters try putting it out, but all that is left is the burned debris. The entire place is gutted, leaving nothing behind but ash and soot.
“Who would do this?”
“God knows,” Cyrus says, sitting on the hood of our car.
We spend the next few hours giving statements and talking to officers and the fire department.
We drive home. We have been completely distracted by everything going on during the day, and neither of us bothered to pay attention to the bond.
Pulling up, we can see tire marks on the driveway, like someone has done a burnout.
The door is wide open. Cyrus is out of the car before I even stop, rushing inside.
Yet she seems calm through the bond. I get out, heading inside, only to panic when I hear Cyrus racing around the house, calling her name.
“Addie, this isn’t funny,” I call out.
“Eli, I think I know who started the fire and where Addie is,” Cyrus says from upstairs.
I head for the stairs, following his scent. Walking into our room, Cyrus is in the walk-in. He has clothes in his hand, and he sniffs them.
He holds them out, and I sniff the clothes. A growl escapes me when I pick up faint traces of his scent.
She fucking ran from us, and with him of all people.
“This is my fault. I should have told you,” Cyrus says, chucking the clothes down and running his fingers through his hair.
“Told me what?”
“I wasn’t in the basement the other night. It was Addie. I was going to compel her this morning to forget what she saw, but you were in a rush.”
“You didn’t think to blurt that out? Now she has fucking run from us!” I yell at him before running downstairs.
I grab my keys, heading for the car.
“Eli!” Cyrus calls.
“What?” I snap at him.
How could he not mention that? He even covered for her the night I found them. I knew something was off. I should have listened to my instincts instead of taking his word. The one person I can trust has just lied to me, and because of that, she is gone.
“Just let her calm down. She will come back,” Cyrus says.
“And if she doesn’t?”
“She is with Sam, obviously. So where else would she go other than to her house or his?”
“Wait, he was escorted back, so why is he here? Did she ring him last night?” I ask Cyrus.
He seems to think for a second.
“Her phone was still in the room when I found her,” he says, shaking his head.
Something feels off. I turn to go to the car.
“Eli?”
“No, I am going to go get our mate, so either get in the car or shut up,” I tell him.
He gets in the car, and I tear off down the road to the highway. We are a quarter of the way there when I suddenly notice something. I can no longer feel her.
Cyrus notices it, too, and looks at me.
“I know,” I tell him, putting my foot down.
It is already dark, and we don’t arrive at her house till sunrise. Pulling into the driveway, I get out and knock on the door. Her mother answers.
“Hey, Debbie, is Addie here?” I ask her.
She is half-asleep still, her pajamas all wrinkled, and I can tell I have pulled her out of bed.
“Oh, Eli,” she says, half-asleep, and opens the door.
Cyrus rushes inside in a blur, so quick that Debbie doesn’t even notice him rush past her; the only indicator is her hair blowing slightly.
“Come in, come in,” she says, yawning while walking to the kitchen. She flicks the kettle on.
Cyrus walks out, shaking his head, and I sigh. “Debbie, do you know where Sam lives?”
She yawns again. “Has something happened? Where is Addie?”
I nod to Cyrus. She is no use to us right now. We need answers and can’t afford her asking questions, stalling our time. Cyrus walks over to her, grabbing her face. He compels her to tell us Sam’s address before compelling her to forget seeing us.
We drive to the address when we are suddenly hit with fear.
Whatever is blocking us is wearing off. I kick in the door without even bothering to knock.
A woman comes out, screaming frantically, and I leave Cyrus to deal with her while I search the house.
His room is clean, and his scent is faint, like he hasn’t been here for long.
I can’t pick up hers at all, though. Walking downstairs, I see a door with padlocks on it.
Cyrus compels his mother, and she dazedly walks off into the living room.
I pull the padlocks off, breaking the locks in the process before opening the door.
It’s the basement. Cyrus and I walk downstairs and are unprepared for what we find.
Turning the light on, the entire place looks like a shrine in her honor.
Thousands of photos of her hanging on the wall.
Her scent is in there, and at first, it gives us hope until we realize he has stolen some of her belongings.
Underwear, a hair brush, some clothes, and even her toothbrush.
“What the fuck?” Cyrus says, looking at the photos.
There are even photos of us with her, photos of her as a teenager, some of her even in the shower, getting changed from outside her windows.
“Did he take all these?” I gasp.
It’s something out of a horror movie; I have never met anyone with such an obsession with something, much less a person. There are even cut-out photos of her and him that he’s obviously made.
He’s been stalking her. That much is clear. But where is she now?
“You need to ring the council now and find out where the fuck he is with our mate,” Cyrus says, horrified.
I nod, pulling my phone out to start making calls. Walking upstairs, I ring his boss.
Sam’s entire house is surrounded within the hour, people combing over everything in the house, pulling the entire place apart. His boss pulls up as I am waiting outside. Cyrus is inside, and I can feel his fear festering beneath the surface.
“Eli. I came as quickly as possible,” Pete says, hopping out of the car and walking toward me.
I shake his hand, and he looks at the house.
“Heard you had an incident in Soya?”
He brushes his graying hair with his fingers, pushing it out of his eyes, the sky turning overcast as a cool breeze picked up.
“Yes, Sam burned the place down. Now my mate is missing.”
“That’s impossible. I had Sam escorted back yesterday,” he says, rubbing his hands together, trying to warm them.
“Well, you obviously didn’t keep an eye on him because he took my mate. We found his scent in my house, and there is something you need to see,” I tell him, motioning toward the house.
“You don’t understand. Sam is a good kid. He wouldn’t do that. You must be wrong. He is one of our best employees,” he says, following me up the stairs and into the house.
His mother is talking to Cyrus and a few members of the supernatural council.
“You got the council involved?” Pete asks, looking in the living room.
“Well, clearly, you can’t control your workers, and when it comes to Addie, I won’t risk her safety because you are incapable of controlling your own.”
“Sam would never hurt Addie. He loves the girl,” Pete says, and I motion toward the stairs to the basement.
He sighs, walking down, and I can see he is confused as to why I want to take him down there. I follow him before he suddenly stops and gasps, shocked by what he’s seeing. The exact same reaction we had when we discovered it.
“Good god,” he says, looking around and moving around the basement.
He looks at the photos and the notes he has written, some poems and just overall disgusting, vile things he wanted to do to her, about some imaginary life Sam has conjured up in his head.
“Still think he won’t hurt her?” I ask him, and he looks at me, his mouth open in shock.
“Eli, I swear I had no idea he was this unstable. If I had known, I would have done something,” he says, looking at me before pushing past me and racing up the stairs.
This is bad for the hunters’ organization. This could destroy alliances between both councils. Mates aren’t to be messed with. They are off-limits because it can cause a major rift between both organizations. I follow him back upstairs, and he starts slinging orders at his men.
“Check the tracking device on his car and phone now,” he tells a man with a beard that he grabs as he walks past him.
The man nods, and Pete lets him go, looking around.
I can see the stress on his face, the fear.
They are supposed to be tested yearly for psych evaluations to make sure their workers are stable.
They even periodically check their homes to make sure no one turns into vigilante extremists.
They should have picked this up, and the fact they didn’t now leaves Pete’s head on the chopping block.
“Car has already been found burned out. The phone’s been disabled,” I tell him, and he nods.
“I want paper trails checked now, all financial records from the last ten years checked. He must have some place he holds her captive. Find out where Samuel is now,” he tells his workers, and they rush off with phones in hand and laptops.
Pete is by no means a pushover, has worked his way up to his position, and is well respected by both organizations for his negotiation and leadership abilities. He is the longest to have lasted in his position besides Michael, Addie’s father.
“This is bad, this is really bad,” he mutters, shaking his head and pinching the bridge of his nose. “We will find her. I give you my word.”
“Yes, you will. Because if anything happens to her, I will kill every goddamn one of you,” Cyrus says, walking over to us.
“We will find your mate, Cyrus, and we will deal with Sam.”
“Deal with him? I am going to fucking kill him when I get my hands on him.”
“He will be punished. I can assure you,” Pete tries to tell him, but Cyrus shakes his head.
“He is fucking sick in the head. Did you not see what was down there? That shit ain’t normal. You better hope you find him before I do because there won’t be anything left of him when I am done,” Cyrus says, walking out.
I follow after Cyrus, needing to calm him down before he goes into a rage and kills everyone. His bloodlust is taking him over the angrier he gets, and it will do us no good if he kills those trying to help us get her back.
“Cyrus, calm down,” I tell him as he goes to the car.
“Calm down? He is doing god knows what with her, and we can’t even feel her. And if we do, it is brief. I should have let you kill him. This is my fault. I should have believed you when you said something was off about him.”
“Nobody saw this happening, Cyrus. You can’t wear the blame for it. We will get her back.”
“Yeah, and in what state? What if she resists him? He could hurt her,” Cyrus says, remembering the disgusting pornographic images Sam has drawn of Addie.
“Addie is smart. She would have figured out something was wrong with him by now. Her instincts would be setting off alarm bells,” I tell him, and he nods.
Addie is pretty observant, even if she doesn’t realize it; she knows Sam, and I can almost guarantee she knows something isn’t right by now. Her fear that we got briefly was enough to tell us she knew something was up. Now we just need to hope she won’t piss him off, or he may hurt her.