Chapter 84
CHAPTER EIGHTY-FOUR
CALIX
My car zoomed ahead on the freeway toward Astrid’s last known location—my house. I pressed my foot to the floor and whizzed past cars in the right lane, heart pounding against my rib cage.
Did they really take her?
Frasier sat next to me in the passenger seat, phone in hand, barking updates to Cairo through the group call. Arch followed behind us, his headlights cutting through the darkness. One of us should’ve stayed with her.
Why the fuck didn’t I think of that?! My hand tightened around the wheel, and I took the exit, nearly flipping the car on the turnaround. If Mira had something to do with this, I swear to fucking God, I’ll kill her myself.
With one hand on the steering wheel, I fumbled with my phone and called Diya again. But she wasn’t answering. Why wasn’t she answering?! Had they taken her too? Astrid was supposed to be with Diya all night.
She hadn’t told me that she’d be anywhere else. She hadn’t told me that she’d be leaving, hadn’t said anything had happened between them. So, why the fuck wasn’t she answering now, out of all fucking times?!
After speeding through Redwood like a fucking maniac, I finally pulled into my driveway. Astrid’s car was parked out front, but her phone was in the middle of the road. I slammed on the brakes and headed straight for the front door while Frasier jogged to her car with Arch.
Diya was sitting in the kitchen, eyes red and puffy.
“Where’s Astrid?” I asked, taking two stairs at a time to make it to the kitchen.
She glared at me, her eyes filled with tears, and didn’t say a word.
“Diya?! Where’s Astrid?!”
Nothing.
“Are you fucking kidding me right now?! What’s wrong with you?!”
She slammed her hands onto the table and stood. “I don’t know, and I don’t care!”
“Her car’s out front. Where is she?!”
“Did you not hear a word that I just fucking said, you stupid asshole?!” Her cheeks reddened, and she scrunched her brows even more, her eyes widening. “Besides, shouldn’t you know?! You’ve been fucking her behind my back for months now!”
I clenched my jaw. “You didn’t.”
“I didn’t what?” she snapped.
“Please, don’t tell me that you had her kidnapped because you were pissed.”
She shook her head. “Are you kidding me? Do you think I’d do that?”
I stared at her for a couple of moments. “I don’t fucking know. But she’s missing.”
Pain, hurt, anguish, and confusion rushed through her, and then she finally crossed her arms over her chest. Then she went to the front window to look outside. “Is she really gone? Did someone … really take her?”
“She’s not here, and someone had a lock of her hair at the race.”
“What?” she asked, eyes snapping up to mine. “They did?”
“When did she leave?”
“A couple of hours ago,” she said. “I told her to leave.”
I ran a hand through my hair. “Oh my fucking God. She’s dead. She’s fucking dead.”
“She’s not dead,” Diya said.
But I was already down the steps and heading out the front door because talking to her wasn’t going to help us find Astrid. She had asked Astrid to leave because she was pissed at us for hooking up behind her back, and now … Astrid’s gone?!
“She’s fucking dead,” I repeated, my strides long and quick toward her car.
Frasier ran a hand through his hair, pacing in front of Astrid’s car. Arch hurled a fist at his car, a string of curse words leaving his mouth barely a moment later. I jogged up to him with Diya close behind.
“Did you find anything?” I asked Frasier.
“No.”
“Did Cairo?”
“He’s looking at the cameras, got access through Kai from Poison. It’ll take a minute.”
“And Rush?”
“I haven’t heard from him yet,” Frasier said. “He’s not answering his phone.”
“Fuck,” I murmured, my stomach in knots. “Fuck!”
“I think—” Frasier started, then looked down at his buzzing phone and answered it, putting it on speaker. “Did you find anything?”
“The same car that picked Astrid up was at the Overlook fifteen minutes ago, dumping something,” Kai—not Cairo—said.
Kai was the tech geek of Poison, Redwood’s most notorious student-led gang, and he could find anything. I could hear cries in the background, ones that sounded like Cairo.
“It looks like a body.”
Everything suddenly stopped, and my entire body felt like it was giving out.
“What?” I whispered. “It hasn’t even been two hours since …”
Arch was squealing out of the driveway and speeding toward the Overlook. Frasier dropped the phone. And I was shaking. I couldn’t stop. My fingers wouldn’t be still, my mind was racing, and my heart? It felt like it would burst out of my chest.
“What?” I said again. “Wh-what’d he say?”
“No,” Diya said to my left. “No, they said … they said they wouldn’t hurt her.”
I slowly turned to face her. “What did you just say?”
Diya stared at me for a couple of moments and shook her head. “I … I’m sorry, Calix. I messed up.”