Twenty-Two
S he was gone. She was FUCKING GONE. We searched the area as fast as we could, and the worst part was finding her helmet discarded on the ground by a side road, because there were tyre tracks in the dirt.
A vehicle had been here, and she’d been fucking taken. I couldn’t breathe. I was feeling that same kind of panic that I’d felt every time one of those bastards was hurting me, only it was worse. Worse because it was her; my sweet girl. My fragile, sweet girl, who deserved to be touched only with reverence and respect, and ONLY by me.
“Has, keep it together.” Ry squeezed my shoulder, and watched as Stitch was yelling down his phone, while Ice paced, talking on his too. Others were on their way, but Ice was also up to something, dictating instructions down the phone to someone.
“What if he has her?”
Panic was threatening to overwhelm me, and it was destroying my ability to think, or try to come up with any way to save her. My heart was pounding so heavily, and almost painfully, that I wondered if it’d just burst right out of my chest.
“Has… come on, man. You know we’ll find her. Time is of the essence though; finding her before someone hurts her, and that means we need your head in the game. Look at me.” My friend, who knew exactly how it felt for his woman to be taken from him, looked deadly serious as he stared back at me.
He knew me better than most of the club, and he knew the things going through my mind. Worse than that, he knew the damage it did to a person, because his wife was raped months ago and it had nearly destroyed her. Nearly destroyed both of them.
“She can’t go through… she can’t… brother, we need to find her.” He nodded, squeezing my shoulder again, while I tried to let his calm ease my panic enough that I could be what she needed me to be. The man who’d destroy anything standing between the two of us.
“Got her. Thank fuck she has her phone with her.” Ice rattled off an address, and then we were racing for our bikes, engines roaring as we headed down the road at speed. It was time to find my fucking girl, and bring her home. I prayed the whole way there, that we were in time to keep her from being harmed by whoever had taken her.
“There!”
There was a dark blue van tucked behind some trees at the co-ordinates we were given. We were at a local forest park, and as we approached the van on foot, with Ryder gripping the back of my cut to stop me racing in there without backup, I realised why the place looked familiar. It was the same fucking place where the killer apparently dumped Chrissy. FUCK! There was no way the person who took Elise wasn’t the same rapist and killer!
The side door on the van was partially open, and as Ice and Ryder made their way around the van, I took up position, regretfully behind my VP, as he hauled the side door open. Desperate sobbing met my ears a second later, and I shoved past him to get to my Elise. She was handcuffed and tethered to the floor of the van. That part I only noticed dimly.
The part that hit me first, hit me harder, was the mess of her clothes. Her hoody was sliced open, and her t-shirt torn apart. Her jeans were undone and partway down her thighs, and she was desperately trying to drag them back up with her tethered hands. There was blood. There was blood on her fucking thighs. NO.
Elise
I couldn’t make my mind focus on anything, but when the door was pulled open and I saw my brother, I instantly wished for someone else, and then there he was. My frantic attempts to cover myself up were forgotten as I tried to reach for Has-Been.
I needed him to hold me like he always did. I needed him to tell me that everything would be okay. I needed him to tell me that he’d still want me.
“Fucking hell. Get these fucking cuffs off her.” Has-Been knelt beside me and I instantly tried to crawl to him.
“Easy, darlin’. Let’s get you out of here without hurting you more, okay?”
“Help me, Has.”
He caught my face in his hands, and leaned his forehead against mine.
“I got you, darlin’. I’ll get you out of here.”
“Here.” I dimly heard my brother’s voice, and then they were using something to cut through the chain holding the cuffs to the van floor. There was a brief hissed argument between them, but when my brother reached for me, and I moved closer to Has-Been, Seth’s face fell, and then he groaned.
“Lift her carefully, and we’ll find a way to-”
The van’s engine suddenly roared to life, making me scream with panic, and Seth and Has cursed.
“It’s okay, it’s just easier to get her back home now than wait for another van.” I heard Ice’s voice from somewhere near the front of the van, but it took me a moment to recognise it, because for a horrible, terrifying moment, I thought the monster was back.
“I need something to cover her with.” Has pulled back briefly, shedding his cut, and lifting off his long sleeved t-shirt. He tucked it around me, covering my half-clothed appearance from everyone else, making me comfortable in his embrace.
“That’s better, right, darlin’?”
I nodded, wishing my voice would work so I could thank him.
“Fuck’s sake. I’m trusting you to get her home safe, both of you. Doc will be waiting when you get there. Sweets, I’m gonna be right behind the van, okay? You’re safe now.”
I nodded, leaning closer to Has-Been and pressing my face against his warm, bare chest. Finally I was pressed up against his skin, and I was too numb and freaked out to even appreciate it properly.
“She’s always fucking safe with me,” I heard Has mutter at Seth. My brother replied by slamming the door of the van and banging on it twice, the van starting to move immediately. I didn’t want to still be in this horrible van, where that monster had held me trapped.
If Has wasn’t holding me so tightly, I’d be screaming and begging to be let back out of it. His scent was helping to remove me from where we were, by filling my senses, and calming me somewhere deep down inside.
“I’m so fucking sorry, babe. I let you down.” I wanted to disagree with Has-Been, because he didn’t know the monster was there, did he? My voice was still lost somewhere inside me though, so I had to settle for shaking my head, pressing even closer to him, as his arms tightened around me.