Chapter 11 Eight
Eight
Brooks
Every beat of my heart landed like a pickaxe in my chest. The woods had long gone quiet after the distant slamming of car doors and retreating engines. I stood frozen, leaning against our SUV.
I wanted to be numb. Harden into stone. Or simply join the legion of the forest, and sway in the wind, and watch over the follies of anonymous wanderers. Distant and disconnected.
Of all the things I’d do for Taryn—which was just about any fucking thing—turned out saying goodbye was the hardest…by about a million miles.
I hadn’t seen them grab her. There was no way in hell I could've watched and not stopped them, which would’ve ruined her plan.
Damn, I wished I’d ruined her plan.
And if I’d tiptoed close enough to feel Lin and Caine in the bond? Yeah. No way I could’ve gone through with it.
And then there was one.
Hopefully two. Had to be two.
I’ll take that numbness now, please and thank you.
I barely remembered the rough drive back to the cabin, or turning off the car and walking inside. Yet the next time I blinked, I found myself in the foyer. Was this how Caine had felt walking back in after so long? A place familiar and foreign.
Standing in this place where I’d never once been alone, I expected it to feel too big. Just the opposite. The air compressed around me. Claustrophobic. The quiet felt loaded, like the moment between the cocking of a gun and the explosion of a life ending.
My feet traced the trail through the house, until I stood at the bottom of what had been the pack bed for the several days of Taryn’s heat. All of our scents still hung in the air. But they were the sharp scents of fear and urgency, pungent enough that my eyes watered.
Because they certainly weren’t watering for any other reason. None whatsoever.
I swiped away the moisture, shoved down the emotion they betrayed, and focused on the plan.
Step one: Clean and redress wound.
I made my way toward the bathroom, rummaging in the medicine cabinets for a first aid kit.
The wounds were awkward to reach, but even a cursory cleaning and fresh gauze would be better than what I had.
Plus, Taryn had made me swear on her life that I would, and I wasn’t going to add any more risk to her head than I already had.
Step two: Drink water. Eat food.
Snacks littered the dresser of the bedroom: apples, strawberries, grapes, crackers, jerky sticks. A nearly decimated flat of water bottles sat on the floor beside it. Our quick-access sustenance.
Taryn had been so thin when I’d found her. If only I could’ve gotten her in here somehow, let her eat her fill before she threw herself to the wolves.
Before I let go of her hand and watched her enter their lair, weak and malnourished.
I nearly choked on the water. I stared at the apples, still bunched in plastic wrap—apparently not a favorite of our heat-crazed omega. Or me, in this moment. My stomach roiled at the thought of forcing one down.
Later, then.
Step three: Parlay with Vikki. Gather supplies.
Enough for myself and Brea—for when I found her.
More water. Food. Clothing for us both. I grabbed my phone—it was still sitting plugged in upstairs—and called the number Vikki had scrawled on the note. She didn't answer.
"Dr. Arceneaux here. Just, ah, following up on that case you interviewed me about recently. Reachable at this number. Thanks."
Lame as hell, but hopefully vague enough so as not to trigger suspicion if it were intercepted.
While I waited for the call back, I used the alert app to find the hunting cameras Lin and Caine had posted around the property.
This hadn’t technically been part of Taryn’s marching orders for me.
Maybe it was my ER brain, constantly concocting second and third and fourth plans in case the first failed, running through contingencies even as I stitched up someone’s head or intubated a crashing patient.
I just wanted to be sure that whatever those cameras had captured, we had at the ready. In case.
By the time I returned to the house, I was sweating, sore, and exhausted. The house was safe enough now, the bad guys having gotten what they came for, so I didn’t bother locking up before heading upstairs.
I’m editing the plan, I said in my head. Step three-point-five: Sleep.
Something tickled my leg. I shifted on the bed, trying to escape the tickle, but it followed me.
Oh my god, there’s a spider in the bed.
I was awake in an instant, jumping out from the sweat-damp sheets, swatting at myself to get the spider off.
My leg tickled again. Abruptly, then stopped.
Pocket.
Vibrating.
Phone!
I dug for my phone, pulling it out and looking at the screen. An unknown number flashed up at me.
My heart pounded. Vikki? Or an enemy? I hesitated, but no one on the other end could do much worse to me than what had already happened. I hit the green button and raised the phone. “Who is this?”
“Brooks!” Brea’s voice greeted me over the speaker. “Oh, my god, it’s so good to hear your voice.”
Elation. Panic. They felt so similar. A light feeling in the head, like a balloon expanding and lifting me off the ground.
“Fuck, Brea, what happened to you? Where are you?”
“Where are you?” she countered. “I came to the cave and I have yours and Taryn’s scents here, but you’re both gone, and I am—”
“Deep breaths, Brea,” I said, my stomach dropping out my ass. “I’m up at the cabin.”
“And Taryn? She’s with you?”
I swallowed. This was not news to give over the phone. “I managed to get some food in her. She was more worried about you than anything.”
Brea loosed a loud breath. “Thank the fucking universe." Her voice was choked. “Okay, I’ll meet you both up there. Hopefully backtracking will be easier in the daylight.”
She hung up before I could say anything else.
I swallowed and sank onto the edge of the bed, phone gripped in hand.
There was nothing to do but wait.
Brooks Alphonse Arceneaux, dead man sitting.
Brea
By the time the cabin finally greeted me through the trees, I was daydreaming about staying off my feet for a week. Two, maybe. Even the too-small boots Nova gifted me didn’t save me. It was a pick-your-poison situation, though: keep going barefoot, or put up with blisters.
My god, it felt good to let my mind wander to something other than impending peril.
It had been so many days since I’d felt free enough to bemoan my own aching feet or fantasize about a nice warm bath.
But Taryn and Brooks were safe. Maybe Caine and Lin were, too.
Maybe we’d somehow come through this unscathed.
Nova had driven me within a hundred yards of where the cave was, unwilling to risk gaining a tail as she retreated to her shack. When I’d made my way back to the cave and found it empty, my alpha very nearly went feral, ready to hunt down whoever’d taken Taryn and rip them to shreds.
Then I’d smelled it—that wisp of palo santo in the air. Brooks, my beta Brooks.
On a prayer, I’d dialed his number on the satellite phone Nova had left with me; she had no one to call, she’d said, and hadn’t touched it in two years. He’d answered, and every muscle in my body went lax with relief.
My beta, my omega—they were okay.
Caine and Lin, I had renewed hope were waiting for me at the cabin too.
So intoxicating was this hope that I’d sprinted the entire way back to the cabin. Hence my aching body and blistered feet as I climbed the porch steps.
First thing: kiss my omega. Second thing: kiss my packmates. Third thing: hot bath, with however many will fit in the tub.
“Taryn!” I called as I fell through the front door, legs finally giving out the moment I crossed the threshold. I hardly registered the shock of my knees on the wooden floorboards as I cried out, “Brooks!”
I couldn’t bring myself to call the other two names. Not until I knew for sure. If they weren’t here…if they were hurt…
Footsteps thundered down the stairs, and the beautiful face of my favorite beta—pale, tight with stress, but still so fucking gorgeous—broke into a huge grin as he saw me.
He tackled me in a hug, turning us into a heap of limbs on the ground. “You scared the shit out of your omega, you know,” he muttered against my hair. I clung to him, grateful for the solidity of his skin that assured me this was real.
I pulled back, looking for Taryn, to hold her close and kiss her while scolding her for leaving the cave, even if she hadn’t been alone. I’d scared her? She’d scared the shit out of me!
She wasn’t behind him.
“Taryn?” I called out, standing up. Maybe she was so tired she was still sleeping upstairs.
That would make sense. She usually spent the days following her heat sleeping for upwards of twelve or fifteen hours a day, and that was without the life-or-death events of the last few days.
I made my way toward the staircase. “Same bedroom?” I asked Brooks over my shoulder as I started to climb.
“She’s not here,” he choked out, face even more ashen as he stared at me with big scared eyes.
The world halted. It ripped open. Sharp and gory.
My hand tightened on the banister, my nails squealing across the wood. I tried to read his mind via his scent. Beta scents were naturally calmer, less distinct, but his was as bold and frenetic as it had been at the cave. There, it had been overly rich like body lotion.
Relief.
Now, it was like smoke stinging my eyes, billowing with nowhere to vent.
Fear.
Maybe he’d arrived after she’d left the cave.
I didn’t doubt she would’ve come looking for me, as long as I’d been gone.
Or maybe he’d found her and tried to convince her to leave, as I had, and she wouldn’t have it.
I almost chuckled imagining her sneaking out of the cave, Brooks snoring obliviously inside. It was certainly in character of her.
That was okay. She couldn’t have gotten far. And the goons were gone, and we could use the car, honk the horn and call out for her. We’d find her.
I nodded, retreading my steps down the stairs. “Okay,” I said as the plan formed in my head. “Okay. We’ll split up. Between the two of us, we can find her.”
“Brea—”
“I am not leaving withou—”
“She’s already gone.”
My heart stopped beating in my chest. I swore it did. Something like hot concrete poured through my veins, holding my limbs painfully in place.
Made sense.
The world had stopped.
My heart had stopped.
So my body followed suit. Stopped. Paralyzed.
My mind, though, sprinted. Nova’s words taking on a villainous edge, a searing taunt.
The ones who die, they’re lucky. But the others… offloaded to the underground omega trades. Used up.
“No.” A croaked plea on the only air left in my lungs.
Not my Taryn. Please, god, anything you want take from me. Just not her.
Brooks grasped my face in two hands. “But we have a plan, and we’re gonna get her back. Get them all back.”
A plan? How could he have a plan? All our plans had ended before this moment—Taryn captured. My mind spun around the idea, unable to get a firm grasp of it.
My Taryn. My light. Behind enemy lines. My omega, in the hands of sadists who’d force her through excruciating torture for their own profit.
But Brooks had a plan. Good. We’d need a—
We.
Not I have a plan. He’d said we. We have a plan.
With revolting clarity, I blinked until his face before me came into focus. “You let her,” I breathed. “You…you let them get her?”
Betrayal, hot as lava, overtook me.
Brooks swallowed, but didn’t deny it.
“They’ll kill her, Brooks.”
“You don’t pay half a million bucks for someone just to kill them.” His thumbs traced over my cheeks. A calming gesture. It did nothing. “We have time, and we’re getting them out.”
I barely heard him. Barely saw him. Taryn’s beautiful, smiling face in my mind morphed into a mask of agony, sweaty and wretched as they forced her body through endless rounds of artificial heat.
He had no clue.
The words to tell him stalled and died in my throat. They didn’t matter. The truth of it was, he was right. If they were torturing her, then she was still alive, and we still had time.
And if that time ran out before we got her back, before we got Lin and Caine too, I’d burn the entire fucking building to the ground and dare them to rise from the ashes. Because I’d be standing there with matches and gasoline, ready to go again.