Chapter 20 Tallus
Tallus
Tallus
Running was the bane of my existence, and this was twice in two days because of this kid. My ankle wasn’t happy at the abuse after only one day of healing. My hip complained, but I pushed the ails aside. The second I hit the service road behind the strip mall, I scanned for any sign of Darcy.
Lighting was sporadic. Shadows swallowed details.
Inlaid fixtures dotted the rear exits of each shop, emitting faint yellow pools under the steel doors used for emergencies or deliveries.
The café was the third one in, but the door was firmly shut.
Had I missed them? Perhaps Diem was wrong, and Luke had taken Darcy into a back room to chat.
Without considering what I might do if they suddenly burst from inside, I raced toward the door, intent on intercepting them if they came out. Before I made it to my destination, red taillights cut the darkness thirty yards farther down. An engine roared to life a second later.
“Shit.”
“Tallus!” Diem had been screaming curses through the phone since I left the car. “I’m coming.”
“Hang on… A car. Let me… Fuck my life.” I picked up speed, making a mental note to buy running shoes and join a fucking gym, as I closed in on the vehicle. I needed a license plate number, a make and model. Something.
Heavy feet pounded the pavement behind me. Diem, I presumed. “No… Get… in the… Jeep.”
“What?”
“Jeep. Go.” I couldn’t explain and run at the same time, so I growled, a language my snarly boyfriend should have understood.
He didn’t and kept right on chasing after me.
The car pulled away. I picked up speed and squinted at the license plate, making another mental note to set up an eye appointment because I couldn’t see shit with this prescription. I angled my head, directing my better eye at the car while trying not to trip on my feet.
“Got it. Alpha, Linda… Fuck. I don’t know the letters like this. What’s G? Gregory? Um, Martha? Goddammit, it’s A, L, G, M, 6, 1, 2.”
“Make? Model?”
“It’s a… Christ almighty, it’s a fucking Bentley Continental. This guy must be loaded.”
“Color?”
“I don’t know, D. I’m fucking colorblind. It looks dark gray or blue. Could be red for all I know. D, he’s gone.”
The car rounded the other end of the strip mall and vanished from sight. I staggered to a halt and bent, bracing my hands on my knees, trying to catch my breath and not puke.
“Did you… get the plate?” I gasped, lightheaded, lungs burning.
“Yes. What way did he go?”
“I don’t know. I couldn’t catch up.” I calculated the distance between my position and the corner and knew I wouldn’t make it in time to see which way he turned onto Lake Shore.
Diem cursed again. The angry kind that told me he was skating the limit of self-control. A squeal of tires and a bark came through the phone line.
“Hurry up and get back to your car,” Diem ordered. “The light’s green, so I’m going west. You head east. Stay on the phone and update me if you see him. We can’t let him get away.”
I glanced over my shoulder, peering back from where I’d come, and whimpered. Get to my car, he’d said. Hurry, he’d said. Did he know me at all? I wanted to curl into a ball and die.
Whimpering, I jog-limp-shuffled as fast as I could along the service road toward the Jetta. Two days of cardio. In a row. At this rate, I was going to break out in hives. Or put myself in the hospital. My weak heart couldn’t take it.
It was no use. By the time I reached the car and aimed east, Darcy and his abductor had gained a solid three- or four-minute head start. I drove regardless, searching.
Diem had gone quiet on his end of the line. It foretold his failure to locate the Bentley as well.
I didn’t give up, scanning cars and reading license plates until I reached the exit for the Gardiner Express and admitted defeat.
I pulled over and checked to see if my phone was still connected.
The open line remained, but when I took it off speaker and pressed it to my ear, all I heard was Echo whimpering.
“D?”
Nothing.
“Diem, are you still—”
“Fuuuuck!”
I startled at the roar that came through the line. My blood turned to ice.
Diem swore. A lot. It was ingrained in his DNA. Part of his programming. I pretended those volatile words, spoken plentifully throughout the day, were a safety feature, a release valve on a pressure chamber, allowing enough anger to escape during stressful times so Diem wouldn’t blow a gasket.
Swearing was normal. Expected.
So when the F-bomb exploded through the line, it should have felt like any other frustrating moment, but it didn’t. The single word was so raw and visceral, so ugly, it radiated like a shockwave, pebbling the skin up and down my arms and raising the hairs along my nape.
It cracked the earth’s crust.
Collapsed mountains hundreds of thousands of years old.
The space station shivered.
Then, all was silent.
Echo’s frantic whine was the only sound beyond traffic.
I clutched the phone. “Diem?” Quieter, I said, “Diem, talk to me.”
“I gotta go.” His voice came out shredded.
“Don’t you dare hang up on me.” I yelled only to snag his attention. “If you love me even a fraction of what you claim, then you listen to me, Diem Krause.”
I paused, and the line remained connected. He was slipping off that dangerous edge inside his mind, but I wouldn’t let go. I would hold onto him now and for forever.
“We’ll find him. We have a license plate and the make and model of the vehicle. Drive to the office.”
“I promised him.”
“I know.”
“I fucking promised.”
“I know, D.”
And although Diem might never admit it—I wasn’t sure he’d even come to the realization yet—pulling Darcy out of the gutter and getting him back on his feet had become his mission.
Something about the kid aroused Diem’s protective urges.
It had triggered during their first encounter at the supplement store over a year ago, an exchange Diem couldn’t quite explain, and it had bloomed and grown in the past twenty-four hours after Diem had seen Darcy’s living arrangement.
That was why I was jealous. So few people earned a place of importance in Diem’s life.
Those of us who did, fought for it. It had taken almost a year to convince Diem to date me, yet Darcy, for whatever reason, had crash-landed into the middle of his life without warning.
Without trying. Instead of rejecting the kid as annoying—which he was—Diem had embraced his kindred spirit and became a protective older brother overnight.
“Office, D.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll meet you there.”