Chapter 20
It was hard to describe the feeling I had.
It wasn’t desperation or loss. It was worse.
Much worse. Like a giant had punched through my chest and ripped out my heart.
Like every protective instinct I possessed had suddenly been skinned raw and left exposed.
One second I had been worrying about lunch, portal magic, and my mother’s dramatics.
The next, none of those things mattered anymore.
The world had narrowed to a single terrifying fact.
Seeing Darian’s room empty without him there was a mother’s worst nightmare.
I didn’t scream. I didn’t cry. I was numb.
Completely numb. Which somehow felt more frightening than panic.
Panic would have at least been familiar.
This felt like my brain had simply shut down everything that wasn’t essential—breathing, looking, searching, existing.
I couldn’t even think properly. Every thought that tried to form crashed into the same wall.
Darian. Darian. Darian.
The name just kept echoing through my head like a broken spell.
Somewhere deep down, another voice kept insisting there had to be a reasonable explanation.
Maybe he’d gone outside. Maybe he’d followed a squirrel.
Maybe he’d discovered some weird ten-year-old urge to explore.
But the open window kept destroying every comforting theory the second it appeared.
I could hear someone’s voice. Marcus? Ronin? I wasn’t sure. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was finding Darian. Voices drifted around me, questions being asked and answers being given, like distant radio stations combined with footsteps and doors opening.
At some point somebody handed me a glass of water.
At some point I apparently drank it, though I had no memory of either event.
Time had become strange and slippery. Every minute felt like an hour.
Every second felt important. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I hated myself for letting him out of my sight.
The guilt was irrational. I knew that. Didn’t matter. Guilt rarely cared about logic.
“Tessa?”
I blinked and turned to the sound of my husband’s voice. “What is it?” My own voice sounded distant, like I was in a dream.
I was sitting on my son’s bed, holding his favorite stuffed banana toy.
Bodies moved around me, but I barely paid them any attention.
I knew who they were, heard their voices, so I knew all my aunts were here.
So were Ronin and Iris and Lori, Marcus’s deputy, and a few others I recognized from his office.
Ruth was crying softly in the hallway. Beverly looked furious enough to commit several felonies.
Dolores had that terrifyingly measured expression she got right before she started solving problems. The entire room felt too full and too empty at the same time.
“When was the last time you saw Darian?” asked Marcus.
I licked my lips, my mouth dry. “When I told him to go upstairs. My mother came over. And she was… I didn’t want him to be there for that.
” My voice cracked slightly. The memory already felt wrong somehow, like I’d made the wrong choice.
If I’d just kept him downstairs. If I’d sat beside him.
If I’d ignored my mother. The list of things I should have done was growing rapidly, and none of them were useful.
“How long ago was that?” asked Marcus. His voice was clipped, and I could tell he was trying not to show how worried he was, trying to hide it under all that alpha persona.
But I could see it. He was worried sick.
Just as I was. His shoulders were rigid, his jaw locked so tightly I thought he might crack a tooth.
Marcus always got quieter when things were bad.
Which was saying something because he wasn’t exactly known for delivering lengthy speeches.
I cleared my throat. “Not long. Maybe five… ten minutes.” That didn’t sound long, but it was an enormous amount of time for someone to kidnap your kid.
Ten minutes was enough time to leave the property.
Enough time to get into a vehicle. Enough time to disappear.
My stomach twisted harder. I hated how quickly my brain could create horrifying scenarios. It deserved an award. Or medication.
“And you’re sure it’s this Addison?” asked Lori, standing next to Marcus. “Maybe he just decided to go for a walk?” Her tone was careful, but I could tell she was trying to eliminate possibilities.
I glanced up at the tall werebear. “I am,” I snapped.
“It’s her. How many times do I have to repeat myself?
My kid didn’t just leave. She took him.” Darian wasn’t the type of child who calmly climbed out a second-story window and wandered off into the wilderness.
He got distracted by bananas and pancakes. There was a difference.
Lori narrowed her eyes at my tone, but she didn’t say anything else. Smart woman.
“I picked up a shifter or were scent near the windowsill that was not my son’s,” informed Marcus.
“Lori, I want you, Tony, and Mike to go down and see if you can follow the scent. See if it leads anywhere.” His voice carried that chief authority now—composed, controlled, dangerous. That voice made people move.
“Yes, Chief,” said Lori as she turned from me and moved over to the other deputies.
She said something to them, and they all gathered and left swiftly.
Within seconds I heard boots pounding down the stairs.
Nobody was wasting time. Good. Because every second felt like another weight pressing on my chest.
Movement caught my eye, and I saw Ruth move over to the window with a pouch of something. She shoved her hand in it, pulled something out, and then sprinkled purple powder over the windowsill.
“What are you doing?” I asked her. Knowing Ruth, it could be that she was either feeding the spiders again or looking for mold spores, possibly both at the same time. I had learned long ago never to assume logic was involved in anything Ruth did.
“It’s my new magical fingerprint reveal powder,” answered Ruth. “I call it Gotcha Glitter. It reveals fingerprints, mold spores, and sometimes insect poop. I’m still working out a few bugs.” She smiled proudly like she’d just invented indoor plumbing.
“And your brain, apparently,” said Dolores, giving Ruth a disapproving glare. The look suggested she was mentally revising the family tree.
Ruth stuck out her tongue. “You’re just envious because you don’t have a spell that can do what my Gotcha Glitter can do in two minutes.” She tossed another pinch into the air. Some of it landed on her shoe.
Dolores raised a brow. “I’m not envious of your crazy experiments that have no merit or control. I prefer well-thought-out spells with controlled outcomes. I don’t just toss some powder and hope for the best.” Her tone suggested “hope for the best” was a personal insult.
“I don’t toss. I sprinkle,” said Ruth. “I know it’s going to work.” She pointed at the window proudly. “There’s a difference. Tossing is reckless. Sprinkling is science.”
“Ignore her, Ruth,” said Beverly, eying one of Marcus’s male deputies’ butt as he walked out the room.
“She’s just grumpy because someone told her that the Spring Awakening Festival under her direction is not as good as when Gilbert did it.
” Beverly delivered the comment with the casual cruelty of someone tossing a lit match into a gasoline puddle.
Dolores’s face darkened. “That’s not true.
” She straightened her shoulders. “That imbecile Theodore has no idea what he’s talking about.
” Her nostrils flared. “Attendance was up twelve percent. The enchanted pet parade was a huge success. The broom slow-racing championship had record participation.” She looked offended by the criticism.
“Mm-hmm,” said Beverly.
“Gilbert never had record participation.”
“Of course not.”
“His hedge maze collapsed three years in a row.”
“Tragic.”
“People were trapped for hours.”
“Yet somehow he remains beloved.”
As my aunts launched into another completely unnecessary argument in the middle of my son’s kidnapping investigation, I sat there clutching Darian’s stuffed banana and wondering if insanity was hereditary.
Given my family, the answer was probably yes.
I already knew Addison had taken Darian, but I didn’t have the heart to tell Ruth to stop.
Besides, if I’d learned one thing over the years, it was that Ruth became more determined the moment someone suggested she was wrong.
Telling her to stop now would probably result in three additional powders, two experimental tinctures, and a squirrel witness interview.
I felt eyes on me, and when I looked up, Marcus was staring at me.
His gray eyes were wild, filled with worry and a fear I’ve never seen before.
But there was something else, something dark and dangerous, like he was seconds from unleashing his beast and going after Addison.
His entire body language had changed. The calm chief who spent his days dealing with paperwork, town disputes, and the occasional magical catastrophe was gone.
What remained was a father whose son had been taken.
The air around him felt different somehow, tighter and sharper, like violence was standing in the corner waiting for permission.
I totally would let him and enjoy whatever he did to her. In fact, I might make popcorn. No. Scratch that. I’d help. Then we’d have popcorn together.
The only problem was we didn’t know where to find her, which was becoming a recurring and deeply irritating theme in my life. Find Addison. Wonderful plan. Step one remained stubbornly impossible.
A ring sounded from his phone. Marcus put it to his ear and walked away. His voice dropped low as he answered, already slipping into work mode to gather information, build plans, and do what he did best.
Just as a tiny explosion rocked the bedroom.