Chapter 3 #2
"NO!" I shouted, slamming my fist down on the desk so hard that one of the monitors rocked on its stand.
"No, no, no!" I stood up so violently that my chair crashed to the floor behind me.
Pacing the length of my room, I tugged at my hair, trying to pull the images from my mind physically.
But they wouldn't stop. They never stopped.
Each scenario more horrific than the last, each one feeling more possible, more likely, with every day that passed without finding her.
"She's alive," I muttered to myself, a desperate mantra.
"She has to be alive. She's strong. She's a fighter.
She wouldn't give up." But even as I said the words, doubt crept in like poison.
How much could one person endure? How much could Cade withstand before she broke?
She'd already been through so much, even before the abduction.
The punishment in the woods. The public humiliation.
The betrayal by those who should have protected her.
By me. I'd failed her in every way a man could fail a woman.
I'd hurt her, violated her trust, broken her down until she was vulnerable, and then I hadn't been there when she needed me most. If I'd just been there that night.
If I'd gone with her to dinner instead of staying at Covenant House.
If I'd insisted on accompanying them. If Logan hadn't left her alone. If, if, if…
The useless litany of regrets circled through my mind like vultures, picking at the carcass of my sanity.
My gaze fell on the half-empty mug of cold coffee on my desk.
Without thinking, I grabbed it and hurled it across the room with all my strength.
It shattered against the wall, leaving a dark stain on the expensive wallpaper, shards of ceramic raining down onto the carpet.
The violence of the act did nothing to ease the pressure building inside me.
If anything, it intensified it, a feedback loop of rage and helplessness that demanded release.
I swept my arm across the desk, sending papers, pens, and empty cans flying.
I kicked the fallen chair, sending it skidding across the room to crash into the bedframe.
I slammed my fist into the wall, once, twice, three times, until my knuckles split and blood smeared the pale paint.
The pain barely registered. Nothing could compare to the agony of not knowing where she was, what was happening to her, if she was even alive.
"Fuck!" I screamed, my voice raw and broken. "FUCK!"
My legs gave out suddenly, and I slid down the wall to the floor, my bloody hand leaving a smeared trail behind me.
The room spun around me, exhaustion and emotion finally overwhelming my body's desperate attempts to keep going.
I couldn't remember the last time I'd slept properly.
Couldn't remember the last time I'd eaten a full meal.
Couldn't remember what it felt like to exist without this constant, gnawing fear eating away at my insides.
"I'm sorry, Poison," I whispered to the empty room, to the ghost of her that haunted every corner of this house. "I'm so fucking sorry."
Tears came then, hot and unwelcome, burning trails down my cheeks. I didn't bother to wipe them away. There was no one to see, no one to judge this final breakdown of whatever remained of Ryder Purcell.
I don't know how long I sat there, slumped against the wall, bleeding and crying like a child.
Time had lost all meaning in the weeks since Cade disappeared.
Days blurred into nights, hours stretched and contracted without pattern or reason.
Eventually, the tears stopped. Not because the grief had lessened, but because my body had run out of ways to express it.
I stared blankly at the mess I'd made of my room, at the blood drying on my knuckles, at the shattered remains of the mug scattered across the floor.
This wasn't helping Cade. Nothing I'd done in the past hour had brought me any closer to finding her.
With effort that felt monumental, I pushed myself up from the floor.
My legs trembled beneath me, protesting the movement after so long without proper rest or nourishment.
But I forced myself to stand, to walk the few steps back to my desk, to right the chair I'd kicked over.
I sat down heavily, wiping my face with the sleeve of my shirt.
The footage was still playing on the main monitor, an endless loop of the worst moment of my life.
I reached for the keyboard, my split knuckles stinging as I flexed my fingers.
"Okay," I said aloud, my voice steadier now despite the rawness in my throat. "Frame by frame. One more time." Play. Pause. Zoom. Enhance.
I couldn't afford to fall apart. I couldn't afford to sleep or eat or even breathe if it meant taking time away from searching for her.
Because somewhere out there, Cade was waiting.
Waiting for me to find her. Waiting for me to bring her home.
And if she was still alive, God, please let her be alive, then the people who took her were still out there too.
The people who had hurt her, who might still be hurting her.
I would find them. And when I did, I would make them pay.
I would tear them apart with my bare hands.
I would make them suffer in ways that would make the darkest corners of hell seem merciful.
But first, I had to find her. Had to bring her home. Had to see her face, touch her skin, hear her voice one more time.
"I'm coming, Poison," I whispered to her image on the screen, frozen in that last moment before everything went wrong. "I swear to you, I'm coming. Just hold on a little longer."
My phone buzzed with a new message. My contact, sending the first batch of adjacent street camera footage.
I straightened in my chair, a fresh surge of desperate energy flowing through me as I downloaded the files.
This might be it. The lead we'd been waiting for.
The clue that would bring Cade home. Or it might be nothing.
Just like every other lead, every other clue, every other desperate attempt to find her had been nothing.
"Frame by frame. One more time." Play. Pause. Zoom. Enhance.
But I had to try. Had to keep going. Had to believe that somehow, someday, I would see her again.
Because the alternative, that she was gone forever, that I'd failed her completely, that I would never again see her smile or hear her laugh or feel her body against mine, was unthinkable.
So I pushed aside the grief, the guilt, the bone-deep exhaustion.
I locked away the images of what might be happening to her.
I forced my bleeding hands to work the keyboard, my burning eyes to scan the footage.
"Frame by frame. One more time." Play. Pause. Zoom. Enhance.
And I prayed to a God I wasn't sure I believed in anymore, that it would be enough.
That I would be enough. That somehow, against all odds, I would bring her home.
Because without Cade, there was nothing.
No Christmas. No future. No point to any of it.
Without Cade, there was only this: endless hours in front of blue screens, searching for ghosts, haunted by failures, driven by a love that had become an obsession, an obsession that had become the only thing keeping me alive.
"Frame by frame. One more time."
Play.
Pause.
Zoom.
Enhance.
Outside my window, Christmas Day continued, meaningless and mocking. Inside, there was only the search. The endless, hopeless, necessary search for the woman who had become my everything.
"Frame by frame. One more time…"