51. Zyran
ZYRAN
Esperr’s apartment is almost back to how it should be—granted the cushion is missing a lot of its padding, her lamp in the corner has a broken bulb, and some of her books have torn pages.
But the shelf is straight, and the books are back in somewhat of an order—according to Oliver, but from what I could tell, there was no order to begin with.
He probably just said that because I was hovering.
Oliver is holding the last of the blankets from the couch when he says, “she once got us kicked out of a grocery store.”
I glance over from my spot on the chair.
“She was twenty-one, having a rough time, and I promised I’d spend her birthday with her.
And she really wanted ice cream,” he says, a smile plastered across his face like he’s watching everything that happened unfold in front of him.
“She did so much research on finding the best and creamiest one.” He sets the blanket down and smooths it once.
“Anyway, she gets into an argument with the guy just as we’re checking out. ”
I smile, imagining it. “About what?”
“He said something about the way she was dressed.” He shrugs. “And well, our girl told him exactly what she thought about that. In detail.” He pauses. “Management asked us to leave before she was finished.”
I look down at my hands, cracking my knuckles. “Did she finish?”
“Oh hell yeah.” He huffs something that’s almost a laugh. “She just screamed at him while we walked out to my car.”
“She does do that…” I sigh and then quickly add, “fights battles she doesn’t need to fight.”
I feel Oliver’s gaze, but I can’t bring myself to look up as he says, “Every single one she thinks matters.” A pause, him waiting for me to look up. And when I do, he pins me with a look. “Which is most of them.”
My jaw ticks, and for a second anger bubbles up inside me, but I remind myself that this is her best friend; I need to give him a chance. “Whatever matters to her matters to me.”
Something moves across his face, and that’s when I figured out he was testing me. And he’s not going to stop, not anytime soon at least. He wants to make sure that I put her first—he’ll just have to learn that Esperr will always and forever come first to me.
Pulling my phone out, I check the time and almost thank God that it’s close enough to noon when she gets off.
I stand and grab my jacket from the back of the couch. “She’s going to be off soon.”
Oliver’s gaze snaps to mine before he jumps to his feet. “Already?” and he’s moving toward the door, glancing back over his shoulder. “I call the front seat.”
I stare at him before a small laugh bubbles up inside, and I’m left shaking my head as I follow him out into the hallway.
For a moment I debated on mentioning that he’s the only one here currently but decided not to, letting the corner of my mouth tug up before I could stop it.
I follow him down the stairs and out the door where my truck is parked. He glances over at me as he’s asking which one is me—I point it out, and he moves to the passenger side and climbs it.
Foot against the brake, I press the ignition button, and it roars to life. From the corner of my eye I watch Oliver run a hand along the dash before he leans back and starts to buckle up.
“This is a nice truck.” He looks around, raising a brow. “Like, genuinely nice.” Gaze stops on me. “How rich are you?”
I back out of the spot and pull into traffic. “Enough.”
“That’s not really an answer.”
“Well, it’s the one you’re getting.”
He twists in the seat slightly, glancing out the window before he looks at me again. “Where has she been staying since her apartment…”
“My house.”
Oliver tilts his head, and his lips press together in a firm line. “Where’s your house?”
“About an hour out.”
In the middle of nowhere, and with my four brothers. But I don’t say any of that, because then I’d have to explain more than I’d like to.
He faces forward again, watching as downtown buildings pass by. “That’s far.”
I shake my head. “It’s not that bad.”
He hums, like he doesn’t believe me, though I’m not lying. Granted an hour back and forth, it can be a lot. But for her, it’s nothing; I’d do it all day long if I had to.
Oliver thankfully doesn’t say anything else, and I keep my eyes on the road. A few minutes later the coffee shop comes into view, and before I even pull into a spot across the street, I know something is wrong. The lights are off, and it’s in the middle of the afternoon.
“That doesn’t seem right,” Oliver mumbles, yanking the door open.
I grunt and turn my truck off before following him out.
The street is quiet, almost too quiet for this time of day and for a coffee shop that always seems to be busy.
I move to the front door, cupping my hands against the glass and looking through. Empty. Chairs are still up on most of the tables; a coffee cup sits on the counter and a rag on the floor.
I yank my phone out of my pocket and pull her contact up, hitting call—it rings twice and goes straight to voicemail.
Her voice, easy and unbothered, telling me to leave a message and that she’d call back.
No. No. No.
I call again—voicemail.
“Answer the phone.” The words rip out of me as I try to call her for the third time. “Come on, answer the phone.” I grit my teeth on my fourth time.
“Is she not picking up?” Oliver asks, his voice unsteady.
I can’t look at him as I shake my head. “Keep trying her.”
He grabs his phone and is already calling her as I move around the side of the building to the back door. Grabbing my gun from the back of my pants, I aim it at the handle and fire two shots into it before I’m able to shove the door open.
I don’t think as I move through the coffee shop, eyes ahead, clearing each corner before I move on.
Her boss’s office first, the desk chair is tipped over, like someone had stood too fast. A mug on its side, cold, and coffee spilled down the side of the desk, forming a puddle on the floor.
The filing cabinet drawer is left open, a sign of interruption, not exactly a struggle.
Moving through, I clear the stockroom and then the break room, until I come out through the kitchen and into the front.
Esperr’s bag sits on the counter at the far end—she didn’t take her bag, which means she didn’t just leave; she didn’t run—she was taken.
I straighten and move towards the front door where Oliver is still standing. Yanking the door open, he walks in, his phone still pressed to his ear, and one look at my face is enough to tell him everything before I even have to open my mouth.
“No answer.” His voice goes flat. “Zyran?—”
I shake my head, trying everything to keep the anger at bay and pull my phone out before Rhys' contact comes across my screen.
He picks up on the first ring, and I don’t give him a chance to say anything before I blurt out, “She’s gone. He took her from the shop. Rhys, she didn’t… she, fuck,” emotion claws at my throat before I can swallow them down.
“How long ago?” He asks, keys clicking.
“I… fuck… I don’t know, hours?”
“Alright, I’m looking at footage, anything traffic-related. I’m sending everyone; don’t leave, give me time?—”
“Rhys.” My voice cracks, and for a second my vision blurs.
“Zyran, breathe; we’re going to find her. We’re coming, okay? Just don’t leave.”
He hangs up before I can say anything else?—
“She’s alive. She’s alive. She’s… she’s alive.”
The coffee shop is suddenly too small. The walls are too close, and the tips of my fingers begin to tingle as I shove my phone back into my pockets. Trying to pull in a breath, it stops somewhere in my chest and just sits there—useless. I try again, and it does the same.
I was vaguely aware of the back of my hand pressing against my mouth.
She’s okay; she’s alive. He didn’t take her to kill her; he took her because he wanted her, and that means there’s time. There is still time?—
The thoughts won’t stay in order; they keep sliding in and then overlapping until I feel myself trying to suck in a breath.
“Hey.” Oliver’s voice is somewhere to my left, but I can’t be sure. “Hey, look at me?—”
I can’t focus on him. My eyes can’t… the room keeps doing something wrong at the edges, and my hands won’t stay still. I can’t get a breath in; I can’t?—
I turn towards the door, vision swimming, but I still spot it, and my feet carry me to the wall before I even know what I’m doing. It’s right there, and I know what it is before I stop.
Her blood.
A smear, dark, reddish, and already dried around the edges—the kind of mark that tells me he smashed her head into it.
The world drops out from under me, and I feel my knees buckle.
“Zyran.” Oliver is in front of me now, both hands daring to touch me, and I shake my head vigorously. I can’t tell him that if he touches me I don’t know what I would do. My body vibrates with?—
“Zyran! Hey, look at me, look at my face?—”
I can hear him, I can hear every word, but I just can’t get myself to the surface to respond to any of it.
The only thing that’s filling my head is that smear on the wall, and what it means, and the image my brain won’t stop sharing—her hitting it, of her going down, her being carried out of a place she should have been safe?—
“She’s alive,” Oliver says, firm and quiet at the same time. “You said it yourself. She’s alive, just, come on, don’t fall apart on me.”
I press my back against the wall, right above the blood stain, my head dropping into my hands while my elbows rest on my knees.
Oliver seems to understand that he’s not going to get through to me because he steps back, giving me space, and in a way I’m grateful for that.
I need to stop feeling so fucking much—I need to think.
She’s alive; Michael didn’t come back into her life after all this time to just kill her quickly.
And if he did, he’d leave her here. He wouldn’t have taken her to kill her—that’s not what his obsession looks like.
Michael wants something from her: her time, presence, or whatever broken thing lives in his chest that he’s decided she’s the answer to.
But that means she’s got time.