TERRA
Thoughts came in broken pieces that refused to connect properly, sliding through her head so quickly she couldn’t hold onto any of them long enough to think clearly. A few thoughts kept looping over and over again, running like a broken record through her head.
Cody. Lisa. Orlov has my babies. Don’t call the police. Come alone. If you tell anyone, they die.
The words from his texts circled endlessly through her brain while her heart slammed against her ribs hard enough to hurt, and all she could think was that she had to get to her children before Viktor Orlov lost patience and did something terrible to them.
The message had been very clear—Come alone. No police. No tricks. If you disobey me, one of your children dies.
Terra could still see those words glowing on the screen and the accompanying photograph of Cody and Lisa huddled together in the back of a strange car, both of them crying. How could she possibly gamble with their lives? How could any mother?
“Please, God,” Terra whispered as she drove. “Please keep them safe. Please don’t let him hurt my babies.”
She didn’t even know what she was promising anymore.
Anything. Everything. If God wanted her to spend the rest of her life volunteering at church or give away half her money or never swear again, she would do it.
If Orlov wanted her body, he could have it.
If he wanted her to go away with him somewhere, she would go.
If he wanted her to kneel at his feet and tell him he owned her, she would say the words even if they made her sick.
There was nothing he could demand that mattered more than Cody and Lisa coming home alive.
Terra shot through a stop sign without realizing it until a horn blared from her left and a dark SUV slammed on its brakes. She jerked the wheel hard, barely missing the other vehicle, and the driver leaned on his horn while someone shouted something at her through an open window.
Terra hardly heard him. She pressed harder on the accelerator and kept going, her ancient Honda protesting with a high whine as she pushed it far beyond the speeds she normally dared to drive.
Seminole Heights wasn’t far from downtown. Normally Terra could make the trip in fifteen minutes depending on traffic, but today every red light seemed deliberately designed to torture her and every car in front of her appeared to be moving at a crawl.
She swerved around a delivery truck, shot through a yellow light just as it turned red, and nearly clipped a parked car when she took a corner too quickly onto one of the narrow one-way streets downtown.
Horns blared behind her and somewhere a pedestrian shouted, but Terra barely registered any of it. Her entire world had narrowed to the glowing map on her phone and the little blue line leading her toward the place Orlov had told her to meet him.
Then her phone buzzed, and Terra’s heart nearly stopped.
For one horrifying instant she couldn’t make herself touch it.
Please don’t let it be another picture, she thought wildly. Please don’t let him have hurt one of them. Oh God, please protect my babies!
The phone buzzed again from where she had wedged it into the cup holder, and she knew she couldn’t ignore it any more. She snatched it up without checking the screen and pressed it to her ear while still steering with one hand.
“I’m coming as fast as I can, Orlov,” she blurted. Her voice sounded wild and breathless even to her own ears. “Please, don’t hurt them! I’ll give you anything you want. I mean it—anything. Just please—”
“Terra, it is me, Taurex.”
The deep, familiar voice surprised her so much she nearly drove into the curb. Terra’s foot jerked away from the accelerator as she stared through the windshield.
“Taurex?” she whispered.
“Yes, lovely one.”
For several seconds Terra couldn’t seem to breathe. Then she said,
“Taurex, I can’t talk right now. Orlov took them—he took Cody and Lisa! I have to get to them. I have to—”
“I know he took them,” Taurex said calmly. “But I have retrieved them. You do not need to worry about your children. I have them both safe in my apartment.”
Terra’s vision blurred so suddenly that she had to blink hard to clear it.
“What?” she gasped.
“They are safe,” Taurex repeated.
She shook her head, unable to make the words fit inside her brain.
“No. Wait. What do you mean you have them? How did you—where—Taurex, are you sure?”
“I am certain,” he said firmly.
“Are they hurt?” Terra demanded, her voice rising. “Did he hurt them? Are they bleeding? Did anybody touch them? Oh my God, Taurex, please tell me—”
“They are not injured,” he told her firmly. “They were frightened, and their wrists were bound, but I have examined them and I see no sign that anyone harmed them physically. They are with me now and they are safe.”
Terra made a strange sound that was half sob and half gasp.
“I need to hear them,” she begged. “Please—let me hear their voices!”
“You shall.” Taurex’s voice softened. “Children, come speak to your mother.”
There was a rustling sound on the other end of the line.
“Mommy?” a familiar voice said.
Terra burst into tears.
“Lisa?” she managed to gasp.
“Mommy, where are you?” Lisa’s little voice sounded shaky but unmistakably alive. “The bad men took us, but the Bull-man saved us. He put all the bad men to sleep.”
Terra laughed and sobbed at the same time, tears spilling down her cheeks so rapidly that she could barely see the road.
“Oh, baby. Oh my God, baby, are you okay? Did anybody hurt you?”
“No,” Lisa said. “They scared me, though.”
Terra sniffed, trying to get hold of herself.
“I know, sweetheart. I know.”
“We’re okay, Mom,” Cody’s voice came over the phone next. He sounded older somehow, as though the experience had aged him several years in the course of an afternoon, but there was also unmistakable excitement beneath the lingering fear. “The Bull-man took out all the bad guys—like a video game!”
“Cody!” Terra exclaimed through her tears. “This is not a video game.”
“I know, but you should’ve seen—”
“Cody,” Taurex’s deep voice interrupted somewhere in the background.
“Okay, okay,” her son muttered.
Terra laughed despite everything. The sound felt almost painful because her body was still flooded with terror and adrenaline even though her mind had finally begun to understand that she didn’t need to be afraid anymore.
Her children were alive—alive and safe. Taurex had them and he wouldn’t let anyone hurt them. Thank God.
The phone changed hands again and his voice returned.
“As you can hear, they are unharmed,” Taurex said. “Now, if you are operating your vehicle recklessly, I need you to slow down.”
Terra looked at the speedometer and her eyes widened. She immediately lifted her foot.
“You are driving recklessly,” Taurex said warningly.
“How do you know?” she demanded.
“Because I know you.”
The simple answer made her heart twist and Terra swallowed hard.
“I just…God, Taurex, I thought they were going to die!”
“I know,” he murmured, his deep voice sympathetic in her ear.
“I thought he was going to make me choose between—” Her voice broke again, and she couldn’t finish.
“You do not have to choose anything,” Taurex said firmly. “Orlov cannot harm you or your younglings now. Cody and Lisa are both here in my penthouse. I am staying with them until you arrive.”
Terra wiped her cheeks with the back of one hand, keeping her eyes on the road.
“But…what about Orlov?”
There was a pause—not a long one, but long enough.
“Orlov will not be bothering you or anyone else ever again,” Taurex said shortly.
Terra’s fingers tightened around the phone. Something about his tone told her not to ask for details right now. Still, she had to know one thing.
“Is he—?” she began.
“Drive safely, Terra,” Taurex interrupted. “Your children are frightened, and they need their mother. I would prefer not to tell them that after everything they endured today, you injured yourself by driving your vehicle into a building.”
Despite herself, Terra gave a watery little laugh.
“I’m not going to drive into a building.”
“You nearly drove into several vehicles while we were speaking.”
“How could you possibly know that?” she asked, frowning.
“I can hear the horns.”
Terra glanced guiltily around her.
“Okay. Fair point.”
“Slow down,” he emphasized. “Breathe. It’s all over and everyone is fine.”
“All right, I know. I’m trying to calm down.”
“Good.” His voice softened. “We will be waiting.”
“Taurex…”
“Yes?”
There were a thousand things Terra wanted to say, but none of them seemed sufficient. Thank you wasn’t enough—it didn’t begin to cover what he had done or what she was feeling, and she had no idea yet how he had even known where to find the children.
“Thank you,” she whispered anyway.
For a moment, he didn’t answer. But then he murmured,
“You are welcome,” and the call ended.
Terra lowered the phone slowly and took some deep breaths.
She drove another block before pulling into an empty parking space at the curb because her hands were shaking so badly, she no longer trusted herself to steer. The moment the car was stopped, she put it into park and dropped her forehead against the steering wheel.
Her babies were safe. The thought came again, and this time Terra finally allowed herself to believe it. Cody was safe. Lisa was safe. Taurex had saved them.
A sob tore from her throat and she covered her face with both hands, crying so hard that her entire body shook.
Five minutes ago, she had been prepared to give Viktor Orlov anything he demanded, prepared to walk willingly into whatever nightmare he had planned if it meant getting her children back.
Now Orlov was apparently gone—or dead, though Taurex hadn’t actually said the word—and her babies were sitting in the penthouse with the one man Terra had convinced herself she needed to fear.
The irony of that was not lost on her. She had been afraid of Taurex. She had looked into those golden eyes and begged him not to hurt her. But when her children were in real danger, he was the one who had come for them.
Terra wiped her cheeks and looked upward through the windshield at a narrow strip of blue Florida sky between the downtown buildings.
“Thank you,” she whispered. She wasn’t entirely sure who she was talking to.
God, certainly. Maybe the Monstrum Goddess Taurex believed in too, though Terra wasn’t exactly sure how that worked theologically and she was far too overwhelmed to worry about it right now.
“Thank you for sending him,” she added softly.
Then she started the Honda again. This time she obeyed the speed limit—mostly. Her heart was still pounding, and she knew she wouldn’t truly believe her children were safe until she had Cody and Lisa in her arms, but the cold fist of terror that had been gripping her insides was finally loosening.
There would be questions later—a lot of questions. How had Taurex known where to find them? Why had Orlov been in the same building? And what had Taurex meant when he said Orlov would never bother anyone again?
But she would deal with all of that later, Terra told herself. Right now, only one thing mattered—her children were waiting for her.
And somehow, impossibly, so was Taurex.