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Chapter Fourteen
Push
The first thing I noticed when I woke up was that I was warm. Not overheated. Not uncomfortable. Just… warm.
For a few seconds, I stayed still with my eyes closed, caught somewhere between sleep and waking.
The clubhouse was quiet around us, which never happened often.
Usually by this time, somebody was yelling, coffee was brewing, Piney was bitching about something dramatic, or Anchor was already annoyed at the world.
But right then? Nothing. Just quiet.
Then I felt her move against me slightly, and my eyes opened.
McKayla was curled against my side with one arm tucked between us, and her dark hair spread across my chest and pillow.
Sometime during the night, she’d practically climbed on top of me in her sleep, one bare leg tangled with mine beneath the blankets.
And fuck, that hit harder than it should’ve.
The bedside lamp was still on low from the night before, casting soft light across her face. Her breathing was slow and steady, and one cheek was smashed slightly against my chest in a way she’d probably hate if she knew about it.
But she looked peaceful, actually peaceful. No tension between her brows. No smartass remark locked and loaded. No walls.
Just McKayla.
And I realized with a hard punch to the chest that this was the first time in a long damn time I’d slept peacefully beside someone.
Years probably. Maybe ever.
Usually, when I slept beside women, it ended one of two ways: awkwardly or temporarily
But this? This didn’t feel temporary, which was a dangerous fucking thought.
I looked down at her again while my hand rested low on her back beneath the blanket. I was getting attached way too goddamn fast.
McKayla had stormed onto Skull Island sarcastic, suspicious, and looking for her missing sister, and somehow in the middle of bodies washing ashore and a killer stalking the island, she’d worked her way under my skin.
I liked hearing her laugh. Liked when she argued with me. Liked when she looked at me like she was trying not to. And after last night? Yeah, I was fucked.
McKayla shifted again, her fingers brushing absently across my stomach in her sleep before settling there.
I brushed a strand of hair back from her face carefully, trying not to wake her.
Then all hell broke loose. BANG. BANG. BANG.
“Push!” Anchor’s voice roared through the clubhouse at the exact same time radios started crackling and somebody yelled from one of the other bedrooms.
McKayla jerked awake instantly. “What the hell!”
Another loud pound hit the door. “Push!”
I was already moving. I slid out of bed fast while McKayla pushed herself upright looking disoriented and sleepy and entirely too fucking cute for the amount of panic suddenly pouring through the clubhouse.
My jeans from last night were on the floor. I yanked them on quickly while my radio crackled louder.
“…front door…”
“…somebody had to get close…”
“…check the fucking cameras…”
McKayla pushed hair out of her face. “What’s happening?”
“I don’t know yet.”
I crossed the room and yanked the door open. Piney stood there breathing hard with his beard looking wilder than usual. “We got another fucking poster.”
My stomach dropped immediately.
Behind Piney, the hallway buzzed with movement. Prime was coming from the common room, already pulling on his cut, while Anchor barked orders.
“What poster?” I demanded.
“Front door of the clubhouse.”
Fuck.
Behind me, McKayla was already climbing out of bed.
Piney spotted her over my shoulder and pointed. “Uh. Morning.”
McKayla blinked sleepily. “Morning?”
Piney grinned briefly. “Nice to know somebody around here is getting some rest.”
“Piney,” I warned.
“Right. Serious.” His expression hardened immediately. “It’s Erin again.”
The sleep vanished from McKayla’s face instantly. “What?”
I turned back toward her just as she came fully into focus.
She wore one of my shirts from last night, and seeing her in it while panic and fear flooded her expression did something ugly to my chest.
“What do you mean another poster?” she asked quickly.
Piney scrubbed a hand over his beard. “Somebody stuck one to the front door of the clubhouse sometime during the night.”
“That close?” I asked.
“Real close.”
Too close.
The clubhouse sat back in the woods away from the main tourist areas. Nobody should’ve been able to walk up to the damn front door unnoticed. Which meant whoever did this either knew the island extremely well… Or didn’t care if we knew they were there.
Neither option sat well with me.
McKayla grabbed my arm suddenly. “What does it look like?”
Piney’s face tightened. Not good. “Her eyes are closed,” he said carefully. “Looks like she’s sleeping.”
McKayla went pale instantly.
Fuck.
I reached for her automatically, my hand settling against her lower back.
“Let us see it,” I said quietly.
She nodded once stiffly.
The three of us headed down the hallway while the clubhouse buzzed with tension around us.
Radios crackled from the bar. Vin was coming through the front entrance from outside with Wannabe behind him.
Pull stood near the windows checking the tree line while Post argued quietly with Lost near the surveillance monitors.
Nobody looked calm.
And Anchor? Anchor looked one inconvenience away from homicide.
The poster sat on the bar now. McKayla froze beside me the second she saw it. The picture showed Erin lying on what appeared to be a pillow or mattress, eyes closed, head slightly turned to the side, sleeping.
At least that’s what it looked like, but there was something deeply wrong about it too.
Too staged. Like somebody had positioned her carefully before taking the picture.
McKayla moved toward it slowly and I stayed right beside her.
Anchor looked up from the poster when we approached. His gaze flicked briefly between me and McKayla taking in the fact she was wearing my shirt before immediately returning to business.
McKayla picked up the poster carefully with shaking hands. “Oh my God,” she whispered.
On the back, written in thick black marker, were two words: PHASE TWO
Prime cursed quietly beside the bar.
“What the hell does that even mean?” Post asked.
“Escalation,” Anchor muttered darkly.
Nobody argued with him, because he was probably right.
McKayla stared at the picture so hard it looked painful.
I moved closer. “Hey.”
Her eyes flicked to me briefly.
“She looks okay,” she said quietly. “She looks unconscious.”
“Sleeping,” I corrected firmly.
McKayla swallowed hard. “We don’t know that,” she whispered.
“No,” I admitted. “But we also don’t know she’s hurt.”
Anchor stepped away from the bar and ran both hands through his hair roughly. “This motherfucker got right up to the clubhouse.”
The killer had been close before.
Bernice and Bob. Knocking on Shay’s bedroom window. Now this.
The clubhouse was supposed to be secure, and somehow somebody had walked right up to the damn front door during the night and left a message.
For us.
For McKayla.
Prime pointed toward the table where Cross sat with a laptop. “Cross is checking cameras now.”
“Anything yet?” Anchor barked.
Cross shook his head. “Nothing.”
“That’s impossible.”
It was impossible, but it still happened. The damn poster was sitting right in front of us.
Silence settled heavily over the room again.
McKayla set the poster down slowly. “He’s watching the clubhouse.”
Anchor looked ready to tear the entire island apart board by board.
“Double security,” he ordered immediately. “Nobody alone. Nobody goes anywhere without someone with them.”
“We should shut the haunted house down again,” Pull said.
“No,” Anchor snapped instantly. “We shut down every time this asshole moves, he wins.”
“He’s already in our fucking backyard,” Vin muttered.
“And now we know it,” Anchor shot back. “Which means we stop reacting and start hunting.”
That changed the energy in the room immediately.
Not fear anymore or anger.
McKayla wrapped her arms around herself tightly while staring at Erin’s picture again.
I stepped closer to her automatically. “You okay?”
“No,” she admitted quietly.
Prime moved beside Anchor and lowered his voice slightly. “If he got this close, we’ve got blind spots we’re missing.”
“Then find them.”
“We need more cameras.”
“Done.”
“And maybe somebody watching the docks all night,” Prime suggested.
Anchor nodded once sharply. “Set rotations.”
The club moved instantly after that.
Because this wasn’t just some island mystery anymore.
Post and Pull headed outside to start checking the perimeter. Wannabe grabbed radios while Vin started pulling up camera feeds. Prime and Cross argued quietly about angles and timestamps.
The whole clubhouse shifted into war mode.
And standing there beside McKayla while she stared at her sister’s picture, I realized something dangerous settled hard in my chest.
I’d do anything to find Erin now. Not just because of the club and not just because of the island.
Because of her.
Because every time McKayla looked scared, something ugly and protective woke up inside me.
She glanced up at me suddenly. “What if we’re too late?”
I stepped closer immediately. “We’re not.”
“You don’t know that.”
“No,” I said honestly. “But I know this asshole wants us looking. That means Erin’s still part of whatever game he’s playing.”
McKayla looked down again. “I hate games.”
“So do I.”
Anchor’s voice cut through the room again. “Nobody sleeps tonight. We go through every damn second of footage from the last forty-eight hours.”
“Already pulling it,” Cross answered.
The motherfucker wanted a war?
Fine. He just got one.