Chapter 19 #2
Shadow agreed with his friends. He felt no sympathy for either Tamika or Marden. They’d gotten exactly what they deserved. But Brinley didn’t deserve whatever had happened to her. She was innocent in all this, and the need to find her was almost overwhelming.
He couldn’t even think about the fact that if it was so easy for Louis Marden to shoot at innocent bystanders at the motel, he probably wouldn’t have blinked about doing the same to Brinley.
He knew the odds of her being all right were low, and the chances of her being alive were even lower, but that didn’t mean he was going to give up. He couldn’t. She was his entire world. His everything.
She was out there. Somewhere. And he was going to do whatever he could to find her and bring her home.
“Go,” Atlas said. “As Zamora said, check in every fifteen minutes. Call in anything out of the ordinary you find. I’ll keep track and send backup if anyone finds anything that looks like evidence. Move fast but carefully.”
Shadow was glad to finally get going. Their target search area was huge, but at least they had a direction.
A place to start. He was heading toward the door without remembering to tell himself to move.
His team was at his back. He had to believe they’d be able to find Brinley.
Because the alternative was unthinkable.
He loved her. And he was done holding back.
When he found her, those would be the first words out of his mouth.
He didn’t know what the future held, but whatever it was, he wanted Brinley by his side.
How she’d become so vital to him in such a short period of time, Shadow didn’t know. He also didn’t care.
She was his other half, his better half, and he’d treasure her for the rest of his life.
He just needed to find her first.
* * *
Brinley wanted to stop.
Simply lay down and sleep.
But instinctively she knew if she did, it would be even harder to get up again.
Or she wouldn’t get up at all.
She’d managed to finally stand and walk about an hour ago, but every step was torture. She’d fallen several times, tripping over the uneven terrain. She hadn’t seen one car or even heard anything other than the wind in the trees or the occasional bird.
It wasn’t dark, but that weird nighttime color northern Alaska got this time of year. Where the sun never quite set all the way. She actually loved it, loved going for a walk at eleven at night and seeing people out running, walking, and enjoying the warmer weather and longer days.
But right now, even though she appreciated that she wasn’t trying to find her way in the pitch black, all Brinley could think about was stopping and taking a nap.
Her throat felt like it was on fire and she couldn’t even touch the skin around her neck without shards of pain shooting through her body.
She was so thirsty. Not hungry at all, but she’d do just about anything for a huge glass of water. With ice. Cold enough it would soothe the burn every time she swallowed.
She took another shuffling step forward, her gaze glued to the ground.
Taking a deep breath, she looked up. Praying that she’d see something.
Anything. A car. A plane. A guy on an ATV out hunting.
A freaking moose. She didn’t care what. The feeling of being absolutely alone was starting to get to her.
But all she saw was the barely there dirt track.
It could hardly be called a road. It didn’t seem quite so bad when she’d been driving out here, but then again, she’d been more concerned about the gun Louis was pointing at her to think about things like the condition of the road she was driving on.
Seconds later, she tripped again. Who the hell knew over what, but Brinley went down hard on her hands and knees, causing her to cry out once more.
Which only exacerbated the pain in her throat.
Her palms, which were already scraped all to hell from where she’d been crawling earlier, bore the brunt of her fall, and the sharp sting instantly made her arms buckle—causing her to smack her forehead into the dirt.
She lay there, panting, as waves of excruciating pain flashed through her body.
This was torture. Absolute torture.
Brinley closed her eyes, giving up. She couldn’t do this. It was impossible. She regretted ever waking up. Regretted that Louis was an idiot and hadn’t succeeded in killing her. No one should have to experience this level of agony.
As she lay there, broken and battered, Brinley thought she heard music. She tried to block it out. Tried to will her body to shut down. Figured it was angels calling her home.
But then she realized which song she was hearing. It was the one Dash had sent to her, by One Direction. “What Makes You Beautiful.”
She heard the notes and the melody as clear as day, even though they were only in her mind. Brinley could see Dash in her head, smiling down at her, smoothing a lock of hair behind her ear, pleasure in his gaze as he took her in.
And just like that, the will to live returned. She wasn’t going to give Louis and Tamika the satisfaction of succeeding in their diabolical plan.
She refused to be a statistic. She needed to get the hell up and get back to Fairbanks, if only to be able to tell the cops what happened to her and who had done it. She would see the two behind bars for kidnapping, attempted murder, and assault.
With the words of the song echoing in her head, Brinley opened her eyes—well, the one that wasn’t completely swollen shut now—and inhaled deeply.
It hurt, but this time the pain gave her motivation.
She moved back to her hands and knees, then slowly worked her way toward the nearest tree.
Using it for leverage and balance, she forced herself to stand upright.
The world spun, and if she hadn’t been bracing herself on the tree, she would’ve fallen on her face again. But after giving it a moment, the dizziness passed enough for her to shuffle forward once more.
One step at a time. That’s all she had to do. Eventually, she’d make it back to the main interstate. Someone would see her and stop to help. Call 9-1-1. Something.
The life she wanted with Dash was what kept her going.
And the desire to never be the cause of the intense grief she’d witnessed when he’d found out his mom had passed.
She decided to look at this experience like something Dash had probably gone through himself to become a Delta.
Okay, maybe not the almost-dying part, but the pain, the mental fuckery, the thirst…
all of it. She wasn’t a special forces operative, but she could do this.
Because her reward was a life with a man who thought she was beautiful when just about everyone else thought differently. She’d fight for that with her last breath. When you found the person you were meant to be with, you didn’t just give up.
Right foot.
Left foot.
Right.
Left.
She counted her steps for a while, but that got too depressing. So Brinley kept her gaze glued to the ground. She’d learned her lesson on not paying attention to where she was placing her feet and instead counted how many rocks she saw that were bigger than her fist.
It got a bit darker for just a little while, but then the world around her lightened once more. It had to be around two or three in the morning now. A new day. She wished she could see the expressions on Louis’s and Tamika’s faces when they realized she wasn’t dead.
A noise had Brinley stopping in her tracks. She looked up, her heart in her throat, hope that it was a car threatening to overwhelm her. But it wasn’t a vehicle of any kind.
It was a moose.
And her baby.
No, three babies.
They were crossing the dirt track several yards ahead, completely ignoring her.
Brinley stared in awe. She’d seen moose before, but only from a much greater distance. She’d heard that triplets were extremely rare, and she felt this had to be some kind of sign.
Standing silently and completely still, Brinley noted that the moose seemed in no hurry to move along.
Then the calves began to play. Head butting each other and kind of wrestling.
They chased each other in the road and made adorable little snorting noises.
Their mom snacked on leaves and grass as her calves jumped around.
How long Brinley stood there and watched the little family, she had no idea, but eventually the mama moose wandered off, followed closely by her babies.
The moment was awe-inspiring, and she felt privileged to have been able to be in the right place at the right time.
It was a much-needed reminder of the beauty in the world, especially considering her current circumstance.
When she began to walk again, after making sure the moose were long gone—the last thing she needed was to get attacked by an irate mama moose after everything else she’d been through—Brinley somehow felt stronger.
More sure that she was going to live through this experience.
Simply seeing the miracle of the triplet calves, and watching them interact and how they were thriving, gave her hope.
Dash was out there. Probably stressed beyond belief but looking for her. He wouldn’t stop either. Even if he thought she was dead, he wouldn’t give up on finding her body. And honestly, she should be dead. The fact that she wasn’t was a miracle, and she knew it.
Dash would know who was behind her disappearance.
He knew where she was supposed to meet her “client,” and she had no doubt he was doing everything in his power to figure out what had happened to her.
He’d find security cameras, contact the police, do anything and everything necessary to locate her.
All she had to do was stay alive. And get to a place where she could be found.
With that in mind, and with renewed determination, she put one foot in front of the other. Just as slowly as before, but with more hope in her heart.
* * *
Shadow was losing hope.