74. Cassandra Walker
The panic was making me stupid.
I was so terrified I could barely think.
Not again.
She’d been doing so well; how was I losing her again?
I’d been gone for ten fucking minutes, and that ass wipe had swooped in and managed to ruin weeks of progress I’d made with her.
It was understandable that the reverend would be a trigger for Theo, especially the way he was flaunting that young girl on his arm.
I knew in my soul that she’d fled somewhere she felt safe, and she was probably drinking herself stupid to fight off whatever trauma that fuckhole had likely kicked up for her.
It had only taken two minutes for me to get another Uber to the hotel, but each second I waited felt like an eternity, especially considering all my calls to Theo’s phone went straight to voicemail.
The first place I checked was the condo.
She’d said she wanted to go home, and I was praying to a god I didn’t believe in that she would have gone there to wait for me.
But when I finally made it back to our building and burst through the elevator doors to find the penthouse dark and empty, the sick feeling in my stomach only grew.
‘Slow down. Think! Use your brain. You are better than this. There are smarter ways to hunt her,’ my monster growled in my head as I stumbled to our bedroom, hoping to find her curled up under the covers.
She wasn’t there either, and the longer I went without eyes on her, the harder it was becoming to breathe.
My heart was pounding, and I couldn’t seem to get enough air into my lungs.
What the fuck was happening to me?
It took me longer than it should have for me to realize I was on the cusp of a panic attack.
I’d never had a panic attack in my life, but of course, when I needed a clear head, my body chose this moment to completely spiral out of control.
“I can’t… I can’t think. Fuck. Fuck, where is she?” I rasped, not even caring that I was speaking to my monster out loud. I needed it to help me. I was too manic to do this on my own.
‘You asked the vampire to put a tracker on her phone, no? See if it works.’
“I think she turned her phone off…” I hissed as I fumbled to open the app Vox had sent me weeks ago.
My suspicions proved correct as the app loaded on my screen. The little blue dot that normally told me where Theodora was only showed a grey icon that just said target offline. And her last location, which had been the Antoinette.
“Ok… ok, fuck. I’m just gonna drive around and see if I can find her. Maybe she’s at the ring?” Stripping out of my dress and Theo’s loafers, I quickly changed into a pair of Lulus and a hoodie.
Grabbing my keys, I fired off a text to Jerry as I made my way to my building’s underground parking garage.
I gritted my teeth together in frustration as his response came in, informing me he hadn’t seen her either.
But he wasn’t at the ring, so it was still worth checking out.
If she wasn’t there, I would check every damn liquor store in Silent Hollow if that’s what it took to find her.
I wasn’t going to let her destroy herself like this, especially not over someone as fucking worthless as the reverend.
Then, once I found her, I was going to make her tell me who it was that hurt her, and I was going to kill the fuck out of them.
Enough was enough.
I was pulling out of the underground parking lot when I received a text from the last person I expected to hear from.
Ryan’s name flashed across the screen of my Audi, and I accepted the message, listening to the text as I drove.
Ryan:
You need to come to Fairview. Theo is here and… she’s out of control. I’ve never seen her like this before.
My heart dropped to my stomach, and I didn’t even take the time to respond.
I burned literal rubber as I punched the gas, ripping through Silent Hollow on my way to Fairview.
Theo was hurting, and whether or not she wanted to tell me about her past was no longer relevant to me.
I was going to get to the bottom of this, even if it fucking killed us both.