Then he looked up, meeting my gaze across the room.
It wasn’t a threat.It wasn’t blame.It was something heavier.
Two men connected by the same problem, the same missing piece of the world, and the same violent certainty that we would burn everything down to get it back.
Freak’s jaw tightened.He gave a small nod.
A thank you, maybe.
Or a warning.
I wasn’t sure.
Then he turned and walked out, Basil trailing behind him like a shadow.
Kingston stepped closer to me once the room cleared.“You good?”he asked quietly.
I didn’t answer right away because the truth was no.
The truth was I could feel something shifting inside me, something that didn’t care about rules or patience or diplomacy.Something that wanted to grab the nearest throat and shake answers out of it.
But I kept my face blank.Kept my voice level.“I’m fine,” I said.
Kingston’s eyes narrowed slightly, like he didn’t buy it.He didn’t push.He just nodded toward the door.“You riding?”
I looked past him, out into the daylight spilling across the clubhouse lot.
My hands curled into fists.
“Yeah,” I said.
And as I walked toward my bike, I realized I wasn’t riding to look anymore.
I was riding to hunt.
And when I found the men who took her…
They were going to learn the difference.
Chapter Five
Clove
The third day was the hardest.
The shock had worn off by then.The adrenaline that had carried me through the first night and most of the second had burned itself out.The kind of fear that didn’t scream or claw at you but settled into your bones and refused to leave.
I sat on the bed inside the camper, my back against the wall, my wrists in my lap with the rope next to me.I had managed to get it off yesterday but knew I needed to keep it with me until I figured out how to get out of here.I had kept my ankles tied because faking that they were still tied would have been harder.They had only come in once yesterday, and it had been brief.The door had rattled, opened slightly, and a paper bag with water and a sandwich was tossed in.The door had slammed before I could even register it had opened.
I listened today.
That had become my job.
Not moving unless I had to.Not wasting energy.Just listening.
Birds chirped outside again.They always did.Bright, happy little sounds that made the world feel wrong.I’d started to hate them, not because they were annoying, but because they reminded me how normal everything else still was.
Somewhere out there, people were making coffee.Letting their dogs out.Complaining about traffic.