Rubi bobbed his head in a slow nod. “They’re just blowing off steam.”
“By killing each other?”
“Orla, they found Locke’s bike.”
“What?”
Rubi came closer.
I backed away, evading his reaching hands. “Just fucking tell me.”
“They found his bike,” Rubi repeated, palms raised in surrender. “And his phone, on the back way round the A-road. Alexei thinks the phone hasn’t moved since the night Locke went missing.”
The night Locke went missing.The words echoed in my head, my pulse thrashing the same panicked rhythm it had in the dark moment it dawned on me that he hadn’t come home from dropping off Willow’s guitar. My blood ran cold. Then hot, and for a gut-churning moment, I thought I might vomit.
Then it faded, leaving an empty chamber in its wake. A robot. A queen with no time for visceral emotion. “How can Alexei tell if the phone moved?”
My flat tone made Rubi blink. “I don’t know. Some clever shit us mere mortals wouldn’t understand. He seemed pretty convinced, though.”
“Okay.”
“That’s it? Okay?”
“What do you want me to say?”
Rubi stared, and it gave me a moment to absorb the absolute state of him. Hair unbrushed, beard a mile longer than it usually was. Red eyes that told me he was in desperate need of a date night with my chaotic little brother. A good night’s sleep, and a whole day without getting so stressed he cried.
They all did. The boys. My brothers.
Me? I needed information to save me from the pit of hell my worst nightmares had become. “What else did they find?”
Rubi snapped out of his daze in time for me to pick up Ranger’s empty plate and give it a threatening wave. “Hey, don’t get violent with me. I need hugs, not slugs.”
“Then tell me the truth.”
“There isn’t anything else to tell.” Rubi darted a glance to Nash’s uneaten breakfast, his growling belly giving away how badly he wanted to swipe it. “Not that anyone’s telling me, anyway. Alexei’s worried about Logan, though. Someone needs to talk to him.”
“Can Folk?”
“Maybe.”
“That maybe sounded like ano. Enlighten me.”
It wasn’t a request. But I tempered the aggression Rubi didn’t deserve by rounding the table, retrieving Nash’s rejected plate, and handing it over.Hugs, not slugsdidn’t have to be literal, and watching Rubi fall into a chair and hoover up his second-hand breakfast was far less painful than making him cry.
Locke’s bike.
His phone.
My imagination took advantage of the silence while Rubi ate. I willed him to hurry up and made myself busy, pinching the haulage firm tablet he’d wandered in here with. Checking the accounts—Alexei’s domain. Studying the schedule—definitely Decoy’s. I saw gaps though, lots of gaps, and the blank spaces did nothing to calm the new wave of fear rising in me like a bitter storm.
Locke’s runs had been crossed out.That was before. But the red pen through his name made me want to hurl the tablet through the window, before I noticed Nash’s runs had been blocked out too. Saint’s. Cam’s. Mateo’s. I held up the apocalypse of a schedule. “What are we going to do about this?”
Rubi finished eating and stood. “You don’t need to worry about that.” He took his plate to the kitchen and came back. “Seriously.”
“Seriously, fuck off. It’s my business too, and if I’m not engaged with this, what do you think I’m doing instead?”
Rubi sighed. “Nash needs you.”