She blinked. “Who thinks that? And why?”
“Me. The elders.” Using Rubi-speak saved me from naming them. “Ranger, probably, if he’s given thought to the shit we found before Locke got taken.”
“And what was that?”
“Evidence of other prisoners and what was happening to them.”
Even in the dark, I saw the blood drain from Orla’s face. Saw her grit her teeth as if she could force it back by sheer will alone. “Have you told his boss that?”
“We’ve tried. Since Jakov left us the dog, he’s been off-grid. The numbers I have for him aren’t connecting, and we can’t let Alexei leave to track him down. We need him here.”
“But they could help—the Russians, if they thought Viktor was with Locke—” Orla’s brain whirred too fast for her tongue to keep up. “What about Lida? Maybe if she caught Viktor’s scent, she’d find Locke too.”
I gripped her hands. “Orls, none of us know how to engage a search and rescue dog, not even Folk. We can’t just turn her loose and hope for the best. We could lose her too.”
Not happening for multiple reasons up to and including the reluctant bond Locke had forged with that dog before we’d lost him, and the harsher fact that Jakov had trusted us with Lida. A trust we couldn’t break if we didn’t want a brand-new enemy.
Jesus Christ.
A yawn beat the shit out of me.
Orla squeezed my hands. “You need to sleep.”
I did, but not like this.
Taking her with me, I rolled onto my back. “Did you know he can dance? I can’t remember if I told you after the festival.”
A beat of silence followed my whisper. Then Orla laid her cheek over my thundering heart. “Define dance. Because if it’s the wild shapes you and Rubi throw around, that’s not anything close to dancing.”
“Rude.” I mussed her hair. “But this was nothing like that. Orls, he dances like he fucks. With that rhythm, you know?”
I closed my eyes to the memory of his hands on me in that smoky band tent. And later, at the safe house, when he’d turned me inside out with his dick. With hislove.
Pain returned to my chest, and sleep was the only escape. I passed out like I fell off that cliff for real and died. Woke up to Orla still beside me and I reached for her before my eyes opened, mourning the warmth of Locke at my back, fighting the grief of learning all over again that he wasn’t there.
It was still dark.
I rose from the bed and drifted to the window, tugging on my jeans as I scanned the parked hogs.
Cam.
Rubi.
Saint.
As that registered, the rumble of engines pierced the air, and the gates creaked open, signalling the return of the overnight search party.
Mateo, Folk, and Ranger.
They’d found nothing. I knew it by my silent phone. But I made myself wait for Folk’s flat gaze to find me anyway, and an ugly feeling rose in me. Not quite rage, not quite grief, it was savage as fuck, and I didn’t know what to do with it.
I didn’t know much except that I couldn’t wake up like this for the rest of my life. Something had to break. And I hoped to God it was me instead of someone I loved.
7
LOCKE
I woke up in a different place. My head hurt. My ribs. My knees, but that might’ve been my fuckin’ age, which, if I calculated it by how I felt, was approximately 106.