She wouldn’t leave this bed without a damn good reason.
She wouldn’t disappear.
Not again.
A violent jolt of adrenaline wipes away the fog, and I sit up so fast the mattress bucks. Both Rowan and Emerson jolt awake at the same movement.
Rowan’s voice cracks. “What—Ronan, what’s—”
“She’s gone.”
It’s all I manage.
All I need to say.
Because the second the words hit the air, the atmosphere changes. Rowan’s eyes widen, going from sleep-soft to feral panic in a heartbeat. Emerson goes rigid, scanning the room as if he expects to see her hiding under the bed.
My pulse is a hammer. My chest feels like it’s caving in, breath thinning into something sharp and frantic. For a moment I can’t breathe.
Then instinct takes control.
I’m on my feet and out the door, tearing down the hallway. The glow from the war room monitors flashes ahead just as my hand slams into the doorframe—too hard—pain flaring up my arm as I wrench it open.
Empty.
The chair is pulled back, the monitors alive with scrolling data—bright, active—but the room itself is silent. Not calm. Empty. The kind of quiet that feels like absence, like betrayal, like the past clawing its way up my throat.
“Check the kitchen!” I snap—not yelling, not panicked, but razor-edged command.
Emerson disappears instantly, footsteps pounding through the house. I hear him tear through every corner, every exit.
Rowan doesn’t move at all.
He just stands in the middle of the room, chest rising too fast, fingers clawing through his hair again and again until he looks half wild. “No. No. No, no, no.” His voice is breaking. “She promised. She promised she wouldn’t leave. She said—fuck, she said—” His breath shatters. He looks like he’s drowning.
And it destroys me.
I grab him by the shoulders—hard, grounding us both—then slam my forehead to his, pressing us together like I can force air back into both our lungs.
“Brother,” I grit out. “We find her first. We lose our shit after. Do you hear me?”
He squeezes his eyes shut, drags in a shaky breath, then nods once—fractured and battered, but enough.
Footsteps return, and Emerson reappears in the doorway, face pale. “Nothing,” he breathes. “But every door and window is still locked.”
The words punch the air out of the room.
Locked.
Every exit.
Meaning she wasn’t taken, and she didn’t run.
She walked.
Willingly.
“She found something,” I whisper, not because I’m uncertain but because the truth tastes like blood.