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I glimpsed his stupid fucking haircut as he whipped around a corner. By the time I turned it, he was disappearing into a room down the hall. Shouts and gunshots increased behind me. I had no idea if it was my brothers or Aaron’s men.
I didn’t bother looking back as I pushed inside. Aaron was scrambling to open a cage. Acid burned my throat as I saw they bordered the perimeter of the room. At least ten of them like kennels, but for humans.
“Fuck! Fuck!” He cursed as he fumbled with the keys. From behind him, I could make out only small feet and dark hair. “You’re my bargaining chip.”
My stomach dropped as the door flew open. My fingers gripped the gun tighter, but it was too late to shoot. He was dragging the person in front of him. I couldn’t look at her. Because if I saw Lark, I’d fall apart.
But I already knew it. My heart slamming in my chest told me she was here.
“No!” A scream filled the air as she jerked away, trying to get free. Her hair whipped around her face. Her arms extended as she dropped her body down, refusing to be dragged from the cage.
She gave me my opening. I rushed forward, smashing my shoulder into his exposed side. He was too focused on his struggling victim to see me coming. The gun in his grip skidded across the floor as I slammed him back into the wall.
She screamed again, scurrying as far into her cage as she could go. The metal echoed. The sound raked down my spine. Intensified all the rage flowing through my veins.
My fist curled. My muscles coiled. I raised my hand. I saw Aaron’s wide eyes before my knuckles connected with his jaw. He gurgled some response, but the buzzing in my ears made it impossible to hear.
I hit him over and over again. Until he stopped trying to push me away. Until his face was as bloody as mine. I kept going until the only thing holding him up was my hand in his shirt. I tossed him aside.
My chest heaving, I turned, rushing towards her. My heart stopped as I realized it wasn’t Lark. This girl was younger. Fairer. Thinner. She wasn’t my Songbird. And I’d just beaten unconscious the one person who could tell me where she was.
“Where is she?” I roared anyway.
Tears streaked down the girl’s face. She sat cowered in the corner like she was afraid of me. Her arm trembled as she pointed towards the center of the room.
A dead man was on the floor. It was the bulky guy I’d seen on the cameras kidnapping Lark. I didn’t even care how he’d died. I was too focused on the swatch of curly hair sticking out from underneath his body. The small hand laying lifeless on the ground. The blood smeared across a freckled cheek.
“No!” The scream tore apart my soul. A single word that changed everything for me.
I couldn’t move as darkness descended. It coated my vision. Gripped my heart and squeezed.
I was too late. Lark was gone.
Agony like I’d never felt before burst in my chest. It was red.
Red.
Red.
Chasing away the darkness. It burned every other feeling in its path. Stole my capacity to think. To breathe.
Without thought, I raised my gun and turned towards Aaron. The shot rang in my ears, bouncing off the walls in the small space. I heard the girl scream, but it was distant. An echo in a cave.
Red dripped from the hole in Aaron’s chest, covering his shirt in blood. But it only intensified the haze I was living in. Because I pictured Lark’s blood leaving her. Her life disappearing.
I pulled the trigger again. Aaron’s body jumped. Crimson splattered the cinderblock walls. I kept shooting. Over.
And over.
And over.
Until he was just pieces. Until he couldn’t be put back together again.
Just like I couldn’t.
Eventually, a voice penetrated the cloud I was in. The voice that always reached me. The one voice I liked.
And I realized the pain of losing her must have killed me because it was the only explanation for what I was hearing.
