He goes out the front door. The sound of his boots on the porch boards is the last thing in the kitchen for one moment.
Then the bikes outside fire up again.
The sirens come up the gravel a few minutes later.
Two ambulances. A sheriff's truck.
EMS comes through the broken front door and takes over from Dakota and me on Marlena and from Bex on Thunder. A second crew works on Banshee where Roan has him on the porch. Grace stays with Diesel because Diesel isn't going in an ambulance.
I sit down on the kitchen tile with my back against the cabinet under the sink.
My hands are red. The ring on my finger is red. My shirt—Rogue's shirt—is red across the chest where I pressed against Marlena.
Cal is crying on the rug. Waylon is on the floor next to him, watching the people moving around the kitchen with eyes too big for his face.
I get up off the tile and cross to the rug. I sit on the floorboards between the two babies and pull both of them onto my lap. Cal stops crying when I hold him. Waylon presses his head against my collarbone.
I put my mouth against the top of Waylon's head and I close my eyes and I don't let myself cry yet, because if I start crying I won't stop and there are two babies in my lap who need me to hold the line.
My boy is gone.
The man who took him has six hours.
The man who is going after him isn't the man I'll get back.
I know that the way I know my own name.
The Silas who comes home tonight will be the man who came out of his old life.
He's going back into that life this afternoon to get my son.
I press my mouth into Waylon's hair.
Whatever he has to be when he comes through that door tonight, that's who I'm marrying.
Bring him home, Silas. However you have to.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Rogue
The five of us ride out toward the south gate hard.
Phantom in the lead with his hat low and his hand wide open on the throttle.
Holt to his right. Roan behind. Blaze and me bringing up the back.
The gravel of the front drive turns to the county road under my tires.
The black Explorer comes into sight a hundred yards out.
Parked sideways across the access road. The driver's door open. A man standing in the gravel between his vehicle and our gate.
Hunting rifle in one hand.
Bottle in the other.
Todd.
