Page 83 of Pistol Whipped

Hours go by, or maybe only a few minutes, when I swear to God I hear a phone ringing. We’re in the middle of the club from tonight, and there’s a ringing sound I can hear over the music. I keep telling Cohen to turn it off, but he won’t listen.

I only realize I’m dreaming when I hear Rain mumble, “What the fuck?” and roll out of bed.

She’s not gone long when the weight of her knees presses into my side of the mattress, and my eyes blink open to see her leaning in close to me, with her cell phone pressed into her shoulder.

“What’s wrong?” I manage to garble, though sleep makes my voice thick.

“Nothing,” she says. “I’m just going to get a drink of water. Go back to sleep,” she adds before leaning in to give me a kiss on the forehead.

Where my brother is an insomniac, I sleep like the fucking dead. Always have done. Maybe because growing up in the foster system meant that my days were filled with so many nightmares, that by the time night showed up, I was fresh out. So I’m out again before Rain even leaves the room.

There’s no way of knowing how much time has passed, but it’s the sound of Kitten’s violent hisses and shrieks that rouse me from my sleep. Whatever’s driven that cat to make those kinda sounds can’t be good, so I stumble and nearly land on my ass as I scrounge around the floor for my boxers. If we’re being robbed, there ain’t no way I’m fighting some crook with my balls out.

Still, the thought of someone finding and hurting Rain, and even Kitten, sends me rushing for the kitchen. I expect to find my bold-ass girl giving whoever this intruder is hell, but there’s no sign of her.

“Rain?!” I call.

Nothing.

“Rainy, seriously, do not fuck with me right now, babygirl. Where are you?!”

Nothing again.

“Kitten?!” I rasp, panic fucking with my voice.

Only this time, I’m rewarded with a response. Kitten runs at me like she’s being chased by ghosts. Add to that, she’s still mewling something fierce. I’m no cat whisperer, but even I can tell the animal is distraught. She catches sight of me and turns on a dime.

“Kitten? Where’s Rain?” I ask as though this cat is going to answer me, and I guess in her own way, she does. She gives me a violent chirp, and I can’t help but follow her across the short distance that is my kitchen-slash-living room to the tiny entrance hall. My front door is blown wide open, and it sets off major alarm bells in my head. The closer I get, the more those imaginary sirens ring in my ears, because the latch on the door is shattered and there’s a hole in the drywall shaped like the interior doorknob. Whoever opened this door did so violently.

Not good. Not good. Not good. That’s all I can think amidst rising panic. I run to the bedroom, anxious to do something, anything to figure out what happened. And, yeah, fucking cussing myself out for being a goddamned zombie. My fingers fumble to unlock my phone. I call Rain first. Nothing. Goes straight to voicemail.

Then I dial my brother’s number over and over, since he’s still not home, and though his phone rings and rings each time I call, no one picks up.

With one deep breath, I brace myself and call the only other person left who might care, and I mean might, that something bad has happened here.

Cohen sounds like shit when he picks up. After he greets me, I ask him if he’s seen my brother. After a moment of uncomfortable silence, he confirms he left Dax at the club and hasn’t heard from him since. Then I ask if he’s seen Rain. When he asks me if I’m high, I’m forced to explain the situation.

“Now she’s missing,” I confirm, ending the story. His words are still slurring a little, and he’s hoarse, so it’s not even that he’s hungover. Dude’s still drunk.

“She probably just ran again, Dutch. Hate to be the one to say I told you so but—”

“She didn’t run!” I scream. “Co, she didn’t! Kitten’s still here, and my front door was left wide-fucking-open! Her shoes are still here, and goddamn—”

I stop because something at the base of the cheap shoe rack that houses my work boots and Dax’s many pairs of Converse catches my eye.

“Cohen, her phone is here. And the screen is smashed to pieces.”

He curses, “FUCK! Okay, I believe you. You had me at the goddamn cat.”

On his end, I can hear the rustling of him moving around what I’m assuming is the McMansion pool house.

He’s a bit breathless when he asks, “What the hell happened, Dutch?” Cohen sounds more pained, more real, more like the boy who used to care than the angry man we’ve witnessed for the last little while.

That doesn’t change the fact that I don’t have an answer for him. But I’m going to figure it out, because I’m a persistent bastard. I proved that the last time she disappeared without a trace. Only that time she was running; now I’m certain, right down to the very deepest part of my soul, that she was taken.

I’ll do anything to get her back.

I forget that Cohen is still on the line when I hear his voice: “I’ll be there in twenty.”