Page 8 of What We Become

“Eli,” he calls up the stairs, his voice flat, clean, stripped of warmth. “Get down here.”

Footsteps. Eli appears on the landing in sweats and bare feet, takes the rest of the stairs two at a time, hair sleep-rough.

“What happened?”

“Tracker’s frozen.” Holden is moving while he talks, shoving his wallet into his back pocket, checking the chamber by feel. “Coast road. You need to stay here.”

Eli stops dead. “The fuck I do.”

“You’re staying. Call Sage. Keep calling. Call Amy—find out when they split up and where. Call Jamie’s phone. I want a timeline before I hit the driveway.”

Eli stares at him like he’s spoken in another language. “No.”

“It’s not a fucking negotiation, Eli.” Holden’s voice drops into that bossy cop register he uses when he needs shit done and isn’t interested in anyone else’s point of view. “Milo—you stay too. Get into the city feed. Traffic cams, street cams, parking lots, boardwalk businesses. Find Jamie’s car, find who she’s with, find out if this is a breakdown or a fucking abduction.”

Milo’s mouth falls open. “Absolutely not. I’m faster on-site and you know it.”

“You’re fastest in that chair.”

“I can do both.”

“No, you can’t.” Holden jabs a finger toward the living room. “We need eyes now.”

Micah is beside the door, shoving his feet into his boots without tying them. My knife is at my ankle where it lives. I wonder whether Fury took hers or left it upstairs. I told her to keep it on her, but she was wearing sandals . . .

I should’ve checked her purse instead of grabbing her ass when she left.

“We need to leave,” I say, heading for the garage door.

Everyone moves to follow me.

“For fuck’s sake,” Holden yells, blocking Eli and Milo’s movement. “Somebody has to be here. If there’s a call, if she comes back, if this is a fuckup and not a kidnapping—” He jabs two fingers at the ground, then at Eli’s chest, pinning him to the spot with a stare. “You stay. You keep the lines alive. You call everyone. Amy, Jamie, the fucking restaurant—start with the bartender and go down the list. We need eyes on her.”

Eli’s jaw ticks.

I put my hand flat on Eli’s sternum and hold.

“She’ll want you here when she calls,” I say.

“Fine. Go.”

Milo scowls, but he’s already reopening his laptop. “I’ll call the second I find something.”

Holden nods. “Garage.”

We move fast. Holden’s unmarked is parked beside my truck, and he beeps it open. I fold myself into the passenger seat, my knees hitting the dash. Micah pauses at the weapons case against the garage wall and pulls out a collapsible baton, hooks it onto his waistband. His face is calm as he gets in the back seat. His knuckles are white.

“Just in case,” he says.

Nobody answers. Nobody needs to.

Holden starts the engine, backs out of the garage, and hits the coast road doing twenty over the limit before we’ve cleared the neighborhood. He flips the sirens at the first intersection—blue and red strobing across the windshield, the whoop clearing traffic ahead of us.

“This isn’t official,” Micah says from the back seat.

“No,” Holden says. “It isn’t.”

He keeps the sirens going and floors it through the second intersection.