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“Everything,” I echo.
We stay like that for a long time, listening to our breathing fill the silence, the club having shut down a while ago. His strong heartbeat lulls me into a content state where the darkness that plagues me is held at bay, and my love is not feared.
* * *
A buzzing startles me awake. Groggy, I glance around the room, still gripped by hazy sleep. Something flashes in the dimness, a light blinking against the wall near the table.
I look down at Colton, his beautifully toned arm thrown over his eyes, his back with the intricate dragon tattoo outlined by defined muscles. Beautiful. I hate that it’s taken me a near lifetime to love that word again. Currently, it’s my favorite, and the most fitting for the man sleeping beside me now.
The flashing and buzzing starts up again. I sigh. I’m a ridiculously light sleeper. After tonight, I hoped to sleep completely through. Besides being physically depleted, I’m emotionally drained from Colton’s breakthrough and my own confession of my abduction. We whispered our secrets into the dark, touching, embracing, reaffirming our connection.
It’s not about the dark hiding our shame, making it easier to utter the histories that forged us. But rather, it’s the strength in which we find there. The comfort that we are not alone in that dark.
I’m reluctant to move. I know that once I do, the soreness will take hold of my body and then it will be impossible to find sleep again. A smile touches my lips as the night comes back to me, and the discomfort feels less immediate.
Still, with all what I have to do tomorrow, I decide to try to stave off the ache with a countermeasure. I pry myself off the cot and head toward the table in hopes that I’ll find something more than lotion and aftercare products, like aspirin.
I’m amazed at how light I feel, regardless. How my shoulders roll back easily, my head lifts a bit higher. Baring your soul to someone you trust—there’s nothing else that compares. It’s almost enough to counter the blow of having been removed from the case. And with that thought, my mood tunnels. Damn Quinn.
Forcing disappointment aside, I savor the afterglow of our moment, for however long it will last. And truly, I almost feel as if I glow, but then I realize it’s just the fogginess of my sleep-addled brain and the flashing coming from Colton’s phone.
I glance back at him, then at his phone. It’s blowing the hell up. Biting my lip, I take a peek at the screen.
The fucking world implodes.
I clamp a shaky hand over my mouth, my eyes unable to look away from the horror on the screen. With each new message, another image pops up. Each one becoming more and more terrifying.
“No.” I shake my head. “No, no, no. No!”
Those who you care for the most.
The UNSUB’s words mock me. As another image of a bound and gagged Avery flashes across the screen, I drum up my courage and grab the phone. I open the message and scroll through the images. Like a flipbook, her poses slightly shift as she struggles against her restraints.
“She’s alive,” I say, scrolling to the first and then back to the most recent. “She’s not dead. He’s holding her captive.” I say the words aloud, willing them to be true. Believing them…because I cannot accept any other outcome.
“Sadie,” Colton’s voice crashes through the fear gripping me, and I whirl to face him.
“You have access to the main office here,” I say, my own voice sounding foreign. It’s not a question. “And surveillance. You have to have some kind of surveillance. The UNSUB was here…so he might’ve been caught on tape.”
His face registers his confusion. “I do, but it’s early—”
“We need the member files. Now.”
He moves close to me and rubs his hands along my arms. “You’re shaking. Jesus, Sadie, what’s—?”
I hand him the phone, unable to say what I dread. “I can’t, Colton. I just…I have to get to those files.”
I’ve done everything the UNSUB required of me up to this point. I’ve played his game within the system, and this is my punishment. Avery is suffering.
Colton’s stony gaze travels from the screen to me. “You know her.”
I nod. “We have to save her…I can’t let—” The tears fall free, and I choke them back. Avery needs my strength. I cannot break.
The phone buzzes, and Colton looks down. He reads, “You should not have given up your communication so easily, Sadie. A person must then go to extremes to gain your attention.”
Gripping my hands in my hair, I tear at my scalp, trying to force my brain past the panic and to think. Think.
Fuck. Anger rages anew, blistering my veins like lava.
