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Where are they?
I can’t breathe. My lungs do that no-breathing thing, and I brace a hand on the wall of the kitchen where moments ago I was fucking Octavia while my kids were taken.
Blackness seeps into my vision, and I slam my other hand on the wall, too, struggling to draw oxygen.
Not now, dammit. My kids need me. Fuck this shit.
I slam my fist into the wall again, and again, until the pain radiating up my arm clears some of the black haze and lets my lungs expand again.
Staggering out of the house, I check the garden, just in case, but as expected, nobody is there.
I go back in, get my phone and call the police.
What I feared most has just happened, and I’m numb, not feeling much of anything. My kids were kidnapped by a psycho who wants to get back at me for something I hadn’t known about until now, and I feel nothing.
Too much pain, fear, anger, sadness, tugging at me from every direction, and the ice spilling in my veins is the only defense I have, the only way to keep going.
I keep looking. Keep calling out their names. I knock on the neighbors’ doors, ask if they’ve seen them. Ask to look into their backyards. Ask to help me look.
At some point, as I lurch down the street, yelling, my voice already hoarse, I find Octavia walking beside me.
And we look together.
Later, I find John and a bunch of other cops, both from the police station and the sheriff’s department, milling outside my house. John is asking me questions, but it’s all an annoying insect buzz in my ears, and I ignore them.
My nightmares are coming true.
Four police cars are parked outside my house, lights flashing. It’s surreal. It’s déjà vu, from when Cole followed that kitten, and we couldn’t find him.
Had it been a kitten? Is someone playing with my mind? My thoughts are made of dark glass right now, and there are fissures, fucking cracks going right through.
If this doesn’t break me, I don’t know what will.
“You didn’t take me seriously,” I tell John when I find him in front of me again. “What will it take for you to do something? Fuck you all.”
If he replies something, I don’t sit around to hear, instead walking away to keep searching.
Going crazy. Out of my mind.
I’d probably be already down the rabbit hole if not for Octavia. She takes my hand, and she’s talking to me. I don’t know what she’s saying, but the sound of her voice keeps me from tumbling headfirst into the dark pit.
She keeps me grounded, keeps me here, even when all I wanna do is sink and shut the world out. Hide, like I did when Emma died.
“We’ll find them,” she says, and that’s all I hear.
We will. No other option.
Blood of my heart. Part of my soul.
If I lose them, too, I don’t think there’s a way back for me.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Octavia
I’m walking around in a daze, my heart heavy as a rock in my chest. Matt looks like he’s sleepwalking, caught in a nightmare, his gaze bleak and empty, his lips white.
He looks like a man about to drop off the face of a cliff, and I can’t imagine what he’s feeling right now. I’m so scared, and I’ve only known his kids for a couple of weeks.
