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Grey’s attention jerked to his left, back toward the edge of the roof, and I blinked through my tears as his hard gaze focused on something I couldn’t see from the angle of the camera.
He scrambled to the edge, kicking up gravel in his wake. When he stood, it was with Corvus’ cell phone in his hand. He tapped the screen furiously, dragging the back of his hand hard across his eyes as he searched for anything that he could use.
His fingers stopped moving and his upper lip curled at something he found before he lifted his head and spun in a slow circle. He stopped when he found what he was looking for, eyes locking with mine through the camera he was now stalking toward like a lion let loose from his cage.
Grey stopped just short of the lens, his rage and pain showing through in the tremble of every muscle in his sculpted face.
I couldn’t hear him, but it was easy enough to read his lips when he roared into the camera.
I’m coming for you.
I won’t stop until she’s safe. I won’t stop until you’re a puddle of blood at my feet. You hear me, motherfucker?
You fucking hear me!
Grey lifted his head suddenly, his eyes searching all around as though he’d heard something.
My pulse spiked as a fresh wave of fear arced through my body, thudding in my ears.
He took off like a shot, darting for the door leading back into the hotel.
“No, wait,Grey!” My voice broke on his name. Whatever it was… wherever he was going… it was probably a trap.
Probably going to get him killed.
Get Rook killed.
Oh god, where was Rook?
This wasn’t going to end, was it?
Unless…
Unless I put an end to this madness.
I stopped fighting against the agonizing images filling my skull like the strongest sort of poison, screaming as flashes of Corvus flicked past my closed eyelids. Him boxing me in against the cliff side at the Docks. Wanting him. Hating that I wanted him. The moment I realized he was the Bone Man. The moment I decided he wasmine.
And the moment I saw the decision to jump flash in his cut glass eyes.
His body falling, arms spread in an attempt to take flight doomed only to fail.
Grey’s grief at the loss of his brother. His body arching in pain as he roared his fury to a god who wasn’t listening.
The darkness that’d been slowly sinking lower, beneath the crust at the floor of my being, started to break free. Something shifted, cracked, and it leaked out, twisting pain into white fire. Grief into the fuel I needed to keep that fire burning hot. Wild.
The smooth metal object in my hand almost slipped out, but I clenched my fist around it, setting my jaw.
The memory of Drake’s fingers on my chest, between my legs, beaten back by the darkness whispering that we had something. If he hadn’t come so close. Been so distracted. We wouldn’t have been able to dip our two fingers into the outside pocket of his jacket. We wouldn’t have been able to lift out the item there and stuff it between our palm and the wooden arm of the chair.
The lighter, well worn, with initials engraved in its reflective surface was the first spark of hope I’d had since I’d woken up in this horror show of a place. And I wasn’t about to let it go to waste.
I drainedthe last of the coffee in the paper cup and tossed it to the floor to join the others discarded there, tapping through different security feeds to find the one I wanted.
There was exactly one gas station near the area of the Docks. The road leading up from the lake forked in two directions. One leading toward Thorn Valley and one leading through Edgewood and further south, to Lennox. The gas station squatted in between the prongs of that fork. Anyone traveling by carhadto take one of those roads to leave the area.
And since Corvus sent Drake after AJ, it was safe to assume he took her that night. Which was why she never came back. Not because she didn’t want anything to do with us anymore. Not because what Corvus said had hurt her so deeply it was enough to keep her from us all.
Because he took her.
