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I didn’t get to finish as my phone rang, the sound echoing off the bathroom walls.My Everything, My Everything,my phone started repeating the caller's name how I had it programmed. It was obvious who it was and that everyone caught on by the sounds they made but I said the words anyway.
“It’s Teal.”
“Put it on speaker,” Lyric told me.
As I’d hit the button to connect, everything inside me screamed to stay calm, and yet I was afraid that whatever I would hear on the other end of the line would be my undoing.
And it was.
“Kace?” my girl said quietly, panic and tears clear in her voice.
“Baby, where are you?” I was surprised I could get the words out.
I heard some shuffling around and then nothing else. If I lose her or the connection that might be it. I tried again.
“Honey, you have to tell me where you are so I can help you.”
“I-I d-don’t know. I’m in a trunk, but I d-don’t know where we are,” she stuttered.
“Are you hurt?” I wasn’t sure I wanted the answer to that but after seeing the blood, I needed to know.
“He hit me and I fell on the floor but I don’t remember much after that. Then I woke up in this dark space and we were moving. My head hurts, Kace.”
“Sweetheart, I need you to stay awake, okay?” It was likely she had a concussion, but I prayed there wasn’t something more after hitting her head hard enough to knock her out. My hands balled into tight fists as I thought about him striking her. She shouldn’t have to go through this, it wasn’t fair.
“We have the app on all the work phones, we are tracking her now,” Gyth said.
“Landon, you and Rowan stay with the other women and take them back to Teal's to wait for us since that is where the littlest ones and Gemma are. Our kids are good with Jurnee’s parents for now,” Braxton said, barking out orders. “We need to go now!”
Landon, who had been fairly quiet all night, looked like he could murder Thad at that moment. Knowing he was helping Teal with the divorce I imagine it was hitting him hard that not only had a friend of his got hurt, but then his wife had been caught up in the shooting at work, and now this. It was easy to see he was pissed.
Rowan wanted to rip someone’s head off, I knew that with one glance, but they both nodded. We all started to head out of the bathroom, the phone still clenched in my hand when Teal’s voice, small and scared, came through the line again.
“I don’t w-want to die and l-leave Denver and you,” she sobbed. “You have to f-find me.”
“We are coming for you, I promise, baby. You stay strong and you fight with everything you have in you.” She had been working toward feeling like she had some power. Taking self-defense classes and trying not to be afraid to do things. She was tougher than she ever gave herself credit for.
She’d gotten away from him once. She could do it again.
“Oh my God, I think he’s stopping,” she said. It was clear she was scared out of her mind. I was too.
Then the line went dead.
And my heart tore in two.
ChapterThirty-Seven
TEAL
I was waitingfor my Superman.
When I came to, I was confused and it took me a few minutes to remember what had happened. Or who had? I’d always known he would come for me, especially after the shooting, but I kept praying I was wrong.
Since I was in the trunk of a car, my cheekbone throbbing from being hit, a huge bump on my head, and the headache from hell, it was clear I’d not been wrong. Touching my hand to my skull, I winced and felt wetness coating my fingers. I was bleeding.
I started to panic, the sound of my rapid breathing filling my ears in the closed space as I began to thrash around. That was when I felt something under my ass. I stopped moving and reached my hand underneath me and froze when my fingers hit the object. Thad hadn’t found my phone and I couldn’t believe it hadn’t fallen out. He hadn’t tied my hands, a mistake on his part because there would be no surrendering on my part. But he’d always deemed me weak and stupid.
Something he would find out I wasn’t anymore.
