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Winnie waved me over and I crossed the room in three long strides. My parents were bickering about something nearby and she looked exasperated as she stepped aside. “If you’re looking for Lily and Daisy they went down to the bakery.”
“Alone?” I shouted the word, panicked. How long had they been gone? The volume of my question had the entire room quieting and focusing on us.
“Of course not, you maniac. Benji went with them.” She was looking at me like I was crazy but worry swam in her eyes. She looked from me to her husband, questioningly. Winnie knew us better than anyone and I could tell the moment she realized something was wrong.
I turned to head outside, it didn’t matter that they were just downstairs, my gut was telling me that I needed to get to them. An alarm sounded throughout the room and I froze. All the alarms for the building were tied to our phones and I pulled mine out of my pocket quickly, knowing what I’d find. It was the panic alarm for the bakery, we’d given Lily and Benji a special code for the worst-case scenario and one of them had triggered it.
“No,” the word ripped from my throat, dread consuming my entire body as I flung the front door open and propelled myself down the hallway as fast as my legs could carry me. Footsteps pounded behind me, my team, covering my back without me even having to ask.
We skidded to a stop at the two stairwells that would lead to the bakery. We could either take the exit that led to the parking lot behind the building and go through the back entrance or take the stairwell down to the gym, cross through Falls Security and out the main entrance to the front door.
I lurched for the door to the back entrance, knowing instinctually that she would have taken that route. Seconds felt like hours as we came to a stop at the door that would lead outside, Kane and I flanking it and Sam taking her position, gun held high aimed forward. Gage and Roe pressed themselves to the walls next to us, out of the line of fire if Sam needed to shoot.
I nodded at Kane, he pulled the door open and the five of us ran out, weapons at eye level, quickly canvasing the parking lot. Seeing no threats or strange cars, we rushed to the bakery door and I keyed in the code. I pulled the door open, flattening myself against the brick of the building in case someone waited on the other side with a weapon.
When nothing but silence greeted us, we filed into the hallway and cleared the small store quickly. Only one door was shut firmly, the tiny office that held Lily’s computer and files. It had a reinforced steel door and coded lock. Lily had laughed when I’d installed it but I wanted her to have somewhere she could be safe if needed.Pleaselet them be safe.
I put in the code and waited for the locks to disengage as we each took our positions again. “Lily? Daisy?” I called out when the door snicked open.
“Daddy!” Daisy ran to me, tears streaming down her face. I quickly switched the safety on my gun and secured it in the back of my waistband. My hands free, I scooped her up and held her tightly, reassuring myself that she was all right. My eyes roamed the room expecting to see Lily but instead found Benji standing still, a butcher knife clasped tightly in his hand.
His own face streaked with tears, anguished, and I knew. The realization swept through me leaving pain in its wake, she was gone.
26
LILY
Groaning, I tried to open my eyes, then shut them quickly as a wave of nausea overtook me. My limbs felt heavy and my head was splitting in half. Was I drunk? Hungover? I remembered drinking a glass of wine at the party but surely it hadn’t been enough to make me feel this sick.
“Ar-are you okay?” a timid, feminine voice whispered and I shot up in bed quickly, making my head spin. But I wasn’t in the comfortable bed that I shared with Grayson. As my vision adjusted, the room came into focus and memories assaulted me.
Benji asking about the cookies, walking downstairs to the bakery with him and Daisy, my name called, being attacked and injected with something.Oh God.I turned my head to the side, vomiting up the contents of my stomach on the dirty floor next to me. My body shook violently as I heaved and a cold sweat broke out on my skin. When the gagging subsided, I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and focused on my surroundings once more.
I was sitting on a filthy mattress that lay on the floor, dark stains marked every inch of the fabric and I couldn’t bring myself to guess their origins. My body felt bruised and weak, probably from the combination of the assault and my recent sickness. Or being fucking drugged, I couldn’t forget about that.
I moved my arms and legs experimentally, noting achiness but nothing felt broken. When I shifted my left foot, there was a clanking sound, loud in the otherwise quiet room. My hand drifted downward and felt cold metal, one end of a set of handcuffs was locked around my ankle, the other end connected to a heavy chain that extended off the mattress. If I hadn’t just thrown up everything I’d eaten, that would have been enough to make me sick.
“Are you okay?” the voice whispered again and I stilled, searching the dimly lit room for another person. “Over here.”
My gaze trained on where the voice came from and I heard the same clanking sound as a small form moved into the light. She looked young, sixteen or seventeen, and was so tiny maybe she was even younger than that. I couldn’t tell what color her hair was because it was greasy and plastered back from her head. She looked to be as dirty as the room around her, the t-shirt she wore I thought was originally white but was now yellowed and torn.
I forced my sore body to move and started to crawl toward her, each inch I moved feeling like needles were stabbing underneath my skin. When I’d reached the middle of the room, the cuff on my ankle pulled tightly and I fell to my elbows with a grunt. She scooted off her own shitty mattress and came as far as her chain let her.
Now that we were closer, she looked me over with sad, startling blue eyes. They reminded me so much of Grayson’s and I whimpered at the pain it caused. Surely, he knew I’d been taken by now. Benji would have kept Daisy safe and made sure she got back to Grayson, I know he would.
“Who are you?” My voice, raspy and sore from being sick, echoed in the room. I wanted to drink a gallon of water but this didn’t seem like the kind of place that would have room service.
“Shh,” her eyes jumped sideways. I followed her line of sight and saw a staircase I hadn’t noticed previously was tucked into the back corner. They led up to a single door, a lone lightbulb hanging from the ceiling illuminating it and casting a small amount of light down toward us. “They don’t like when we talk, if they hear us, it’ll be bad.”
My head tipped forward in understanding, sending a stabbing pain into my right eyeball. I closed my eyes, breathing through the pain.
“It’s the drugs,” she whispered. “It’s like the worst hangover of your life and someone stabbing you repeatedly in the head with an icepick. Takes a while to wear off.”
I didn’t dare nod my head again, so I took a deep breath and repeated, “Who are you?”
“My name’s Stephanie, you?”
“Lily. Any idea where we are, Stephanie?”
