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Sher is back. She’s here, and Henry just left. This isn’t good.
She opened her mouth to scream, not that it would do much. Henry was already leaving, but the guards would hear her. But before she could, a hand quickly covered her mouth, pulling her back. Kirsten pulled Zara closer, keeping her tightly held to her. She refused to let them grab her.
She was pulled back and struggled to get her bearings. If they pulled her out of his yard, she wasn’t coming back. Whoever was pulling her was stronger, and she was on the trail before she could think of what to do. She couldn’t think of a way to free herself.
She noticed an SUV waiting, and her entire body went cold. Henry wouldn’t be able to follow their scent if she got in a vehicle.
The tiger shifted into Sher, and she was both terrified and angry at her. She couldn’t understand why she was doing this. She walked up to her with a pissed-off expression and grabbed Zara. Kirsten tried to fight back, but someone yanked her from behind.
Sher handed Zara off and quickly bound Kirsten. She growled at her as she tried to wiggle herself free. Then Sher yanked her off the ground and threw her in the back of the vehicle. Another person handed her Zara, and she looked at Kirsten.
She hated seeing her with Zara. She knew she was her mother, and she had addressed the issue of Zara needing her mom in her life, but not like this. No decent mother would inflict harm and abuse on someone while their young daughter was there.
“You’ll think twice about calling me kitty,” she snarled at her, slamming the door shut. Her mind went blank, unsure about what to do.
THIRTY-FIVE
HENRY
Henry arrived home later in the afternoon and went straight inside. He shut the door and hung his jacket up, expecting to hear Zara or Kirsten, but the entire house was silent. He frowned. It was odd. Kirsten almost always welcomed him home or came out when she heard the door.
“Kirsten? Where are you?” He slipped off his shoes and walked farther into the living room.
Nothing. He was given silence.
He headed down the hallway and poked his head into the nursery and found it empty. The shade from the morning was still pulled down. He scowled and headed down the hallway into Kirsten’s room which was also empty. Her shade was also still pulled down. His stomach dipped.
He walked back down the hallway into the kitchen and the living room and surveyed it once more. Kirsten’s jacket was still gone, and so were her shoes, meaning she never came back inside from the morning.
He grabbed his jacket and headed back outside. He looked up at the trees and found them bare. The guards weren’t at their post, and the girls were missing.
Shit! This was bad! This was really, really bad!
“Kirsten! Where are you? If you stayed outside, I won’t be mad but tell me where you are.” He rounded the house, finding nothing. The swing swayed in the wind, empty. Nothing but Kirsten’s shoe prints were in the dirt.
He rounded the house and raked his hands through his hair. The guards. Where were the guards? He rounded the house again, finding nothing.
“Is anyone here? Anyone!”
Silence.
He felt his heart race, and a cold sweat rolled over his body. He didn’t like how this was all adding up. Kirsten wouldn’t leave unless she had to or unless someone took her. But he had guards, so where the hell were they?
He looked up, and his eyes landed on the barn. The barn was the only area he hadn’t checked, and his gut told him they would be there. He took off at full speed until he got inside, where he found the guards. They were tied up and gagged, hurled together in the middle of the floor next to his stack of wood. His eyes widened in shock.
“Oh shit.” He rushed forward, pulling the gag off the first one.
“Where are the girls!” he asked, already knowing what the man was going to say. The evidence was all lying in front of him. His guards were gagged and bound, meaning the girls were gone.
The man shook his head, looking defeated. “Sher. She came out of nowhere. She took the girls. She had help. She blindsided us.”
He didn’t understand how. There were several of them, which means Sher had more numbers. He didn’t like that.
He raked his hands through his hair and paced. How long ago? How long had they been gone? How long had he been out thinking everything was okay when it wasn’t?
I should have stayed. I shouldn’t have left. I knew Sher was being crazy, and I didn’t think about every single step I was taking. And now she has the girls. She has Zara, and she has Kirsten.
He knew she wasn’t going to hurt Zara, but the same couldn’t be said about Kirsten. She hated Kirsten, and his blood ran cold. She wouldn’t hold back on hurting her.
