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“We all do,” Zig agrees.
“Let me and Jagger talk to her first. She’ll accept your apologies, that’s just who she is. But what me and Jagger did… I’m not sure she’ll be quite as forgiving.”
I turn and leave the room, heading back downstairs. I try to think about what to say, how to explain, how to justify my actions. But I have nothing. What we did, what I did, was so out of order it’s not even funny. I just shit all over what we were building, treating her like a liar and a fraud.
I scrub my hand down my face as I spot Greg and Jagger at the table. “Where is everyone else?”
“Salem woke up. Crew and Wilder took her down to the orchard. She doesn’t know what’s going on, but she keeps asking where Astrid is, and we didn’t know what to tell her,” Greg replies, his voice void of emotion. “Hawk and Creed are doing a supply run.”
I look at Jagger and feel my shoulders slump. “We need to go talk to Astrid. We owe her one hell of an apology.”
“She didn’t do it, did she?” Jagger doesn’t sound surprised. “I mean, we had all that information in front of us, telling us she was guilty. But once I sat down and thought about it, it just didn’t sit right.” He jumps to his feet and heads out the door toward our place.
I follow behind him, growling when he pushes the door open. “You didn’t lock it?”
He turns to look at me and winces. “I cuffed her to the bed.”
I blink and come to a dead stop before I sprint toward the bedroom.
“What the fuck?”
I swing the door open, and sure enough, the room is empty, the discarded cuffs still hooked to the bed.
“How the hell did she get out of those?” Jagger yells, coming to a stop behind me.
“The key was in the drawer of the nightstand. I was trying to teach her how to face her fears.”
“Motherfucker! And you didn’t think to tell me that?”
“Oh, fuck you. If you would’ve locked the fucking door, then we would’ve known she had left because she’d have tripped the alarm. You’re just as much to blame as I am.”
I open the closet door and find her bags gone. Shoving the bathroom door open, I see her toiletries are missing as well.
“Call Ev. Tell him Astrid’s gone. Get him to check the cameras. I’m going to look for her in case she’s hiding somewhere.”
I hurry past him but stop when he calls my name. “It was bad. What you found out, it was bad, wasn’t it?”
I nod. “Yeah, it’s about as bad as it can get. Yet I can’t help but feel like what we did was a hundred times worse.”
I leave after that, not wanting to stand around talking when Astrid could be getting farther and farther away. I search the area closest to the house before moving out. The property is massive, so there are plenty of places to hide, but I’m not sure she is hiding.
“Slade!” I stop and turn when Jagger and Greg jog over to me.
“You find her?”
“Ev spotted her on camera. She left about an hour ago in the Audi.”
“Fuck!” I yank my hair.
“We need to go after her.”
“I hate to say this, boys, but she might not want to be found,” Greg states.
“No. I don’t believe that. I can’t let her go like this, G. She needs to know I was wrong. That we all were. I don’t want her spending another second blaming herself for trusting us when we were the ones that fucked up. We need a chance to fix it.”
He blows out a breath. “Good luck. You’re going to need it. You were both complete bastards to her.” He slaps me on the back and nods to Jagger.
I’m not going to argue because he’s right, so I just nod.
