Webb grabbed my arms from behind me. “Sam, take it down a notch.”
Whirling around, I saw a sea of red. “The fuck I will. And how soon you forget you went on a rampage when Edmund took Jo. AWOL, if I remember correctly. My dad threw you in the brig.” I didn’t give a fuck what Webb or my father tried to do to me. I wasn’t about to listen, sit around, and strategize—or wait for intel or a lead. Fuck that shit. The only way to keep me down or stop me was to put me in a coma or cut off my head.
I pulled on my hair and paced like a madman. “The one person we feared now has Layla. And my unborn babies.” I was suffocating as my brain spun out of control. “We’re not having twins. We’re having quadruplets.”
Not much shocked Webb, but his jaw came unhinged.
Silence except for my heavy breathing ticked for a beat.
Frozen, Junior stared at me like I’d lost my mind, as did Webb.
Yeah, I’d had the same reaction. Actually, I would’ve passed out if it wasn’t for Olivia announcing Roman’s arrival at the hospital. “I’m as shocked as both of you.” Twins would’ve been normal, since they ran in both the Mason and Aberdeen families, but quadruplets were unheard of.
Still, I wasn’t one to cry—like, at all. But I was a second away from bawling my fucking eyes out. “Layla needs blood. She won’t survive, and neither will my babies.” I pressed a hand to my chest to quell my racing heart along with the pain in it. I felt like someone was driving a dagger through me.
I wore a hole in the floor while silence dropped like a heavy boulder from atop a high mountain. Back and forth. One step, then two.Breathe, man. You’ll find her before it’s too late.I would love to believe that small optimistic voice in my head, but a day without blood wouldn’t bode well for my beautiful huntress.
Fear simmered beneath Webb’s shock. He wasn’t afraid of anything except losing his wife.
I would like to think Harriet Aberdeen was a weak opponent, but that wasn’t true. The human had a side of her that would make our former enemy, Edmund Rain, look like a pussy. I hadn’t seen what Harriet could do, but during the short time since I’d met her, I recognized that she would wreak havoc exactly like she’d bragged. Plus, she had a strong team behind her. Roman was a formidable adversary and so was Adam Emery. Though Adam was human with no magical powers, he had the backing of the human government, which could be more detrimental than fighting a vampire. Whether it was the Department of Defense or the CIA or the FBI, it didn’t matter. All of them had the means to give us a run for our money. Case in point, the chip in my head—a weapon of mass destruction if the rice-grain-size device turned on.
To make matters worse, Harriet thought Layla and her sisters Jordyn and Rianne would make suitable test subjects to become creatures of the night, since the Aberdeen sisters had supernatural blood running through their veins.
“Did you hear me, Sam?” Webb’s voice penetrated through the hell I was living in.
I stopped in my tracks. “What?” I snapped.
“Tripp said you spoke to Roman. Fill me in.” Webb crossed his arms over his chest as he stood in the middle of the room at modified parade rest.
I’d called Tripp when I’d been speeding through the city streets after I left the hospital. “Not much to tell. Roman bragged about meeting Abbey. He made it clear that she’s his end goal.”
Webb whipped out his cell and had Jo on speaker in a flash. “Hey, angel. You’re with Abbey, right?”
“Of course,” my sister replied. “Why?”
Webb whisked a hand through his shoulder-length brown hair. “I’ll fill you in later. Stay put and don’t leave the Costner estate.” He sighed as he hung up.
“I’ll call my dad,” Junior said. “I’ll see if he knows anything more about my grandmother.”
I leaned against the wall beside the hole I’d punched into it. “According to Roman, she collapsed, but he didn’t know much more than that.”
Junior straightened. “Collapsed as in dead?”
Don’t I wish.“We aren’t that lucky.”
“Man, this is a shit show,” Webb mumbled.
I gritted my teeth. “This is all my fault. If we didn’t rush to the ER, Layla would still be here.”
“Sam, don’t go there, man.” Webb shook his head. “It was necessary.”
I knew that. Dr. Vieira didn’t have the vaginal ultrasound machine to examine Layla.
I pushed off the wall. “I can’t sit around.” Time was of the essence. What if we couldn’t find her, ever? My heart split into a million pieces.
Webb’s phone rang. “It’s your father.” He put the phone on speaker again.
It seemed like maybe Webb knew my acute vamp hearing wasn’t working that well. Despite the ringing in my ears subsiding, I made a mental note to talk to Dr. Vieira about my hearing.
