Balthazar had my girl.
* * *
We sent out a search party.
The best kind of people that Jack had at his fingertips.
No one found a trace of them.
It was like Jia had just disappeared. Completely gone. What I called off grid. I shouldn’t have been surprised. Wasn’t I used to dealing with Balthazar and the Ra? I knew how the fucking man worked. I knew how he treated people he kidnapped.
I kept seeing images in my mind. Images of Claire’s body. Her being shot, blood splattered then the explosion. Death.
That was what this meant. And time was passing.
I’d looked with the guys too, we went further than the state line and decided they had to have gone out of state.
They really had all the power. Jack told me the place had been flooded with men. Men came on bikes and cars, but there was no trace, nothing picked up on any camera.
I knew what that was, they’d made sure they screwed with all cameras that could pick them up on their route. That was the best explanation I could come up with. It had to be that because that was unheard of.
Time was passing and we were nowhere nearer than we’d been when I first got back to the house.
I didn’t sleep and when morning came the next day I couldn’t believe Jia really wasn’t with me. I couldn’t believe it.
In my cynical mind I cursed myself. Her father wanted to send her to Italy with Armand so she would be safe.
I stopped that from happening. My intervention stopped her from being somewhere she would have been safe.
I was here sitting on my ass without a paddle of an idea on what to do next other than try the most lamest of things.
I tried calling Ethan.
I’d done it yesterday too.
I tried calling him as a last resort. Not really thinking I was going to get an answer.
The same fucking thing happened now.
The phone rang out to voicemail so I ended the call. I’d left him enough messages for him to know what it was I wanted. I doubted though that I would have needed to say anything.
The hours that followed since we got back felt like eons, and now I was sitting on the front porch with a cigarette in my hand. It was one of Jack’s. I hadn’t smoked in years but this right now was something I needed to calm me down because everything had blown up in my face. Everything.
I glanced down at my watch, it was nearly nine.
It rained last night so there was a slight mist about the place and it wasn’t as bright as it usually was at this hour of the morning. The scenery suited my mood.
Jack opened the door and came out. He had a slight limp and his arm was in a sling.
He’d broken a few ribs yesterday and taken a bullet to his shoulder but it passed through at an angle that probably hurt like a bitch but wouldn’t leave too much damage. He’d been told to stay in the hospital for a few days. Jack being Jack however stayed long enough to get patched up with some stitches and discharged himself straight after.
He said staying in like that was for people who had nothing better to do and as long as he could move he was leaving and coming to help me.
He pulled out his lighter, lit up, and held the flame to me when I got out another cigarette. Jack then reached for a cigar from his back pocket and lit it up.
He sat opposite me on the porch, gazing out into the open the same way I was.
“I’m sorry Xander,” he said, voice just above a whisper.
