The door is ajar, but it looks like it was kicked in, not opened normally. The frame is splintered, the deadbolt still sticking out from the door in the locked position. Pieces of wood litter the floor.
I check the street behind me, but it’s empty and quiet. I toe the door open, wishing for a weapon. Oh, wait. I quickly double back to my car and find the crowbar in my trunk then return to the house. I step in quietly.
I’ve never cleared a house before. I channel all those cop shows I used to watch in high school and hoist the crowbar over my shoulder. I’m ready to whack someone at a moment’s notice.
My imagination runs away with me, picturing a man with a gun poised to burst around the corner at any moment.
But the house is silent.
I make it to the kitchen and go still. It looks like something happened in here–the items previously stacked on the counter are scattered across the floor, shattered glass. And then I spot the legs.
“Fuck.” I rush forward and round the island, nearly falling onto Tyler.
He’s flat out, and blood pools around his head in a little halo.
“No, no, no.” I drop to my knees and press my fingers to his neck. His pulse is there. Solid. A little slow, perhaps. But he’s alive. “Okay. Wake up, Tyler.”
I shake his shoulder, and nothing happens.
Where is Scarlett?
I rise and continue my search, making sure the downstairs is totally empty before I rush upstairs.
Her door is wide open, and there’s blood on the frame. It’s a little lower than hip height, but it looks like a decent spray of droplets.
“Scarlett?” I call.
I go into her room. Her blankets are on the floor along with everything that had been on her nightstand: lamp, glass of water–it soaks the rug–along with her glasses and her phone.
She wouldn’t leave without her phone…and she really wouldn’t leave her glasses behind.
A chill sweeps up my spine.
They came and took her. I know it. I just can’t prove it.
My phone goes off. I look down at the incoming text with no small amount of apprehension, expecting it to be a threat from the Webber brothers.
It’s arguably worse than that.
Scarlett’s Dad: Cross–call me ASAP. Where is my daughter?
[ 31 ]
SCARLETT
I pullthe covers up higher after Cross kisses me goodbye and inhale. His scent is all over my bed, and Iloveit. I know this thing between us teeters on the line between right and wrong, yet I can’t help but indulge in it.
The painful wound from what Nick did to me is more like a scar now, and as much as I hate to admit it, I think Cross is the reason. He pushes me to the brink of insanity, but I crave it. His hot glances and possessive touches evoke something in me that I thought was lost forever. Being in his grasp is like a burnt-out wick catching a flame again, especially when he let the truth bleed out last night:You mean a lot more to me than a stepsister should.
Butterflies swarm my lower belly as I drift in and out of sleep, a faint smile slipping into parted lips until I’m jerked awake from a loud crashing downstairs.
I sit up quickly, my hair falling past my shoulders. I reach for my glasses on instinct and stare at my bedroom door.
What was that?
On quiet feet, I tiptoe over to the window and peer down onto the foggy street.
I let out a relieved breath when all I see is Tyler’s car. I’m being paranoid—not that anyone could blame me—but Tyler probably dropped something, and it startled me awake in my half-sleep.
