“Not meant to be, Jamie.” I tilt her face so she has no choice but to look at me. “I told you the other night it was all in or all out. You chose all in. Your defensive wall? Gone. I’m your wall now. The world has to get through me to get to you, and trust me, runt, if anyone’s stupid enough to fuck with you, they’re going to find out why the Unholy named me Wraith.”
22
Wraith
“The fuck you mean she’s gone?”
My fingers tighten around the AR-15. I drop the weapon in the black duffel bag and ignore Malice, who mouthswhatto me as my hand tightens around the cell phone I’m holding to my ear.
“Gone, Wraith,” Jester hisses into the phone. “I got out of the shower, came down to the kitchen, and saw the back door open. I searched the entire house, but she’s not here.”
I flex my fist as the monster slams its body against the bars of its cage. “She likes to take walks.”
Lame rationalization for her disappearance, but my brain can’t wrap itself around the fact that Jamie’s missing.
“No, Wraith,” Jester clarifies. “She’s gone.”
Dread poisons me. It whips the monster into a frenzy, making it bang around inside my skull, and for the first time since I stood in the octagon, I get out of its path of destruction.
“I’m on my way.” I end the call and shove the phone in my pocket. “Fuck.” For a fraction of a second—that feels more like an eternity—panic nails my feet to the floor, making me forget how to walk. Shit, I can’t even think. I’m numb, every part of me frozen before I snap out of the stupor and jump into motion. I turn to Malice. “Crane sent someone to the house. My fucking house, Malice. They took Jamie.”
“Havoc.” Malice’s shout echoes across the armory.
Havoc looks up from loading ammo in the back of his pickup. “What’s up?”
“It’s Jamie. Crane got her.”
“Christ.” He zips the bag before palming his phone. “Crow. It’s bad. Crane got Jamie.” He pauses, listening. “Don’t know.” Another pause. Then to me, “Wraith, Crow’s calling you.”
Sure as shit, my phone rings seconds later. I answer it as I’m running out the door. Everything feels like it’s moving in slow motion because each second that ticks by puts my girl farther away from me and closer to that psychotic scumbag.
“What happened?” Crow snaps.
I’m heading toward my truck as I answer. “Right now, all I know is that Jester got out of the shower and Jamie was gone.”
Crow’s quiet for a moment. “I have to be the dick and ask the hard question. How do you know she didn’t leave?”
I grit my teeth, biting back the automatic response to tell him to go fuck himself. “Because Jamie didn’t leave me, Crow.”
“This is fact or speculation?”
“Fact,” I spit.
If there was a note, written in her handwriting, telling me she never wanted to see me again, and for me to take a flying fuck off the tip of Jester’s dick, I still wouldn’t believe Jamie left of her own accord. Some walking corpse had the balls to come to my goddamn house and take her right out from under me.
Crow’s quiet again as I climb in the Raptor and start the engine. I plug the phone in the charging station to activate the hands-free mode, and I speed out of Sanctum.
“So, this is what’s going to happen,” Crow tells me. “You’re going to calm down and keep a level head. We’re going to finish loading the trucks. Then we’re going to pick up you and Jester and head out. Understood?”
I say nothing. Just keep my gaze on the road, with my mind in Gomorrah as I race down Route 6. But my hands are already around Crane’s throat, snapping the bastard’s neck.
“Wraith,” Crow barks. “Is that understood?”
“Yeah,” I growl as I run a red light and nearly cause an accident. “I’m not running off to Florida alone, half-cocked, to get Jamie and me killed, Crow. I’m not an stupid.”
“No, you’re not.” I can hear the door to Crow’s office bang open, and there are muffled voices in the background. “I’ll call you back. Voodoo and Rotten are here.”
Crow ends the call, and by the time I pull in my driveway, my entire body is humming with rage.
