“I’m sure we’ll find her,” he said, his voice soft. “She has probably just wandered off somewhere.” He smiled, but it was strained.
He didn’t believe it either, not after what happened to the girl in the bar. I swallowed down a dry, wrenched throat. “She has a habit of wandering off when she’s drinking.” The memory of her running down the street butt naked flashed through my mind. My heart ached even as I laughed. “And doing nudie runs.”
Josh snorted. “That sounds like Georgie.” His voice cracked, and he dragged in a pained breath. “When we find her, we’ll make her do another one for putting us through this.”
“Did the girl in the bar survive?” Rodney asked bluntly, throwing us a sharp look, annoyed by our emotions.
I half turned away so Rodney couldn’t see the tears burning in my eyes.
Josh shook his head. “I don’t know. She didn’t look good when the paramedics were working on her.”
Rodney shifted his attention to Karson. “I will find out who compelled her.”
“Josh, go,” Karson said. “Follow the ambulance and find out exactly where she is so Rodney can talk to her.”
Josh frowned, confused. “I highly doubt she’ll be able to speak.”
“She doesn’t need to speak.”
Josh blinked in surprise, his hand trembling as he held it out. “I’m going to need your number.”
Rodney pulled a card out of his pocket. Josh snapped it quickly from his hand like he thought Rodney was going to bite him. Rodney turned his attention to Karson. “In the meantime, I will see if any of the stragglers know anything.”
“I highly doubt anyone guilty would hang around,” Michael stated. “But it’s worth a try. Someone might have seen something.”
Rodney, Janice, and Kenneth walked down the street until they were out of sight.
“Did you feel her?” Karson asked me.
“Feel her? Who Georgie?”
A deep crease marred his forehead. “Sarah, did you feel her?”
“No.”
He released a breath. “She’s not here, so this could be someone else’s handiwork.”
I threw my hands up in frustration. “She’s here, the girl wrotetick-tockon the fucking black board!”
“What relevance doestick-tockhave?”
I stared down the road, seeing nothing. “She said it to me the night she tried to kill us.”
He stepped closer almost hesitantly, reaching out a hand then pulling it back again. “The girl was compelled, Amelia. Sarah cannot compel people. She may not be here at all.” He paused then conceded, “But she may have someone working with her.”
“Like that’s any fucking better.” We were dealing with two instead of one, maybe more. Was Georgie held captive somewhere in the dark, cold and scared? Would we find her like the dog, torn to shreds and dumped on our doorstep? It was my fault for letting Georgie come out with me. I brought her into the line of fire. It was my arrogance that would see her killed. A small sob escaped my throat.
“We will find her, I promise you.” He looked down at me, his eyes filled with compassion. God, he was an excellent fucking actor. “Where would she go if she just needed space?”
I scrambled to think of where she would go, what she would do. Maybe she felt sick and needed food.
I jogged to the window and peered into the Greek restaurant next door. It was full, people laughing and carefree. No Georgie.
Karson took hold of my arm and swung me back to him, calm, so fucking calm. “I have vampires searching every restaurant, every bar. Where else would she go?”
I shook out of his grip and paced back and forth. “She likes shopping and eating and girly things—nails, massages, that kind of thing.”
“Okay, good.” He pulled out his phone and relayed the information, before he slipped it back into his jacket.
