There was a panicked tone to Jane’s voice that he wasn’t sure he’d heard before, though it could be his hearing being absolutely fucked.
“Wilder?” Jane snapped.
That was more like it.
“More like what?”
He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, then put his hands flat on the ground to push himself upright.
“I need to…” The words stopped coming out of his mouth as he swayed, dropping to his knees and hands.
“You need a doctor,” Jane said, small hands grabbing Wilder by the arms. “Help me get him up.”
“Emmett,” he gasped out, trying to pull free of Jane’s hold to turn back around. The van. Was it gone? Had they taken Emmett? Had they hurt him? Fuck! He was never going to forgive himself for this. If anything happened to Emmett, he’d never survive.
Emmett was the part of him that had been missing his whole life. The part he’d searched for but never found. Until Emmett. Until he’d looked at him with those brilliant blue eyes and taught him there was more to life. There was more to love.
His head felt like it was going to explode, the pain rattling his brain. He needed to get his shit together. He needed to get up. He needed to get Emmett back.
“What is that buzzing?” he mumbled, raising his hands to rub his temples, though for some reason he couldn’t get them up quite high enough. His arms felt like they were weighed down with lead.
“They’re going after Emmett,” Jane said, confirming his worst fear.
“The hit-and-run, the gym, they were trying to take him,” he forced out, his throat scratchy as hell.
He still didn’t know why they wanted Emmett. It didn’t make sense.
“Not important,” Jane said with a grunt, her small hands digging into his sides, his arm around her shoulders.
He barely realized he was moving until light blinded him, causing a lightning strike of pain through his head. Moments later, he was eased onto the couch and breathed a small sigh of relief when the overhead lights dimmed.
“Go get Emma,” Jane ordered someone.
All he heard were running footsteps and low voices. It was all a hum compared to the screeching inside his head. It didn’t wantto stop. No matter how much he rubbed his temples or squeezed his head. It just. Kept. Screeching.
The doors slammed against the wall, two men walking inside, dragging a third between them. They dumped him on the ground in front of the couch, and Wilder pushed up on his hands to see Spencer standing over the unmoving man with his gun pulled, while Cooper rifled through his pockets, coming up empty.
“Is he alive?”
If he were, he would know where his buddies had taken Emmett. If not… he didn’t even want to think it.
“I don’t think I hit him hard enough to kill him,” Jane muttered.
“He’s got a pulse,” Spencer confirmed, his fingers on the side of the man’s neck.
Jane crossed the room, grabbing the half-filled bottle of water Emmett had left behind on the floor in front of the mural. She walked back to the others, unscrewing the cap. “Hold him down.”
She turned the bottle upside down over his head, the water splashing his face, and while Wilder couldn’t see much of what was happening with Jane and Cooper in the way, he heard the gasp and splutter just fine.
Spencer and Cooper held the man down by his arms as Jane crouched in front of him.
“Well, hello,” she purred, and he knew her smile would be terrifying. “Looks like you and I need to have a little chat.”
“Fuck you,” the man croaked out.
Jane shifted, giving Wilder a better view. The man’s face was pinched in pain, the blood from the wound in his forehead painting his skin red, the scarf that had covered the lower half of his face tugged down to hang around his neck.
Jane hummed and reached out to tug his shirt down by the collar. “Won’t you look at that.”
