Heath fell to the ground, and while he didn’t want to look, he couldn’t stop his head from turning, nor his eyes from finding that bloody spot on Heath’s forehead. He dropped to his kneesnext to Heath. Next to his body. Watching as blood pooled on the floor around his head.
His stomach lurched.
Black boots entered his vision, and as he slowly raised his gaze, it wasn’t green-flecked eyes he met.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Wilder
ARGUING WITH Emma and Jane about riding his bike would only delay them, so he’d gotten in the passenger seat of Miles’s car and shut his mouth. Emma was driving, and from the grimaces she made every once in a while, she wasn’t too happy about it. None of them liked being stuffed in a cage, but he couldn’t find a shit to give right then. Not if it got him to Emmett.
He blinked, unsure if he’d fallen asleep or not, everything too fuzzy to really know. He needed to get his shit together.
“Wake up,” Emma said, the pinch in her voice cutting straight through the fog in his head.
He grunted as he straightened, pain flaring in his side. He gritted his teeth and breathed through it, determined to let the adrenaline do its thing until he had Emmett back in his arms again.
He breathed slowly through his nose as he exited the car and followed Emma to the others. Talon and Kaz were conversing quietly in the cover of the tree line that surrounded the property they’d tracked Emmett to. Kian was staring up at the white two-story house, hands clenching and unclenching at his sides.
“Only one car out front,” Kaz said.
“Let’s move,” Wilder said, already walking toward the house. A tight grip on his arm pulled him to a halt, and he turned, an angry retort on the tip of his tongue.
“The door’s open,” Talon said with a nod toward the front of the house, doubling the terror steadily growing inside him.
“This might very well be a trap,” Kaz said, jaw clenched as he looked at the four of them in turn. “Donotdie.”
That was an order if he’d ever heard one. Not that it surprised him. If anything happened, he knew Kaz would blame himself. He was yet to make his brother understand that he couldn’t control everything, nor was he responsible for every little thing that could go wrong.
Not that any of it mattered because there was only one way this ended, and that was with Emmett in his arms, alive and safe.
They all pulled out their guns, and at Kaz’s swift nod, they made their way across the front lawn. They walked along the side of the house, glass crunching under their boots. One of the windows had a hand-sized hole in it and was left open, the navy curtain rustling quietly in the breeze. They’d left the front door open, too, and peeking inside, he could see polished stone floors that reflected the light from the chandelier. There was a wide staircase to the left of the entrance hall, a room on either side, and a hallway leading further into the house. Talon and Kaz split off, making their way upstairs while Kian covered them from the first floor. Wilder followed Emma down the hallway, his heart beating loudly while he clenched his teeth, willing his hands to stop shaking.
Above Emma’s head, he could see the hallway leading into an open room with high ceilings and creamy white walls. Emma froze in the doorway, a gasp tearing from her lips. Wilder didn’t waste a second pushing past her.
There was a body on the floor.
He wasn’t sure a single breath entered his lungs until he was close enough to see that it wasn’t Emmett. He ran his gaze over the body, noting the bullet hole in the forehead and the pool of blood painting the floor crimson. There was a phone with abroken screen lying a few feet from the body. Looked like he’d never gotten the chance to call anyone.
“Heath,” Emma said, staring down at the body with a wide-eyed look.
“Emmett,” Wilder yelled, rushing further into the room, head on a swivel as he searched each corner and nook for any sign of Emmett. The only thing he found was an empty wine glass on the kitchen island; everything else looked pristine and in its place.
He holstered his gun and walked back to Emma, a sense of failure settling in his chest. Emma pressed her lips together as she ran her gaze over the room, searching for the same minuscule clues as he had.
Coming up empty, Emma cursed and walked to the couch, blowing out a heavy breath as she sat down and dropped her head into her hands. Wilder clenched his hands into fists, turning around himself while he tried not to scream his frustration.
Footsteps coming down the stairs made him halt, gaze on the doorway as Kian stepped through, Talon behind him.
“Nothing,” Kian said with a hint of panic that only served to fuel Wilder’s fear.
“Fuck,”he hissed. He ran a hand through his hair, leaving it at the base of his nape, fingers digging in. Where the fuck could he be? Had he run? Was he hiding?
“Oh, fuck,” Emma exclaimed, standing from the couch with stark terror on her face. His gaze dropped to her hands, his heart stilling at what he saw in them. Emmett’s receivers. He was not only stuck in a silent world, but they couldn’t track him anymore.
A bout of nausea made him sway.
“I… this doesn’t make any sense.”
