She wasn’t in her room. She wasn’t in our rooms either.
She wasn’t anywhere.
I met Poe at the bottom of the stairs.
“She’s not up there,” I said, pushing past him.
I returned to the living room where Remy stood, Ray sitting next to him.
“Todd,” Remy said.
I looked around, half expecting Maeve to appear, to tell me it was all some kind of sick joke.
But it wasn’t a joke. She was gone.
And Ethan Todd had her. I knew that because it was the only way Maeve would have left Ray outside alone, the only way she would have left without so much as a note.
I heard Poe’s footsteps behind me as he returned to the living room. Silence stretched, dark and ominous, in the moment before my fury erupted.
There was no conscious thought, just a curtain of scarlet rage dropping over my mind as I flipped the sofa. It crashed onto the coffee table and I tore through the rest of the room, pulling art off the walls, tearing the TV from its outlet and tossing it aside, smashing the gaming consoles under my fists.
I destroyed everything in my path. Everything except the Christmas tree.
Maeve’s tree.
When I was done the living room lay in shambles, the Christmas lights casting a soft glow over the wreckage.
But it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered without her.
I was breathing heavy, my chest tight, a strange fullness filling my body, a fullness I’d only ever felt once before in my whole fucking life.
It took me minute to name it as loss.
I walked to the big windows overlooking Main Street. “Check the traffic cams. And CCTV from local businesses. Anything you can find.”
I was relieved to hear that my voice was flat, emotionless. It meant I was in the cold place where I could hurt people.
And by god was I going to hurt people.
1
MAEVE
I opened my eyes slowly,then sat up with a start as the memories slammed into my brain: standing outside at night with Ray, movement behind me, the pinch in my neck, the man who’d thrown me over his shoulder.
And Ethan Todd’s face, swimming before my eyes in the moments before I lost consciousness.
My heart raced as I frantically looked around, trying to get my bearings. What I saw did nothing to calm me down.
I was in a shadowed, windowless room, stone slippery and damp under my body, water dripping from several places I could hear but not see. The smell — cold rock and dirt and dead things too close for comfort — told me everything.
I was underground.
Not in the tunnels, but somewhere like the tunnels. Somewhere dark and isolated.
Somewhere buried.
Panic clawed at my throat. Ethan Todd had taken me from outside the loft.
