My gaze rips up the aisles, to the door that heads backstage. I sweep the wings.
Not there.
Not there.
Not there.
Cold slices through me like ice water.
Willow would never disappear. Not after that. Not after seeing me fall, not after watching my family storm the stage.
Which means only one thing.
ThatwasPhoenix.
And he took her.
“Willow!” her name roars from my chest aseverythingfalls apart.
chapter nineteen
WILLOW
“Fuck,”I groan.
An EDM party has taken up residence in my brain. My whole damn head throbs. My tongue tastes like chalk and pennies. My neck is killing me.
When I try to sit up straight, leather squeaks beneath me. There’s something tight around my wrists, cutting into the skin every time I move even a tiny bit. My vision swims, and the ceiling—wood and roughhewn—tips like a boat in rough seas.
The air smells like smoke and wood. The scent is rustic and old.
I blink, hard, trying to clear my head. Where the hell am I? What happene?—
Phoenix.
Dammit. It all slams into me at once.
Lucky’s show. The chaos of those people rushing the stage after Lucky fell. But then there was Phoenix. A sharp prick to the neck, and I can’t remember anything after that.
Holy shit, how does so much go so wrong in such a short span of time?
My stomach knots.
I force my eyes to focus. I need to figure out where I am, need to figure out how to get out of here. My neck screams in protest, but I look around, taking every detail in. This definitely isn’t the clinic. Not the sleek chrome hell he calls a wellness center. This place is smaller. Quieter. More… rustic. A cabin. I can hear desert wind scraping against the windows, the occasional crack of sand hitting glass.
I’m sitting in a chair, my wrists zip-tied to the arms of it, my ankles tied to the legs. I’m positioned in the middle of a living room. Against the wall, there is a well-worn couch and another chair that matches the one I’m tied to. Across from me, there’s a dining room with a smaller table and four chairs. Attached is a kitchen with white cabinets and butcherblock counters. The front door is behind me, through an entryway. There’s a hall to my right, but I can’t see what’s down that way.
My brain clicks through every scenario I’ve seen, every man I’ve killed, every trap I’ve sprung—and I still can’t find a page in the manual for this one. I’ve never once been on this end of things. I’ve been too careful. I’ve flown too under the radar. But this time is very different. This predator got to see me coming. Twice. Maybe thirty times if you count all the times I’ve called him out online.
I test the restraints again. The plastic bites into my wrists. They’re already turning bright red. I pull at the ankles, but the knots hold tight.
Okay, think. Breathe. Observe.
I catalog: single exit, one window big enough to crawl out of, one that’s too narrow. If I can hop this chair into the kitchen, I might be able to find a knife and get myself undone. The hum I hear is probably a generator, meaning?—
“Stillness looks good on you.”
My pulse spikes hard enough, I can hear it in my ears.
