Portia gasps. “I don’t want anything bad to happen to Harley!” she wails. “I love Harley!”
“I know, baby.”
“She’s my sister.”
“Yeah.” I nod, cupping the back of her head when she leans her face into my chest and starts bawling.
“I want my sister! I want my sister!”
The room goes quiet as all the kids stop what they’re doing to stare at me and my distraught daughter.
The little ones are starting to realize that something is very wrong, and it’s going to take some major distraction tactics from us adults to get through this without the entire place falling apart.
“Hey, guys.” Wily claps his hands, drawing their attention back to him. “Who wants to play a game?”
Seb and Olly shout, “Me!” while the others give me one more dubious frown before slowly turning back to face the blond giant who will do everything in his power to make them laugh and ease their fears.
I’m so grateful he’s here right now.
I close my eyes, swaying Portia back and forth while she cries in my arms.
Blake moves a little closer to me, then stops, her own eyes glassing with tears before she mouths, “I’m so sorry,” then runs out of the room with a whimper.
CHAPTER 28
ZANDER
I’m dressed warm but my face is cold, and all I can feel is an overwhelming sense of worry for these little girls.
Grady found footprints leading toward this forested area, so we’ve all rushed this way, but once we reached the edge of the tree line, the tracks disappeared. He’s split us in three directions, telling us to look for broken twigs, leaves, anything that might look out of place.
It’s a tall order, and I wish it’d snowed a little harder last night. They’d be so easy to find if that was the case, but the light fall has mostly melted away already, and we’re down to hiking over wet clumps of leaves that all look the same.
I can hear Grady calling for his daughter as he heads left of me.
Carson’s to our right, hollering Harley’s name, and Sienna, Zoey, and I have taken the middle trail.
Zoey’s up ahead of me, searching the area and shouting for the girls every ten steps or so.
I can’t even imagine what Carson and Grady are going through right now.
Actually, I kind of can.
When Zoey was little, she was taken by her Uncle Russell. Fucking asshole. He picked her up from the babysitter without Sienna’s say-so and tried to take her away from us. The psycho thought he was a better father than I could ever be and was trying to “protect” Zoey. By kidnapping her?
We found her pretty fast, but that hour or so when I thought I’d lost my baby girl… fucking harrowing.
My baby girl.
I stare at her now. All fourteen years of her.
She’s so grown up.
Becoming independent.
So beautiful.
She’s a lot like her mother but has parts of me too. She actually looks like my sister, Monica, but has her mom’s sweetness and bright spirit. In saying that, her Aunt Monica’s feistiness has always shined through too. She’s such a blend of both families, and I love her.
