He called out to her anyway, refusing to believe what his instincts were telling him. “Willow!”
He flashed into the guest room at the full speed of his Breed genetics, but the only person inside was Riley. Seated on the end of the bed with the computer on his lap, the boy looked up from the screen. “She left.”
“What are you talking about?” He couldn’t curb the panic edging his tone. Quickly scanning the room, he noted her purse and hoodie were gone. “Where is she, Riley?”
He shrugged. “I dunno. We were watching your movies on the laptop and then she said she had to go.”
Razor’s stomach sank. “What movies?”
Ah, fuck.He knew the answer even before Riley turned the computer around and showed him the drone video of Laurel’s cabin. Willow had seen his surveillance footage.
She’d realized he’d been watching her twin’s cabin long before he showed up in Colorado . . . and now Willow was gone.
“Goddamn it.”
Riley’s eyes went wide. “Aunt Leni doesn’t like it when people swear.”
Razor wheeled around on his boot heel and left the room before he said anything worse in front of the boy. He had to find Willow. Where the hell did she think she could go in the middle of fucking nowhere?
Racing down the stairs, he nearly collided with Knox in the kitchen. “What’s wrong?”
“Willow. She left.”
Knox frowned. “Left . . . where?”
Cold worry shot through Razor, chilling him to the bone. “I don’t fucking know, but I have to find her.”
“Razor, you can’t—”
Ignoring his brother’s warning, he threw open the back door and headed outside—straight into the searing light of a cloudless, noontime sky. The UV rays nearly blinded him, sunlight burning everywhere it touched his uncovered skin.
He didn’t care.
All he could feel was Willow’s confused, broken heart and his own agony at knowing he was the one who caused it. That he might have prevented it if he hadn’t been so afraid of losing her over the truth. Now, he’d lost her anyway, and he might never have the chance to explain.
He ran around the old farmhouse but Willow was nowhere to be found. He didn’t sense her in the woods out back, and the only other place she could have gone was the long stretch of unpaved, two-lane highway that ran in front of the house in both directions.
If she was on foot, she couldn’t have gotten very far.
He started running along the dirt road, his vision bleary from the scorching sunlight. As a Gen One Breed, he knew UV rays were deadlier to him than most. He had ten minutes before the burns would begin to eat away his skin and eyes. Half an hour at most before the sun consumed the rest of him.
He didn’t know how far he’d run before he heard a vehicle rumbling up behind him. He could barely see anymore. His bare hands and forearms were blistered and red, hisglyphssmoking as the sunlight continued to assault him.
An old Bronco rolled up beside him. Knox was behind the wheel, his eyes shielded by dark sunglasses and his face covered in a knit ski mask. “Have you lost your fucking mind?”
“I have to . . . find her.”
“You won’t get far like this and you know it, Raze.”
He growled and kept walking. Knox cursed and hit the gas, angling the vehicle across the two-lane so it blocked Razor’s way.
“Get in the truck, brother. Before I have to scoop up your ashes and bring you back.”
Razor seethed, but he knew Knox was right. He’d be no good to anyone in a few more minutes, including Willow.
He didn’t want to accept that she had really left, but everything in him sensed that wherever she’d gone she had to be miles away already. Had she hitched a ride with someone? From what he’d observed since their arrival, the road wasn’t exactly a bustling thoroughfare, except for occasional local traffic and the infrequent logging truck or semi rolling in or out of the North Maine Woods on its way to somewhere else.
“We’ll figure it out,” Knox said, his deep voice gentler now. “We’ll find her, Raze. But first you need to get back inside so you can heal.”
