We make it a good couple of miles before the echo of the blast reaches us, the fireball on the horizon a fitting finale for the Riders’ compound. But it’s only the start for us.
“The four addresses are in almost a square around the barn,” Tyson muses once he’s checked the coordinates on his phone.
“And your gut says?” I ask, driving faster.
“Rex is a prick. He’ll have her at Sallyanne’s place which probably means he knows Steel got the girls out.”
“Or he thinks he knows,” Maverick says. I check on him with the rear-vision mirror, he looks as fucking exhausted as I feel. But he looks at me and nods, letting me know he’s good too. “Rex doesn’t know shit. Steel covered his tracks. So he might think he knows but he doesn’t for sure.”
“An easy jump either way. Which one is Sallyanne’s?” I ask and Tyson has a map up in front of me. I have to pull over to check it out and it’s an easy decision the three of us make to take Sallyanne’s house as the one we check.
I hit redial on JB’s contact on my truck computer and he answers before the second ring. “Split the crew into three. I’m sending you addresses. You know what I’m looking for and whoever locates it for me watches it with their fucking life and gets ten grand in the hand. I want names of who’s leading and I want updates.”
“Of course.” JB hangs up.
The drive to where Steel was found takes a while since it is in the middle of bumfuck nowhere. And when we pull up, two anxious looking Fallen boys are at my side door before I’ve turned the engine off.
“We patched him as best we could but he’s still out. We’ll go help the others searching. I want you to know, whatever you need from us, yeah? And I promise, none of us boys are talking but we all want you to know we’re ready to go to war with you for her.” His eyes flick away from mine at his declaration of Tris being under the protection of The Fallen. And it means something different when it’s not a spoken command, it’s a show of support, of loyalty.
“Place is ready when you are. Just flick her and she’ll go mile high,” Dirty Dale updates, handing me over a box of matches.
“Cheers, Dirty.” I manage to get out after a few minutes.
Tyson and Maverick are inside the barn already and I swing the truck around before shuffling shit around so that we can get Steel as comfortable as possible. I also set up everything I think Tyson will need because I don’t want to stop until we find her. Eventually once everything is done, and I can’t put off walking into the place where Rex tried to break my queen any longer.
I fucking stumble though. At the last fucking step, I can’t do it. My constant belief we’re going to find her all but evaporates when I pick up the ghostly trail of her lingering scent. It reeks of my failure to protect her like I said I would. I rub my knuckles over my chest trying to alleviate the blinding pain while also screaming at myself to get my ass in there.
It’s not until Maverick walks past, Steel’s unconscious body in his arms, that I get the boost I need. If he can deal with his partner being taken, lost then found, so can I.
Feeling stronger, letting my fear be burnt by the pure love I have for her, I take that first step with my head held high. The whole time I categorise every inch of that fucking barn, I let theendless memories of Tristan’s overly loud, obnoxiously stubborn side fill my thoughts.
Dirty did good leaving everything as is. And it would have been hard for him to do. Seeing what I see now I know he would have wanted to get rid of the evidence to save me from seeing it with my own eyes because there’s no denying the violent scene left behind.
I can literally track what happened by the spread of furniture, the tracks, the scrapes, the sunken gouges, the trail of blood. It paints a very vivid picture.
Tyson comes back to stand next to me when I’m about finished cataloguing everything Rex and his fucking buddies did. When he doesn’t say anything, I turn slightly to check him out. He’s shut off emotionally, wearing his mask of professionalism, his clothes are way too crisp and neat but he’s coping how he needs. He got most of his rage contained because none of us can afford to get too emotional. The only thing that lets me know he’s struggling as much as me is the tick in his jaw and the bitterness in his scent.
“How is he?” I ask, my fingers fiddling with the packet of matches.
“Steels got a hunting knife in his side. The fact it wasn’t pulled out saved his life.” He laughs, but it’s depreciative and hollow. “Rex would have been too stupid to realise the implication of leaving the knife in which means he left it in as a message.”
“Yeah well, we’re going to be pretty obvious when we speak with him too.”
“Too fucking right. I’ll slice his fucking tongue out of his mouth myself. If he touched her…”
“He didn’t. Let’s both focus on the fact he didn’t. Not here at least.”
“You’re confident of that?” Tyson spits. And his rage is not at me, I know that. I don’t even rise to the challenge in his voice because no matter what, we’re pack.
“Tyson, I need to be able to focus. If I start thinking about what he might have done, I will not be in the position to find her and neither will you. Once she is safe, we can figure out how much damage we’re dealing with. You can still feel her, right?”
He turns away from the scene of where our girl was traumatised, but we all focus differently. “Yeah.”
“And now we’ve got your brother. You’re going to make him well enough to survive until we can get home. Right?”
“Yeah.”
“So, we’re good? We’re focused on finding her? Later once we have them both safe, that’s when we drop all pretences, that’s when you can be unhinged and violent for vengeance and asking her all the fucking hard questions. But not until we have them, and we do it together. Yeah?”
