“Marsh, do you still work at that dance place over on the West End?” The question came out without much thought, Eva still prominent on his mind.
“The Dollhouse?” Marshall responded with a frown. “Nah, left a while ago now to concentrate on here. Not that it’s there anymore.”
“What do you mean?”
“It went boom. Gas leak or something.” Marshall gestured an explosion with his free hand. “Why? You thinking of a career change?”
“There was a performer there, Eva…” He didn’t know her last name, and that realisation pissed him off. “Brunette, blue eyes and about five foot seven.”
“Eva Morgan?”
Morgan,he repeated inside his head, committing her name to memory.
“Yeah I remember her, she could seriously dance.” Marshall smiled before he frowned, striking Kace with a confused look. “It was a while ago, man. I think she went home one night and never returned. Her boyfriend came in a few weeks later and told everyone she had gotten another job and to not contact her.”
Any tranquillity Kace had tried to hold was long gone. “And no one checked with her directly?”
“What was they supposed to do?” Marshall shrugged. “She’s an adult.”
Kace took a second to control his anger, ignoring his beast who clawed to be free. “I need you to track her down.”Before I do something I’ll regret,he mentally added.
Marshall tilted his head, lips pursed. After a moment of hesitation he nodded. “What details can you give me?”
It was exactly the reason he had asked Marshall for help. He didn’t care why Kace had asked such a strange request about a woman he barely knew. Their relationship at The Vault was strictly professional, but after working with him for so long, Kace trusted him.
But honestly, what the fuck was wrong with him? Eva was a woman he had met only a handful of times. A woman who tried her hardest to get under his skin, and had destroyed his control with barely a glance. A woman he had forced himself to stay away from, and in that time she had gone missing. Taken. Hurt.
His beast’s growl vibrated inside his head, and at Marshall’s sudden step back he realised it had come from deep within his own chest.
Fuck.
He knew he should just leave it with Titus and Xander, who were actively looking for her. But even with all their skills and technology they were struggling, as if she had disappeared without a trace.
Until five nights ago.
“I’ll check the tapes of your fight and see if I can sort something,” Marshall said after Kace explained everything he already knew. “Leave it with me.”
Kace followed Marshall out into the main room, the kids busy amongst themselves. Some of the newer attendees ate from the selection of sandwiches and snacks they always provided, while the ones who had been coming for a while were chatting by the stacked benches. They never asked the newer kids to stop eating to prepare for training, not when they knew it could be the only time they had full stomachs.
If they wanted to just watch for a while, they could. They knew the deal when they joined, they were to be taught how to defend themselves, and how to deal with their own traumas. But if they needed a few weeks to adjust, then so be it.
Marshall handed the black hoody over to Bella, one of only two girls who had signed on. She was fifteen, the awkward age between a child and adult. Scars, both old and new covered her skin, her knuckles split and scabbed over. He never asked anyone their history, not wanting them to believe their past defined their future, but he couldn’t help but drop his gaze to her tiny hands. There were scars there too.
Bella’s face creased into a grin. “I did exactly what you taught me!” she said, showing Kace how to make a fist without breaking her thumb.
He nodded, unable to replicate her excitement when he felt like a block of cement had settled on his chest. He had taught her how to punch, and she had used it to defend herself. She shouldn’t have had to defend herself. “I knew you could do it.”
Bella blushed, dropping her gaze to the floor. “Thanks,” she mumbled, all her confidence gone.
Fuck.
Kace kept his frustration to himself. Slowly, as not to startle her, he knelt down to her level. “You defended yourself amazingly Bella, you should be proud.”
Her blush deepened, but a shadow of that smile returned as Marshall appeared beside them, a dramatic gasp bursting from his lips.
“Holy fuck, Bella. How bad does the other guy look?” He lifted his hand, and after Bella grimaced in the way teenagers sometimes did when something was uncool, she reached for the high-five. When she got close Marshall lifted his arm further, making her work for it with a giggle.
Kace was grateful that he had Marshall to help, his personality better suited to calm the kids compared to his own intensity. Hudson was only marginally better when he decided to join them, showing the kids defensive moves. But between them it seemed to work, the kids returning over and over.
