“Conscious or unconscious?”
I know what that means.So when his beady eyes land on me, I act scared, and don’t fight.I just need to get to the car and then I’ll activate the chain around my neck.Liam said it will tell them where I am.The same with the one I tied up my hair with.
Malia will come for me.
She will.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Reid
Igroan as I come to, and the second everything registers, I move, crawling along the hallway.My head feels heavy, a throbbing pain in the back of my skull.Sirens, growling, and whimpering, they all hit me.The same as the smell of blood, and something else.Vomit rises in my throat when I glance up.Hunter sits near Mum, growling and barking in the direction of the back door.A middle-aged man is crumpled against the plate cupboard.His head is bent back as he grits his teeth, spit flying out through the gaps when he gasps through the pain.Blood gushes from the wound on his thigh, and no matter how hard he presses down around the knife still twisted in there, it still gushes out like a tap.
As much as I want to smash his head against the cupboard, he’s not a threat right now.My mum needs me.
Mum, who is lying on her back, her jeans shoved down to her thighs.I can barely think through my rage.I can’t think about it.I can’t ask the question out loud.I can’t...Fuck.
I get to my knees, and my vision blurs with tears as I run over her injuries.
“Mum, Mum,” I call out, my hands hovering over her unmoving body, not knowing where to touch her.“I’m here.You’re safe now.I promise.”
I want to scream until there’s nothing left of this boiling rage inside of me.I need to get it out, because I’m afraid if I don’t, it will kill me.
She groans, and her head rolls to the side until she’s facing me.I suck in a breath at the bruises, swelling cuts marring her face.Mum has been thrown from a horse and hit her face on a fence before.It had been awful seeing the bruises.But this...my stomach twists and knots inside of me.“T-they have her.”
“Her?”
“M-Milly,” she forces out, her eyes clenching shut as a guttural moan works its way up her throat.
Her face isn’t the only part of her body marked.I notice a bruise is already forming on her stomach as I peel off my jacket.I throw it over her bottom half, knowing she wouldn’t want us to see her like that.I push the panic and fear deep down and that’s when my stomach twists more.Her neck...Fuck, I’ve never seen anything like it.
Tears slip down my cheeks, but I block them out.She needs us.She needs us to be the men she raised us to be.She doesn’t need us hulking out.
Yet the minute I gaze at the man a few feet away, blind rage hits me and I’m kneeling in front of him within a blink of an eye.I do what I’ve wanted to do since I saw him and whack his head against the cupboard.I hit him hard enough his front tooth chips and falls to the kitchen floor.I get in his face, saliva hitting him in the face when I roar, “Where have they taken her?”
He splutters out a laugh, not even an ounce of fear in his eyes.“I’ll never tell you.”
