But she’s missing and I need to find her. He’s my best bet to help. I should call the cops, but something in me tells me she was taken by someone she knows. Someone we know.
Shifting the car in gear, I back out of the driveway, my eyes drifting over to her phone, checking if there’s been a message.
But nothing.
It starts in my chest.
A pressure, sharp and unnatural, like something pressing down on my lungs, squeezing the breath from me one inch at a time. My heart’s pounding so hard it rattles my ribs.
“Breathe Roxy,” I mutter.
I try to take a breath—deep, steady—but my body refuses to listen.
My stomach turns, hollow and sick. Nausea coils inside me, threatening to spill. I’ve got to find her. Before anything bad can happen to her. The fear of not knowing her whereabouts issuffocating.
My hands won’t stop shaking, gripping the steering wheel tighter, my teeth grinding in frustration. The road, much like time, stretches before me, luck working against me as I catch every red light, even getting stuck behind the slowest fucking drivers ever. The pounding of my horn doing nothing to speed them up.
My brain’s racing—flashes of the worst-case scenarios flood in, vivid and cruel. I try to stop them, but the images stick, refusing to disappear until I find her.
I hate this feeling taking over me, helplessness. Felicity is my girlfriend and I couldn’t protect her. Someone stole her right off our fucking porch.
I turn on his street. Taking my time as I inch toward the house.
“I’m going to find you, Felicity,” I whisper. She’s not here so she can’t hear me, but I just hope my words find some way to float to where she is, comforting her. Letting her know I’m coming for her. I’ll find her.
Slowing my speed I creep into the driveway, turning my lights off and coming to halt behind his car. I’ve barely shifted into park before I’m jumping out the door and running onto the porch, my fists banging on the front door.
“Ezra," I scream, my voice jagged, hoarse, broken. Nothing. I open my mouth again, his name ripping from my mouth, “Ezra!"
My lungs are burning, my throat raw, and my hands throbbing with pain, but I keep screaming and pounding on the door.
"Ezra!" I choke on his name.
Each scream feels more desperate than the last. I’m about to give up hope when I hear it.
Footsteps.
The thudding of bare feet slapping against the floor carries through the silence. They draw closer, each step heavier, more certain. For a breathless moment the world stills, and I don’t dare blink.
Then, the door swings open.
Light spills out, and there he is. The tension in my body dissolves. My breath catches and releases all at once, almost like my lungs have been waiting for permission to exhale.
“Can I help you?” he asks.
“Ezra, is Felicity here?”
He raises an eyebrow and his demeanor turns cool.
“First, who are you and why are you beating down my door?” He doesn’t open the door wider, or stand back ushering me in. Instead, he glares at me.
“Is. Felicity. Here!?” I snarl at him, taking my time enunciating each and every word.
“Excuse me, but I don’t feel the need to tell you anything. Why would I talk to some crazy woman who I don’t know about my girlfriend? For all I know, you could be some crazed stalker.” He steps back enough to shut the door and I see red.
In one swift movement I step forward, placing my foot in the doorway, blocking it from shutting. At the same moment, I place my palms on the cold wood of the door and push my way in the house with all the force I can muster.
“I’m calling the fucking cops.” He bellows as he storms across the room, picking up a phone off the coffee table.
