Rowan pulled the kitchen door shut behind them. His chest tightened as he recognized the truth in his brother’s words. “Yeah, no. I’m probably not.”
“Go on,” Gael paused on the porch,” Imma fixing to call Joel and give him a heads up. I don’t want this shit blowing back on him without his knowing about it in advance.”
“I can go…”
“Like hell.” Gael interrupted him. “We’re two sides of one coin. They don’t get one of us without the other. Go on. You don’t need to be hearing what my guy has to say.”
“Ew.” He definitely didn’t need to hear that conversation. “I’ll meet you at the corral. Don’t take all morning, though.”
“I won’t.”
Rowan nodded and left him to it. As he walked to the barn, he wondered if he was doing the right thing, dragging everyone into this search.
If not us… Then who?
Then who, indeed.
CHAPTER THREE
TUESDAY. SOMEWHERE SOUTH OF THE BORDER.
Pain draggedEnya back to consciousness. An ache so powerful that it made her want to retreat onto her couch with a blankie, a hot water bottle, and a bowl full of her momma’s chicken noodle soup.
“Ow.” She tried to reach for her temple to knock aside the hammer that had to be the cause of the migraine from hell she had going on, and fought back panic that rose as bile in the back of her throat when her hands refused to do what she wanted them to do.
Why aren’t my hands moving?
Did I fall off Rain?
Am I paralyzed?
“Momma,” she almost didn’t recognize her own voice as it croaked out between her cracked lips, “Daddy?”
Roll over, because you are lying all kinds of twisted up in this bed.
No matter how much she tried to force her body to comply with her demands, and no matter what she did, her shoulders remained drawn tight behind her back.
Momma wouldn’t have left me lying like this.
If her parents weren’t here, maybe a nurse or someone else was. “Nurse? Anyone?” She had to work harder than she should have to force her eyes to open. The pain ramped up its assault as soon as the tiny amount of light in the room hit her eyes, and she gave a wordless cry as she slammed them shut again.
Where am I?
What on earth is going on?
I’m so confused.
It took a couple of moments for her to work up the courage to face the pain of opening her eyes again. This time, she was smarter and only opened them to slits. She stared in confusion at a metal wall in front of her.
Did I fall in the trailer?
Turning her head hurt even more than opening her eyes had, but she did it anyway as her body rocked almost as if with the motion of a vehicle. It took until what she thought was her bed under her jerked and she rolled into the wall, for everything to make a warped kind of sense in her befuddled brain. Two realizations slammed into her following the wave of pain as she banged her head on the wall. She was on the floor of a trailer, and she was hogtied like a calf waiting for a branding iron on its butt.
“Help.” The word burned past a chemical taste that clung sharp and bitter to the back of her tongue. When she tried to lift her head, nausea came with it, rising rapidly into her mouth.
Was I drugged?
Is this what being drugged feels like?
