“I can’t.”
“Oh my fucking God.” Alf gets off the bed and circles round to me. “You know, if there wasn’t this dumbass law I’d have beaten the shit out of you at least ten fucking times, and that’s just since she moved in. Stop being proud, stop being petty. And go and apologise. To. Your. Fiancé. Now.” He claps his hands as he speaks as if he’s directing a child to go put his shoes in the cupboard.
I know I’m acting like one, but still.
I fiddle with my piercing a bit more.
“Caden, I swear to Lucifer if you don’t get your ass out my bedroom in the next five seconds, I’m gonna get Fiz to come and beat your ass for me with a baseball bat.”
I puff my cheeks out, beg for some will power here. Beg for my ego to sit this one out.
Finally, I push up to my feet. “Fine.” I start to walk towards the door and feel Alf behind me. I turn back. “I can do it on my own, Alf.”
“Like fuck you can.”
I roll my eyes and continue down the hall. We walk into my bedroom and circle round to the other side of the bed.
We both frown and turn to look at the bathroom in sync. It’s wide open. We walk through and see she’s not there.
“El?” Alf calls, as if there’s anywhere else in this room she could go where we wouldn’t see her.
Nonetheless, when the response doesn’t come, my heart rate picks up a few speeds.
Alf locks his eyes with me. “Fiz?”
“Fiz.”
We both run out towards Fiz’s bedroom, but not only do we not find Elodie in there, we don’t find Fiz either. For a split second I panic, the thought spearing through me that he’s taken her somewhere, but then I remember I watched him on the camera pass out on the couch a little while ago.
“Downstairs.” I say, running out the room.
We get downstairs and find Fiz where I expect him to be. Still unconscious, mouth open and snoring on the sofa.
I rake my fingers through my hair before darting off. Alf goes in the other direction. Bruiser appears and follows him.
We cover the entire house, I even go down to the basement, but Elodie is gone.
We regroup in the kitchen, breathless and wide-eyed.
“So, what you gonna do, Cade, where would she go? How you gonna get her back?”
I quite like the fact that letting her leave isn’t an option for him. It sure as hell would make our lives easier. She’s already gone, why bother? But my mind’s on the same wavelength. This house suddenly feels empty. Like the pulsating heart of it has been ripped out. It seems she didn’t just infest me, she’d permeated herself into the whole house.
“I’ll get her back.” I grab my keys from the bowl. Alf goes to his shoes, but I stop him. “Let me do this, Alf.”
He halts. “Cade…”
“I promise. I will get her back. I need to do this by myself.”
He gives me a sad smile and claps me on the shoulder, shaking it a little, but his strength makes my whole body thrash. “Between a man and his girl.”
“Right.” I grab my shoes, give Bruiser a scruff between the ears and tell him to look after Alfie.
Alf bites on his fingernail. “She might not have got far. Without a car…”
Both our eyes widen at the same time. We didn’t check the car garage. We sprint to the end of the house. I can’t seem to stifle my smirk on the way there. If one of the cars have gone… I wouldn’t admit it, but I’d be impressed.
Sarge is by the door in his bed, looking at me with big eyes that make my stomach twist. If the guilt in them wasn’t enough to tell me what happened, then the jar of treats laying empty beside him definitely would be.
