“We’ve got him. Come home,” Felix says before disconnecting the line.
“Let’s go, Willow.” Even when one of our own is in danger, he still reaches for me with grace and gently pulls me up from the bed. His hand lands on the small of my back, and thank goodness for that.
Layla is missing. My arms are still shaking, and my bear is pacing inside me. She’s getting riled up, and the flames of her anger heating my skin. I only take deep breaths, trying to do everything in my power to keep from shifting in Eddie’s car.
23
WILLOW
My phone sitsin my lap the whole drive back to Rainfall Avenue. Once the Enchanted Pack house’s white front door comes into view, I launch myself out of the car and up the steps of their front porch.
I whip the door open, and my heart stops for the briefest moment. The sight I’m greeted with warms my harshly beating heart and makes my eyes water slightly. Biting the inside of my cheek, I try to hold back the waterworks.
The whole gang’s here. Luxe, Flora, Jackson, and the whole Pack are standing around a table in the living room, waiting for us to arrive. They turn to me quickly. Remi, the teenage temporarily adopted vampire, zooms to me and now Eddie, who drops our bags on the floor. Her eyes rush over us, checking us over, lifting our arms as she needs to before crushing us into hugs. I’m surprised, to say the least, since we didn’t know each other well, but I welcome her hug, anyway. Maybe she can sense how badly I need it. Vampires can sense emotions, and I am all over the place.
“When’s the last time you heard from Layla?” Jackson asks us immediately as he leans against the table everyone is standingaround. With the break in formation, I can see the notes they’ve accumulated on Layla. Every member had recounted the last time they saw Layla and when they noticed she was missing.
My eyes stay on the board. Felix was at my house yesterday, waiting for her to come home from work when she never came. He called the Pack, and they checked her job, the grocery store, gas station, and both our houses and found nothing. Not a scratch, not a scent, only her car parked on the side of a road.
I gulp, sliding my phone from my pocket. I should call her. I should try. What have I done since finding out she was missing? Absolutely nothing. Sat on my dumb shaking hands for a half-hour in the car. I need to do something. Something needs to happen. My fingers can barely select her name in my contacts, and I miss the call button a few times due to my shaky state. Each ring sets loose any grasp of control I had. Fat tears roll down my face, each one going faster and faster as they roll down my cheek. I stare at the board on the table. I can’t look at the Pack right now. I can’t show them my shame.
Layla, I’ll find you. I’ll save you, I promise. Just answer the phone. Please. Please answer the phone.
“I’m away from the phone. Leave a message or, better yet, text me.” Beep.
The phone is in my hand one moment, and the next it’s flying across the room, where I hoped the wall would smash the useless thing to pieces, but Dylan catches it with one hand. “If she gets the chance to call, she’d call you, Willow. We need your phone.”
The silence is deafening, and the ring of silence gets louder as the attention is turned on me.
“I need her, Dylan.” My fingers shake as my composure breaks down. I nearly crumble.
“I know.” He says it with so much confidence, I can almost breathe normally. But it doesn’t feel real. It doesn’t feel as if he understands, and if anyone in this room understands what I’mgoing through, I know it’s him. I know it was his mate who went missing when her coworkers kidnapped her. I know this, yet it doesn’t feel right. It’s as if I’m all alone. That no one is here but me on this island of shame and guilt.
It’s my fault.
I shouldn’t have left her. I shouldn’t have pretended that life was normal when it was anything but.
“I have to find her.”
“We will.”
“She’s my family.” I don’t know who I’m reminding at this point, but I’m lost.
“We’re going to find her, Willow. We do things as a Pack. We are strongest when we all work together, and today, that goal is finding and returning Layla back home. We are going to find Layla,” Jackson says with a conviction I wish fazed me.
I turn back towards the table with a nod. We are going to find her, and I’m going to bring her back home.
Eddie’s presence swallows me from behind. Towering over me as his arms come around me, caging me in as he leans on the table. He’s speaking, but I can’t hear him. Not until he leans in and whispers directly into my ear. “Willow, Buttercup, my love, we’ve got this. I got you, and we’ll get her.”
Ice chips off the glacier that is my body, and I can move. I wobble back and forth a bit, only noticeable to me and him before I stand straight. He doesn’t realize that as long as he is with me, as long as everyone in this room is associated with me, this will keep happening. People will keep getting hurt, and it is because of me.
I wanted to be a main character but not in this kind of story.
“Where’s Ghost?” I ask. The sadness deepens in my chest, but anger bubbles there too. What does he know? Was this a part of his plan the whole time? The thoughts run through my mind, but my feet are faster. My vision blurs, and I move by pureinstinct. I dip under Eddie’s arms and dodge the lame attempts to stop my moving form. Ghost steps from around the corner, but it’s his scent that makes me run faster. He gets to stand here with us, free, while Layla is moons knows where. No, this isn’t just my fault, it’s his, too.
I land a slap across Ghost’s face.
“It’s James. Ghost is my cover name,” he says with his face turned to the side, but his arms still crossed. While I may not have been strong, my bear is, and she’s as sad and angry as I am. Layla is mine, she is my family, and she means the world to me, and yet she’s not here.
