All that remained was a single, primal need.
Find her.
I moved toward the door, but King’s hand shot out, stopping me.
“You go out there like this,” he said quietly, “covered in blood, looking like you just crawled out of Hell, and you’ll scare her more than you already have.”
I looked down at myself. At the blood on my hands. The bruises. The evidence of my violence written across every inch of my body.
He was right.
“Clean up,” King ordered. “Then we find her.”
I nodded, my throat too tight to speak.
Jack stepped aside, and I walked out of the cell on unsteady legs.
Frankie was out there somewhere.
And I was going to find her.
Even if it was the last thing I did.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Katrina
The screen door creaked open behind us. I turned to see Maggie stepping out onto the porch, Cami close behind her.
Something was wrong. I could see it in Maggie’s face—the way her skin had gone pale, the tightness around her mouth, the worry etched into every line of her expression.
“Kat,” she said quietly.
My stomach dropped.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.
Cami stepped forward, her hands twisting together nervously. Her eyes were red-rimmed, but not from panic, from something else. Guilt, maybe. Or fear.
“Frankie’s gone,” she said, her voice carefully controlled.
The world stopped.
Frankie’s gone.
“What?” The word came out strangled, barely recognizable as my own voice.
“She’s not in her room,” Maggie said carefully. “And Nox is gone too.”
I stood up so fast the world tilted. My vision blurred at the edges, and I had to grab the porch railing to keep from falling.
“What do you mean, she’s gone?” I demanded. “When did you last see her?”
“Last night,” Cami whispered, still not meeting my eyes. “We went to bed and when I woke up this morning, she wasn’t there.”
Her voice cracked on the last word, but it wasn’t the crack of someone who’d just discovered their friend was missing. It was the crack of someone who was carrying a secret.
“No.” I shook my head violently. “She wouldn’t just leave. She wouldn’t—”
