Vigo stared at Old Mountain Road. “You don’t think…?”
“Do it,” Hawk said.
Vigo turned the wheel and we started up the mountain.
None of us were saying the thing we were all thinking: if we didn’t find Cassie soon, we were going to have to call Bram.
And none of us wanted to call Bram.
I couldn’t speak for anyone else, but for me it was about more than the fact that Bram was going to go ballistic when he realized Cassie had gone missing on our watch.
It was about the story Cassie had told us: Bram in the car with his parents when they were driven off the road, Bram stuck in the car for twelve hours, his and Cassie’s parents already dead.
Don’t get me wrong, Bram Montgomery scared the fuck out of me, and it wasn’t because I was a pussy. It was because I’d heard the stories about the Butchers, about what they did to people who went afoul of their operations in Blackwell Falls.
Being afraid of the Butchers — and especially Bram — wasn’t a sign of cowardice.
It was a sign of sanity.
But it wasn’t fear alone that made me dread the call to Bram. It was that image of him, just a teenager, trapped in a car on the mountain with his dead parents, his face bleeding from the gash across his face, wondering if he was going to die alone in a coffin of twisted metal.
He’d been through enough, and I dreaded the possibility of bringing him bad news about the last remaining member of his family, especially when Cassie was under our protection.
It was almost midnight as we crawled up the mountain in the G-Wagon, scanning the road silently for signs of Cassie. Even Vigo was quiet, a sure sign that he was as scared as I was.
And Iwasscared, because the truth was, I’d gotten used to having Cassie around over the last month. Had started tolikehaving her around, and not just because of the fucking.
I’d known it was bad news, and the anxiety filling my body was exhibit A: I wasn’t used to giving a shit and I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to.
I was turning this over in my mind — the double-edged sword of caring, the knife’s edge of happiness and vulnerability — when I caught a flash of something on the side of the road.
“Wait!” I said, already reaching for the door.
I was halfway out of the car by the time Vigo put the car in park.
The road was deserted, a wall of granite rising on the right, a steep drop-off on the left.
And a broken guardrail, the metal twisted where it had held next to the break.
I could hardly think for the blood rushing in my ears.
Vigo was over the side of the road in less than ten seconds, Hawk on his heels.
“Stay there,” Hawk shouted without looking back. “Call 911.”
I pulled out my phone and dialed, my heart hammering in my chest as Vigo and Hawk slid into the forested ravine.
“911, what’s your emergency?”
“I need an ambulance.” I noted with detachment that I was breathless even though I hadn’t been running. I didn’t want to say the next thing. Saying it would make it true. “And search and rescue. Someone’s gone off the road on the mountain.”
Not just someone, I realized. My someone.
5
CASSIE
I cameto consciousness all at once, panic descending like a heavy shroud when I realized I couldn’t see.
