Something in me goes very quiet.
Not calm.
Worse.
The kind of quiet that happens when every human part of you steps back and lets the monster walk to the front.
Ryan moves closer, his voice low. “Cade.”
I hear him, but barely. My keys are already in my hand. “Where?”
“County Hospital,” Emmitt says. “Daniel, Knox, Ryker, everybody’s there. Aura and Charm are on the way.”
Easton’s head snaps toward Lyon. “They know?”
“I called them,” Lyon says, still breathing hard. “They’re already there or almost there.”
Easton’s jaw locks.
I turn toward my Rover. The guys move with me immediately. No questions. No hesitation. Ryan catches my armbefore I can rip the door open and leans in just enough that only I hear him.
“You drive like you’re trying to get to her, not like you’re trying to join her in the ER.”
I stare at him, but he doesn’t flinch.
“She needs you alive when you get there.”
That is the only thing he could have said that works.
I yank the door open. “Get in.”
Briggs climbs into the back without a word. Easton slides to the middle, and Rider slides in beside him. Ryan takes the front. Emmitt, Kellen, and Lyon run for Lyon’s truck behind us.
The drive to the hospital is a blur of wet streets, red lights, and my hands locked so tightly around the wheel my knuckles ache. Ryan keeps one hand braced against the dash, not because I’m driving out of control, but because every turn feels like restraint with tires. Briggs is silent in the back, which is how I know this is bad. Rider says something under his breath once, a low curse that sounds more like a prayer he is trying not to make.
My phone keeps buzzing, but I don’t look because I don’t know what is on the other end, and if it’s bad, it’ll need to be said to my face.
Ryan looks for me. “Aura says they’re there,” he says. “Charm too. Bliss is still being evaluated.”
That’s hospital language for nobody wants to say the thing out loud yet.
When we pull into County, I barely get the Rover in park before I’m out. The automatic doors slide open on bright fluorescent light and antiseptic air, and the smell of the place hits me like a fist. Cleaners. Coffee. Fear. That sterile hospital cold that makes everything feel too loud and too far away.
I see Daniel Bennett first.
He stands near the waiting area in a fire department sweatshirt, shoulders caved in but face hard, like grief and rageare fighting for the same body. Ryker is beside him, eyes red, jaw clenched so tightly he looks carved from violence. Knox stands near two uniformed cops and a pair of detectives in plain clothes, talking low, phone in one hand, badge clipped at his belt. Aura and Charm are near the far wall, both crying, both trying not to, holding onto each other like if one moves wrong, the other will fall.
Then Daniel sees me, and his face changes.
Not with blame.
Not even comfort.
Recognition, like he knows exactly who I am to his daughter now, even if nobody has said it out loud.
“Where is she?” I ask.
My voice comes out shaking, and I can’t give a fuck if I sound scared because I am scared.
