The softness disappears and focus reappears.
“Reap,” he says firmly. “We have to leave. Now.”
Reality slams back into me all at once.
The fact we just turned this place into a crime scene soaked in blood.
Thunder shakes the building again outside.
I nod, shoving the darkness back down far enough to function.
Tyler goes over to the monitor and collects the hard drive, shutting the entire system off.
Together we move quickly through the warehouse corridors until all that remains is the storm outside and the echo of our boots against concrete.
Tyler’s hand suddenly closes around mine, pulling me out of the spiral.
“Cass.” He whispers.
I look up at him.
Rain pours through the partially opened bay doors behind him, when an alarm goes off on his watch.
Time’s up and we run for the SUV.
Cold rain pounds into us when we get outside, soaking through my clothes right away. Tyler yanks the passenger door open for me before circling toward the driver’s side.
The moment we’re both inside with the doors shut there’s nothing but silence and our heavy breathing.
“If we don’t act fast, we’ll miss our chance to cornerthemonsterinyourcloset868and his friends in the middle of their poker game.” Tyler warns.
I grit my teeth, my anger boiling over at everything I’d just witnessed in that warehouse.
“We’ve seen what he orchestrates,” I continue, my fists clenching. “He turned pain into a fucking game, we end this tonight.”
Tyler glances at me, his eyes widening at the intensity in my tone. He fires the vehicle to life, punches it into drive, and buries his foot into the accelerator. Gravel sprays behind us as the SUV tears away from the warehouse and into the night.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The rain comes down in sheets, hammering against the windshield so hard the wipers can hardly keep up. When lightning strikes, it lights up the unkept backroads of Keytown then everything plummets right back into darkness.
I have one hand locked on the steering wheel while the other rests near the Glock tucked beside my thigh.
Cassidy sits in the passenger seat reserved, her attention drifting between the road ahead and the world sliding past outside her window.
Streetlights ended miles ago. Out here there’s nothing apart from stretches of wet road, overgrown brush, and the occasional rusted mailbox slanted over near the ditch line. The further we drive into Keytown, the more isolated everything becomes.
The kind of place a man, if you can call him that, would choose.
Thunder claps as I glance at my laptop mounted near the dash. Satellite images of the property flicker back from the screen.
It’s a huge lot with a dense tree line and one entry road leading from the main one.
The house itself is far back from the main road, secluded behind clusters of dead pines and collapsing fencing. It’s old andrun-down which makes it the perfect camouflage. It’s a beige one-story, the siding has faded from years of heat, and the gutters that used to be white are now covered in grime. The walkway leading to the front door is crushed gravel.
“They’re still there,” I tell her, eyes roaming over to the surveillance feed pulled from a traffic camera half a mile out. “No movement.”
Cassidy doesn’t answer.
