“I’m going back to that low-rent, Bates Motel, nightmare of a room and getting my stuff. Then, I’m escaping this horrible town. And I’m escaping this horrible H.G. Well’s novel of a century. And I’m escaping horrible you.”
“You can’t do that.”
“Of course I can!” Addy vaguely noticed all the attention they were attracting with their across-the-street screaming match, but she didn’t much care. “I’m through with being Calamity Jane! I’m forgetting I ever met you and got mixed up in all your craziness, Cade!”
“My craziness? Most everything you say is incomprehensible, lady!”
She was on a roll now, so she disregarded that. “I’m forgetting that I sort of love you! I’m forgetting you even exist! In fact, I’ve already started forgetting everything, except your colossal stupidity!”
“Is that Voltyn trash bothering you, woman?” Some grizzled prospector-looking guy called from a tavern doorway in slurred English. Like most of the men in Big Rock, someone had tricked him into believing that the shirtless-overalls look was the trend to embrace this season. Maybe they all wanted to prove their manhood by braving the cold in the stupidest way possible. “I’ll teach the uppity freak his place and show you what a human male can…”
For the first time ever, Cade didn’t accept the anti-Voltyn smack talk. “Shut the fuck up!” He roared, cutting the bastard off.
“Stay out of it!” Addy shouted at the same time. Since she was stalking right passed the bigoted jerkoff, she gave him a shove. Way passed the legal limit and caught off guard, he stumbled backwards through the swinging doors in a grimy, flailing mass of bad clothes.
“Godsdamn it.” Cade’s purple gaze stayed locked on Addy. People had to dodge out of his way to avoid being knocked over, as he prowled down the elevated wooden planks on his side of the road. “Do not start fights with huge men in bars for me. I will defend myself, alright?”
“I can’t hear a word you’re saying, because you’ve ceased to exist here in AddyLand.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“It means I’m leaving on the first wagon train out of town and you’re not invited!”
“You see what I mean? Your language makes no sense! ‘Train’ isn’t even a word.”
“Of course it’s a word!”
“You’re just making up craziness to… Shit!” Not watching where he was going, Cade tripped over a crudely-painted wooden sign advertising half-priced sex acts. He quickly caught his balance, shoving the three-sided sandwich board out of the way to continue his pursuit. “Just calm down and listen to me.”
“I am calm, you dickhead. I’m also going home. That should make you very happy, since you’ll be free of me and our maybe-baby!”
“I want you to go home, but I don’t want to be free of you or the maybe-baby.”
Addy disregarded that. “I’m buying a nice house in the suburbs, giving the maybe-baby my name, and telling her completely fabricated stories about how her daddy wasn’t an asshole!”
“Damn it, our possible-daughter is mine too and I want both of you with me. If you would just…”
Whatever else he planned to say was lost by the thundering of hooves. The street was suddenly filled with sanbors. Hundreds of buffalo-sized lizards came tearing through the middle of the town. The horses tied to hitching posts reared, screaming with panic and trying to escape. The ground shook. Windows broke. Mud and snow flew through the air as the sanbors ran down everything in their path like something out of The Lion King.
Addy grabbed hold of the side of the building for balance. “Cade!”
He shouted something back at her, but she couldn’t hear him. The tsunami of green monsters crashed against the walkway on Cade’s side of the street. Wooden planks exploded into splinters. The people who couldn’t dive out of the way were pulled under and disappeared in the crushing onslaught.
Addy’s heart stopped as she lost sight of him. “Cade!”
Did he get out of the way in time? She wasn’t sure. Oh God, what if he was hurt? Addy looked around, desperate to find a way through the rampaging sanbors. Without Cade, she would have nothing. She loved him so much. She had to get to him and make sure he was okay.
Before she could figure out a way to wade through the chaos and save him, someone grabbed her. Addy let out a cry of surprise as she was dragged into the abandoned church behind her. A man’s huge hands lifted her up and she instinctively struggled against his grip.
Items fell from the pocket of her coat, as they fought. Her iPhone spiraled to the ground, the screen cracking as it bounced. Her precious bottle of nail polish tumbled free. It burst open and purple varnish splashed everywhere. That pissed her off more than the loss of irreplaceable Steve Job-sian technology. Some idiot just ruined her gift from Cade!”
“Goddamn it!” Addy fought against him. “Let me go!”
“Stop it!” Quel snapped, spinning her around. “This is my time, woman!” His transparent-y skin had been burned from the fire Cade started back at the Outlanders’ camp, his yellow eyes crazed. “You’re coming with me, and accessing your magic, and I am leaving this place forever!”
“Are you out of your mind?!”
“You must open the portal to your world.” Gripping her shoulders, Quel gave her a shake. “I have your book, so now I know the way to the Apple Store.” Shoving her away, he held up her lost copy of Brown’s Pocket Guide. He’d folded back the pages to the photo of Strickland Geyser. “That’s why I’ve done all this! To escape my mother and all poly-eyers who look down on me.”
Addy abruptly recalled Jacobi’s words when they were planning to break Cade out of jail. The plan he’d stolen from some adventure story: Crooks stampeded this herd of sanbor straight down the street to distract the sheriff.
“You set the lizards loose.” She gestured towards the pandemonium outside. “This is your fault!”
“Well, how else could I get you away from the Voltyn?”
“You crazy son of a bitch! If anything happens to Cade, I’ll turn you inside out!”
“That bastard will be fine. I’m not lucky enough for him to die.” Quel smirked. “Not that you’ll be seeing him, again. Ever. You and I are headed back to the glorious past, human.”
“I’m not going anywhere with…”
She didn’t get to finish that denial. He slammed his fist into her jaw and Addy hit the ground, stars dancing in her vision. Quel grabbed her under her arms, dragging her towards the back door. There was no one else in the shell of the church, so nobody saw him hauling her away. She was being kidnapped in broad daylight, but it would be like she just vanished.
The last thing thought through Addy’s head, before the world went dark, was that Cade would have no idea where she went…
Chapter Sixteen
Careful planning could mean the difference between a dream vacation and a nightmare.
Prioritize what you really want to accomplish this trip, so you don’t miss any of your favorite sights and activities.
Only you know what will make you happiest.
Brown’s Glampling Tours Official Pocket Guide
“She wouldn’t just leave.” Cade shook his head, desperation burning at his gut. “She wouldn’t go without even a word. Something must have happened.”
The possibilities of what that “something” could be circled around his head like vultures. He had to get her back. It didn’t matter what it took, he was getting her back. Without Adeline, Cade’s life was an empty pit. Where was she? Not knowing what else to do, he started on another pointless search. They’d already looked in all the buildings twice and found nothing. The Westins had been looking for Adeline for hours with no success.
She was gone.
“She wasn’t caught in the stampede.” Jake reminded him, following along for another sweep of the polis. “She didn’t take any of the horses. She wasn’t arrested. Maybe Addy left on her on. She was pretty pissed at you, Cade.”
He didn’t wa
nt to recall that their last words had been shouted at each other. It just made him even crazier. Cade shook his head, still refusing to believe she’d leave him. “Addy loves me.” He hadn’t realized how deeply he believed that until she went missing. Adeline couldn’t shut off her feelings, no matter how angry she was. The woman loved with her whole heart. He felt it.
“I know she does,” Jake agreed, “but maybe she just needed some time to cool down. You can be pissed at someone and still love them. Maybe she went for a walk or something.”
“She wouldn’t go for a fucking walk until she was sure I wasn’t killed by the sanbors. Addy would’ve checked on me, and you, and Deke and then gone back to being pissed.”
Jake could dispute that logic, but he clearly wanted to. “Maybe she intended to come right back, but she got lost or something.” He suggested, grasping at straws. The thought of Addy being in actual danger had him pale and terrified. “The girl doesn’t have a great sense of direction. Maybe we’re overreacting.”
“I think some lonely asshole stole her.” Deke muttered, scanning around for likely suspects. Blue eyes narrowed at some random bystander. “We should start questioning every pervert we see.”
“In Big Rock, that’ll take all day.” Jake paused to peer behind a scraggly bush, in case Addy was hiding under the sparse branches. “What if she wandered outside of the polis and she’s trapped in the snow? She’ll freeze to death, while we waste time.”
Cade tuned out their bickering. He couldn’t think about someone harming Adeline or picture her perishing in a snowbank. It would drive him mad. Voltyn instincts were going wild. He couldn’t focus on anything except finding her.
He ran both hands through his hair and squeezed his eyes shut. “Tell me where you are.” He whispered. “I’ll come for you, Addy. Just tell me where you are.” It was like the woman had disappeared into the ether.
Or been swept back to her own time.
The thought kept running around Cade’s mind, no matter how hard he tried to ignore it. What if she’d been transported into the past? How could he possibly get to her, if he wasn’t even sure when she was? He’d thought protecting her was all that mattered, and that was a big fucking part of it, but his feelings went even deeper than that. Human emotions mixed with Voltyn instincts and now he knew that he’d been thinking far too narrowly.
Addy was all that mattered.
The woman herself was cornerstone of his life. The love he felt for her was everything bright and real in the world. Cade would wither away without the sunlight she brought to him. He couldn’t be trapped here, hundreds of years away from her. He wouldn’t survive. He wouldn’t want to. He had to find a way to reach her and…
Something suddenly caught Cade’s eye. The abandoned church was directly in front of him, the fading sunlight reflecting through one of the broken windows. For just a heartbeat, he saw something on the decrepit floor shine… purple? Yeah. Something shined purple.
He strode forward, his head tilting when he got close enough to recognize the distinctive color. The nail paint he’d bought Addy now festooned the rotten boards. No one else in this dismal place would own something so bright. Cade crouched down, his gaze scanning the dirty ground. Someone had broken the bottle, spilling the expensive varnish. While it was still wet, their boots had stepped in it, tracking blotchy footprints out the back.
Footprints which were interspersed with ominous trails of paint.
Cade’s jaw ticked. A smaller person had been dragged out behind the man in the boots, leaving long purple lines with the heels of her shoes. A woman who wasn’t walking on her own, at the mercy of someone bigger and stronger.
Adeline.
“I told you the girl got snatched.” Deke whispered, coming up behind him and scanning the area. “Addy wouldn’t have left willing. Not before she kicked your ass.”
Cade slowly got to his feet, his heart hammering. “Alright.” He said in a faraway voice and looked over at his brothers. “Let’s go get her back.”
“How?” Jacobi’s aura was filled with fissures of frantic yellow. He bent down to pick up the broken pieces of Addy’s boxy, white “eye-phone.” Whatever the device once saw, it was now blinded forever. “How are we gonna find out who did this? We have to get her back, Cade! We need some kind of plan.”
“I have a plan.” Rage and panic ate through Cade like the acrid bite of a green-ringed serrapand. “I’m going to kill every single person in this polis --one by one-- until she’s returned to me.”
“Now that’s a godsdamn plan.” Deke pulled out his laz-gun and headed for the back door. “I’ll see if they left us a trail to follow. We’ll start with slaughtering whoever’s at the end of it.”
Cade barely heard him. All the emotions that Voltyn could indeed feel overwhelmed him. His attention kept returning to the spilled nail paint, the sight of it shaking loose his momentary, eye-of-the-storm calm. His whole body began to shake. It was small and feminine and fragile...
…And some evil son of a bitch had smashed it.
Cade gave a bellow of pure fury. His powers slammed out, rocking the entire room. Electricity blasted into the walls of the church, scorching a menacing pattern of lightning bolts into the wood. Somebody had taken Addy --had hurt Addy-- and that somebody was going to die, along with everyone they fucking knew.
Jacobi ducked as chucks of timber rained down. “Shit, Cade! That’s not going to help!”
Maybe not, but he was beyond stopping it. For the first time in his life, he felt every bit of his Voltyn powers… and he was actually in control of them. They filled him from the inside out, lighting every gant of his skin. His vision wavered, much like it had when he made love to Addy. He could still see the church, but he could also see so much… more.
Prismatic colors floated passed, the residue left behind by all people who’d been there. Old and young. Human and Voltyn. Holy and sinful. Cade could see the misty remains of so many auras. Like fingerprints, it was all left behind. Every conceivable shade danced around him, some faded with age and some still fresh.
And right in the middle of all of it, glowing with a magic all its own, was Addy’s sparkling aura. No one else had that unique color of gold. He could see exactly where she’d been, using the glittering stamp she’d left of the air.
Cade gasped in wonder. The destructive force of his energy eased back, but it took surprisingly little focus to keep the auras in view. The Voltyn powers were a natural part of him, just as Addy always said. The heritage he’d always been ashamed of was going to save his woman.
“What do you see?” Deke asked, watching him closely. “Do you know who took her?”
“Yes.” Quel’s distinctive gray aura was encroaching on Addy’s, leaving no doubt who the abductor was. “Outlanders. They took her to Wilderness. I know it.”
Deke began cursing in both languages. His aura swirled with fear and rage, as he looked down at his missing hand. “Four gods, Cade…” He trailed off, passing his remaining palm over his face and trying to stay calm. “I can’t go back out there, again. I just can’t do it. Don’t ask me.”
Cade knew better than anyone what the Wilderness War had been like for him. Deke was finally becoming himself again, so he hated the thought of his brother being thrown back into his worst nightmares. There wasn’t another choice, though. “It’s Addy, Deke. Do I have to ask?”
Deke exhaled a long breath, his eyes closing. They all knew the answer. “No, you don’t.” He finally said. “No one ever has to ask me help my family. The Wilderness already took too much from me. I won’t let it take Adeline.”
“Are you sure?” Cade asked. “I can do this on my own if I have to.”
“I love that girl like she’s my little sister. I’m going with you.” He met Cade’s eyes. “We’ll get Addy back, if I have to walk into hell itself.”
“Me too.” Jacobi volunteered.
Cade and Deke both frowned at him, neither of them liking the idea of the boy anywhere near
the Outlanders.
“I’m going.” Jake insisted, seeing their hesitation. “Addy’s my family, too.” He looked over at Cade, his face serious. “I won’t screw it up. I swear.”
The kid wasn’t going to back down. “Alright.” Cade said quietly.
“Good.” Deke stalked out the door. “We’ll all go die together. I’ll get the horses.”
Cade shook his head. He did want to risk his brothers, but he really did need their help. Besides, he doubted he could stop them, even if he wanted to. Addy was the most important part of their world. The heart they’d been missing.
The Westins would give everything for her.
“Addy’s too valuable for the Outlanders to harm, right?” Jacobi needed to be reassured that they’d see her again. “They’ll want to sell her or something, so they won’t eat her. We’ll just go kill them all and we’ll get her back. We can track them, can’t we?”
Doubtful. Cade had a bead on Addy’s sparkling aura, but he wasn’t sure how far he could follow it once they left the church. Knowing the Outlanders, they’d be riding hard and using routes that only they knew. It would be easy to lose the trail.
Luckily, he didn’t need to follow their exact path to find them. “I know where Quel’s taking her.” He said quietly.
Cade remembered the white knuckle grip the Outlander had had on that book. His crazed desire to see Addy’s world. There was only one place that son of a bitch wanted to be and it was the last spot Cade wanted Addy to go. The spot where she could be transported back to the past, forever beyond his reach.
Yellowstone.
***
This was all Cade’s fault.
All of it.
If he hadn’t been such an asshole, Addy wouldn’t have been so angry at him. If she hadn’t been angry at him, she wouldn’t have been on the opposite side of the street during the stampede. If she hadn’t been on the opposite side of the street, Quel wouldn’t have grabbed her at the church. If Quel hadn’t grabbed her, she wouldn’t be riding to Yellowstone, and fighting morning sickness.
Cowboy from the Future Page 24