The Missing

by Shiloh Walker

  It was quiet.

  She couldn’t hear any sign of life, but she could sense him. Closing her eyes, she focused on the trail Leon hadn’t bothered wiping clean. When she opened her eyes again, she started circling around the house, searching for . . .

  There.

  The doors to the storm cellar were closed but unlocked. The hinges squeaked, and in the silence of the night, they sounded terribly loud. Logically, she knew they weren’t all that loud, but still, she winced. Opening just one door, she ducked inside, and Cullen followed close on her heels.

  At the bottom of the steps was a door. It looked out of place in the old storm cellar, clean, extremely modern, and very locked. Leaning against the door, she strained to hear something, but there was nothing. Either nobody was making any noise on the other side, or that door was damn good at muffling sound.

  She had her lock picks on her this time, and she pulled them out and went to work, cursing the dim light that fell through the sole open door. Cullen had a flashlight, but she’d told him not to turn it on unless she said so, and she didn’t want to use it now and risk alerting Leon to their presence.

  Sweat dripped down her face as she worked. She’d done this in darker, worse conditions than this, and she could do it again.

  There: a faint clicking sound. She turned the doorknob, and it moved, but still, the door wouldn’t open. Damn it. Obviously somebody really wanted the door to stay closed. She stood and gave Cullen a look. He didn’t even have to ask. She stood by as he kicked the door. Wood groaned, but it didn’t give. He swore and then struck again, harder this time.

  Wood splintered, and the door flew open with a crash. Light spilled into the stairwell and they both stood, frozen with shock, for a brief second.

  Leon was in there, all right, his face wet with sweat, his eyes bright and mad—with a whip in his hand that came screaming through the air to land on the slender, naked back of a girl who looked to be all of thirteen or fourteen.

  Her uncle wasn’t aware of them. It was like nothing in the world existed, save for the helpless girl lying facedown in front of him. Blood streaked down her back and sides in rivulets, pooling on the table where she lay restrained. Thick leather straps held her in place at her waist, her thighs, each of her hands, each of her feet. Her head was turned so that she faced them, but there was no sense in her eyes. Nothing but terror and pain. As the whip landed, she made no sound.

  It would have been hard to, because Leon had effectively gagged her with a piece of silvery gray duct tape. Above the strip of tape, her face was bruised and battered. Taige could see the imprint of a hand on her cheek, and the telltale bruising around her throat where somebody had wrapped their hands around her neck and squeezed. Both of her eyes were bruised and so swollen, it was amazing she could even open them.

  It took less than a few seconds to take all of that in, but it seemed forever. Like a movie trapped in slow motion, Taige could see herself turn to look at Leon, each movement painstakingly slow. She was aware of each breath, each heartbeat. Fury knotted her muscles.

  Still unaware of Taige, Leon lifted the whip, screaming out, “Will you repent?”

  His own fury had blinded and deafened him, because he remained unaware of them until Taige pounced. Time sped back up as she leaped for him, using her weight to ride him to the floor, and there, she started to hit him.

  Over and over. Pain shot up her arm, hands grabbed her and tried to pull her away, and still, she pummeled Leon. He screamed and swore, words that no decent preacher would ever speak. He struggled underneath her, and without thinking twice, Taige used her mind, blasting through his shields to hold him immobile with her gift. “You sick son of a bitch. You bastard,” she screamed at him, seeking some outlet for the fury inside her.

  But nothing helped. The anger grew, threatened to overwhelm her. Hands once more grabbed her arms, and Taige struggled against Cullen as he pulled her off and hauled her away from Leon, kicking and screaming.

  Part of him wanted to turn around and finish the job as Cullen struggled to control Taige. She fought against him with the strength and fury of a tiger, snarling, practically growling. “Taige.” He called her name over and over, but there was no response. Finally, he dragged her over to the table where the girl was still lying, breathing shallowly and staring into space with the blank gaze of a doll. “Taige, damn it, she needs your help. She needs us.”

  Leon lay in a pummeled, bloodied mess behind them. Taige fought a little more, squirming, but Cullen used his body to block Taige’s view of her uncle, and that seemed to break through the rage, reaching the woman inside. Her breath wheezed in and out of her lungs. Slowly, cautiously, he reached up and cupped her face, forced her to look at the girl. “She needs us, Taige.”

  The girl. Taige blinked and stared at the girl. Yeah, focus on the girl. The girl’s eyes stared at her, but Taige knew the girl saw nothing. She’d retreated into the safety of her mind. Whether or not she’d ever come out was something that only time would tell. At least she’s alive . . . But Taige knew there could easily come a time when the girl didn’t share that sentiment.

  Taige had experienced brutality at the hands of her uncle before, but never anything like this. Not in her worst nightmares. “We need to get her up,” she said, her voice hoarse. It hurt to speak, hell, it hurt to even breathe. She pulled the phone from her belt and punched in 911. After calling for an ambulance and the police, she disconnected and then called Jones.

  The team would be there in another fifteen minutes, and after he told her that, Jones laid into her for going in alone. Just as before, she glanced at Cullen and told her boss, “I’m not alone.”

  “One of these days, you’ll find yourself in a mess that we can’t get you out of,” Jones said. He had the same tone that a principal would have used on a recalcitrant student, and Taige cared for it about as much as that student would have.

  “Kiss ass, Jones,” she said sourly, and then she disconnected before he could start demanding some kind of status report.

  The status is that my sorry, son-of-a-bitching uncle is still breathing. Fighting to control her rage, she glanced back at Leon again. He still lay on the ground, moaning, his breath whistling through his busted nose.

  At the moment, he was unconscious. More than anything, she wanted to pull the Glock at her side, level it at his head, and pump him full of lead. She wanted it with an intensity that scared her.

  Hatred—finally, Taige understood the hatred that had driven him, and it was that knowledge alone that kept her from pulling her gun. She wanted him dead too much to do it herself.

  “Watch him.”

  Cullen smirked. “Great idea, baby. Like I don’t want to finish him off myself.”

  Despite herself, she laughed. “Kind of like asking the wolf to guard the sheep,” she murmured as she approached the girl, staying where she could see the girl’s face. That way, the girl could see her—in theory. But she was lying there, still, motionless, her eyes not even tracking Taige’s movements. “God help her,” she whispered softly. “It’s okay, sweetheart. He can’t hurt you again. He can’t hurt you . . .”

  Nothing Taige did or said had any effect. The girl didn’t so much as blink when Taige touched her, and if it wasn’t for the warmth of her flesh and the blood still trickling from the open wounds on her back, Taige would have been checking for a pulse. Her pupils were mere pinpricks, and her breathing came in short, shallow pants. “She’s in shock,” she muttered grimly.

  Damn it.

  She didn’t how what in the hell do for her other than free her. Rolling her onto her back would be best, so Taige could elevate the girl’s feet, but her back looked like raw meat, crisscrossed with so many open, bleeding cuts. “Can you carry her out of here?” Taige asked quietly. The ambulance would be there soon, but Taige just couldn’t let her remain on the table another second. She went to work on the thick leather straps, freeing the ones at her waist and thighs first. The blood on the straps and t
he tears in Taige’s eyes made it slow going.

  “Should we move her?” Cullen asked softly.

  Her voice shook as she answered, “I don’t know. But we can’t leave her here.” She finally got the first strap undone and went to work on another. Cullen moved around to the girl’s feet and started working the ankle straps.

  The girl finally made a sound, a soft, broken little moan. Taige wanted to touch her, reassure her somehow. But she had a feeling that anything she did would make it worse. So instead of touching her, she murmured, “It’s okay, sugar. He can’t hurt you.”

  She finished the wrist strap and looked up to see Cullen freeing the last ankle strap. Looking into his eyes was like looking clear into hell. There was rage there, something deep and fathomless. His eyes burned into Taige’s, and she watched as he slowly turned his head, his eyes seeking out Leon’s battered body.

  Leon stirred.

  A feral snarl twisted Cullen’s features, and she watched as the air around him turned dark and red with rage. The power of his fury broke through his natural mental shields, and it pushed her back a step or two. Worse, it fueled her own rage. Her vision went red, blood roared in her ears, and nothing mattered more than getting her hands on Leon and tearing him apart.

  Nothing but the girl behind her.

  A second, pathetic whimper broke through her fury. It had little effect on Cullen. It was her turn now; he’d broken through her rage only seconds ago, and now she’d have to reach him. As much as she hated it, she reached out, laid a hand on his arm as he paced forward, intent on Leon. “Cullen, I can’t carry her.”

  Her soft voice reached him, although Cullen wouldn’t have thought anything could get through to him at that point. Not when he had a vicious, gut-wrenching need to maim and kill. In theory, he understood primal rage. He’d written about it in his books, and he thought he even understood it after what had happened to his mother. This went deeper than that, though. Deeper than anything he’d ever felt. He wanted to shrug Taige’s hand aside and get to work, but instead, he turned his head and looked at her.

  That one look, and then he could kill Leon.

  But looking at her now, it was like time disappeared, and they once more stood in his room on the day she’d come to him after his mother had been killed. She’d tried to reach out to him. Tried to help him, and he in return had done something that had nearly destroyed them both.

  His eyes closed. He felt his feet moving, and he looked up, found himself moving to the girl. Get her safe first. That had to come first.

  Fate was a bitch. An ugly, nasty bitch. Sliding his arms under Leon’s latest victim, he saw the movement out of the corner of his eye. He saw it but couldn’t make sense of it until the cracking sound filled the room. He heard Taige’s scream, turned his head, and watched as Leon stood, his whip in hand, an unholy light of evil joy in his eyes. He raised the whip again. Taige was on her hands and knees, still blinded by the shock of the pain. Cullen could feel that pain. It had knocked the breath out of her, and she was still reeling from it, couldn’t see through it.

  But Cullen could. Time slowed down to a crawl, and he could see the braided tail of the whip moving through the air. Instinct placed him between Taige’s body and Leon, his forearm lifted. Adrenaline numbed the pain as the whip curled around his arm, twining like a snake. Leon tried to jerk the whip back, but Cullen reached up with his other hand and jerked, pulling with a savage strength. The whip flew out of Leon’s hand, and Cullen caught the butt of it.

  It was heavy, weighted. Closing his fist around one end, he used the other end as a club, striking Leon square in the temple. He fell like a stone, and Cullen moved to Taige. She still crouched on her hands and knees. Under the whip’s lash, her shirt had torn, and he could see the long, ugly mark. The skin had split, and blood welled, trickling down her sides. Already the edges of the wound were swollen and bruised. “I’m going to kill him,” Cullen swore.

  Taige wheezed, fought to speak through the pain. Dear God, it was unreal. How had that girl lived through this? “Get . . . her . . . first.”

  Through the sheen of tears, she saw him look back at Leon. Taige shook her head. “Damn it, get her out!” Gritting her teeth, she shoved herself to her feet. Adrenaline had started to course through her body, and she could breathe through the pain now—barely. She swayed and had to lock her knees to remain upright. But she’d be damned if she went down again. Jaw clenched, she pulled her gun and looked Cullen square in the eye. His turquoise eyes bore into hers, burning with that bloodthirsty, frenzied rage. “The girl, first,” she said hoarsely.

  Then, if Cullen wanted to rip Leon apart limb from limb, she wouldn’t give a hot damn. She’d even help hide the body.

  She swayed on her feet, her hand clenched around the butt of her Glock. She clenched it so hard, the metal bit into her flesh. She focused on the gun, the weight of it, the solidity. Fantasized about lifting it, leveling it between Leon’s eyes, and pulling the trigger.

  Taige sensed the team’s arrival before she heard them, and she made the deadly mistake of looking away from Leon. The old man’s rage must have given him speed, because she hadn’t ever seen him move like that, with venomous, deadly accuracy. She saw the gun in his hand, although where it had come from, she didn’t know. The fiery injury on her back had slowed her reflexes, and she couldn’t lift her own weapon in time.

  She heard the shot echo through the basement, felt the pain explode through her.

  Then everything else ceased to exist.

  “NO!” The word tore from Cullen as he watched Leon lift the gun. Yes. Fate was a serious bitch. Instinct had demanded he kill Leon, but the last time he’d let his rage dictate his every move, he’d shattered Taige. This time, he’d let her reach him, let her convince him to get the girl out, and because he hadn’t listened to his own instincts, she was going . . .

  No.

  No.

  He watched her fall, saw her eyes go wide.

  Until he had his arm around Leon’s neck, Cullen didn’t even realize he’d moved. He jerked the older man off his feet with a savage strength brought on by rage. He felt bone crack, felt Leon go limp. Then he let go. Leon’s gun had fallen from limp fingers, and Cullen, without thinking, stooped, grabbed it, and then turned, aimed between Leon’s wide, unseeing eyes, and pulled the trigger.

  There’d be no getting up this time.

  Dropping the gun, he ran to Taige’s side and fell to his knees. Her eyes were open, wide and glassy, her breathing coming in irregular, harsh gasps. Blood trickled from the corner of her mouth. Instinctively, Cullen covered the wound in her chest with his hand and pressed down against the flow of blood. The agony slicing through him was unlike anything he’d ever experienced. Cullen understood loss.

  But this wasn’t loss.

  This was death, hers and his own. If she died, she was going to take the better part of his soul with him. “Don’t die, baby,” he whispered. “Please don’t die.”

  As Taige’s breathing slowed, as her heart faltered under his hands, he died a little inside. “God, please,” he prayed, begging. “Don’t take her now. Not now.”

  IT hadn’t ever felt like this, Taige mused as the gray wrapped around her. Usually it was warm, almost comforting as it guided her along the paths she must follow. Even when it came on hard and strong, it wasn’t ever cold. It wasn’t painful. And always, she was filled with a certainty of what she had to do.

  But now? Although there was a new path before her, there was nothing comforting about it. Somehow she knew some ugly piece of hell didn’t await her at the end of this journey, but she didn’t want to go.

  It was cold, and as she drifted along, it grew colder. Darker. Behind her, she felt something warm. Then she heard a voice. His voice—the warmth of him, the strength of him. Cullen—

  He called her name, and she could feel him trying to reach her. If a person’s will alone could anchor somebody, his would do it.

  But then, right when she fo
und the strength to reach for him, he was pulled away. Something intruded. Others came. She heard their voices, felt their presence. Chaotic confusion. More voices. God, the pain. It ate at her. Tore at her, ripped into her with jagged teeth and claws. The gray, as cold as it was, was better than this pain, and she retreated back into it, even though she could faintly hear Cullen’s voice, even though she could feel the presence of friends crowding around and reaching out to her.