by Helen Scott
She grunted.
Her vision began to swim with red, and she felt strong, stronger than she ever had before. Finally, finally, after what felt like forever, he went down. She released her hold and stood only to find Thad observing her.
She couldn’t read his face. Her vision was distorted by the color. He walked to her, long ground-eating steps making him appear before her quickly, too quickly.
Something was wrong. The red wasn’t going away.
“Breathe, just breathe, baby. I’m right here.” Thad’s voice was low and slow, like he was talking to an animal that might attack at any moment.
Was she the animal? Was that what he thought? Just because she’d taken a guard down? She thought he would have been happy at least and possibly even impressed. The guard hadn’t made a sound, hadn’t alerted anyone to their presence. She shook her head.
“Think about why we’re here, Cin. Think about Aster.” Something touched her where she didn’t expect it. She spun, bearing her teeth, trying to look as intimidating as possible.
“Woah, baby, it’s just me.” Thad’s voice came again.
“What’s going on?” Her voice sounded like a growl to her own ears. Vicious. Unrelenting.
“I’m not sure, but you need to calm down. Relax.”
“I can’t!”
“Aster wants you to live through this. If you don’t, she’s going to kick my ass, and I will let her since I’ll miss you like hell. Now focus on breathing.”
Cin took a deep breath in.
“Hey, what the hell’s going on, guys? You were supposed to catch up!” Another voice rang in her ears.
She spun toward it, snarling.
She heard the scuff of feet backing up quickly. “What the hell, Cin?”
“Back off, Brother.” Thad’s voice was low, like he didn’t want her to hear.
“Thad, man, what’s happened?” The second man’s voice sounded familiar. She knew him but couldn’t remember his name.
She couldn’t remember anyone except Aster and Thad.
Panic set in, and she sunk to the ground, scaring herself when she accidently sat on the man she had attacked.
“I’m not sure, but Cin’s latent powers seem to have begun to present themselves.”
“Now?” the other voice snapped in hushed tones.
“It’s not like either of us can control it.”
“Listen, there’s what looks like a medical facility in the outbuilding to the right. My guess is that’s where Aster is, but we are going left first. Clear out any stragglers.”
“Okay. We’ll go right and see if we can’t find Aster.”
“We’ll come to you once it’s clear, so stay put.”
Aster’s name rang in Cin’s head like church bells telling time.
Bong. One.
Bong. Two.
Bong. Three.
The red was starting to recede. She could tell where she was again and wasn’t overwhelmed with panic and anger. Definitely not a fun combo.
“Thad?” Her voice sounded croaky in her own ears.
“I’m here, babe.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s going on with me.” She hated feeling helpless more than anything in the world.
“Don’t worry about it. We’ll find Aster and figure it out as soon as we get out of here. But right now, we have to move.” Thad extended his hand and helped haul her out of the crouch she had landed in.
She followed Thad’s broad shoulders down a hallway that connected the main house to what used to be an outbuilding. The smell of bleach invaded her nostrils, tinged with the coppery scent of blood, which made Cin’s stomach turn.
Chapter 22
Cin’s heart began to constrict in her chest. What the hell did these people think they were doing? You can’t operate on someone without their consent. They are kidnappers, she reminded herself. That feral anger she had felt earlier seemed to be interested in what she was doing. She could feel it rising within her.
They stopped at an intersection of hallways.
“Let’s start left and work right?” Thad looked at her for approval.
She nodded.
The wood-and-metal theme of the main house continued through to what felt like a doctor’s office. They went down the furthest hallway, which turned out to have a series of doors coming off it.
Thad and Cin looked at each other, unsure how best to proceed. They edged down to the hallway. The frosted glass doors would have let anyone inside know they were there long before they could see who was in the room.
Cin cracked the door open while Thad stood with his tranq gun ready to fire.
When the door swung wide, the only thing they found was what looked like a private surgical suite. Thankfully the bed was empty. The tan walls and wood floor gave the impression that it all flowed together. It was only the gray cabinets on either side of the bed and the gray comforter that broke up the monotony.
They moved to the next door and the next, each one empty but ready and waiting for someone like Aster. Cin wanted to burn this place to the ground, but she knew it wouldn’t do any good. Anyone with this much money would rebuild it somewhere else.
They had moved around to the middle hallway when Cin first heard it. A creaking, groaning sound, like a tree in a storm. She tapped Thad on his shoulder and pointed to her ear, trying to silently ask if he could hear it too. He nodded. They followed the sound to its source—one of the three doors that ran the length of this hallway.
Cin cracked it open as soon as Thad was ready. She watched his face to figure out if she should be scared or not. When his gun lowered, she figured she was safe.
She could smell the forest, as though someone had plugged in pine-and-cedar-scented air fresheners. Thad moved forward through the door, slack-jawed in awe.
“Hello?” She heard his voice from where she stood frozen in the hall.
Finally, she peeked around the corner, and what she saw took her breath away. There was a beautiful woman in the center of a dirt pit who was part tree. That was the only way she could think to describe it.
Leaves and moss covered most of her skin, leaving her face exposed. The woman had hair but also had twigs and branches seeming to grow out of her head and shoulders. The flowers on the ground covered her feet, but Cin would be willing to guess they were tree-like too.
“What the . . . ?” Her voice low as she exhaled her shock. She knew that weird stuff existed in the world, but she’d never seen anything this weird before.
“Cin, I believe this is a dryad, a tree spirit.” Thad’s voice was low and reverent.
“Why is she here?”
The woman’s eyes creaked open, the bright green orbs spearing them with intelligence.
“You’re not part of the ones who torment me.” Her voice sounded like the wind howling through branches.
“No, we are here to rescue a friend. If we undo your shackles, will you be able to escape?” Thad’s voice was low and calm, soothing not only Cin’s anxiety but hopefully the dryad’s as well.
Cin hadn’t even noticed the shackles that were around the woman’s arms and legs. They looked old, the kind of thing you’d see on display in a museum. The dark, rusty metal almost blended in with her bark.
“Yes. The iron has drained my strength, but I will recover quickly as soon as I can connect to the forest outside.” Her voice had softened now that she knew they weren’t threats.
“Okay.” Thad turned to her. “Cin, can you look around the room for a key?”
She nodded and began going through the drawers and cupboards by the door. Each yielded nothing. She stole glances of Thad as she progressed. He was working on the shackles themselves. She wasn’t sure what he could do, but knowing him, he had to try something.
Drawer after drawer and cupboard after cupboard, she found nothing useful. Her heart grew heavy as she couldn’t think of a way to get the shackles off.
“I’ve got nothing,” she called to Thad.
; “Okay.” He sighed. “Listen, my name is Thad. My brothers and I are here to rescue my friend’s little sister. Let me find them, and I will come back, and between my brothers and me, we will be able to remove them.”
“As you wish.” The dryad closed her eyes again.
“Come on.” He pulled Cin away from the woman and out of the door, shutting it carefully behind them. “Let’s find Aster and the guys, and then you two can get out of here while we help her out. Sound good?”
Cin nodded, relieved that they were back on course. Guilt gnawed at her for leaving the tree woman behind, but she also knew there was nothing she could do.
They checked the other two doors in the hallway—each room was empty. Cin’s heart was starting to feel tight. What if Aster wasn’t here?
Obediently, she followed Thad around the corner to the third hallway, doubt blooming inside her. There was an emergency exit at the end and another three doors in between. If she wasn’t in these three doors, then they only had one more hallway to search. If that followed the pattern, then that would just be three more doors. They opened the first door, and her fears were immediately squashed. Her little sister lay there on the bed.
“Aster!” she called as she ran to the bed, tears stinging her eyes. “Oh my god, what have they done to you?”
As soon as she was close enough, Cin noticed the bruises and blood on her sister’s skin, each one bringing the fury she had felt earlier closer to the surface, threatening to boil over. Cin gently picked up her sister’s hand and stroked it as her mind cataloged each and every infraction.
“Aster, sweetheart, it’s Cin.” She patted her sister’s face. “Aster honey, I need you to wake up.”
Her sister’s skin was cold to the touch, and if she hadn’t been able to see Aster’s pulse beating steadily in her neck, then she had no idea what she would have done. Panic set in as she tried to figure out what was wrong and how they were going to get Aster out of here.
She turned to Thad, her eyes wide with fear.
“It’s okay. They had her hooked up to a drip of some kind, probably keeping her unconscious. I can remove it, if you want, but I can’t guarantee that’s what it is.”
“Do it.”
“We also need to find something to cut through the zip ties that are holding her feet in place.”
Cin hadn’t even noticed that, too busy looking at the split lip, swollen black eye, blood-stained hair, and plethora of other contusions and marks. Anger spun like a wild thing inside her.
Thad was next to her again. This time he had a scalpel that he was using to cut through the zip ties. He swiftly extracted Aster from the substance dripping into her through an IV and silenced the heart monitors as he removed the sensor from her sister’s finger.
“Okay, she’s all set to move as soon as Hal and Dem get here.”
“But how are we going to move her? I can’t carry her. As little as she is, I’m not strong enough.”
“I know. It’s okay. We will figure it out. I promise.”
“We need a backup plan. What if your brothers don’t come and find us?”
“I’m insulted at your lack of faith in us,” Dem’s voice sounded from behind her.
“Oh, thank God.” Relief flew through her like a bird freshly out of a cage. She ran to Dem and wrapped him in a bear hug.
“We would never not come back for you guys. I’m honestly kinda insulted that you’d think that,” he grumbled as she released him.
“Sorry, I’m worried about Aster. They had her on something that knocked her out.”
“It’s cool, little sister, we’ve got you and yours now.” Dem awkwardly patted her shoulder.
“We all ready to go?” Hal asked.
Cin assessed the two brothers in front of her, noting that they had not come away from their altercations uninjured. Hal had a nasty gash on his shoulder that was still seeping blood, and she was sure that Dem was going to have some bruises on his face given more time.
“Not quite. You guys won’t believe this, but there’s a dryad in a room one hallway over.”
“Hol-ee shit,” Dem gasped. “I thought they were extinct.”
“So did I until I saw her. It looks like they’ve had her here for a while too. If I take Aster, will you two go back and get her out?”
“No!” Cin exclaimed before she had thought it through.
They all turned to stare at her while she held her sister’s limp hand.
“What’s wrong?” Thad said, leaning closer.
“What if we get attacked on the way out? You need backup, and it can’t be me. I’m not . . .” She searched for an appropriate word, but nothing seemed to come. “Predictable,” she said for lack of anything better.
“Okay, I see what you’re saying.” Thad rubbed his chin in thought.
“I can help with the dryad. I know I can. Then you and either Hal or Dem can get Aster out of here.”
Thad and his brothers regarded her like she had a screw loose.
“Please trust me, Thad.”
Chapter 23
He didn’t want to let Cin out of his sight. She meant too much to him, but his grandmother’s words came echoing through his subconscious as he listened to his woman. She had been his for a while now, and he was only just starting to realize it. Ever since he told her he protected what was his, he had been rolling the thought around in his head and finally come to accept it. Damn straight she was his woman, and right now her beautiful hazel eyes pleaded with him.
“Okay, but only if you take Dem with you. He has at least known you for more than an hour.”
“Deal.” She stuck out her hand to him, like they were business partners instead of lovers. The thought of them just being lovers, or being casual at all, for that matter, didn’t sit well, and that shocked him. It felt a little more like love, but maybe that was the intensity of the situation.
Thad shook Cin’s hand before planting a kiss on her knuckles. He gently scooped Aster up. She barely weighed a thing to him, but he knew Cin was right. It wasn’t like she could have carried her sister, and if the two of them had been attacked, he wouldn’t have been able to defend them both. But watching Cin leave the room with Dem and go off toward the dryad was almost impossible.
“You okay, Brother?” Hal’s voice cut through the static in his stalled brain.
“Yeah, let’s go.”
They went toward the emergency exit. It might sound an alarm, but most of the guards were knocked out, and they should be out of there before anyone else caught up with them.
The door swung open, and as expected, a screeching alarm began to sound. Light momentarily blinded Thad, and he curled protectively around Aster as his eyes adjusted.
Hal was off and running before Thad had even had a chance to process anything other than the alarm. He heard it again, though, a shrill terrified scream.
He took off after his brother and tried not to jostle Aster too much for fear of making her injuries worse. As they rounded the corner, the area where all his recent visions had taken place came into view. His stomach sank. It was the hollow in between the two outbuildings that had been attached to the house. The u shape opened into a yard-type area, and at the back was an old decrepit pole barn.
The area before him was what he had dreaded seeing all day. Thad didn’t know how this was going to play out since he had seen multiple versions. What he did know was that neither Cin nor a conscious Aster were there, which was different from what he had seen previously. Instead, Hal was there with the fancy-dressed guy and the redhead from his earlier vision.
The man was dragging the struggling redhead along by the wrist to what he assumed was their car. Hal was about to barrel into them. Thad wasn’t sure what had gotten into his brother, but going in headfirst to a random situation was unlike him.
Carefully he set Aster down and tucked her against the brick work for what would have been a chimney, before he leaped into the fray.
“Let me go!” the redhead was sc
reaming as she pulled against him with all her might. “I won’t go back!”
“Hey! Why don’t you pick on someone your own size!” Hal yelled as he finally got close enough for them to realize he was there. Thad had to chuckle at that. Hal was probably head and shoulders above this guy.
The man froze and assessed both of them. “You’re trespassing.” Thad felt the man’s gaze go over his shoulder to where he had set Aster down. Rage contorted his features, and his face became a blotchy red. “That is my property you’re stealing.”
“Pretty sure a person can’t be your property in this day and age, bud,” Hal snarked at the man.
“Please help me! Don’t let him take me back!” The redhead lunged toward them.
The business man yanked her back and backhanded her. “You will pay dearly for this insubordination when we get back to the office.” He had practically snarled at her before tossing her to the ground as she clutched her face.
The man came charging at Thad, full-tilt, only to try and dodge him at the last second to get to Aster. He didn’t count on Thad’s speed, though. He was smaller than his brother, but that also meant he was more agile.
Thad grabbed him by his fancy suit jacket and used his own momentum to swing him around in Hal’s direction. He kept waiting for Norman to show up again, like he did in his vision. But so far, the little punk wasn’t there. It made some sense, since in the vision Cin had been there as well. Things were different now. The sensation that everything was out of control gnawed at him.
Hal grabbed the suit and flung the man further away from all of them. By rights, the guy should have eaten dirt, but instead he just braced himself, his feet sliding to a stop on the dirt driveway underneath.
The redhead, Robin, if he remembered correctly, came running at him, trying to get away from the psycho who had been holding her. Thad caught her and tried to soothe her.
“Hey, it’s going to be okay. Go and sit by the girl over there. She’s unconscious, but we are getting her out of here, and we can take you with us, if you want. Safer than the woods out back, yeah?”
She nodded at him a little too fast with eyes that were wide with panic.