Page 162 of Chasing Shelter

But I wouldn’t hide from my death either. I wouldn’t give Jasper the satisfaction.

I opened my eyes.

And the gun went off.

51

TRACE

The station had turnedinto a chaotic command post, with endless law enforcement personnel moving about the space while even more combed the streets. We’d called in everyone we could think of while my family was split between consoling Keely and peppering the streets with flyers in case someone had seen something.

But it was as if Ellie had disappeared into thin air. The problem with temporary carnivals was that they didn’t come with the sort of security and endless cameras a normal amusement park had. Instead, we were left hoping against hope that someone had noticed something.

And all I could do was sit at the damn conference table that’d become the command center and stare at the giant map that had been put up opposite me. Pushpins marked places of interest in different colors. The place Ellie was last seen. Her home. Mine. Linc and Arden’s. Colson Ranch.

And then there were the darker ones. The places Jasper haunted. The trailer he rented. The bar he frequented. The residences of all his known connections.

Rainer had been brought in for questioning and held—one less avenue for Jasper to use.

But what was he doing to Ellie in the meantime? What was she enduring because she lovedme? She’d already paid far too high a price trying to keep the people she loved happy, and now she was paying more. Sure, the circumstances were different, but what did that matter at the end of the day?

Voices swirled around me: the sound of Dex’s fingers flying across his keyboard as he stared intently at the screen, the crackle of police radios, and the words hurled across them. Each one built on the other, but I made no move to alleviate the pain. I deserved it all.

So, I just kept staring at the map as if it would somehow miraculously tell me where Ellie was. As if I would feel some flicker of knowing when I looked at a place’s name or a landmark. But I felt nothing.

Nothing but the hollowness that was life without Ellie.

“Holding it together?” Anson asked, his voice quiet as he moved behind the chair next to mine.

“Sure.” My voice didn’t sound like it belonged to me. It sounded numb. The kind of numbing blanket I’d tried to pull on the day my father nearly ran Ellie over. Only I felt everything now. Every ounce of pain and fury. Every flicker of guilt and anguish.

“Might want to work on those acting skills,” Anson muttered.

I didn’t care. I just kept staring. Waiting for something. Anything.

Anson gripped my shoulder. “You were there for me when I almost lost Rho. You helped me hold it together when I nearly broke. I’m here, Trace. We’re going to get through this, and we’re going to get Ellie back.”

I wasn’t sure what finally broke me. The kind touch? The words that felt like a vow? Whatever it was, it was too much.

I jerked back, sending the chair tumbling behind me. “You don’t know!” The words tore from my throat like barbed brambles, shredding everything in their path. “You don’t fucking know!” I grabbed the chair and hurled it at the wall, making it shatter into pieces.

The room erupted as I reached for another chair. Anson grabbed it from my hands as Dex moved in behind me. I whirled on him, buthe was too quick, and I was too out of my mind. He ducked below my swing and moved in to grab my arm and snap it behind me.

The move forced me to bend at the waist, grunting as pain ripped through my shoulder.Good.I needed to feel that pain. But I still fought against it, needing to destroy everything around me.

“Breathe,” Dex ordered. “Breathe, or I’m gonna use a pressure point and put you down.”

That had some semblance of sanity returning to my mind. A little of the fight left me, and Anson stepped in closer, crouching low. “Come on, Trace. Pull it together. She needs you.”

His words took the rest of the fight clean out of me. Sobs racked my body, violent and vicious. “I can’t lose her.”

Dex released me, and Anson grabbed me in a hard hug, holding on and not letting go. “You’re not going to lose her,” Anson gritted out. “It’s not fucking happening.”

I struggled to pull it together. To reel it in. Just long enough to find Ellie. To get her back. “She’s everything,” I whispered. “She made me see what life could be.”

“I know,” Anson rasped. “I know.”

“Trace.”

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