Page 176 of Burning Ember
Edge grabs me. “What the fuck’s goin’ on?”
“I don’t have time to explain. Find Griz,” I shout as I take the stairs two at a time, and push bodies out of my way.
God, what the fuck have I done?
I hit the first floor and see a sea of women, but not one of them her, so I race out the front door and into the parking lot.
It’s dark as fuck, and jogging forward I scan each person, bend to look under cars. When I still don’t catch sight of her, I head toward the gate.
“Did she come through here?” I spit out at Rigor.
He jumps, startled. “Who?”
I nearly say Doll, but then I realize he won’t know who I’m talking about. “Pumpkin.”
He slowly shakes his head. “No man. I haven’t seen her.”
I spend ten more minutes searching the lot again. Pulling out my phone, I call the cell I gave her. I call it three times, and each time it goes directly to voicemail. Either she turned it off or the battery’s dead.
When I get back inside, I question the girls in the main room. Lita tells me she saw her duck into the kitchen. Searching every inch of it, I find drops of her blood by the backdoor on the floor, which tells me she’s hit worse than Griz. But how badly, I don’t know and it turns my fucking stomach.
The idea that she could be seriously injured makes me even more frantic to find her.
I lose her trail in the dirt and in the dark behind the clubhouse. But spot it again a while later where she climbed the fence.
When my brothers finally figure out what’s going on and come to help, I ask Rigor to head to Bethany’s and to call me immediately if she shows up. To my surprise, Dozer volunteers to go.
“I’ll call you if Bethany hears from her,” he says as we exchange a look that says multiple things. I can trust him. The hatchet’s buried. He hopes I find her.
The only one that doesn’t help is Taz. Edge found out what he did, and knocked him the fuck out. Had Grinder haul him to his room, to sleep off the crazy.
The rest of us, at least those not too drunk to drive, comb the streets on our bikes. Somewhere between five and six in the morning, everyone else heads back, with a promise to help me search in the morning. But I keep looking.
Throughout the night and again at dawn, I check in with Dozer only to find out Ember never showed, and Bethany hasn’t heard from her.
I don’t give up. How can I, when she’s out there somewhere injured and bleeding? Fucking barefoot. She doesn’t have a dime on her, and the last time she had anything to eat was hours and hours ago.
This isn’t about getting her back so she can explain herself to the club anymore. This is about finding her before I lose her for good.
I don’t blame her for running. Not when I did what I promised I wouldn’t do. Hurt her. Threatened to keep her here against her will just like the last monster she ran from. Then Taz goes and aims a goddamn gun at her. Threatens her survival.
How can I blame her for running when she’s only doing what she does best?
Because if my girl’s anything, she’s a survivor.
Random events only make sense in the mists of chaos.
EMBER
I’d thought it more than once, but it was never truer than it is now.
I wish I’d never come here. I wish I’d never taken the help Lily offered. I wish I’d never seen his face. I wish I’d run when he’d given me the chance to.
Because then I wouldn’t have to live with this torment, the knowledge and memory of what a taste of a life withhimcould have been like, and how he had the ability to melt me with a kiss, burn me with a touch, and bring my body to life with his.
Then I wouldn’t have to experience this kind of pain. Not only the blinding pain shooting up my body from the wound on my side, but the ache of my heart curling in on itself. Withering and fading.
Was it all an act?When those words fell from his lips, it felt like he’d reached into my chest and squeezed my heart, stopped it from beating.
