Page 106 of Conflict
I drop my phone on the floor and bend to pick it up just as Sarah shouts.
“Hold on!” she screams then jerks the wheel.
When I sit back up, all I see are bright lights descending upon us at an unimaginable speed, and the last thought that goes through my mind is of Shane.
Branson’s frowning at his phone when I return from the bar.
I set down two whiskeys. “What’s with the face?”
“The girls went somewhere after the concert. Ariana’s not picking up her phone,” he grumbles.
I pull mine out and see a voicemail message from nearly an hour ago. Pressing my phone up to my ear, I’m on high alert the second I hear Alyssa’s panicked tone.
“Shane.”
I have to strain to hear her whisper.
“We’re out in the desert, doing wheelies in the sand. There’s a truck out here, and I think…he’s following us. Shit—”
That’s the last word before the voicemail abruptly ends. I click to return her call, and it doesn’t even ring. It goes straight to voicemail. The worst goes through my mind. What kind of sick fucks are hiding in the Vegas desert, and who in the hell knows what he’d do to two women alone? What the fuck were they thinking, going off alone?
I replay the message for Branson. His face turns an impossible shade of red, like he’s about to explode. He rushes towards the elevator, pressing the up button over and over again until one of the doors finally opens.
He’s chanting all the way up to the penthouse suite he’d booked for the weekend. “Come on, come on, come on.”
Branson’s out the door as soon as it opens, tearing through the suite. I’m hot on his heels, and when he gets to his room, he falls to his knees so quickly that I nearly run into him. But Ariana is safe, sprawled out on their massive bed, fast asleep.
One Covington girl found; one to go.
Branson glances up at me. “Give me a moment, and then we’ll go find Alyssa.”
I nod, closing the door behind me. I rest my head back against it, trying to calm my racing heart. Trying to push away the unease in my chest.
“What’s going on?”
And it’s my turn to stumble.
Alyssa’s standing behind me, in the center of the living room, and I’m startled by her appearance. She’s covered in dirt, and a faint bruise is starting to form on her cheek.
There’s an unfamiliar girl standing next to her, equally as disheveled. She gives me a small wave. “Umm, hi, I’m Sarah.”
All I do is glare.
“And I’m going to go.”
“Where the hell have you been? I got your voicemail and it cut off right in the middle after you said something about being followed?”
She holds her phone up. “I took too many pictures during the concert and it died. Sarah, we’re old friends. She found out I was in town and wanted to take me for a joy ride.” She shrugs. “We just didn’t know how much like the movie it’d be.”
I frown, not understanding the reference. “What the hell does that mean?”
“We just made a short drive out to the desert so she could show me the dunes, do some off-roading in her Jeep. A weird truck with extremely bright lights showed up, blocking our path to get back to the road.”
I stand up straighter, my fists balled at my sides. “What happened to your face?”
She laughs but sobers when I don’t find this amusing in the least. “Sarah, or perhaps she’d be better known as Lewis Hamilton, pulled some pretty sweet maneuvers to get past the asshole. My cheek was a casualty of one of them, but it was worth it. When we finally got past their lights and could see inside the cab, it was a couple of teenage boys, probably just having some fun at our expense. They didn’t follow, and we came straight here. I was hoping you hadn’t gotten the voicemail…but I can see you did.”
“Just a couple of minutes ago. Branson came to see if Ariana was here or with you. Then we were going to start searching for you.”
She holds her arms out. “As you can see, I’m all in one piece.”
I cross the room and draw her into my arms, burying my face in her hair. “You took away about a decade off my life tonight, sunshine. I don’t know what I’d do if I ever lost you.”
Alyssa pulls back, her hand cupping my cheek. “You won’t, Shane. You don’t have to worry about that. I promise.”
I need more than words. That’s why I take her to the shower, wash every inch of her, and pour myself into her repeatedly until there’s nothing left in my heart except for her.
