The way she’d thrown herself into my arms tonight was playing in my mind on repeat; and even now with her pressed against me, I could still feel the way her head had felt buried into my neck, the way it had felt when she’d thrown her arms around me after I’d tried to push her back.

I’d known she’d been changing, but something had happened since the power had gone out tonight. The feisty Rachel I’d come to know over the last few weeks was gone. She was terrified, like she always should have been . . . but instead of retreating from me like I would expect her to, she was clinging to me. I didn’t understand it, but I wasn’t about to question it. Because nothing about my feelings had changed, even though everything about her had.

I’d already completely fallen in love with a girl who could never be mine. Only now, she was making it impossible for me to grasp ever letting her go.

13

Kash

MY HEAVY EYELIDS SLOWLY BLINKED OPEN when the warm body in my arms stirred, and I automatically tightened them around her waist. I buried my face in her hair and a lazy smile crossed my face.

“Morning, Sour Patch.”

She mumbled something unintelligible and I laughed as I moved her hair away to kiss her neck. “Where are you?” she asked suddenly as my hand made its way down her torso and stopped just at the edge of her underwear.

“Uh . . .” I forced out another laugh in an attempt to wash away the eerie feeling that hung in the air after her panicked question. “Should I be taking that as an insult, or—”

“Why aren’t you coming to find me, Kash!”

“What the hell?” I pushed away from Rachel at the same time her voice filled the entire room. But it wasn’t coming from the girl lying next to me. It was as if it were playing through speakers in the wall. Her screams and cries were all I could hear, all I could focus on. “Rachel!” I yelled and went to turn her body toward me, but the body was no longer there.

“Please! Somebody help me! Please!”

I struggled to get off the bed as a mass of Rachel’s bloody hair clung to my hands. My legs got caught in the sheets and I fell out of the bed, landing on my back. I crawled away on my hands and knees, the sheets still twisted around my legs; and gave up when her screams got to an ear-piercing level. On my knees, I pressed my forehead into the floor and put my hands to my ears. My own anguished cry joined hers as I listened to her screaming for help over and over again.

“No! Stop! Help me . . . please!”

The noise stopped suddenly and I opened my eyes to stare at the carpet as I slowly removed my hands from my ears. I put my hands to the floor to push my body up and froze when my fingers grazed something. Cries started back up in the room, and my body filled with dread at what I might find next to me. Looking to the left, all the blood drained from my head and my stomach churned. Rachel’s severed fingers lay there directly below mine. Dry heaves rocked my body as the auditory assault steadily grew louder again and a new visual one began.

“Get off me! Help!”

Like a movie being played directly in front of me—even when I closed my eyes—my worst nightmares replayed over and over. Rachel being whipped, waterboarded, and beaten. Being raped by two men. Her struggling to get out of the chains binding her to a chair firmly anchored into the ground while blinding lights surrounded her and ear-piercing sounds and music filled the room and drowned out her screams.

I pounded my fists against the carpet and my voice boomed over everything else. “Rachel!”

I sat up quickly in bed and pulled in ragged breaths as my heart and mind raced. My hand hit the right side of the bed and touched nothing but cool sheets. Trip raised his head off his paws from where he’d been sleeping near my feet, and I fell back onto the pillows with a frustrated grunt as I gripped at my hair.

“Fuck!” I yelled toward the ceiling.

Almost every night I’d dreamed of waking up next to Rachel again. But those images that haunted my every waking thought hadn’t been torturing me in my dreams as well . . . until now. I couldn’t keep doing this, I couldn’t keep wondering what had and hadn’t been real anymore. I couldn’t keep living every moment being terrified that I wouldn’t see her again. The department had been testing things, like the hair and the blood. We knew the hair wasn’t hers and the blood wasn’t even human. Two of the videos of Rachel being tortured we’d already found were actual videos found on the Internet from years ago. But there were still countless other things that they hadn’t been able to figure out if they’d been real or not. And it was driving me insane.

I slapped my hand down on the nightstand when my phone rang, and I glared at the bright display before fumbling to answer.

“Hello?”

“K-money,” he said low, and then chuckled. “Rise and shine, cupcake, it’s almost dawn.”

I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to steady my breathing. “Don’t call me if you’re just gonna sit there and mess with me, Sunny. Do you have something for me or don’t you? Because the days that she’s been gone have more than doubled since I saw you.”

“My men have been giving me strange looks and I’ve been getting questioned because I’ve been going out on a limb for you, you got me? I’m putting my life on the line for you and your woman, so I deserve some respect from you.”

My eyes shot back open and I growled, “Don’t forget I know who you are.”

“You know, I think I’ll keep my information to myself. Have a nice day, Detective.”