Jack’s fingers stop tapping. “Fine.” He tears off a strip of paper and writes down a number. “I’m not giving you a location, you can call her. If she wants to tell you where Freya is, that’s her choice.” He hands me the note but doesn’t release it. “And River, I respect you, but if you endanger Carmen in any way, just know there are no rules that will stop me from returning the favor.”
“And I like knives,” Reaper adds, somehow having acquired a new dagger that he’s now spinning on his fingertip.
“Noted.” I take the scrap of paper off Jack and spin on my heels. I don’t hang around, taking the elevator back up to the underground parking garage and heading to my car.
The phone number is an itch in my palm, begging to be scratched, but I force myself to wait to make the call so Oz can track it. This is the closest we’ve gotten to finding Freya and I’m not about to rely on Carmen telling us where she is out of the kindness of her heart.
If we can’t trace the call, then the digging I did on Jack’s files means I already have a backup plan in place. For some reason that man has enough information on Carmen to get her to agree to anything.
The old version of me, the one who followed the rules and kept things professional, is reluctant to use the information I’ve discovered, but I’m quickly learning there is no line I won’t cross when it comes to Freya.
I pull open the car door with more force than necessary. My phone syncs to the car system but before I can call the guys my phone buzzes, Freya’s old police captain’s name flashing up.
I brace my arm on the passenger seat and reverse out of the parking space. “Talk to me, Roarke.”
“He’s taken another girl.”
I slam on the brakes.Fuck.
Voices and music stream down the phone.
“You sure it’s Zach?”
“I’m at the crime scene now. He left the same calling card and the girl’s his type—Jenson don’t let the friends’ parents leave yet and for the life of me someone turn that music off.” Selene’s voice goes muffled then comes back strong. “The Arcade at the Mall, River. Get here, now.”
I screw up my eyes and slam my fist against the steering wheel then spin the car around. Every cell in my body wants me to find Freya, to call the number Jack gave me right fucking now,everything else be damned but this, this is the one thing that could stop me.
I can’t leave a little girl in danger. Freya would kill me if I even thought about it. So I call the guys, tell them to meet me at the arcade, and speed out of the parking garage.
I will deal with this case and then I will find Freya. The need to reclaim my little runaway, to dominate her, shadows my every thought. Maybe I should be worried about this possessive need to own her, but Freya has lost the privilege of freedom. When I get her back, and Iwillget her back, she’ll be lucky to even breathe without me.
4
FREYA
Ispin in Carmen’s desk chair till the walls blur. I had another flashback featuring Zach the second I laid down in bed last night, so I didn’t sleep a wink, and now I’m running on sugar and caffeine.Fuck sleep. Fuck flashbacks. Fuck therapy.
“Freya.” Alistair sighs, exasperation written in my name. “I’m going to need at least a semblance of your attention.”
I spin the chair back around to face the laptop and grab another Twizzler out of the jar on Carmen’s desk. “Can’t we rearrange?” This is my fifth session with Alistair in as many days and I’m getting bored.
“No.”
I roll my eyes then hear River’s voice in my head calling me a brat. Pain slices down my sternum and I bite down hard on the Twizzler, tugging till it snaps.
“I’m too jittery to sit still,” I say.
Alistair’s gaze scolds me through his thick lenses. “Then maybe don’t eat another gallon of candy.”
I keep my eyes locked on him as I take another bite. I’m being childish, I know, but my emotions are running high today and apparently this is how I cope.
“It’s normal to feel a little out of control and emotional when you first start therapy,” Alistair tells me.
“You know that might be the first time in my life I’ve ever been called normal. I’m touched.”
Alistair bestows his best disapproving look on me. “Let’s talk about your sister.”
My muscles tense. “Why?” Even now, after everything she’s done, my protective instincts slam down like a brick wall. I’m acutely aware that Zach got to Allie so fucking easily. He managed to break her out of a secure psychiatric facility and somehow get her on his side. I clench my hands into fists and remind myself that this is another reason I took the deal with Zach, so long as I stay away from the guys, he won’t touch Allie. But she’s still a fugitive, out there by herself for the first time in her life.
