Frosted (Frosted Series Book 1)

by Taylor Rose

  “Everything’s gonna be okay, munchkin. I won’t let anything happen to you. I love you to the moon and back,” I whispered to her, trying to comfort her in any way I could.

  “Shut up,” Buzz spat at me as he yanked me up and away from my sister.

  A dark grey, beat up van came into my line of sight before my world was littered in darkness.

  A black fabric bag had been placed over my head, obscuring my vision. I took a deep breath, trying to stay calm. Aqua whined next to me as they placed zip ties on my hands.

  “I love you, munchkin,” I told her, knowing that she needed to hear me. She needed to see that I was being strong for her.

  The car started up and we started moving. Where, I didn’t know. I just had to hope that it was someplace where we would have a chance to escape.

  I crossed my fingers, closed my eyes tightly, and prayed to my parents for the first time since their death. Prayed that everything would be alright.

  Something was wrong.

  I could feel it in my fucking gut.

  Sitting in my car, I was tapping my fingers against the steering wheel. I glanced at the clock on the dash again.

  Fifteen minutes.

  They’d been gone for fifteen whole minutes.

  I glanced out the rearview mirror of my car, hoping to catch a glimpse of them coming my way. My eyes scanned the parking lot but were met with nothing. Not a single person. As if I was in a ghost town or some shit.

  It hasn’t really been that long, maybe Squirt’s tummy was hurting? Was there a girly problem?

  Maybe I was just being paranoid.

  Something just wasn’t sitting right with me.

  Minute by minute ticked by slowly, each passing second seemed like it lasted an eternity.

  My feet were tapping crazily on the floor of my car while my fingers kept beating on the steering wheel. My body was unable to sit still even for a second.

  Glancing at the clock, I realized another five minutes had passed, making the grand total twenty minutes.

  I’d been sitting here without them for twenty minutes.

  Fuck!

  Throwing my car door open, I jumped outside and started walking around the school grounds. Bathroom. They were going to the bathroom. Quad to quad I searched until finally hitting the one with the only bathroom left open. My legs pumped vigorously, taking giant steps to get there in the least amount of time possible.

  Standing outside, I peeked my head in. Nothing. I couldn’t see a damn thing.

  “Figgy? Squirt? Is everything okay in there?” I asked loudly into the bathroom. My words echoed in the small room, but I got no response. Second after second passed by and with no response, my greatest fear had just become my reality.

  Icy cold fear slammed into my gut, fucking crippling me.

  Running into the bathroom, I looked around. Everything seemed to be in order, nothing broken or damaged. My body twisted around in circles frantically taking note of everything in the area. My girls wouldn’t have gone down without a fight. Both of them were fighters down to the bone. Little lionesses in sheep’s clothing.

  But they were nowhere to be seen.

  I ducked my body so that I could look under the stalls. No one was there, but something glimmered in the light in the furthest stall from the door. I raced over, dropped to my knees, and picked up the pink beaded sparkly bracelet. It looked so small sitting there in my palm. Flipping it over, I looked at the white gold plated nametag that was woven into the bracelet. Inscribed in the metal was the word “Peanut”.

  I inhaled a sharp breath.

  Jesus fuck.

  Panic clawed its way up my throat, but I pushed it back in, in an attempt to control myself.

  Pulling my phone out of my pocket, I dialed Figgy’s number. It went straight to voicemail. Not one fucking ring. I dialed again, hopelessly trying to think of some other reason why this was happening to me. To us.

  Scrolling down on my phone, I dialed another number. It rang three times before she picked up.

  “This is April,” a saucy voice chirped into the phone.

  Taking a deep breath, I focused my thoughts.

  “April, it’s… it’s Kieran. Look, have you seen the girls?” I asked her, trying to keep the panic out of my voice.

  April inhaled a huge gulp of air over the line.

  “What do you mean, have I seen them?” she asked. “The last I saw, you guys were walking off together in the sunset.”

  Fuck. Fuck. Fuckity fuck fuck.

  Dread pooled in my stomach and I started to shake.

  “They’re gone,” I whispered hoarsely. “They’re fucking gone.”

  “WHAT?!” she shrieked so loud that she almost shattered my ear drum. Even though I didn’t give a shit about that at the moment. “Call the police. Call the fucking police, Kieran! Now!”

  Time froze. I was standing still, unable to move. Shock took over my mind and I was unable to focus on anything.

  He took them.

  He had them right now.

  The dial tone hit my ear drums telling me that April had hung up on me. What was I supposed to do again? Oh, yeah. Call the police.

  I dialed nine-one-one and when the operator answered, I said I had to report two missing people. Hollywood tells us that we have to wait twenty-four to forty-eight hours before we can report someone as missing, but that’s not true. You can report someone missing seconds after it happens. The sooner you realize your loved one is missing, the sooner the searches start, giving them a better chance of being found.

  I choked on air.

  Chance. They had a fucking chance at getting found. It wasn’t guaranteed.

  I needed every ounce of man power available on this.

  An idea struck and I dialed another number from my phone.

  It rang once before he picked up.

  “This is Sight,” he declared in a strong voice.

  “They’re gone. He took them,” I choked out, unable to keep the emotion from my voice.

  “Kieran? What do ya mean, they’re gone?”

  I laughed bitterly. At my luck. At life’s cruel fucking jokes. I was sick of them. So fucking sick of them.

  “They’re missing, man. Here one second, gone the fucking next.”

  He growled over the line, clearly unhappy with this news.

  “Where? Where are ya?” he demanded, authority and urgency lacing his tone.

  “It doesn’t matter, man. He took them away from me,” I repeated over again. The only thought going through my mind was that they were gone.

  “Kieran. Kieran! Come to me right now. Ya know where my building is, yeah? I need ya to come here so that ya can help find your girls. Ya hear me?” he asked, his accent flowing more freely than normal. Being angry must help with that.

  “Gotcha,” I mumbled and then clicked my phone off.

  Staring down, I noticed Squirt’s bracelet still sitting in the palm of my hand. I closed my fingers around it and closed my eyes. Bringing the bracelet up to my lips, I kissed it.

  “I’ll find you,” I whispered to them. My promise to them was that I would find them and bring them home to me no matter what.

  I placed her bracelet in the pocket of my jeans to keep it safe. Step by step I made my way to my car to make my way to Sight’s building.

  Dialing my phone one last time, I held my breath. This call was not going to go well.

  It rang three times before a deep voice filled my ear.

  “Yello’,” Cooper mumbled in his normal greeting.

  I opened my mouth to say something, anything. But no words came out. My throat was scratchy and my mouth was bone dry. A silent minute passed.

  “Kieran?”

  Taking a deep breath, I finally answered him.

  “He took them,” my voice broke as I whispered the words I was having trouble believing myself. “I’m sorry.”

  I could hear his sharp intak
e of breath.

  “Where are you?” he asked me. I could hear his teeth gritting together over the line.

  “I’m on my way to Sight’s building–,” I was saying but before I could finish, Cooper cut me off.

  “I’ll meet you there,” he demanded before the dial tone registered in my ear once again.

  Fuck.

  The faster I got to Sight’s, the faster I’d have a better idea of what was going on.

  Hang in there, girls. I love you.

  *****

  Day one…

  The smell of mold hits my nostrils.

  My nose scrunched up, trying to rid the rancid smell from my senses.

  The damp mildew scent spiraled around the dark room in which we were held. Even though my eyes had adjusted to the dark, I could only make out the shape of Aqua’s body. She was slumped forward, head hanging down to her chest. Her little arms were tied to the chair behind her back, and her ankles were tied to the chair legs. Even if she jumped up and down, she didn’t weigh enough to move that chair one bit.

  I tried to talk to her, I tried to yell so that she could hear me, but I couldn’t. There was a wad of cloth that was dripping some weird ass liquid down my throat. It was stuffed in my mouth and tied with another piece of cloth around my head. It burned and tingled in my throat at the same fucking time. I couldn’t spit the disgusting cloth out of my mouth.

  Son of a fucking bitch.

  One plan gone.

  I blinked rapidly, trying to clear the haziness that clung to me like cellophane.

  I ran my fingers along the rope my hands were tied with. I extended my reach as far as I could without breaking any bones in my hands. I just couldn’t feel anything to help us.

  I had to keep trying.

  I would never give up.

  A creak caused my head to snap around. The giant iron door to our room had opened, and my vision was blinded by the flooding light. I still couldn’t see.

  Two dark, blurry figures made their way through the bright white light. Their silhouettes reminded me of angels, but I knew without a fraction of a doubt that they were nothing of the sort. In fact, they were the exact opposite. They were torturing devils. They weren’t here to save us. They were here to cause us harm.

  Yesterday had to be the worst day of my life thus far.

  A lot of fucked up shit had happened to me over the years, but this one took the fucking cake.

  Anderson Inc. had become our home base, our headquarters so to speak, as of yesterday.

  The police incorporated us in their investigation, using April as their go between, which meant that she had to stay with us. And wherever April was, Saber followed. I couldn’t even blame the motherfucker.

  Saber informed my teammates, which meant that Eight and Sticks were here, too. They were trying to help in any way that they could.

  Sight had his best guys trying to find anything helpful and he sent his best tracker, Kai, to try and find them on his own.

  Cooper showed up yesterday angrier than I had ever seen him. Fuming fucking mad. You could practically see the steam rolling off of him in waves. He couldn’t even bring himself to look me in the eye, like it was all my fault that they got taken. I already blamed my-fucking-self, I didn’t need anyone else blaming me, too. I let him be mad at me yesterday, I let him blame me. But today, I needed him to be on my side.

  I tried to extend an olive branch, really, I did.

  Pulling Squirt’s bracelet out of my pocket, I walked over to Cooper and tapped him on the shoulder. Twisting his head, he scowled when he saw it was me standing there.

  I twisted the beads in between my fingers for a second, letting them give me the strength I needed to give them to someone who needed them more.

  Why did he need them more than me? I didn’t know, I just knew that he did.

  Reaching my hand out, I handed him the bracelet.

  His eyes widened in recognition, his right hand moving so fast I almost didn’t see it as he snatched the bracelet out of my hand. He curled his fingers around it and held it up to his chest. His eyes were closed tight, but I could fucking swear I saw a tear leak from one of his eyes.

  Seriously, what the hell?

  I opened my mouth to say something but was interrupted by a blinding pain smashing against my cheek. My head whipped to the side, the bones in my neck cracked from the impact of his fist hitting my face. In slow motion, my body fell sideways to the floor.

  My hands flew to the spot he had just hit. Shock flew through my body for the second time in two days. My best friend just punched me in the face. Un-fucking-believable.

  I could feel the imprint of his knuckles in my skin. A bruise was already starting to form and it hurt like a nasty son of a bitch.

  Looking up, I noticed him still standing in front of me with bloody knuckles. His body was shaking as silent tears made their way down his face.

  He looked down at me and whispered, “If anything happens to her, I’m not going to survive.”

  It wasn’t until that moment that I fully understood, and the full force of that knowledge almost knocked me on my ass.

  Never in all of the years that I had known Cooper had I ever seen him react this way. The only people he had ever cared about, were me and his momma.

  Until Aqua.

  She stirred something deep down in his soul, something that made him not only care, but rocked him so deeply to his core that nothing else mattered to him except for her. Her happiness. Her safety. Her life. Even more than his own.

  My mind spiraled out of control even thinking about it. The fact that he seemed breakable, almost actually human. But that didn’t matter right now, what mattered was finding the girls and getting them home to us. Safe and fucking sound.

  “Brother,” I warned, my voice harsh. “That was your one fucking free shot.”

  His head bobbed up and down. “I know,” he rasped and he held his left hand out to help me get back up.

  I rubbed my burning cheek with my hand trying to massage my tender flesh.

  Cooper went back to sulking while I did everything I could to find the girls. I called everyone I knew, I set up a missing persons ad, and had every newspaper that owed me a favor blast them around the city, state, and even country. I called the phone company and had them send out a fucking amber alert. I kept busy, focused on finding them.

  April kept getting updates from the police, but they were all dead ends.

  The longer the girls were gone, the worse off everyone here became. You could see how it was affecting them, as if the life was being pulled right out of their bodies.

  Night hit and we had nothing new on their whereabouts.

  My heart sank in my chest, breaking all over again.

  Feeling a hand on my shoulder, I turned around. Sight stood before me, a stony expression on his face.

  Fuck, that was not a good sign.

  He tipped his head over to his office, silently asking me to follow him. I swallowed the large lump in my throat and forced my feet to take heavy steps towards him. Once we got inside, he closed the door so that nobody else could overhear our conversation.

  Each new thing he did, gave me less and less hope for good news.

  “How’re ya holdin’ up?” he asked as he rubbed his thumb over his chin.

  “Not fucking good, man,” I honestly replied, no sugar coating needed.

  He nodded his head as if that was the answer he was expecting.

  Hold it together. Hold it to-fucking-gether.

  “It’s not lookin’ good, man. They vanished without a fuckin’ trace,” he grimaced.

  This time it was my turn to nod my head. I know that they did.

  “I haven’t heard back from Kai yet… That could be a good thing, or a bad one. With him, ya never know which,” he grumbled. “There’s still hope, man. Ya hear?”

  I nodded my head in agreement.

  “Go get some sleep. Ya look
like ya need it.”

  “Alright… Call me if you hear anything at all,” I pleaded with him, already knowing that he would, but needing to hear the words.

  “Of course,” he declared.

  Shuffling my feet, I started to walk out of his office, but before I made it to the door, he called my name.

  “Miracles happen every day, ’member that,” he reminded me, his voice softer than I had ever heard it before.

  I nodded my head one last time.

  “Miracles happen,” I muttered before walking out of the door.

  Miracles fucking happened. If I hoped above all hope, maybe, just fucking maybe, a miracle would happen for me. For us. Because we fucking needed one.

  *****

  Day two…

  Why did life have to hate me so much?

  Did I do something awful in a past life? Did I steal something? Did I murder someone? What about rape, did I rape anyone?

  No? Of fucking course not.

  Then why the fuck was this happening to me? Why did all of the bad shit always happen to me?

  Did I deserve it?

  Fuck no, I didn’t.

  And yet, life didn’t care about any of that. All it cared about was crushing my spirit. Grinding my hopes and dreams up into dust and making me watch as that dust slipped right through my goddamn fingers.

  Today was worse than yesterday. Way fucking worse. Yesterday, they did some awful things. Things I never imagined could get worse, until today.

  Being in control had always been important to me. It grounded me. Stabilized me. Kept me sane.

  Being here in this situation left me without control. Without any fucking control. And it was slowly killing me.

  Aqua, poor fucking Aqua. All I wanted to do was pull her close, hide her eyes and whisper words of comfort. Instead, she watched. She fucking saw everything they were doing to me. And there was nothing I could do to stop it. Not one damn thing.

  All I wanted to do was protect her. But by trying to protect her, I had actually painted an even bigger target on her little back.

  They could do anything they wanted to me and I would survive. I was strong. I had learned to be. I would build my walls up and protect myself. I would fight and claw my way back to the light. I would pull through any tragedy, to get myself back.