Transcending Darkness

by Airicka Phoenix

  Something jackknifed in his chest with such brutal force he nearly went down with it. The pain in his shoulder was immediately replaced by a slow burn of heat and cold that crashed through him in rapid succession. He spun on his heels to where Frank stood behind him.

  “Find her.” His voice nearly broke. “Find her now!”

  He whirled to the girl who had lost all the color in her face. The bottle and stick hung limply at her sides, the fire gone from her. Her brown eyes were enormous and shining with all the fear curdling deep inside him.

  “You … you don’t have her?”

  Closing the distance between them in three wide strides, Killian grabbed Vi by the wrist and dragged her off the fountain. She went willingly and let herself be hauled into the manor. He took her to the sitting room she hadn’t destroyed and shoved her into a chair.

  “Tell me what happened,” he snarled at her. “Where’s Juliette?”

  “I … I don’t know!” she choked out. The stick and bottle slipped out of her hands and struck the carpet beneath her feet. “She called me three days ago and said she was on her way to see you. She sounded weird, but I didn’t think anything of it. But she never came home that night or the next. I went to her work, both of them and no one has seen her. So, I came here and your douchebag doorman said he had no idea who I was talking about. That he’d never even heard of Juliette. I thought…” She lowered her eyes, her cheeks a guilty pink.

  “That I’d hurt her,” he finished for her.

  Vi nodded. “Juliette wouldn’t just disappear. She’d never leave me. Something happened to her.”

  Killian began to promise he’d find her. No matter what he had to do or who he had to kill, he would bring Juliette home when Frank stalked into the room, his phone in hand.

  “Sir, no one’s seen her. I’ve called her work and she’s missed three days.”

  The sour taste of rotten milk filled his throat, making him want to throw up where he stood. But he held firm. Juliette needed him to keep it together. He needed to find her.

  “Track the GPS in the car or her phone,” he ordered. “Call whoever you need to get the—”

  Frank shifted. “That won’t work, sir. Miss Romero didn’t take the car or the phone when she left here the other night.”

  Killian stiffened. “What?”

  “She didn’t take—”

  “I heard you!” he snapped. “How did she get home?”

  A muscle tightened in Frank’s jaw. “I suppose she walked, sir. I offered to have someone drive her, but she insisted.”

  “It was below zero degrees that night.” Each word ripped through his tightly clenched teeth as fury and panic wound tight inside him. “She could be dead along the side of the road for all we know.”

  Frank said nothing, but Vi gasped. Her hands shot to her mouth to stifle the sound, but it was too late.

  Killian ignored her. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Tension wove across the other man’s shoulders. “I tried, sir. You asked me never to speak of her again.”

  He remembered Frank’s insistence that night. It was the first time in years the man had ever vehemently insisted to be heard despite being told to stop. Killian wanted to kick himself.

  “Find her,” he continued in the same sharp tone. “Even if you have to knock on every door in the city, find her, Frank. Bring her back!”

  With a deep inclination of his head, Frank turned and hurried from the room. Killian stood watching the spot the man had occupied with his heart in his throat and his stomach somewhere between his ankles. Haunting images of Juliette frozen to death somewhere alongside the road, hidden beneath a mound of snow hurled into his gut, making him nearly double over.

  “What did he mean you told him not to speak of her again?” Vi demanded.

  He’d almost forgotten about the girl. “I have work that requires—”

  Vi was out of her seat in a flash and hurrying to block his path. “Work? Seriously? You’re the last person to see my sister alive and you’re concerned about your stupid work? She could be dead and … do you even care?”

  “Of course I care!” The words ripped free of him in a growl that widened her eyes. “I’ve never cared more about anything than I do about your sister. I would easily give my life for hers, but if I continue to stand here and think of her out there hurt or worse, I will lose my fucking mind, do you understand me?”

  The smooth column of her throat bobbed. She nodded. She didn’t stop him when he edged around her and stalked from the room. The front doors were closed, but there were men inside and out cleaning the mess Vi had made. Killian couldn’t even bring himself to be upset about that. He didn’t care about a few pieces of broken glass when Juliette had been gone for three days and he hadn’t known. Three fucking days.

  A second set of feet behind him had him glancing back. He blinked in surprise to find Vi following him upstairs.

  “What are you doing?”

  It was her turn to look bemused. “Until Juliette’s brought home, I’m not leaving your side,” she stated simply. “I go where you go.”

  He opened his mouth, decided against speaking, closed it, and kept walking. Vi followed.

  In his office, he went straight for his window. Vi took a seat in one of the chairs facing his desk and waited. Neither of them spoke and he’d never been so relieved.

  The moment didn’t last.

  “What did you do?” the girl asked.

  Killian forced his gaze away from the swaying treetops. “What?”

  “To Juliette,” Vi explained. “What did you do to her?”

  It was on the edge of his nerves to tell her to mind her own business, to even be offended that she would assume he would ever do anything to hurt Juliette. But he had. He had hurt her. He’d deliberately and maliciously hit her where he knew it would wound her the most. Did it matter that he’d done it to protect her? Did it matter that he’d had her best intentions at heart? Did it matter that he would give his soul to have her back with him? She was gone. She’d been gone for days and he’d done nothing. If she was lost somewhere in the snow, he’d had two days to find her, to save her, and he hadn’t. If she was…

  “The hospitals!” he blurted, more to himself than Vi. “Did you—”

  “Of course I did,” Vi muttered. “I’m not an idiot. I called the hospitals, the police, the hotel. I even called Uncle Jim.”

  That knowledge made him pause. “You have an Uncle Jim?”

  Vi nodded. “He’s Dad’s brother. He has a farm out in Alberta.”

  The way Juliette had gone on, he’d assumed it was just her and Vi in the world.

  “Why didn’t he…?”

  Vi arched an eyebrow. “Take us in when we had no one?” she finished for him, her tone dripping with sarcasm. “None of them did. Dad owed them too much money. They weren’t going to add to that debt by taking on his kids. Thank God Juliette was eighteen when Dad finally died, otherwise we’d both probably be lost in the system or something. Uncle Jim was the only one that sort of offered, but he’s a total pervert. Likes little girls. Not that anyone in the family would ever say it out loud. Juliette refused.” She shook her head. “Anyway, what did you do to Juliette? Why did she leave?”

  Killian turned back to the window, unable to keep looking into those golden eyes. “Because I told her to. It was the only way I knew how to keep her safe.”

  “Safe from what?”

  “Me.”

  “Sir.”

  Frank appeared in the doorway, his movement hurried. He was breathing hard like he’d ran all the way there. Every hard bulge of muscle was rigid, as tense as the muscles on his face. In his hand was a yellow envelope.

  Killian’s entire world jittered, going in and out of focus between black and white and color. The room shifted between present and past as he remembered being ten and standing where Vi was, watching as Frank brought that same yellow envelope to his father. Then the room was back and Vi was on her feet and
Frank was watching Killian with the same grim expression he’d given all those years ago.

  “No…”

  Vi, as white as the snow outside the window, peered from one to the other with the frantic desperation of a spooked rabbit. Her hands were shaking as they lifted and clapped over her mouth.

  “What?” Her voice wobbled. “What is it?”

  Frank never looked away from Killian. “What would you like me to do, sir?”

  Burn it! Break it! He wanted to scream. Destroy it. It couldn’t be true if no one saw it. But he knew it didn’t work that way. Things weren’t less true just because he wished it.

  “Sir?”

  No. No. God, no he couldn’t. Not again.

  “Is it about Juliette?” Vi demanded of Frank. “Is it a ransom demand? I’m calling the police—”

  In five long strides, Frank was next to the girl. Her phone was taken from her before the numbers could be dialed.

  “Give that back!” Vi screamed at him. “We have to call the police!”

  “They can’t help her,” Frank told her calmly, but with stern authority.

  Tears rained along her cheeks, looking silver in the light. Her brown eyes went from Frank to Killian and hardened. She flew at him, hands fisted. With a shriek, she slammed both into his chest.

  “Find her! Find her!” Every scream was followed by another crack of her fists raining down on Killian’s chest, his shoulders, arms and even his face. He felt none of it. “You did this! This is your fault!”

  Frank pulled her off, kicking and screaming loud enough to bring the house down. Killian stayed frozen in his own nightmare as the girl was hauled from the room. He had no idea what happened next, but the floor was suddenly beneath his hands and knees and everything he’d eaten that day, which thankfully wasn’t much, came up with a violence that took bits of his stomach lining with it. Hot and cold waves rushed along the heaving curve of his spine, plastering his top to his back. Sweat dampened his temples and rolled into his already burning eyes and still the attacks continued.

  Another scream echoed, one that only he could hear. The high pitched wail of his mother, begging her captors to stop. The shriek of her pain as they’d carved into her, as they’d taken turns doing things no one should ever have to endure. Those images had come in an envelope just like the one Frank was bringing to him now.

  “It’s not possible,” he wheezed. “It’s not possible.”

  Frank’s large, capable hands tucked beneath his arms and Killian was lifted to his feet. He was taken to his chair and seated. Frank left his side and returned a moment later with a damp washcloth. Killian used it to wipe his face and mouth.

  “It’s not possible,” he said again, slightly calmer. “I killed them. I killed all of them. There was no one left.” He raised his eyes to the other man. “I left no one, Frank.”

  “Perhaps someone—”

  Killian shook his head. “No, no, it’s not possible. It’s not…” A sound between a sob and a groan left him. “They have Juliette. God, they have her.”

  He felt sick all over again. More images he’d fought and buried for the last twenty two years rode over him, digging talons and barbs into his soul. Images of the bright afternoon his father’s scream had woken him from a fitful slumber, of running downstairs only to be grabbed by Frank, but not soon enough to be saved the sight of his mother’s bloody, broken, and naked body cradled in his father’s lap. That would be Juliette. He would wake in the wee hours of the morning to find her…

  “Sir!” Frank’s sharp commanding voice spiked through the vortex Killian had been steadily sinking into. It shattered through the choppy film of his past and brought him slamming back into a cold reality he wanted nothing to do with. “May I suggest you watch the video? It’s only the first.”

  Not many would understand that. Telling someone it was the first torture video in a long line of more to come wasn’t a comfort. But Killian understood. His mother’s video hadn’t been more than her sitting in front of the camera as a male voice warned of her fate. She’d been so pale. Her dark hair had been in tangles, but it was her eyes that had held so much defiance. She had been the picture of calm.

  The first video was a lie to lure him into believing he stood a chance at saving her, just like his father had. But it would still assure him she was safe, even if it was temporary.

  Frank tore the envelope open. Killian didn’t watch. He stared at the mountain of papers across his desk, but the sound made him flinch. His fingers creaked around the facecloth. Frank inserted the disk into the driver and the video automatically began playing.

  Juliette, wearing the same clothes he’d seen her in last, sat on a metal chair. A concrete wall, one that could be found in just about any basement, stood at her back. Her blonde hair was matted and hung around her drawn face. There was a gash on her lower lip that he recognized as self-inflected. Harsh beams of light blazed down on her with a ferocity that made her squint against it.

  “Now!” a voice hissed off camera.

  Juliette blinked a few times and struggled to focus. “My name is Juliette Romero,” she began, her voice weak and hoarse. “And I am … what does that say?”

  The camera gave a shudder.

  “Uninjured!” the same gruff voice hissed.

  Juliette gave a small nod. “And I am uninjured, for now. I have not been mistreated. I am given food and … water?”

  “Yes!”

  “Water. But all of that can change if you don’t find me.”

  The screen went dark.

  Neither Killian nor Frank moved, not even when the video started from the beginning on a loop. He watched it run through twice more before turning it off. He pulled the CD out of the drive, set it gently back in its plastic case and held it out to Frank.

  “Find someone who can tear that apart and tell me everything about it,” he ordered. “I want to know what camera was used, when, where, and by whom.”

  Frank took the video.

  Unlike his mother’s abduction, Killian had technology on his side. He would track that mother fucker to the ends of the earth.

  Chapter 24

  “Mar?”

  The iron bars bit into Juliette’s shoulder and mashed into the side of her face and still she was no closer to reaching the other woman lying on her side. She managed to graze the very tip of her middle finger the calf of Maraveet’s right leg, but they had deliberately placed her too far, too far for Juliette to do anything besides trying desperately to somehow squeeze through the bars.

  She knew the woman was alive. Her back would shudder occasionally, slight convulsions that were followed by a dry, rattling sound of someone with pneumonia. They’d taken Juliette’s watch, so she couldn’t even say for sure if it had been minutes or hours since they’d hauled Maraveet through the door and down the stairs. They hadn’t even been gentle about it. The two men had lugged her between them and then dumped her without care across the floor of her cell. They hadn’t even looked at Juliette and had ignored her when she’d tried to ask them for water.

  “Mar, please wake up,” she begged, unashamed that her voice was a weak, shaky plea.

  The days and nights in that place varied. It was impossible to tell without windows or even a watch, but Juliette knew it had been days, possibly weeks since their capture. It was the third day of Maraveet’s beatings, or it was all in a single day, evenly spaced out. She had no idea. But it was the third time they’d pulled the woman from her cage, forcibly marched her upstairs in one piece and brought her back in several.

  Psychological torture. Maraveet had warned her they would try that, but she hadn’t said just how awful it would be to witness. The guilt was overwhelming. The need to do something was suffocating. Juliette couldn’t even pretend to be brave when she knew that at any moment, some asshole would thunder down the stairs, snatch Maraveet up, and take off with her to do God knew what all to get Juliette to talk. She wasn’t sure what they thought she knew, but she wasn’t wholl
y certain she wouldn’t tell them if they asked, which they hadn’t. They hadn’t called her back since the video session. They hadn’t asked her anything, yet they continued to terrorize them. Well, her mostly. Maraveet seemed highly unconcerned about the entire thing, like somehow they were intruding on her personal time. The woman had guts to spare. Juliette envied that, but more than anything, she needed it to motivate herself to keep going.

  “He’s coming,” Maraveet kept insisting whenever Juliette began to feel herself slipping. “Just hang on.”

  She never asked who he was, but she knew. It could be no one else, except, if Killian was coming, he was taking his damn time.

  “Maraveet!” She raised her voice to a sharp whisper that seemed much louder in the metal box.

  “Stop shouting,” came a low, raspy grumble. Maraveet’s left foot twitched. “I’m trying to sleep.”

  Relief surged through her and she let her arm lower. The cold metal kissed her brow as she lowered her head and murmured a prayer of thanks.

  “Are you all right? How bad is it?”

  “Bad,” the other woman groaned. “They haven’t got any tea at all. Savages.”

  “Don’t joke,” Juliette begged. “I thought they’d killed you this time.”

  “They’re not going to kill me.” Her back rose and shuddered all the way down. “They need me to make you squirm, so stop squirming. I’ve felt worse.”

  Juliette never knew what to say or think when Maraveet spoke like that. She wasn’t sure if the woman was just trying to make her feel better or if she meant it. She had a feeling the latter. She had learned enough about Maraveet to put the pieces together.

  “Like what?” she blurted, needing the other woman to keep talking, to stay awake. “What do you do?”

  Maraveet’s shoulders trembled. For a moment, Juliette thought she was coughing or having some kind of fit. But she was laughing.