by Pat Esden
“Where am I?” She groaned, as her legs gained some control.
“Shush. It’s me, Annie. Try to walk.” I dragged her along. We had to get to the Mercedes. Before Myles came back.
She leaned against me, her limp legs tangling in the damp briars and grass, stumbling over broken bottles and junk.
A cramp pinched my neck. I pushed it from my mind. Bloody hell. I could hear the party and see its brightness through the mist, so many people who could help, just a little ways away. And cars, why couldn’t one drive past on the road right now? And where was Chase?
Ahead, far out in the field, two shapes moved toward us. One of them swayed drunkenly. Myles! Crap.
“Lotli,” I said, struggling to not sound panicked. “You need to try harder. Now.”
I shouldered as much of her weight as I could and pulled her along. After what felt like forever, we got to the road and to the Mercedes. I shoved her against the rear fender and bent over, gulping for air. My arms burned from the struggle and my lungs ached so bad I could barely catch my breath. Gritting my teeth, I let go of her so I could unlock the car doors. She slid down the fender and onto the ground. Damn it. Hauling her back up, I opened the car door and let her flop onto the backseat. I crammed her legs inside and slammed the door shut. Thank God she was short.
My strength almost gone, I jumped into the driver’s seat and hit all the locks. Only then did I dare take another glance at the field.
There was only one guy now. He looked chunky like Myles, but I wasn’t about to stick around long enough to be a hundred percent sure. I needed to get where there were more people.
I jammed the key in the ignition and sped from the parking place. I was almost to the heart of the party when a truck careened out from its parking spot on the edge of the road, right in front of me. I rammed on the brakes, skidding to a stop—
A loud thud came from the back of the Mercedes. Lotli had rolled onto the floor. Damn. I smelled something too. Vomit.
My mouth went dry. She could choke to death.
I looked in the rearview. The chunky guy’s outline lumbered across the hazy road, then beelined for the garage. Any second, he’d discover Lotli was gone. I needed to find help.
But I had to check, see if she was all right.
Pulling into the spot that the truck had winged out of, I put the car in park and swiveled around.
Lotli had crawled back up on the seat and passed out again, her chest rising and falling evenly. The spittle on her mouth now looked more like drool than foam. That was good.
My mind stopped reeling and my common sense started to return. Whoever did this to her, they weren’t going to try anything here. I was too close to the party now. Other people were within earshot. People like Selena. And Chase. Please, let him be here.
I got out my phone and texted Selena.
I’m up on the road with Lotli. Need u. Right now!
She’d be able to tell if Lotli was okay or if she needed to go to the emergency room.
One second passed. Then another. Then two more. Damn. Why wasn’t Selena answering?
I leapt out of the car and locked the doors. Once I found her, we’d call the cops. I’d tell them where I’d found Lotli. I’d tell them about the car. A black sedan—
I glanced toward the garage, a lot farther off now that I’d moved to a different parking spot. Two faint beams of light came on inside it. A dark car flew out, spun around, and squealed off down the hazy road, away from me. Freaking hell. The car had vanished too fast. I had no fucking idea what make or model it was.
Totally pissed at myself, I stomped across the road and down the path to the party. As a rule I was super good at remembering details about everything. Of all the times to mess up, I had to pick this one. Idiot.
Unlike that first night I’d come here with Selena the crowd of strangers didn’t freak me out. I wasn’t here to socialize. I didn’t care what any of them thought of me or what I looked like. I wasn’t trying to impress anyone. I had one thing on my mind: finding Selena and Chase.
I went up on my tiptoes, scanning the crowd for tall blond girls, hoping like heck she hadn’t taken off with Newt. One thing was certain—I couldn’t accuse Myles of rape or kidnapping or whatever in front of Newt. Not only were he and Myles brothers, but it was possible Myles hadn’t done anything. He might have just gone to the garage to take a piss and assumed the thumping sound was people having sex, like I had at first. He wasn’t that bright, after all.
Still searching the crowd, I hugged myself. It didn’t make sense to call the cops either, at least not until after Lotli came to. Sure, they’d show up. But Lotli wouldn’t be their only concern. They’d also break up the party and arrest the underage drinkers, like Selena. Boy, would Selena be pissed at me then. She’d think I’d deliberately sabotaged her and Newt’s night out. I scrubbed my hands over my face. What if Lotli didn’t remember anything?
“Annie!” Selena’s voice came from somewhere in the crowd.
I studied the faces and head tops, finally spotting her waving at me from near the bonfire. Relief washed over me and I waved back, motioning for her to come.
A moment later, she appeared, zigzagging through the crowd with Newt.
“What are you doing here?” she asked when she reached me.
“Didn’t you get my text?” I screeched.
“No. What’s wrong?”
My words flooded out. “You have to come. Lotli—”
“What is it? What’s happened?” Newt jumped right in.
“Ah—” My mind spun. At this point, it was probably better if he didn’t know anything I’d seen, just in case Myles was guilty. “When I pulled in, I saw her staggering down the road, stoned out of her mind. She’s in my car. We need to take her home—or to an emergency room.”
“Shit,” Selena said. “I didn’t think she drank that much.”
I shrugged. “Maybe she took something. I don’t know. She puked all over Dad’s car.” I looked at Newt. “You don’t happen to have a towel or something?”
“Sure,” he said. Concern was written all over his face. It appeared sincere.
I grabbed Selena’s hand. “I parked out on the road. We’ll meet you there,” I said to Newt.
By the time we reached the car, both Selena and I were breathless from running. I unlocked the Mercedes’s back door, and she leaned inside.
“Lotli, can you hear me?” she asked.
Lotli groaned and puked again.
“Yuck and double yuck.” Selena backed out of the car. “We need to get her home.”
Newt came jogging up with a beach towel in hand. “I couldn’t find mine, but Myles donated his.” He peered into the car. “She looks like crap.”
“Yeah,” I said. Leaning in, I began scooping up the bigger chunks with the towel.
Selena tapped me on the shoulder. “I’m going to ride the ATV home. I’ll meet you in the garage in fifteen minutes. I’ll call Chase, too. We’ll need his help to get her into the house.”
I nodded, tossed the towel off the side of the road, and jumped in the driver’s seat.
CHAPTER 14
It was unfamiliar territory, of this we were sure.
We were also certain of the islands’ beauty.
Alas, we should not have trusted our sea-worn eyes.
—Autobiography of a Sea Captain
Canary Islands, 1771
Translated from Spanish by Zachary Freemont
When I got to Moonhill’s front gate, Chase was waiting. Sweat glistened on his face and the muscles along his arms and neck were as tense as if he were entering a boxing ring.
He jumped into the passenger seat and glanced back at Lotli. “How’s she doing?”
“She’s pretty messed up, but she’s going to be fine.”
As I punched the gas, he swiveled back around. “If I’d been there, this never would have happened. I’d have killed the bastard.”
I shot him a sidelong look. “You really weren
’t at the party? Not at all?”
“No. Selena called Tibbs and said she’d changed her mind about going. He told me, so I went to bed—like a fool.” He thumped his fist against the dash. “Damn Selena. Damn me. I know better.”
“It’s not your fault. You might not have gotten there in time anyway. I left not long after they did and—” My mouth dried, the words sticking to the back of my throat like spoiled honey. I’d walked right into this one. I mean, given a moment’s thought it was pretty obvious why I’d followed Selena and Lotli instead of going with them. I cringed, waiting for his accusation.
He wiped his hands over his head. “How could I have been so stupid?”
Heat flooded my cheeks. I stomped on the gas pedal, stones flying. I should have been thrilled that he hadn’t figured out that I’d been spying, that I hadn’t trusted Lotli—or him or Selena. But instead I was pissed. He was so worried about Lotli that he hadn’t even heard what I said.
My anger drained and I sank deeper into my seat. God, I was such a jerk. How could I even think about being mad at him over this? Lotli had been drugged and locked in a trunk. She was still really sick. She could have died. This wasn’t about me, or me and him. Not at all.
I took a deep breath, then began to tell Chase what happened. But his darkening expression and clenched hands convinced me not to mention Myles by name. Chase was supposed to be staying focused and calm, keeping his mind on the mission and doing everything he could to avoid having the maturing thing come on full-force right now. Going after Myles—if he was indeed even guilty—was the last thing Chase needed to do.
As we pulled into the garage, Selena whipped in behind us on her ATV. We all agreed the best move was to sneak inside and not tell anyone what had happened until after we heard Lotli’s side of the story. Luckily, it looked like that was going to happen soon, judging by the way she hooked her arms around Chase’s neck and nuzzled into him as he carried her in through the library’s side door and laid her down gently on the daybed.
Selena nudged me. “Do you mind getting some warm water and a washcloth, so we can clean her up?”
“Sure.” I padded to the library bathroom and fetched what she needed. By the time I returned, Lotli was in a nightie and curled up under the covers.
Frowning, I handed Selena a damp washcloth. No way could Selena have changed Lotli’s clothes by herself, especially that fast. Chase must have helped pull off Lotli’s pants and shirt, and underwear, if she wore any. He must have touched her naked—
I bit my bottom lip until it hurt. I had to stop thinking like that. Lotli had just escaped being kidnapped. I had to stop this ridiculous pettiness. Right now.
I clenched my jaw, shoved every thought from my mind, and focused solely on Lotli. Her head was lolled back on a pillow, her tangled hair scrunched to one side. She groaned as Selena washed her face and started wiping down her arms.
Selena glanced up at me. “It doesn’t look like she was raped. Her clothes weren’t torn. There’s no bruising on her thighs or anyplace for that matter.” When she reached Lotli’s wrist she hesitated. “What the heck is this? It’s sticky.”
“Probably left over from the duct tape,” Chase said, revealing part of the story I’d shared with him and not Selena.
Selena’s eyes cut toward me. “Duct tape?”
“I—um”—I swiped my hair back from my face—“I didn’t exactly find her walking down the road. She was locked in a car—a black sedan . . .” I told her the same Myles-less version I’d told Chase and explained that I hadn’t wanted to say anything in front of Newt for Lotli’s sake, for her privacy, in case she’d been raped.
Selena shook her head. “You really don’t know what kind of car it was?”
“I know it wasn’t smart, but no. But the car definitely has a broken driver’s window. Man, I hope Lotli knows who did this to her.”
Chase put his arm around me. “You did the right thing. Getting Lotli to safety was most important.”
“That’s for sure,” Selena said. She turned to Chase. “Do you mind getting a pitcher of water and a glass? We should get her hydrated before we let her sleep.”
Once he left, the concern dropped from Selena’s face. She balled up the washcloth and tossed it into the washbasin. “So you followed us to the party, huh?”
I sucked in a sharp breath. “I know I was stupid. I’m really, truly sorry.”
She tucked Lotli’s arms under a blanket. “That’s actually not what I was going to say.” She got up and looked me in the eyes. “I’m sorry I didn’t invite you. I might have had the same kind of worries if I’d been in your shoes. But Chase wasn’t with us.”
I threw my arms around her. Hugging her tight, I whispered, “I’m still sorry.”
Only minutes after Chase returned with the water, he took off to start his patrol shift. Selena found us some pajamas and quilts in the laundry room. We changed and then snuggled down on pillows from the couch. Hopefully, if anyone looked in on us, they’d assume we’d had an all-night gossip session rather than a vigil.
Exhausted and wrapped in a quilt, I nestled into the pillows and fell asleep almost immediately:
Chase’s lips move against mine, a dance, easy and familiar, peaceful. My head rests back, his hands supporting me as I give in to the rhythm of his mouth and the sway of his body against mine. I run my finger under his sleeveless T-shirt, upward. My fingertips glide over the warm-hard planes and angles of his sculpted abdomen, taut and silky, powerful and all mine, the soft hair on his chest, the cords of his neck, the roughness under his chin, along the edge of his cheek. His nose. His eyebrows. His mouth never leaving mine. His hands against the small of my back. Slow dancing under the limbs of a pine tree, warm earth beneath my naked feet. Salt air, moonlight, and evergreens. I gaze into his eyes, deep as the ocean—
Flash!
I’m looking at a blinding light. Chase is gone. I’m at the end of a line, walking into a bright-hot courtroom. I’m a juror and so is everyone ahead of me. But they are also corpses, their flabby bodies bruised and rotten. One looks like Zea with milk-white eyes and the tattoo of six stars on his stomach, another is a child with jagged yellow teeth and foam crusted at the corners of her mouth. We file into the jury box. I sit down and look out into the room to see who’s on trial—
I jolted awake and found myself lying in the same position I’d fallen asleep, looking at Lotli.
“Didn’t mean to startle you.” Selena’s voice whispered close to my ear. “It’s after six. I’m going to the solarium to get some of Kate’s special willow bark. Lotli’s going to need some kind of pain reliever once she wakes up.”
“Good thinking. I’ll keep an eye on her while you do that.”
As she headed off, I yawned and rubbed my neck to alleviate a cramp. Considering I couldn’t have gotten more than three hours of sleep, I felt pretty good.
Lotli groaned, and her fingers groped along the side of her pillow until they came to where her flute and medicine bag were stashed. Once she’d touched them, her eyes blinked open and she mumbled, “How—how did we get here? What happened?”
“What do you remember?”
“We were at a party.” She wriggled, trying to sit up. I helped her and put a couple of pillows behind her back.
“What happened next?” I asked.
“We were watching Newt and Selena dance, felt dizzy.” Her forehead creased, like she was struggling to remember.
“Were you drinking a beer or something mixed—was anyone with you besides Selena and Newt?”
“Water. We had a bottle of it. There were pretzels. We went and got some. We thought we lost our water, then we found it.” She looked at me. “Someone drugged us?”
“We think so. Do you remember anything else?”
She closed her eyes. “A guy, helping us walk. Dizzy. We told him to find Selena. Everything was spinning. Felt sick.”
“What did he look like?”
She reached for the glass of wate
r next to her bed. I got it for her and held it while she took a sip. She pinched the bridge of her nose as if trying to ease a headache so she could think. “We can’t remember. He smelled like aftershave, not essential oils, artificial cologne. We remember that. He had on a hoodie, something with long sleeves. It was hot, dark, no air. A coffin.”
“Do you remember a car?”
“No. Nothing.” Panic filled her voice, sending it pitching upward. “What happened to us?”
I perched on the edge of the daybed, holding her hand while I quietly told her the complete unaltered truth, how I’d found her and that I thought it might be Newt’s brother, how Selena and Chase didn’t know that detail, and how stupid I’d been to not notice the make or even look at the car’s license plate. How it didn’t look like she’d been raped. “. . . We didn’t call the police last night because we wanted to leave that up to you,” I finally said. “If you want, I’ll call them now.”
She yanked her hand from mine. “No. Please. There are things we can’t . . . We are fine. You saved us. We don’t need police.”
I smiled. “I wondered about that. You and Zea kind of live off the grid?”
Her voice quieted. “We would be sad if anything happened to Zea. And he—we are not. You know, we work for cash—no green cards.”
The French doors opened and Selena whisked in. “Great, you’re awake,” she said. “I’m betting you have the world’s worst hangover, so I brought you the world’s best cure.”
Lotli chewed the bark. “That is incredible. We can feel it working already. Powerful.” She lay back on her pillows and closed her eyes. But then she sat up again and beamed at me. “We owe you so much.” Her eyes flitted to Selena. “Both of you.”
The sincerity in her voice was palpable and I couldn’t help but wonder if this was the perfect time to get the truth from her.
“Lotli,” I said. “Before we heard about the avalanche and the men being trapped—were you and Chase already planning to go to the djinn realm alone?”
