There was something about him, though, that was calling to me.
Not in a weird way, either.
In one that felt right.
“Who are you?” I asked him.
He stared at me.
“You don’t know me?” he asked.
I shook my head.
“No.”
“I don’t know you, either,” he admitted.
My brows rose.
“But something led us here, so we’re here,” he continued. “Now we need to figure out why.”Chapter 20Despite being a pain in the ass, you have to admit that I bring a lot to the table.
-Text from Wink to Ian
Ian
It took us two days to figure out why.
The entire forty-eight hours had been harrowing to say the least.
We’d stayed on the grounds of the mill, and that’d been our biggest mistake.
A, because when we were on the grounds of the mill, that also meant that we were detached from the world. No cell phone coverage. No phones. No television.
Old man Eldridge didn’t believe in modern amenities. When he came to work, he expected to be at work. There was no taking away from work, either. Not even emergency phone calls.
If they need us, they’ll send a car. If they don’t, then they don’t need us.
B, because something was draining us. Something was making it to where we were weak, and all of us but a select few were literally too weak to move.
I’d been getting sicker and sicker since, too.
It hadn’t started off that way, but by the time the forty-eighth hour passed, I was becoming lethargic and I could barely stand.
“We need to get him to a doctor,” someone said in a thick Cajun accent.
My eyes followed the sound of that voice, and I stared across the apartment like office at the man who’d said that.
Jean Luc.
I didn’t know him.
Hell, I didn’t know any of these men.
But our bond, one I knew we shared, pulsed inside of me.
I had some sort of connection to them, and that was keeping me from kicking them all the hell out of my mill.
Especially since they seemed just as confused as I was on where they were supposed to be.
It was as if the last ten years of our lives had been erased.
Poof, gone like a snap of the fingers.
“We’re not going anywhere,” Keifer said. “There’s something here that fucked us the moment we entered the parking lot, and we’re going to find it. You know it, and I know it.”
The big man was sitting down on the couch across from me, his head hanging loosely between his arms that were resting on his knees.
His eyes were on the floor, and it was more than obvious, even by my sick eyes, that something was wrong with him.
He wasn’t, however, at my level yet. Nor the level of his brother, which was in the recliner directly next to mine.
“Listen, Keifer,” Derek, another of the men that’d shown up, said. “You know, as well as I do, that something more is at stake here than we’re both realizing. We need to get out of this place and head for your shop or something.”
“I’m okay,” I sat up, slowly, and looked around the room.
“No, you’re not.” Keifer shot back. “But we can agree to disagree.”
I swallowed and stood up, a wave of nausea taking over my belly.
I hadn’t eaten in well over forty hours, nor had I drank anything.
Likely that was all that was wrong with me, but the idea of anything to eat or drink was enough to make my stomach heave.
“I’m going outside for a few,” I gritted out, pushing through the door.
The moment I stepped outside, the feeling in my belly got worse.
So much worse, in fact, that I nearly turned and went back to the chair.
The only thing moving me forward at this point was sheer force of will.
Something was wrong.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the strawberry blonde from the picture. I saw flashes of memories that were literally making me crave something I had no clue how to find.
“Ian?” a soft voice called.
I turned the corner and found my sister there, leaning against the building.
“Hey, Buttercup,” I called roughly. “What are you doing outside by yourself for?”
She smiled sadly at me.
“I’m confused,” she whispered.
I leaned against the metal side of the mill and looked at her.
She’d grown up to be beautiful.
Every time I looked at her my heart constricted.
She looked just like our mom used to look.
“Confused about what?” I questioned.
She turned to look at the chain link fence that separated the mill’s property from the corn field on the other side of the fence.
“Why you left,” she whispered. “Why you’re back? Why you let me think you were dead all this time? You had a cop tell my foster parents that you died.”
I closed my eyes.
“I knew you weren’t dead, you know.” She picked up a gravel rock next to her thighs that were lying out straight in front of her, and tossed it at the fence.