“Can you show me to your cameras, please?” Ria asked him.
He nodded slowly.
“Great. Let him go, Declan.”
* * *
As he rewound the recordings to last night when Brooke pulled into the lot, I watched every second, not taking a moment to blink.
She parked at the edge of the lot, though. Paired with the fact that the cameras were low quality, making out much of anything was close to impossible.
We did see the door open. We saw her head roll out, presumably when she vomited. We couldn’t see much inside the car, but the door was still slightly ajar. I interpreted that as Brooke puking, then groggily leaning back in her seat, probably too sedated to do much else.
A few minutes passed, and throughout them, nothing changed.
She was in the car, likely unconscious. Thank god she pulled over before that.
Cars continued passing down the road, but since it was dark, and the door was mostly shut, I doubted anyone noticed her inside. Which was probably for the best. Had a cop seen her, she would’ve gotten a DUI.
Watching each second from then out, fast-forwarding through the monotonous nothings, eventually, a car parked beside her.
Nothing was distinguishable. It was a car—not an SUV. The person who climbed out was a man judging by his height and stature, but he wore a hoodie that blocked his face as he lifted her limp body from the driver’s seat.
My heart was louder than a drum at a concert as he slammed the door shut and turned back onto the road, but Ria was on the verge of hyperventilating.
“This doesn’t make any sense,” I murmured. “I don’t—who would take her? Why?”
“Had to have been someone at that party. Maybe they knew why you were there and figured without Brooke, no one would keep looking for Misty.” Ria’s trembling fingers clicked off the cameras and straightened up. “Let’s go.”
CHAPTERTWENTY-FIVE
DECLAN
The panic only intensified as we travelled north to Abe’s house.
It was closer to Brooke’s house than it was to mine—only twenty-five minutes—but those twenty-five minutes felt like watching the numbers on a bomb tick by.
She wasn’t hurt. If she were, I’d have felt it. Rationally, I knew that. Wherever he’d taken her, she wasn’t in pain. Depending on what he’d slipped her at the party, she could’ve still been out cold. That would explain why I hadn’t heard her thoughts.
But what if she died? Would I have felt that? If it were painful, I knew I would’ve, but what if it were an overdose? He was a wolf—what if he’d drunk her dry?
My hand clenched so tight at that thought that it hurt.
No, I shouldn’t have been angrier at the thought of another man drinking her blood than I was over the fact that she was literally kidnapped, but here I was.
“I’ll keep my mouth shut for the most part,” Ria said as we swayed side to side up the rocky path to his house atop the mountain. “But if he refuses to help, if he tries to get us to leave without telling me who left first last night, I’m killing him.” She glanced at me in her peripheral vision. “I’ll teleport behind him and slit his throat before he realizes I’ve done it. I’m guessing that’ll put a dozen wolves on your ass, so try and keep yourself open enough that I can get to you.”
Typically, I wasn’t a fan of murder. But in this case…
“A slice across the throat won’t cut it.”
“What do you recommend then?”
“Through the eye into his brain.” I unbuckled my seatbelt, glancing around. “You got an extra blade by chance?”
“Three in the glove box,” she said. “But leave them in a pile on the floor. I’ll teleport them to our hands if we need them. If they pat us down, we’ve got nothing.”
“Good point.”