His heart beats against my cheek as he crushes me to him in a fierce hug, and it occurs to me vaguely that I’m getting blood all over him. But I don’t fucking care, and apparently, neither does he.
“Fuck, Rose. Jesus, Fuck.” His voice is rough. “What happened to you?”
“Carson.”
The word scrapes over my vocal chords. Anger burns in my belly, I’m filled with a sudden wild impulse to run back to his body and kick his corpse until his ribs break. He might be dead, but that doesn’t undo what he did when he was alive. And I want to kill him all over again for it.
“Cars—” Theo’s voice breaks off as his body stiffens in my hold. I have a feeling he just looked over my shoulder and caught sight of the dead man on the ground. “Oh, fuck.”
“Ayla, what happened?”
Ryland’s voice is hard, and when Theo releases me from his hold, the man with dark hair and hazel eyes takes hold of my shoulders, lowering his head to meet my gaze. The tattoos creeping up his neck look more vivid than usual with the strange halo effect that still colors my vision.
I swallow. “Carson chased me and Marcus down. I thought we lost him, but he found us. We stopped for a second, just a second, and when we stepped out, he was there with a gun. He…” The words stick in my throat, mixing with the bile that’s rising into my mouth. “He shot Marcus.”
Ryland’s eyes widen, his tan skin paling. His head turns quickly as he looks at the corpse lying a few yards away, like he’s afraid he might’ve been wrong about who it belongs to. His nostrils flare, and he turns back to me, his grip on my shoulders tightening.
“Ayla, where’s Marcus?” he demands gruffly.
A hollow pit opens up in my stomach, making me feel empty and insubstantial. I reach up to grip his forearm as I shake my head.
“I… I don’t know.”
Chapter 2
My answer hangs in the air between us for a long moment, seeming to grow heavier with every second that passes.
“Is he with you? Did he find you?” I ask desperately when neither of the men speak, even though I’m sure I already know the answer. I didn’t see Marcus standing with them when they walked up, and if he’d somehow managed to make his way to them, why would they be asking me if I know where he is?
Ryland shakes his head, his eyes shuttering as his jaw sets. “No. He didn’t.”
Something about the change in his expression and the tense lines of his face makes fear creep through my veins. It’s like he’s bracing himself. Hardening himself. Putting a layer of armor around his heart so that pain can’t penetrate it.
I squeeze his forearm tighter, looking from him to Theo and back. “Then where is he? I woke up and he was gone. He was just… gone. I can’t find him, and I don’t know who killed Carson, and—”
My tongue feels like it’s growing thicker. It’s too slow and unwieldy, making it hard to form all the words that want to spew out of my mouth. But it hardly matters anyway. It won’t make any difference if I convince Ryland that Marcus should be here. He’s not, and that won’t change no matter what any of us believe. I can’t argue my way out of this awful, basic fact.
I stop talking and drag in a breath, trying to refocus my thoughts. When I speak again, I force the words to come out slowly and evenly.
“I hit my head and blacked out. When I woke up, Carson was lying next to me, dead. And Marcus was gone. He was shot three times before we both went down. He was bleeding. A lot.” My throat tightens. “Maybe he could’ve regained consciousness and shot Carson somehow. But I don’t think he could’ve walked away. I don’t see how.”
Ryland’s face is still that same taut mask, as if he’s shoving down every emotion he’s ever had so he can process all of this rationally.
I wish I could do that. I wish I could fucking think straight, but the only thought that keeps running through my head is, where is he? Where is he? Where is he?
“Fuck,” Theo mutters, and I try not to let myself hear the heartbreak in his voice.
I glance between the two of them again, my stomach knotting itself into a hard lump. “What? Where do you think he is?”
“It’s not the first time someone has gone missing in the game.” Theo shakes his head. “When Xavier and Jack were killed, their bodies were never found. It makes cleanup easier and keeps evidence from leading back to any of us, or to Luca. There’s no rule that says you have to leave a body where it falls.”
Leave a body where it falls.
His words tear through my heart like a rusty knife, and I step back, shrugging out of Ryland’s grip. I want him to wrap his arms around me the way Theo did, to envelop me in his embrace and block out the world—but I don’t think I can handle being touched right now.
My skin hurts, as if it’s shrinking around my bones. As if I’m about to collapse down into nothingness like a black hole.
“You think he’s dead.”
It’s meant to be a question, but it comes out as a statement, monotone and blunt.
“No, Rose. I didn’t say that. We don’t know.” Theo’s voice is emphatic, but there’s a roughness to it that he can’t hide, and his eyes are haunted. I can’t tell if he’s lying to me or himself.
“Come on.”
Ryland is already moving before he finishes speaking, striding toward the body on the ground. He squats
