“Because that’s the address that Goose just sent me.” Cason turns his phone around to show me his screen. I don’t get past the first three numbers.
132
“Fuck.” I grab the door, push it open and fly out of my car.
It’s the same fucking house. We’re at the same fucking house!
I’m not wasting any time if she’s in there. I run the hardest I’ve ever run in my life, straight for the front door. By the time Cason gets out behind me I’ve already sprinted halfway up the drive. I reach the front door and bang on it a few times. Cason runs around the side of the house first, looking for any entrance inside. He comes back only a few moments later and motions for me to follow.
“Yo, there’s an open window,” he yells before running around the side of the house again.
I jump over the porch railing and land on the path that wraps around the house, then follow him around to the back. By the time I get to the first-floor window he was referring to, I see his legs disappear through it. I follow easily behind him and land in a bedroom—a very small bedroom. It’s got a simple bed, a dresser, and a side table, but the bed is ruffled up like someone slept in it and there’s a brown stain on the pillow. It looks like old blood. I stare at it and hope that it’s not Fallon’s; I don’t think I could handle it if it was. But now that I see it, I can’t push down the feeling that I’m too late. I just hope I don’t find her in here in any state but safe.
“Let’s check the rest of the house,” I whisper to Cason as I swallow the bile and push away the thoughts. “Be careful—we don’t know if anyone is home.”
Cason nods, but I see the sweat forming on his face. He saw the blood too.
We both slip cautiously through the bedroom door. I motion for Cason to go right down the hallway as I go left towards the living room.
After a few moments, Cason comes to the kitchen where I’m searching drawers and cabinets for any sign of Fallon.
“It’s empty,” he says. “The entire fucking house is empty except for two of the bedrooms. There isn’t any furniture anywhere else in the house.”
“Yeah, and judging by the lack of food, I don’t think anyone is coming back,” I say as I slam a cabinet door closed. I sag against it in frustration. I’m too fucking late. “There has to be something here. It’s no coincidence that both Jordan and Jax came to the same house.”
A loud noise comes from the bedroom we’d entered through and both Cason and I drop down low to hide behind the counter. I put my finger over my mouth to indicate we should be quiet as I look at Cason and listen. When I don’t hear anything else, I motion to Cason to tell him I’m going to go check it out. I know instinctively he’ll watch my back; he always does. I slink down the hall with Cason closely following me. I hear another bump. Someone is clearly in the house, and if I had to guess, they followed us in here. They’re in the same bedroom we came through.
“Shit!” A girl’s voice hisses, and I instantly relax. I’d recognize that voice anywhere.
I look back to Cason with a raised eyebrow before he stands and throws the door open to a squealing Jade and yells, “What the fuck are you doing here?”
“Argh!” Jade screams. “Don’t scare me like that! What are you doing here? Besides the obvious breaking and entering,” Jade says, the attitude in her tone belies her disapproval of this situation. I don’t care; it’s for Fallon.
I step into the door frame, leaning on it. “Jade, cut the crap. How did you find us?”
“I followed you here. I knew y’all wouldn’t include me even after promising me you would, so I included myself,” she says as she crosses her arms and stubbornly stares at us. She’s ready for a fight—one I don’t have the energy for. Definitely not while in a house that we broke into that God-knows-who owns. We don’t have time for this. We can’t get caught in this house.
“Alright, but stick close to us and please be careful. We don’t know whose house this is or when or if they will return,” I say as I rub a hand over my face. I’m trying to stave off the defeat I’m feeling, but with every moment it only becomes stronger. She was here; I can feel it. Now I just have to keep the rest of my family from facing the same fate by making sure they don’t get caught in situations like this one.
She relaxes, and the action tells me I was right. She was prepared for a fight. Then she rolls her eyes at me. Typical Jade attitude.
I nod once as I make eye contact with Cason, then Jade. “Let’s finish searching this goddamn place so we can get the fuck out of here.”
We all spread out, covering more rooms and continuing to comb over the place looking for any clue that could help us find Fallon. We search high and low, and just when I think this is going to be another dead end, Jade proves me wrong.
“Guys!” Jade calls out to us. I follow her voice around the corner and find her looking down a set of stairs behind a small door that I’d assumed was a closet. Cason is behind her looking over her shoulder down into the dark.
“I think it’s a basement,” she says as we all stare down a set of stairs.
“Yeah, looks like it,” Cason says, leaning in to see beyond the black hole. “Well, ladies first.” He clears his throat as he gestures for
