ALSO BY L.A. CASEY
Slater Brothers series
Dominic
Bronagh
Alec
Keela
Kane
Aideen
Ryder
Branna
Damien
Alannah
Brothers
The Man Bible
Collins Brothers series
Dateless
Maji series
Out of the Ashes
Ripples in Time
Standalone novels
Frozen
Until Harry
Her Lifeline
My Little Secret
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2020 by L.A. Casey
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Montlake, Seattle
www.apub.com
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Montlake are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781542022538
ISBN-10: 1542022533
Cover design by Plum5 Limited
For the real-life heroes who run into danger while everyone else is running away from it.
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
EPILOGUE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
PROLOGUE
ELLIOT
Fifteen days ago . . .
“Elliot? Elliot? Shit, shit, shit! It’s his voicemail!”
My world came to a standstill the moment I heard her sweet voice. For a split second, I allowed the familiarity of it to wash over me before reality slammed into me. I hadn’t heard that voice on the phone, or in person, in four very long years. The closest I’d got was when I watched old videos that she was in.
“Noah?”
The disbelief in my voice registered with me instantly. I could hear an overwhelming flood of shock and confusion the second I uttered those two little syllables. With my free hand, I lifted my fingers to the silver calla lily pendant that suddenly felt heavy against my chest.
“Help us,” she sobbed, the sound causing my heart to clench. “Oh God. Please, I don’t know what to do! Bailey, what’re we gonna do? It’s so dark, put the high beams on.”
My grip on my phone tightened and my breathing hitched. I reminded myself that the voicemail came from my sister’s phone. Noah was with my sister and I had no idea why. I suddenly felt like I was free-falling and no one was around to catch me. I was standing in the kitchen of the station, staring down at the rice I was cooking. I watched the water bubble through blurred eyes as my senses focused on the call.
“Oh God, oh God!” Noah sobbed. “Bailey, you’re going too fast!”
The line began to break up and I clutched my phone to my ear, hoping the call didn’t drop.
“Tulse Hill,” she whimpered. “Elliot, we’re on – Bailey, slow down!”
“I’m tryin’!” my sister’s panic-laced voice shouted. “I can’t stop, it’s black ice! We’re slidin’!”
“Elliot!” Noah screamed as the line broke up. “Elliot, help us. Tulse Hill . . . Please, please . . . going to kill . . . Bailey! Look out!”
I had never felt true bone-rattling fear until I heard my sister’s terror-filled scream as the line went dead. I blindly reached out and gripped on to the counter to keep my knees from buckling. For what seemed like an eternity, I didn’t move. I felt like I wasn’t in control of my body, like what I was experiencing wasn’t real. I swallowed. The haunting silence that filled the room was louder than Bailey’s scream. It was deafening. Laughter from the common room seemed to snap me back into reality. I pushed the pot of rice off the burner, switched the hob off, then ran into the room where my friends were gathered.
No one noticed my entrance.
“How long did the electric company say it’d be before they got the grid back up and running?” AJ, my best mate, asked Texas, our friend and co-worker. “It’s been years since the whole of bloody London has had no power. Especially not this long – it’s been what, four hours now? People must be going crazy without Wi-Fi for Facebook and Instagram.”
The tail end of a storm had blown London and a few neighbouring towns into a blackout. We were all on edge; no power meant no lights, and no lights on a winter night could lead to some pretty serious accidents.
Bad things happen in the dark. They always have.
“Fingers crossed it’ll all be back on soon,” Stitch, the watch manager, said optimistically. “We’re lucky this place has a built-in generator. Perks of being firemen, we always need power and we get it.”
AJ was about to reply when he caught sight of me. Whatever expression he saw on my face caused him to jump to his feet and hurry over. His hand went to my shoulder, clutching me as his worried eyes locked on mine.
“Irish? What’s wrong?”
I couldn’t form the words to explain myself, so I lifted my hand and pressed on the screen of my phone. I replayed the voicemail I’d received and put it on speaker for the room to hear. Everyone listened with pensive expressions on their faces.
“Noah and Bailey,” I rasped as the message ended. “Somethin’ is wrong with them, they’re at Tulse Hill. We hav’te go!”
I had barely finished speaking when the familiar sound of a siren echoed throughout the station. Everyone sprang into action; we all knew our positions for the current watch, having been briefed not long after we clocked in. We were well rehearsed, but today I couldn’t think straight. My brain wasn’t firing on all cylinders.
“Stitch!” I darted my gaze to his. “I can’t go. Me sister and Noah, something’s wrong. They need me!”
Just as I spoke, the automated, robotic voice that flowed through the speakers of the tannoy system sounded. Everyone went deathly silent as we listened for the nature of the call.
“CHARLIE ONE. ECHO ONE. RTC. PERSONS TRAPPED.”
RTC. A car accident. My heart stopped.
I moved before I even realised it. I was right behind Stitch as he ripped off the tip-out sheet from the ribbon printer.
