“What is it?” I asked, confused. “Did Emma take her? If so, we’ll mount up. Everybody will go this time. She won’t get away.”
“Emma didn’t take her,” Aric replied. He’d claimed the note from his wife and he looked positively apoplectic. “Your wards held. This is all on Sami.” His worry was evident as he stared at his wife. “Sami took off on her own to find Rafael.”
“What?” All of the oxygen whooshed out of my lungs. “You can’t be serious.”
“Oh, I’m serious.” Zoe grabbed the note from Aric’s hand and crumpled it. “I’m going to kill her.”
“Maybe she’s still out back,” Whistler said, moving from behind the bar. “Maybe she hasn’t been able to make it very far. We should break into teams and look for her.”
“If she doesn’t want to be found, she won’t be found,” Aric countered, his shoulders sagging. “She’s powerful. She knows how to hide.”
“Because we taught her,” Zoe barked. “She can erect a dome and hide underneath it forever if she wants. She can camouflage herself, too. She’s been taught so many ways to cover herself that I wouldn’t even know where to start to find her trail.”
“Where would she go?” Gunner queried. “She would need a firm plan if she expects to get him back. How does she expect to find Rafael?”
“She’ll try to magically uncover his trail,” Aric replied.
“That’s not working,” Zoe noted. “I tried earlier. They’re covering their tracks. She’ll look someplace else.”
I wasn’t the sort to panic and yet I could feel fear, real and terrible, bubbling up. “Where would she look?”
“I don’t know.” Zoe remained strong, her voice even, but her eyes were glassy. She obviously wanted to cry, give in to her tears, but she would never allow that when her child was at risk. “I just don’t know.”
“I do.” Aric grabbed Zoe by the shoulders and forced her to look at him. He was clearly as upset as his wife, but he held it together. “You can dream walk, baby. We can find her in our dreams. We’ve done it before.”
Zoe hesitated and then nodded. “You’re right. She can’t hide in the dreams.”
I was beyond confused. “What does that even mean?”
“We need a place to rest,” Aric replied. “We need to shut down.”
“You mean go to sleep?” Rooster wrinkled his nose. “Don’t you think that’s a waste of time? I don’t want to tell you how to feel about this, but I don’t understand how dreams can help.”
“We can share dreams,” Zoe explained. “It started after I absorbed the book. Aric and I showed each other our favorite memories in sleep. After we had Sami, we turned it into a game of sorts. We would take her to castles and on adventures in her sleep. Her mind can be tapped through sleep.”
“What if she’s not asleep? I mean, she took off to find the vampire. Why would she go to sleep now?”
“She doesn’t need to be asleep,” Zoe explained. “I’m the one who needs to be asleep, or at least relaxed enough to let my mind drift. It’s a whole process. When she was twelve, outside forces tried to gain control of her. They put her in a trance and tried to lure her from our property. I could wedge myself in her mind then, too.”
“We’re not going to sleep,” Aric added. “We just need a quiet place to work from, someplace with no distractions.”
“There’s a cot in the storage room,” Whistler offered. “It’s quiet there.”
Aric nodded in thanks and slipped his arm around Zoe’s shoulders. “That will work. I appreciate it.”
“No problem.” The grizzled bartender looked bewildered. “What do you want us to do?”
“Keep your ears to the ground,” Aric replied. “Hopefully we’ll be able to figure out where Sami is and then we can all move.”
“How are you going to do that?” I asked, a sick feeling settling in the pit of my stomach. “You’re not familiar with this area.”
“We’re not,” Zoe agreed, thoughtful. “You are, though.”
“Me?” I was taken aback. “How is that going to help you?”
“You’re magical. You’re more.” Zoe touched her temples and I recognized she was barely holding it together. “You’ll be able to recognize the locations we pick out of Sami’s mind.”
“Only if I can hitchhike into your daughter’s dreams with you. What if I can’t?”
“Then we’ll pick another avenue of attack,” Aric replied. “For now, this is our best shot. If we can track Sami through her subconscious, we’ll be able to see what she sees and that will allow us to find her faster.”
“I don’t want to be the wet blanket smothering the fire of this grand plan, but what if Emma already has her?” Marissa threw out. “That means the opposition has two things we value and we have nothing to trade.”
The look Zoe shot my petulant co-worker was straight out of a horror book. “If that’s the case, then I’ll have to kill all of them.”
Rooster gulped. “All of them?”
“Anyone who gets in my way.” Zoe’s voice was icy. “I made Sami a promise when she was born that nobody would ever hurt her. Now, she’s decided to be an idiot and walk into danger willingly, but the sentiment remains. I’ll kill anyone who touches my child,” she hissed. “I’ll rip out still-beating hearts and lop off heads. Nothing will stand between me and her. I can guarantee it.”
Twenty-Five
I was uncomfortable when it was just the three of us in the storage room. I’d been in here before of course. There was nothing out of the ordinary when it came to the room, other than it had been used as a prison of sorts only weeks before when Brandon Masters, Gunner’s best friend, had been turned into a half-vampire and needed to be controlled. What made me uncomfortable was Aric and Zoe, and the intimacy they shared.
“Let’s get comfortable,” Aric suggested, sitting on one end of the lone cot. He made room to tuck Zoe in at his
