Page 419 of Bride of Choice

Gopher and I both turned as Buu let out a garbled noise and came charging down the hall.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” Slipping out of Gopher’s arms, I hurried over to Buu as he began jerking doors open to pop his head inside them.

“No find Dace,” he announced softly.

“What do you mean, you can’t find her?” I sputtered. “Short of climbing out a window, where the heck could she go?!”

We were in the middle of a rather ugly hiccup of snow—short bursts of the white stuff at random that could quickly grow neck tall if it kept up for long enough. More than a few have had to be unburied throughout the years when the snow hiccups hit, or so my mates have warned me. It’s fuck around and find out weather. Was she nuts?!!

“Gopher help look,” Gopher offered, taking off with Buu to open doors along the left as Buu worked on the right.

“Where the hell can she go?” I muttered as I glanced around frantically.

“Candy-ass gone?” Berkr grumbled, sounding much more subdued than moments ago.

“No,” I replied firmly. “She’s, uh, she’s just, erm… temporarily misplaced.”

Berkr snorted at that. “Bad Jo mean. Candy-ass runs away.”

“If she ran from anything into the snow hiccup, Pepé, it’s because of you,” I shot back snottily.

“Candy-ass bad. Jo no ‘stand.” Berkr folded his massive arms over his chest and glowered down at me.

Didn’t faze me one fucking bit. “Look, I’m not going to ever say what she did wasn’t fucked up, okay? She was wrong. It was totally wrong. She should never have agreed to help that guy, she should never have fucked around with a guy who was taken, and fuck that guy for being such a waste of fucking space, but this isn’t about any of that right now! Okay? She’s missing and that shit is getting bad! She could die out there!”

Pepé was unmoved.

“She saved my life. She coulda stood back and hid behind something and cowered and cried, but she didn’t. That Krampus was going to kill me, Pepé.” My hand jerked towards the mangled side of my face. “That pipsqueak of a human grew the biggest set and took that asshole out, by herself. For me. I fucking owe her. I don’t expect you to understand it. Just… Just help us fucking find her. Not because she’s a good or bad person, but because YOU are a good fucking guy.”

With that, I turned to start searching with the guys.

“EH! EY! My Joalee!” Buu called out. “I fiii-”

Soft, squeaking pleas followed.

“What did you find? Is it Dace?” I shouted back as I scrambled down the hall.

“No run!” Celuk shouted after me.

“Yes, Daddy!” I sassed.

Celuk snorted and grumbled something under his breath, to take off after me.

Berkr’s gurgled choking sounds were quite the thing. For once, the beast was utterly speechless.

???

“This is kind of an odd turn of events,” I mumbled as I stared at the little flat butt sticking out at me.

“What mean?” Buu asked, eyeballing the small window frame in the storage room Dace had thought to try and climb out of.

“Why this window?” I had to ask. It was the only teeny tiny one in the house.

I had to tap Dace’s hip to get her to answer. Her squealing squeak had me struggling not to laugh despite how fucked her sitch was.

“Why this window, Dace?” I called out louder.

“I panicked when the big scary guy came to the door,” she mumblingly told me. “This was the first room I ducked into.”

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