Page 130 of Shattered Veil

Reaching the bottom, it seemed as though the man paused. Perhaps he was listening for something—someone—but none of us would have known. And then his steps grew slightly quieter, pointedly walking away from us. I let out a ragged breath, and it was only two more of the man’s steps later that Liam nudged me with his arm.

I looked to him, and he gestured with his head to the upstairs as he mouthed silently, ‘Go find Jay.’

It was a tactic to lure me away from the maniac that was most likely Randy Dowler—I knew that for sure—and though my initial instinct was to vehemently shake my head and demand my involvement, I didn’t. By my own doing, this had escalated to an immediate extraction attempt…and we had no idea if this man would be subdued in the midst of that attempt. We did, however, need someone to locate James—to try to free him from whatever madness this was.

I was more than up to the task, and I noiselessly demanded back, ‘Be careful.’

Liam gave me a curt nod along with what I took as a silent insistence for me not to come back downstairs until the coast was clear. I neither agreed nor argued, and I took off.

The stairs creaked as I took them two at a time, the carpeting below doing little to disguise my leaping up them. I didn’t hesitate, though, nor did I look back, and I heard nothing else as blood roared in my ears rather than any potential noises from below or behind. The landing had scant hallway to speak of, with a single door to the left and right, and the only reason I ran through the former was because it was already ajar.

There was no furniture. No paint or decorations on the walls. In fact, if it weren’t for the closet being cracked open, I would have left and sprinted for the other bedroom. I moved to the space instead, seemingly being pulled by gravity rather than my own two feet, and I pushed the door open.

I saw his legs first.

Sitting on top of a grey padding that covered the rest of the area, they were still covered in the brown slacks and loafers that he dressed in that morning. My heart jammed into my throat, and my eyes moved over his shirt. The material was a lighter, cool-toned blue, just as I remembered, but the top half clung to his shoulders for it was sopping wet. His face was obscured by a white hand towel, jerking from side to side as he grunted with each motion. It stayed stuck in place, what I assumed to be the same wetness making it heavy, and he only had time to take one panicked breath before I lurched for him.

Life often moves in both fast and slow motion when pulses race—when bullets fly—hell, when a boy unexpectedly shows up at your front door. It’s moments like those where time is merely a construct—toying with the perception of reality by passing in the blink of an eye and subsequently slowing to the rate of pouring molasses.

This was one of those moments.

I yanked the fabric from his face, and time whipped back into hyper-speed.

I expected…fear in his eyes, maybe. Shock at my sudden arrival. Maybe even a whispered, ‘Cassie?’ I didn’t know…maybe I wasn’t sure what to expect under the towel at all, but it most certainly wasn’t this.

Bruising along his left temple and cheek had yet to darken to a purple, but I knew that it would in due time. The areas were angry—swollen to the point that the skin had split on his brow, and blood had dripped from the wound down his face. In some areas, it had washed away or smeared because of the wet material that was previously covering him, but in others, it had coagulated enough that it would require a generous scrubbing to remove it from his skin…over his eyelid…all the way into his beard.

James had flinched when I removed it, a metal clinking sounded from behind him, and as soon as he realized that it was me, his gaze turned to one of abject horror.

“No,” he exhaled, his voice strained, “no, please, no—where is he? Why are you here?”

The way he asked it was tortured, and I could only assume that he thought Randy had taken me at some point, as well.

Seeing James in such a state boiled my blood, and any fear that I had at the dire situation at hand just…vanished.

My vision tinged in various shades of red, my teeth threatened to crack under the strain of my clenched jaw, and I felt as though I began to vibrate in place with white-hot rage. I lifted an index finger, pointing it toward the floor, and it twitched as I brought it up to my lips.

He watched me carefully, his chest still heaving as gusts of air ran through him, and when I knelt before him to inspect whatever was clearly binding him, he was looking at me in realization-induced bewilderment.

I entirely understood why he was staring at me with a wide-eyed embodiment of the one-worded sentence, ‘How?’ but there was no use for me to explain how I was here in this exact moment. Feeling for his wrists, I found the cold steel around them and quickly realized that he was shackled through the padding and into the wall. I gave it a rough tug, groaning as its hold on him was all too strong.

The floor shook with a scuffle breaking out from below, and I whipped my head back and forth in search of something—anything that could free him that was located nearby.

I found nothing, and I hissed, “God dammit!”

James anxiously murmured, “Cassie, you can’t—”

Clutter rang out. Heavy items crashed to the ground.

“I—I don’t—” I stammered, pulling on the chain with more desperation, “I don’t know how to…”

He rapidly told me, “The cuffs aren’t going anywhere unless we can cut them off, Cas. He’ll be back. You need to go—”

“AH!”

A male voice let out a shriek, another yelled, “MOVE!” and heavy stomps from multiple pairs of legs joined the chaos.

“Oh my God,” James whispered. “Who else is here?!”

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