I was wide awake, and Celeste wasn’t here.
Still not wanting to accept reality, I dashed inside and checked every inch of the place before checking the shelter and the greenhouse as well. I even ran down and checked the fucking creek for some reason, as if I actually expected to find her crouched on the ice, waiting and begging for me to take her instead of the men.
Finally, I sank down onto a snowdrift and rubbed my temples, hardly daring to believe it could be true.
But it was. She was really gone.
I barely had time to process the awful thought before a bright light pierced my vision. Squinting, I stood up to see what it was. My stomach churned at the sight. It was the headlights of two cars coming down one of the little side roads that led onto my property from the south. My pulse still racing, I looked left, back toward the house. Two other cars were coming down my main driveway as well, little specks of yellow light in the distance.
Shit. This time, they were here for me.
I dashed back up to the house and got into my car, tearing around the back before they could reach me. I left my lights off to make it harder for them to figure out where I was.
I turned right and took off through the snow, heading for an old track that led through a patch of woods and off the property on the north side. Whoever the fuck these guys were, they didn’t know about that little road, or else they’d have sent a car to block me from that end as well.
When I was out and onto a proper road, I looked in my rearview mirror, my heart still pounding crazily as I made out little specks of light in the distance behind me. The cars were clearly doing their best to follow me, but they didn’t know these winding backroads like I did. I could lose them if I was careful enough.
I steered around the sharp turns and snaking bends almost robotically, my mind elsewhere. Celeste. Wherever the hell she was, wherever the hell these men had taken her, I was going to get her back. I wasn’t letting go that fucking easily, wasn’t giving up on her. No way.
She was mine.