Page 85 of Fallen Stars

Mechanical-sounding laughter bounces off the walls as he steps farther into my cell. “That’s where you’re wrong. The second you started chatting with us online, you were ours. We just waited for the perfect opportunity.”

“Huh?”

He takes another step closer and shakes his head. “We’ve been doing this a long fucking time. We do our research too. Not hard to weed out the impostors when you know your audience.”

I may not be some sick and twisted pervert looking to buy, corrupt and destroy people, but I think I played the part well. Hell, I barely spoke with anyone. For the most part, I loitered.

But maybe that was the biggest red flag.

These bastards don’t linger. They’re eager for every scrap of filth they can get their hands on from the start.

“Noted.” I lift my gaze to meet his. “Just let me go home. I don’t even know where the hell I am. I won’t tell a soul.”

He scoffs as he closes the small distance between us and squats down.

“You still don’t get it.”

I stare at him and try to puzzle out what he means. With a lack of food and water, my brain isn’t functioning at full capacity. I’m not connecting the dots.

Rising to his feet, he digs into a pocket of his cargo pants. He sets a small bottle of water next to my feet. From another pocket, he removes a different container and deposits it next to the bottle, the contents unidentifiable.

“You are home, Two Sixty-Three. Best you get used to the accommodations.”

TWENTY-FOUR

OLIVER

I stareat the ceiling as dawn peeks through the blinds. Faint shadows dance across the subtle texture beneath the paint. For a moment, the pale pink and orange colors steal my attention. Give me something to focus on other than reality. Gift me an inkling of respite.

As quickly as the calm filters in, it vanishes.

I don’t deserve to feel an ounce of comfort. Not while the spot next to me in bed remains cold, empty and lifeless. Not while the most important person in my life is missing and existing in hell.

All that matters is finding him and bringing him home.

Rolling onto my side, I bury my face in his pillow, close my eyes and inhale deeply. I picture Levi here with me, pulling me into him and pinning me to his chest. Imagine him throwing a leg over my hip as he hugs the air from my lungs. I recall his warmth and affection and the way he never wanted to let go.

Though his scent has faded over the past thirty days, I refuse to wash his pillowcase. I refuse to clean any trace of him from my space. His underwear and socks sit in the dresser untouched. His clothes hang in the closet as he last left them. As for his dirty laundry, all but some of his shirts remain in the basket.

On the nights when my sobs seem endless, I slip one of his dirty shirts over my head and breathe him in. Whisper promises into the darkness that I will do whatever it takes to find him. That I will never stop looking. Between tears, I murmur how much I love him.

“I love you, moje srce,” I mumble into the pillow.

Taking one last deep breath, I shove away from his pillow and force myself out of bed.

Since coming home from the hospital, my daily routine has been much the same. Roll out of bed after a fitful night of unrest, do basic hygiene, dress for the day, sit down with my parents for breakfast but don’t eat it, then head to Tymber Woulf Security and Investigative Services until well after dark.

Several times a week, Travis comes into TWSIS and the three of us brainstorm over new information. Tymber spends most of the day sifting through code on Levi’s computer line by line, looking for one tiny fragment that would give us a better idea of where to search for him. I sift through hundreds of files on the missing people in the hopes of finding common denominators among them.

Yesterday, we tacked a large map of the Northwest to a corkboard. While Tymber reads code and Travis coordinates with various law enforcement offices, I make a list of who went missing and where then add a pin to the map for each person. Our hope with the pins is to get a different perspective. If several people were taken in the same area or the abductions surround an area, it may lead us to where everyone has been taken.

“You’re too thin, dušo,” Mama says, the heavy weight of despair in her voice. She brushes the back of her fingers down my cheek. “I know you don’t want to, but please make sure you eat.” She takes my hands in hers. “You need your strength to find him.”

I give her hands a quick squeeze and nod. “I’m trying, Mama.” The corners of my mouth twitch. “Promise.”

Releasing my hands, she cups my cheeks, pushes up on her toes, and presses a kiss to my forehead. “Let me pack something for you to eat later.”

I follow her into the kitchen and watch as she fills a storage container with food. A voice in the back of my head begs me to tell her not to add anything too heavy. I ignore it and let her add whatever she wants. If one thing is certain, it’s that food is one of Mama’s love languages. Same goes for Papa. In some respects, I’ve also made it one of mine, although I don’t do most of the cooking.

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