Page 2 of Claiming Sarah

“I will, Mom. I promise. I love you,” Lauren says, a small crack entering her voice. Emotions clog my throat but I force myself to croak the words back, “I love you, too.” Trembling fingers end the call before I begin sobbing at my job.

Rising from my chair, I pick up the uneaten salad that was my lunch before Lauren called with news she was leaving for Mexico with a known killer. I walk to the trash, tossing the unappealing spread of lettuce and my expectations for Lauren into the can. A mother can only do so much. I ignore the voice whispering in my head,but she’s not your biological child, is she?

I shove the dark voice away, walking out of the breakroomand giving my coworkers a tight smile. Natalia and Lauren share a similar skin color and I love them as if they’re my flesh and blood. Only failed IVFs encourage the insidious whispers. An inability to conceive a child on my own whittled away at the hope of providing Lauren with a sibling.

Xavier Lasher has taken my only child from me, maybe the only child I’ll ever have as menopause hurtles toward me in my mid-forties. Walking to the nurses’ station, I note the irony of me delivering children for a living but appearing unable to carry one of my own.

“Has anyone seen Dr. Moore?” I ask no one in particular, approaching a vacant chair in front of a desktop.

“Nope,” Natasha calls, lips popping on the p, drawing my eye to her heavy makeup. I bite my tongue, refusing to remind her yet again of hospital policy concerning makeup and false nails. Each jab of her two-inch long nails into the keyboard stabs into my brain, irritating the oncoming headache.

Where the fuck is Dr. Moore? I wonder, rubbing at my temples. The end of the shift can’t come soon enough.

2

RAVEN

ZAIDEN

She’s pretty.

“Take her.”

“Break her.”

The whispers grow in volume, but staring down at Dr. Bell’s sleeping form, their hold loosens, skirting the edges of my fractured mind. Dark lashes rest on high cheekbones. Alabaster skin catches stray rays of moonlight slipping through the cracks of the curtains in her bedroom. I lean closer, inhaling.

Faint traces of vanilla float in the air, sliding through the holes of my nostrils and burrowing into my brain. My tongue swipes across my lips for a taste. I jerk back at the unexpected reaction. A taste of what? I tilt my head down at the sleeping beauty. I don’t want to eat her.

“Eat. Eat. Eat. Eat.”Clenching my jaw, I force the repetition from my brain. I’m here for information about my brothers, not to watch the gentle, hypnotic rise and fall of Dr. Bell’s chest. I crouch, leaning some of my weight onto the mattress.

Up. Down. Up. Down. Up. Down. I have the strangest urge to rest my cheek on her chest and listen to the steady thump, thump of her heart claw at me. I don’t fight the impulse to slide my hand toward her head, swirling a strand of dark hair around my glove-covered finger. Her raven hair blends with the dark material of the gloves sheathing my hands.

I could make her my doll. I rub the lock of hair against my mask, wishing I could feel the silky texture sliding across my face. She smells nice, and she’s pretty. I think my mom would like her.

“Take!”

“No,” I growl at nothing, causing Dr. Bell’s lips to twist into a frown, rolling away from me with a huff, hair sliding from my grasp. An ache takes up space beneath my ribs. Rising from my crouched position, knees popping, I war with the indecision swarming me, buzzing like the bees that feasted on Dr. Moore’s puffed-up corpse. To take her is to doom her to death. I can’t let her live after I bring her to Daniels’ Manor. The voices won’t let me.

“Zaiden,” Dr. Shaw admonishes lightly. Wise eyes tunnel beneath my skin, scraping me raw, but judgment never enters the green pools.

“The voices do not command you. You command them. Find ways to mute them. Tell me about your mom. Talking about her always distracts you.”

I shake the memory loose with an agitated growl, cutting the noise short when Dr. Bell makes another noise of discontent.

To take or not to take her. I’ll need to bring her with me, eventually. A month of tracking her patterns, memorizing the faces of her coworkers, and following them led me no closer to my brothers than six months ago, when I didn’t even have a lead other than a name.

Zachary Lasher.

A former CEO of a merger and acquisition company, murdered in cold blood by his eldest son, Xavier Lasher. A blurry snapshot in a crumpled newspaper clipping is all I have of Zaine Lasher and his mother, Elizabeth. Zaine rarely makes public appearances, conducting meetings virtually from his secretive home address. None of the employees I’d questioned knew where the low-profile millionaire lived.

“Take her with us.”

“Touch her. Taste her.”

My hands grip my head, applying pressure, attempting to shove the voices out by brute force. I drop them in defeat, the clamor never ceasing. I’ll need all of my mind if I’m to take Dr. Bell. But it won’t be tonight. Sighing, I give the raven-haired beauty one final look before creeping out of her bedroom.

Raven.

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