Page 29 of Guarded from Danger

What he’s saying makes sense. She’s been so hard on herself, like she didn’t just go through a terrible trauma—so I could see Lucy deciding to challenge herself by going someplace alone. Wanting to prove that she could.

Except. The door. Why was it open? And why didn’t she tell me where she was going?

“Um.” There’s a loaded silence before Matt continues. “I’m not seeing her anywhere.”

“What?”I stop pacing. “What do you mean, you can’t see her?”

“I’ve checked every interior camera. And the ones in the yard. Lucy’s not there.”

My heart stops.

Where is Lucy?

I nearly crush my phone in my hand as I sprint from the gym. “Did she leave the yard? Did we have a breach? Where the fuck could she be?”

Urgency roughens his tone. “No breach. We would have known. And I don’t know if she left. The alarms don’t go off if the gates are opened from the inside.”

“Fuck!” Niall and Sarah jerk their heads towards me as I burst into the living room. “If she left?—”

Niall leaps to his feet. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m going back through the footage,” Matt replies. “Starting in the east wing. I’ll track where she went.”

“Lucy’s missing,” I tell Niall. “I don’t know where she went. If she left the yard, the property—” Fear closes my throat for a second. “If those people find her?—”

Matt’s somber voice breaks in. “She took off. Fifteen minutes ago. Just sprinted out of your apartment and headed?—”

Niall’s on his phone, saying briskly, “Rhi. Lucy’s missing. I’m not sure why. We need to look for her.”

I almost crack my molars to keep from shouting. “Where did she go?”

“Outside,” Matt answers. “Through the door at the end of the east wing. From there, I see her running around the back of the barn, but then she drops off. The next camera, she’s gone.”

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

I knew I shouldn’t have left her.

As I tear outside, heart in my throat, one thought keeps repeating.

I shouldn’t have left her.

Something must have triggered a flashback, and she took off in a panic, trying to escape. And now she’s terrified, possibly hurt, lost… and what if she makes it off the property? What if the people who took her?—

Shit.

I need to find her first.

A set of footsteps comes running up beside me. Niall.

“Rhi’s taking the front,” he says. “I’ll check around the garage.”

“I’m going to the barn,” I reply, then put on an extra burst of speed. Over my shoulder, I add, “Don’t shout. It could scare her.”

Rather than check the inside of the barn, I come around the back, focusing on the clusters of shrubs along the exterior wall. Once I get close, I slow to a jog, even though fear is urging me faster. If she is hiding here, she doesn’t need to hear someonesprinting towards her, likely frightening her all over again. She needs slow. Calm. Gentle.

And if she’s not here…

No. She has to be. Putting myself in her situation, panicked, operating on instinct, I’d look for someplace to hide. Not waste precious time trying to open the gate.

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