Page 21 of Rage

I shake my head. “No, I was just in there and I would’ve noticed if she came in.”

“I, ah, didn’t notice that she even left the table,” Owen admits with an apologetic grimace. “Sorry, you know how I get when I’m working on a lead.

He starts to shut his laptop as he slides to the edge of the seat, but Drake shakes his head. “You and I are going to look at the map and do some planning. Kingston and Wyatt can go look for Daisy. She can’t have gone far, they’ll find her.”

With a sinking suspicion and growing urgency, I turn to Kingston, who’s already working his way around Drake to go search for our girl. As Drake moves out of the way, I follow Kingston outside.

“King, we have a problem,” I mutter while our eyes scan the gas station’s parking lot. It’s relatively empty except for a few parked cars. “She’s got her knife.”

Kingston’s body stiffens as his head whips around to look at me.

“Fuck,” he signs in frustration.

Yeah, fuck is right. If she kills someone here where there are cameras on each corner of the store and around the pumps, the cops will get here in no time and will have plenty of evidence against us. Owen won’t be able to save us then with all his tech savvy skills.

“Let’s split up, and meet at the back of the store,” I suggest. “If she’s not out here and not inside, that’s the only place left to look.”

Kingston nods and the both of us take off, splitting up to search for our girl. There’s nothing around the gas station, situated beside the busy highway, except for a few abandonedlooking stores. Trash litters the sidewalks and there’s a general stench of garbage that permeates the air.

I’m glad we’re just passing by—I’m not a fan of this place.

When I get to the back of the convenience store, my eyes dart toward the small patch of trees. They’re fairly sparse. I’m pretty sure I can see through to the store beyond them. My initial sweep doesn’t reveal Daisy lurking in there. With a frown, I turn looking for any sign of her elsewhere back here. Did she climb into one of the few cars out front? That wouldn’t be too out of the norm for her. When she senses something amiss, she’s a dog with a bone. It’s like she can’t stop herself once she gets started. It probably doesn’t help that the four of us don’t bother talking her down off most of her edges.

How could I possibly say no to my Pretty Flower when she wants to bathe herself in blood? Red looks so damn good on her.

The thing is, we all have better impulse control than Daisy. No one enjoys keeping a leash on our girl, but when we don’t keep her close, she disappears and kills the first person she thinks deserves it. I don’t think she’s been wrong about any of the deaths she’s caused. Still, we have to be cautious. It’s one thing to kill people who deserve it. It’s another to drive a blade into the neck of someone who looked at someone else the wrong way.

Kingston comes around the other side of the building a moment later. There’s no Daisy with him. Shit. He sees me and throws up his hands in frustration. I stop, ready to turn back around and retrace my steps but halt as a feminine cry pierces the air.

My limbs lock up and for a second, I’m terrified that the sound of fear belongs to my Pretty Flower. Kingston freezes too. Our eyes meet, and despite the distance I can read the panic in his icy blue ones. The look lasts half a second before we both spring into action.

We dart toward the trees, racing in the direction the sound had come from. We only get a few feet into the sparse woods before I see her. There’s a girl on the ground, probably no older than fourteen. Her cheeks are ruddy, tears streaming down her face, and there’s a red mark on her face in the shape of her hand.

She’s completely ignored as my eyes narrow in on my girl.

Daisy has a man on his knees a few feet away. Even though I wasn’t here to witness what took place, I know instantly why Daisy inserted herself into the situation. The guy has to be in his fifties, maybe even sixties, judging by the wrinkles and shape of his face. His fly is open and by the terrified look on the young girl’s face, I can only assume he was being a pervert.

The man is a blubbering mess, promising my girl something as fat tears roll down his cheek. One eye is already swelling shut and there’s a bloody X sliced across the front of his shirt. Standing over him, Daisy is as still as a statue. The blood on the hunting knife in her hand catches in the overcast light.

“P-please, I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying nothin’!” The man says as he tries to talk through his sobs.

They do this a lot, Daisy’s victims. Try to talk her out of killing them, plead for mercy as if their own victims hadn’t been doing the same thing just moments before my girl arrived. I’ve heard it so many times I wonder if it’s in the ‘asshole playbook’ or something.

Daisy’s hand tightens around the hilt of her blade, and I know what’s about to happen. Shit.

“Hey!” I snap sharply, trying to get her attention. The girl on the ground screeches in terror, scrambling away at our approach. “Get out of here,now,” I shout at her.

She doesn’t have to be told twice. Scrambling to her feet, the young girl whimpers as she sprints away. The minute her back is turned to us, she’s forgotten. The man on the ground at Daisy’s feet finally sees us, his one good eye going wide.

“H-help! She’s crazy, she’s going to kill me!” He shouts.

I get to Daisy first. My hand snatches her wrist to keep her from striking out. It’s small, my fingers easily curling around and then some. A jolt of awareness shoots through me, just like every time Daisy and I touch. Like she’s a live wire, full of energy.

“Hey, Pretty Flower,” I murmur into her ear. “We got to go.”

“But he was going tohurther,” Daisy objects. There’s an eerie lack of emotion in her voice. It lets me know she’s gone to that place inside of her head, that special place that allows her to do this, kill people, without feeling anything.

Kingston steps around us to come up to the man Daisy has incapacitated.

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