Page 70 of Knight
It was obvious it was that night because Gwen was still wearing more makeup than normal and her hair was done up the same way it had been when she stormed out of the apartment. The night that Tara and Gwen went out. The night Gwen came home completely fucked up. Gwen was passed out on her bed, her clothes gone, only her bra and thong covering her, and her unconscious body sprawled out on top of the comforter.
It all clicked into place. The next morning she’d been wrapped up tight in the blankets, I couldn’t see anything but the top of her head. I wondered why she hadn’t said anything. But then again, she was too busy pushing me away. Telling me how much I’d hurt her. Explaining to me how our friendship would never work. I knew her well enough to know that she probably blamed herself, even if she couldn’t remember how she’d gotten that way.
The pictures slipped from my fingers as I folded over, my hands landing on my knees. I dry heaved, the feeling of whatever I had in my stomach trying its best to force itself up my throat.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Brass’ boots make their way to where I was. The last thing he needed was to see those, to see his little girl like that.
“No. Don’t.” I straightened too fast and my head felt dizzy. Without taking a moment to regain myself, I pushed my body in front of his to stop him. My hand landed on his chest, firm but not pushing. “Don’t.” My soft tone conveyed all the things I couldn’t say.
Rage filled his eyes as his face turned bright red. He didn’t have to see them to understand that it was really fucking bad.
“Go through everything,” I growled. “Turn this place inside out. There has to be something—some fucking clue as to where she took Gwen.”
They all scattered. I knew we had to work quickly because there was a small chance that one of the neighbors had called the cops upon hearing all the commotion. And I couldn’t even take a chance that we would be lucky enough to get Connor on this call.
Shit.
Maybe I should call him in on this.
I knew I’d have to run it by Iron and it just wasn’t something I could stop and do right then. Every second counted and all I could think was that there had to be something here to give us a clue.
My shaky hand tore open drawers and rifled through clothes not giving a fuck what kind of mess I was leaving in my wake. There had to be at least ten of us here and if there was a clue or an answer, we were going to find it.
“There are pages and pages written in here,” B-ry said and I didn’t have to turn my head to know that he was still looking at the journal. “Everything little thing is like…documented. This is fucking sick.”
I couldn’t agree with him more. It was, and now my Gwen was paying the price. I almost asked what it specifically said but as I thought better of it, I kept my mouth closed and kept moving along. If I knew what was in there I might break. If it said anything about the things she planned to do to Gwen, I just might fucking lose it.
I heard him thumb through the pages at a fast rate and I knew he’d given up on reading it in detail. It must have been that bad. Then the heavy thump of it hitting the desk next to him signaled that he hadn’t found anything.
“Hey,” Lake called making my head whip in his direction. “Look at this.”
He handed over a photo from the massive pile on the bed. I don’t know how he stomached looking through all that shit. I grabbed it with much hesitation because I wasn’t sure if I could handle seeing what he might have found.
“There’s more.” He continued to pass them on after he’d gotten a good look at them.
Each picture was of a different angle of some abandoned building. Only it was all shots of the inside of the place. My eyes squinted, trying to pull something out of them that would give me a clue as to where it was. These pictures were void of Gwen, which made me think that they had to have been taken with purpose.
The photos had a darkness to them, making it hard to make out anything in the background. They were the kind of shots that could have been called art and lined the walls in some gallery. They oddly captured the depressed, abandoned building perfectly. If I didn’t know any better, I would have sworn they were taken by someone who knew what they were doing, and not some psychopath scoping out a place to bring their sick fantasies to life.
“Hold up,” Sketch said in my ear, his head practically resting on my shoulder. His hand moved around me to snatch one of the pictures I’d been holding.
“You know this?” I asked, my tone short and I hoped he understood that my anger and frustration wasn’t aimed at him.
“Murphy’s church,” he mumbled as he grabbed the stack of photos out of my hand and flipped through them. “I used to crash there from time to time.” His face held a dark, lost look as he talked.
I knew Sketch had been in and out of foster care in his youth. Some of those times while he was out, he lived on the streets. That was about as much as my knowledge of his past went but it didn’t really surprise me that he knew the place given his background.
“Down off of Seventh Street, behind that old school that’s been half demolished.” He was moving out of the room before he even finished spouting out the words.
I was vaguely aware of where he was talking about. Before we had our set up, I’d spent many hours driving the streets of this city trying to find a place for the club. The state of the school was something that wasn’t easily forgotten.
The only thing was, it was back on the other side of town. It was closer to the compound than where we were.
“I’ll call, Iron,” Fitz called out, stepping away from the doorway. I gave him an appreciative head jerk as I flew past him.
We filed out of the apartment with lightning speed. Once outside, I scanned the area. I didn’t see lights or hear sirens in the distance and I looked up and thanked my lucky stars for a fraction of a second before I hopped on my bike.
“Knight,” Brass called just before I took off. “This isn’t on you.” His eyes pinned me to make his point. I didn’t agree with him, but appreciated the words anyway. “Head in the fucking game. We are going to get her back.”
With that, he took off and I fell into line behind him. Sketch led the way because he knew exactly where the fuck we were going.
I just prayed we weren’t too late.
I needed hope.
I needed to see her smile again.
I needed to hear her tell me she was okay.
