Chapter 32

The summer breeze caressed my skin as I stepped out of the car, a welcome respite from the oppressive heat that had plagued the city for weeks. I felt so much better today, and I hated that it was probably because of Elroy’s visit. The baby's energy wasn’t draining me the same way, and I could focus on the grim task at hand.

We’d run out of paper evidence to review—it was time to talk to people.

The Davis home was a simple one-story building, the brick clean and the lawn well-maintained. It was a perfectly ordinary house, filled with perfectly ordinary people, and I wished it could stay that way. Except it had already fallen apart.

The woman who lived here had to be floundering—her daughter was missing, her husband was dead, and her son lived on the other side of the city. She was alone in this house, alone in her life. She was probably balancing on a razor’s edge.

And I wasn’t exactly with the most polite company. We were about to walk into an emotionally charged situation and I was terrified that Astor would flip some blasé phrase and send the woman we were here for into a breakdown. I wished I could have left him behind.

Sure enough, as we entered the modest living room, the grief was palpable. The victim's mother, a gray-haired woman who was weaker than she should have been for her age, met my eyes.

"Mrs. Davis," I began gently, "I'm Luna Olivia Allegheny. I’m here to ask a few questions about Sarah.”

"You haven’t found her?" The woman's voice cracked, resignation thick.

I took a deep breath. This was a broken woman. "Not yet, but we're hoping you could help us.”

“I don’t know anything,” Mrs. Davis said, her lip wobbling. “I’ve been over and over every moment of the last day we had together and I can’t think of a single thing that stands out. I’ve tried.”

“I understand,” I said soothingly, sitting and holding her hand across the table. My heart ached for her—I couldn’t imagine her pain. “Why don’t you tell me about that day, and I’ll see if anything stands out to me, okay?”

I listened intently as Mrs. Davis narrated a perfectly normal day. She woke up, took her shower, made herself breakfast, watched her morning show… She stayed inside most of the day, and Sarah stayed with her.

The only thing they did outside the house that day was go grocery shopping, and Mrs. Davis said Sarah didn’t act nervous or concerned. She wasn’t checking over her shoulder like she expected somebody to pop out of nowhere and grab her—it was safe to say she didn’t know what would happen to her that night.

“They found the window open,” Mrs. Davis’s voice cracked. “I always told her to lock it…A young, beautiful Omega like her, without a Mate, she needed to be more cautious…”

Mrs. Davis's face crumpled, and she began to sob uncontrollably. My stomach fell like lead.

"My baby... my poor baby. What if they're hurting her? What if she's cold, or hungry, or-" Her words dissolved into hysterical gasps.

My throat gummed up as I moved to sit beside her, taking her trembling hands in mine. "Mrs. Davis, we don’t know any of that for sure. We don’t have any evidence that Sarah is hurt.”

“But you don’t have any that she’s safe either!” Mrs. Davis wailed. “My baby girl, she’s alone out there with strangers. You know what strangers do to beautiful Omegas?!”

Mrs. Davis dissolved into heaving sobs, and I held her shoulders while trying to ignore the sudden sour taste in my throat. I couldn’t deny that horrific possibility—with no bodies being found it was looking less and less like a hate crime against Omegas, and more like a human trafficking ring. The thought made me sick.

“Please try to breathe with me, Mrs. Davis. In... and out. That's it."

I guided the woman through slow breaths, completely out of my depth, but I couldn’t let her see how frantic I felt trying to calm her down. Worse, I was imagining myself in her position. I didn’t know what my baby would be—they could be an Omega, and someone could steal them from their bed at night.

The terror that gripped me at that thought was visceral, threatening to overwhelm me.

No. Focus, Olivia.

"Your daughter is strong," I said, swallowing down my rising panic. "But in order for us to find her, she needs you to be strong too. Can you be strong for Sarah?"

It took a long time for Mrs. Davis’s breathing to start steadying, with me calming her the whole time. Astor was so quiet I genuinely forgot he was there, and when I glanced at him his face was uncharacteristically somber. In that moment I was just glad he wasn’t making things worse.

Mrs. Davis wiped her eyes and reached for her phone with shaky hands. "I should call Tommy," she murmured. "He'll want to be here."

I nodded: Thomas Davis was Sarah’s older brother, Mrs. Davis’s only available relative, and handing over this situation to someone else to handle sounded really, really good to me just then. The adrenaline of the unexpected responsibility of calming the woman was wearing off, leaving me jittery and exhausted. "Of course. We'll wait until he arrives."

As Mrs. Davis spoke softly to her son, I leaned back into the couch, my hand unconsciously moving to my belly. Astor caught my eye, raising an eyebrow in silent question. I was embarrassed that he saw me but I just shook my head slightly, signaling to leave it alone.

Twenty minutes later, the front door opened, and a young man in his early twenties rushed in. He embraced his mother, got her settled, and once she was dozing off in her reclining chair he led us quietly outside.

"Thank you,” he sighed. “She’s always been a little tender, and this is really…Any news?" he asked, his voice tight with worry.

"Not yet," I replied gently. "But we're following every lead. Thomas, can you tell us anything about Sarah's interests, her friends? Anything that might help us understand where she could be?"

Thomas ran a hand through his hair. "She doesn’t have a lot of friends, but she’s always been into music. She recently went to this local concert, uh…Midnight Echoes?”

My heart skipped a beat. "Midnight Echoes?"

“Yeah, she’s been following them for years. Why?” I exchanged a quick glance with Astor. The name had shown up in our case file, but we couldn’t tell Thomas that.

“Just wanted to make sure we heard correctly,” Astor said.

As we left the Davis home, my mind raced. It was a thin line, a barely-there connection between two of the victims, but it was the only thing we had so far. It was most likely coincidence but the cautious excitement of a potential breakthrough was there anyway—battling with the gnawing anxiety that had been building all day.

Once in the car, the dam broke. Mrs. Davis's earlier words crashed over me like a tidal wave, a nearly deafening scream of My baby, my poor baby. The fear I'd been suppressing erupted, and I found myself gasping for air, tears streaming down my face.

"Olivia!" Astor exclaimed, his usual bravado replaced by genuine concern. "What's wrong?"

I tried to speak, but I could barely breathe. Panic consumed me suddenly, like it had been waiting in the wings for the moment I let my guard down.

"Shit," Astor muttered, quickly starting the car. "Hold on, we're going to Eclipse."

As we sped through the streets, I clutched my stomach, willing myself to calm down. But the tears wouldn't stop, and neither would the terrifying thoughts.

"Almost there," Astor said, his voice uncharacteristically gentle. "Just hold on, Olivia. Everything's going to be okay."

He was doing everything right, and I was distantly grateful, but it wasn’t helping. I was spiraling now and I couldn’t pull myself out of it. Images flashed through my head of everything that could be happening to Sarah Davis, only Sarah Davis was the person my child would grow up to be.

I was trapped in my head for an indeterminate amount of time. I didn’t know where I was, except I vaguely understood when I was moved from the car to a wheelchair to a building to a bed, and everything was too much and too loud.

And then it wasn’t, because Elroy was there.

I didn't know why—maybe it was the way his scent wrapped around me, or how he pressed his face so close to mine that his bright blue eyes were all I could see—but slowly, with Elroy's help, I started to breathe again. His strong arms enveloped me, grounding me in the present moment. He was the anchor I could tie myself to, and I clung to him.

"Olivia," Elroy whispered, his breath warm against my ear. "I'm here now. You're safe."

I nodded weakly, still trembling. "The baby... I can't stop thinking about—"

"Shh," he soothed, running a hand through my hair. "Our baby is fine. You're both protected."

My heart lurched at his use of 'our.' I pulled back slightly, searching his face. "How can you be so sure?"

Elroy's gaze intensified, his hands cupping my face. "Because I will never let anything happen to you or our child. I swear it."

Damn my traitorous heart, but I believed him. I believed him entirely. Despite everything we'd been through, despite all the reasons I shouldn't trust him, in that moment, I felt safer than I had in months.

"Okay," I breathed, letting myself melt into his embrace. "Okay."