35. Erin

Chapter thirty-five

Erin

The diner is chock full of people. Old, young, faces I’ve seen before and faces I haven’t. They are talking amongst themselves, but I can feel the tension in the air. There is a pack missing an omega, and that can be felt, no one can still easily when an alpha goes to war.

I turn my back on it all, fury swimming through my veins. I clear my voice and look around me before I make a decision and turn to face them.

“Hey!” I shout.

The silence is immediate.

“You don’t know me well yet. But you will. My name is Erin Bradley. I’m a contract lawyer from Chesterfield. My parents died years ago, but my aunt raised me alone. I like chocolate and live and breathe coffee. I was dating a man who lied. It turns out he was married, had a whole family in another town. Well, I got my revenge and dumped his ass. I was told to come on a vacation to clear my head. I am ruthless, I don’t let slights pass. If you fuck me, believe me when I tell you, I will fuck you back. That man has now lost everything: respect, his wife, his child, his job, his reputation. Because that’s how I roll. On the second week of my enforced holiday, I got on a bus and met the most incredible man.”

I glare around at all the people staring back at me.

“That omega is my scent match. I will destroy everyone involved in keeping him from me. If I can destroy a man I don’t care about so thoroughly, imagine how bad it’s going to be if something happens to the love of my life. Someone told someone something, and that information is keeping my omega out of my hands.”

Alma steps forward. “Are you threatening us?”

I shake my head, smiling. “Oh, no, this is a promise. I will burn this town and all your quaint little river shit to the ground. Bring me my omega!” My voice thunders into the room. The force of my bark making a few people step back.

“Finn?” Alma whispers.

Finn glances at her and shakes his head. “I’m sorry, Alma. Locke needs a hero. He needs it more than this town needs me. Someone told the people who hurt him where to find him. Someone from this town.”

She blinks in amazement and looks to Brayson, who has just stormed into the diner.

“Where is my omega?” Bray shouts, his hard expression sweeps over everyone and stops on Erin. “I can feel it!” He says and lays a hand over his chest.

“You don’t know me well,” Shane says softly. “But he is my reason for living. If I don’t have him, there is nothing.”

Alma cries out and steps back. She turns to the crowd, her hand gripping the base of her throat. “Who told people Locke Raines was here?”

The diner is so silent that you could drop a pin and it would be heard.

“Tell me now!” Alma cries out. “Finn and Bray are one of us! Shane is one of us. These are their people. That makes them ours, and we protect our own! Who told people that Locke Raines was here?”

The silence is thick. For a long time, I think no one is going to answer her, and then the crowd parts, and Jess is dragged forward. Her face is red, but it’s the guilt I read there that ignites my temper.

“What did you do?” I ask coldly.

She shakes her head. She looks so damn pitiful with that broken leg. Her eyes are enormous, and she trembles.

“Tell them,” the older woman says. She could be Jess in twenty-five years.

Jess gulps and shakes her head. A tiny movement that turns my temper into an inferno.

“Tell me who you told!” I bark out, my voice almost ringing in the small space.

She whimpers but opens her mouth, and the words pour out.

“I didn’t mean to do anything bad. Erin, please, I was embarrassed. I recognised him as soon as he got off the bus, and I snapped a photo and uploaded it to my social media. It was awesome to have Locke ‘Razor’ Raines in our little town. I thought it would be fine. Everyone does it. I kept adding more and more to it. Every time I saw him, I added a new photo. I didn’t tell anyone. It wasn’t a big deal. People do it all the time.”

“You tagged him on social media?” I ask faintly.

“Yes.”

“Did anyone answer you?”

“Oh, yeah, lots of people,” Jess says, basically vomiting the words out to me.

“His managers? His-”

“No, not his manager,” Jess says quickly in horror. “His band mates reached out and talked to me for a while about what Twin Rivers is like. They are really nice.”

I whip my head around, and my gaze collides with Shane’s.

“You said a woman left the note?” Shane asks Eustice.

I hadn’t heard that, but then a strange roaring had started in my ears as soon as I’d heard Locke was missing.

“Yes, a woman came in and left a note,” Eustice says from the side of the crowd. “She said Bray gave it to her, and he was talking to her. I watched them out the window. The little blond woman, she’s got hair down to her ass.”

Bray frowns, and then his expression clears. “A woman asked for directions. She had a map.”

“She’s here,” I breathe, I’m equal parts fear and rage.

“She doesn’t look like her. Delilah has black hair,” Bray points out.

I pull out my phone and bring up an image of Paige from the band. “Is this the woman?”

Eustice glances at my phone and nods. “Yes! That’s her, though she looks really different now. Her hair is, like, white blond and chopped short, not long and brown like it is in the photo, and she had blue eyes when I saw her..”

Bray stares at the image, his face draining of blood. He swallows hard, his hand shaking as he reaches for the phone. “Fucking bitch. I wasn’t looking for the others, I was looking for her. I fucked up!”

Shane clenches his hands. “I’m going out there.”

I glance at the windows. The wind has picked up, and the night is dark. He could be anywhere. The nights are still bitterly cold. He could be anywhere. I lift my fingers to the bond on my neck.

“I’m coming with you,” I say to Shane firmly.

“No, we need to separate,” Finn says and pulls on his jacket. “Normally, I would never say that, but we don’t have time.”

Bray pulls open the door. “Let’s go.”

He glances back at me. There’s so much said in that one look. A lifetime of words in one glance.

“You guys are my whole world. I’m not going to lose him,” Bray says, and then he takes off into the night.

“Wait!” Alma cries.

I turn back and find the townspeople anxiously watching us.

“We’ll organise a town rescue. We’ll help!”

I glance at Finn. “I don’t know what that is.”

“They’ll bring blankets, heaters, and set up grids. People will be out to help us search until he’s found.”

I nod, and the hate that has a hold of me lessens.

“Sounds good.” I walk to the front door and look back, unconsciously imitating Bray. “Find him and keep him safe, no matter what.”

It’s a command. It’s a demand.

I won’t accept anything less.