14. Daze

FOURTEEN

DAZE

I'll never forgive myself for putting her second. While Lex drives like a bat out of hell, that's all I can think about. This sick feeling inside me warns that it's already too late. I failed her.

She's injured, hurt, or dead, and I failed her.

Just to keep the rage at bay, I grind my teeth. Centered. It was easy for me to cut off all emotion before she came along. In the case of Renna, I was able to distance myself from the pain. I cared for her. I lost her. I moved on.

But this…

With every breath, the pain grows sharper. There's nothing I can do but rock in my seat, ready to fight. Kill if I have to.

For once, my thoughts of violence don't numb me like they usually do. In this vicious, never-ending game of Daze Fucked Up , they just feed on themselves.

There's no recovering from this mistake.

"How much longer?" I snap.

Taking a hand off the wheel, Lex gestures toward the speedometer. "Soon." His gaze is narrowed, fixed on the road with ruthless focus. If this really is the right location, the road there is mostly deserted—a fact I don't like one damn bit. There should be security everywhere, intensifying the closer we get.

"It should be over that ridge up ahead," Lex says after another few minutes of silence. "Right there… Holy shit."

I see it at the same time he does—fire swallowing what used to be a mansion on some country estate. The lack of patrols suddenly makes perfect sense—they're all fighting the blaze.

And I know, somehow, someway, that Frey is here, trapped in that fucking house.

"Daze, wait!"

My ears barely register Lex's voice as I leap from the van, charging through the woods between the vehicle and the mansion. With a single-minded focus, I propel myself forward. I don't give a damn if I'm a sitting duck or an easy target. I don't give a damn if a thousand of Heywood's thugs swarm me before I can even set foot near that house.

All I care about is getting to her. Finding her. If she's in there…

"Have you lost your fucking mind?" Someone shouts near my ear, panting in their effort to keep up. The voice is familiar, but my brain is too wired to process it. All I know is when they place their hand on my shoulder their aim is to stop me. Keep me from her. "Daze, wait!"

"Get the fuck off me—" I form a fist and let it fly, then I keep gunning for the blaze up ahead. I can make out shapes running in the dark. Guards shouting and coordinating a search effort.

"They're still inside," I swear I hear one of them say. "The door was fucking locked."

No…

"Daze, slow the fuck down!"

More hands grab me from behind. There must be three, four, different pairs of hands clawing at every part of me in an attempt to slow me down. Friend or foe, I don't fucking care. Fighting blindly, I swing like hell.

All I can see is the fire. All I can see is her face the last time I held her. Trust me , she said, making it sound so fucking easy. Trust her. Invest the same amount of faith in her as she did in me.

As a result, I may have lost her forever.

"Fuck, Daze! Don't make me taser your ass."

Finally, the identity of one of the voices shouting in my ear hits me—Ben. He's standing in front of me, wiping blood from his chin as three other men try to wrestle me to the ground.

"Are you listening to me? You go in there, and you'll be killed on sight, you idiot. It's a fucking hornets' nest. You want to do this, we got to do this right."

"Right?" I don't even recognize the sound of my voice. I don't show emotion so raw. Not when my old man died. Not with Renna. Never. Then, to chase away the pain, comes a familiar rage that hardens me against any hint of emotion.

Damn, Frey. Damn her. If she left me like this, I'll follow her straight to heaven, even if I have to fight my way out of hell. I won't let her go this easily.

"Daze, for fuck's sake. I know you're worried about her, but you need to listen?—"

"Get the fuck off me, Ben. Or so help me God, I won't hold back."

"Listen to yourself," Ben shouts, his tone firm. "Think. You'll just get yourself killed acting like this, or do you really not give a damn about her at all?"

That final jab reaches me, and I go limp. He's right. Not that it fucking matters.

"She's dead," I croak. "You heard them."

"No one's dead until the fat lady sings," Damien says. He's one of the men that releases me, his hands raised. Beside him, I see Marco who takes a step back. "We do this, then we do it right. I know you got your girl in there, but right now, it's a hotbed. You hear that?" He cocks his head, listening.

"I don't hear shit," I say.

"Exactly. No fire sirens. No ambulances. No paramedics. That means they want this mess locked down tight, even if the bastard's daughter could be in that ruin. Why do you think that is?"

He's right. Panting, I look around and take stock of the obvious. It's too quiet. There isn't even a helicopter in the fucking sky to survey the damage. Judging from the smoldering remnants of the house, they've just let the motherfucker burn with no attempts to quash the blaze. I'm angry at the thought, but then I push it aside to see it from the perspective of a detached mercenary.

"They don't want this getting out," I say thickly. The smell of smoke is thick even from here. "Whatever they had here… They don't want it known, not even by the fire department or police."

"Exactly," Ben says, stroking his chin. He moves to crouch beside me and paws at the damp ground before us. "The place went up fast. Definitely arson. Must have been set from the inside."

"God, no…" I keep hearing the guard's words echoing in my head. The door was fucking locked. The door was fucking locked. "Fuck, Frey." My knees buckle under me. It feels as if someone kicked me in the chest, then pulled out a pistol to finish the job.

I imagine her trapped in the mangled remains of that house. All because I took so long to play detective. She needed me here. I should have never let her go.

"Day, I'm going to try and get a better vantage point—" Ben ducks beneath the branches of a nearby tree, heading toward the outskirts of the house. "I'll see how many guards there are. If we play this right, we might be able to take them on and get to the house."

"I don't give a shit." I shrug off the grief and let the bitter rage wash over me, giving me the strength to stand. "I'm going in there."

"Well, just give us five minutes, Day," Damien says while scanning the area. "Can you give us that? For now, you take two guys and check the road. We'll clear the house. You'll get to her, no matter where she is, you have my word on that."

Several seconds later, Ben emerges from a thicket of trees, panting. "Come on, Day," he says, nodding toward the manor. "The coast seems clear. Let's see if any of those assholes are waiting in the woods."

I don't need to be told twice.

Following him, I tear through the narrow clearing that surrounds the property's outskirts. This place would have been fancy as hell in its heyday, a place where Frey would have belonged. It's the kind of home I could never give her.

Another crushing wave of guilt makes me grunt at the thought. If she really went up in that blaze…

The only way I can keep moving is to turn my brain off. Tuning into every sound and twitch of tree branches rustling in the wind, I focus on listening. Only a few yards from the road, I hear a noise that makes me curl my fists in anticipation—advancing footsteps. They're soft, aiming for stealth, but nowhere near quiet enough. Some professional fucking guards they are. In lieu of fighting the fire and searching for survivors, they prefer to traipse through the woods.

I speed up, my nostrils flared, as I try to catch one of them unaware. There. I spy a lone figure picking their way through the trees—the first sign that my suspicion was off base. Still, I pivot to cut off their only escape and rush them from behind. Before I even touch them, more oddities stick out—despite being dressed in bulky, black material, they don't appear to be armed. As my arm goes around their waist, their scent hits me full in the chest. I'd know it anywhere, delicate, and soft, so out of place above the stench of smoke that I know I've gone insane.

She really did die, and now I'm seeing her ghost, dressed in some billowing black dress that spills out from a pale blue coat. Even worse, I'm holding her in my arms. That's how far my mind has wandered. The sad part is that I don't even care. If this is what insanity is, I would rather be psychotic than face anything else.

She feels so warm that I can't stop touching her, spinning her around to face me. Throughout her entire body, I can feel her pulse throbbing. Even her lips, though swollen in the pale moonlight filtering through the branches overhead, are wet and pink, but her skin…

That beautiful supple skin I once remarked belonged only on an angel, is now covered in blood.

Fresh blood.

Suddenly, her lips part. "Daze?"

Her hoarse, broken voice is what finally sinks in. She isn't a figment of my imagination. Holy fuck, she's real. Frey is alive, but barely. It's like she's blind, staring into nothing as her eyes meet mine. Even when I brush the hair from her face, she rarely blinks. When I lift her into my arms, she remains limp as if all will to fight is gone.

"I'm here, baby," I say against her scalp, stroking through her damp hair. She doesn't smell like smoke. Just fresh air, sweat, and blood. "I'm here. It's okay. You're safe. You're safe?—"

Another figure appears from the shadows, but I can tell right away that they aren't a guard. However, they could still cause some damage with what looks like a stick, brandished above their head in a trembling grip.

"L-Let her go!" she shrieks, her voice barely intelligible. I don't recognize her, but, in a twisted contrast to Frey, she's wearing a filthy white dress, her dark hair loose. Judging from the frantic fear in her dark eyes, she wasn't here as some valued wedding guest.

Holy shit. Marco wasn't lying. Human trafficking seems to be one of Michael Heywood's premier side businesses. God only knows what that bastard has already done to Frey.

"Let her go!" the woman in white demands, shifting her stance to take a whack at me with her only weapon. Adjusting my hold on Frey, I raise a hand in surrender.

"I'm not here to hurt her," I say. After wracking my brain for a suitable explanation, all I can come up with is, "What the fuck happened?"

"We don't know," the woman says, lowering her stick by a fraction of an inch. "They had us in the barn, and she got us out. The house was already on fire. I just want to get the fuck out of here."

Some of the tension in my body loosens. So, Frey wasn't inside the mansion when it went up. Thank fuck for that.

Yet again, I'm forced to admit that she smells nothing like smoke. Just blood and cologne and God knows what else… Damn it! Touching any part of her that I can reach, I keep smoothing my hands along her back. It's only when I draw back to see her face that I realize…

She isn't hugging me in return. With her head pressed against my shoulder, she stares at nothing, her face blank, her green eyes empty. It's like I'm not even here.

"Frey? Look at me, baby." I try to get her attention by stroking her cheek. Then I wave a hand in front of her face. Shake her gently on the shoulder.

Nothing makes her so much as flinch.

"Frey? Talk to me?—"

"Daze!" Ben comes from the woods, gasping for air as if he had to struggle to catch up with me. Now, I can comprehend just how fast I'd been going. Like a mindless fucking animal.

Being near Frey restores the sanity I lost the second I saw that fire. As I look back, I realize how irrational I'd been. My only option was to run headlong into an inferno to escape the pain of grief.

"I'm never letting you out of my fucking sight," I tell Frey as Ben races toward me. "You hear me? Never fucking again."

"Daze, who the fuck are you talking to… Oh—" Ben stops short when he spies Frey in my arms and the—not one, but now two women huddled nearby. The other must-have crept out while I wasn't looking, also wearing a filthy white gown.

Ben takes one look at them and sighs. "Jesus Christ! You'd think by now I wouldn't be surprised by what the bastard Heywood is capable of."

"Just help me get them out of here," I say, lifting Frey off her feet. The grip I have on her is so tight she would scream if she was in her right mind, but I can't let go of her.

"Come on," Ben says, gesturing back through the woods. "Damien managed to get a foothold closer to the house, but I guess it's not necessary?—"

"Catherine," Frey says, her voice a faint rasp. Lifting her head, her eyes are suddenly filled with life as they focus on the house. "Catherine."

I think I recognize the name. "Catherine Heywood?"

Ben cocks his head. "That's his wife, isn't it?"

Frey doesn't say anything else, and I don't press her for more information. Instead, my arms cradle her as I turn back the way I came.

"Ben, I need to get her somewhere safe," I say. "Now."

"Okay. I'll have someone look for Catherine, okay, kiddo?" he says to Frey. "Daze, you and one of Damien's boys can take them to the warehouse. I guess we'll have to make room for three ladies instead of one?—"

"Anna?" Marco tears past me, heading toward one of the girls. At the sight of him, she cries out. A heartbeat later, they're holding each other tight.

Anna. "I think that's his sister," I say in response to Ben's questioning stare. "He mentioned her before."

"Well, shit." Ben tears a hand through his hair and sighs. "Things just got interesting. Let's get everyone back before the police show up."

He rushes off to do just that, while I hold Frey in my arms, unwilling to move. She's barely been out of my sight for two days, but…

There is no way I will ever let her go again.