With most of the team watching, I feel like I’m on a stage.
As I reach up to knock, I hesitate and go through a lightning-quick debate—prosthetic or right hand? Which makes no sense because I’m way past this. I stick with robohand, knocking a little harder than necessary.
Seconds pass.
I look at my boots, noticing the worn doormat.
There’s a bear image on it, beneath which it says, Please pause to wipe your paws.
It’s something Bas would love, this doormat. Guy never met a pun or a play on words he didn’t appreciate.
“Gideon,” Jode says.
“Right. I’m going.”
Cordero has pulled the requisite clearance for us to enter, so I check the doorknob. It’s unlocked, which is good and it sucks. Safety, Daryn? Give it a try.
Turning it, I step inside.
“Daryn? Isabel?” No answer again. I flip the lights. As Jode and Marcus slide past me to check the rest of the house, I take in the small living room. The faded furniture and stuffed bookshelves. The hunting trophies on the walls—elk, bison, buck, and so on. Lots of formerly living things in here.
Marcus and Jode return, confirming the house is empty. Relaying that to the rest of the team with radios.
I’m still stuck in the same gear—checking out this living room like I’m an anthropologist trying to figure out what kind of human lived here.
Except I know.
Daryn grew up with money. She never said so outright, but it was easy to pick up. Connecticut. Chief surgeon for a father. Mother who spends her time fund-raising for others instead of earning a living to care for her own kids, like my mom.
What did she think of these tired carpets and wood-paneled walls? All these hunting trophies staring down at her with shiny dead eyes?
The rest of the team starts to arrive. Cordero. Two of the MI Trio—Sophia and Soraya. We fan out, looking around in silence. Checking the notes on the fridge, the stack of bills on the coffee table. Searching for clues as to Daryn’s whereabouts.
The roof is thin enough that I hear the rain drumming. The wood floors squeak as the team sweeps the cabin, but it’s otherwise quiet. Until Ben storms through the front door.
“I found Isabel Banks!” We don’t react quickly enough for him. “Daryn’s mentor? Isabel? I know where she is right now.” He pulls off his glasses and dries the lenses with a corner of his shirt as he talks. “She works at a nearby ranch as a waitress. A city-slicker-type place. Kind of fancy? I couldn’t track her down there at first. She’s not supposed to have the night shift, but—”
“Good, Ben. Great work.” Cordero looks at Jode, then Low. “Go with him.”
They leave with him to get her.
As I move through the kitchen, I see an open pack of Twizzlers on the counter. Daryn’s sweet tooth obviously hasn’t changed.
I head into the first bedroom. It’s small. A twin bed and a dresser made of thick cabin pine. A nightstand and trunk—also pine.
Daryn’s room. It smells like her. A mixture of fabric softener, flowers, and that smell of fall nights when the weather’s just starting to cool—the smell of good things coming.
An ache moves down my throat, like the scents I’m breathing and can’t get enough of are poisonous.
Shit, this is intense.
The mirror over the dresser has papers taped and tacked around the edges of the frame. Some are paintings made on colored paper, clearly done by little kids. Mostly versions of the same thing. Kids holding Daryn’s hand as they ride horses. Unicorns riding through fluffy clouds. Pretty cute, actually. One in particular. Stealing goes against my moral code, but I’m tempted to swipe the one of Daryn riding a winged horse over a rainbow. Pure awesome.
There are also lined notebook pages covered in handwriting I recognize as Daryn’s. I read the first one that catches my eye. The title at the top reads, “Blue.”
mind and heart at war
for war
sky blue above me
inside me
my mind is mine
my wild heart is not
blue is what you are
darken
surround me
A shudder rolls through me. I step back, shaking out my shoulders. Step in and read it again.
This is about me, right? It’s definitely about me.
But what does it mean?
“G, there’s some—” Marcus freezes at the door when he sees me.
I back away from the dresser again, busted for I don’t know what. Feeling a shitload of confusing feelings. “What’s up?”
“Jode just called. He’s on his way with Daryn’s friend, Isabel. He said she thinks your hunch was right and Daryn went after Bas. One other thing. There’s a stable out back. I went out there to check for Shadow but…”
“No Shadow.”
Marcus shakes his head. “Daryn must’ve taken her. We found some tracks leading away from the stable heading east.”
Bad news on top of bad news but my mind’s only on what’s next. “I’ll take Riot and go follow them.” I head for the door.
Marcus doesn’t step aside. “You can’t.”
“There’s no one around for miles.”
He just looks at me, still not moving out of the way. I haven’t ridden Riot outdoors since the fall. Cordero’s too paranoid. A burning horse is hard to miss. Especially at night. “Cordero’s sending a drone up to take a look. Nothing for you to do.” His eyes narrow. “Take a walk or something, man.”
He’s right—I need to chill—but I don’t love being called out on it. “You know what, Marcus? I think I’ll take a walk.”
He finally clears the doorway. “Do that.”
I head outside, passing Ben, Soraya, and Sophia, well entrenched behind half a dozen laptops at the tiny kitchen table, through the living room where Cordero, Low, and Suarez are staring at a screen that shows the drone’s feed. As I stride past them, I’m conscious of the moment of silence I generate in my wake.
In the short time I’ve been inside, Cordero’s had the team set up floodlights around the cabin. They illuminate a hundred yards of slanting rain and muddy fields but come nowhere close to reaching the edges of the property.
I hop down the porch and walk toward the river, my mind jumping from one thought to the next. From confusing poems to frustrating actions.
Knowing that Daryn went after Bas alone is maddening. If she gets hurt or somehow fails it wouldn’t just be Sebastian we’d lose. It would be her. It would be any chance of ever finding either of them. Worst possible outcome.
I’m almost at the stable when movement to my right makes me jump a foot in the air. Luckily, I stop myself short of summoning my sword and swinging.
Maia, our sniper, is lying on bales of hay covered by a plastic tarp.
“Hey, Blake! Sorry, didn’t mean to scare ya.” She lifts the tarp so I can see her. “Chill-out walk?”
“I’ve been told I need it.”