Gabriel smirked and shook his head. "So you would think that I took him." Looking out the large window overlooking the ocean, he narrowed his ancient eyes. "Maybe he hoped that if he placed you on my tail, you wouldn't suspect him." He grinned wryly. "And that did work...for a second."
I sighed as I paced and Gabriel looked over at me. "His switching direction is the key. He did that intentionally, so when he shut the bond off, you wouldn't know where to look."
Stepping forward, I shook my head. "How did he turn off the bond? I didn't think that was even possible."
Tilting his head, Gabriel's eyes shifted up, as if he were accessing different parts of his brain. "I've never attempted it, but it is possible that he has come up with something that naturally inhibits the beacon, if you will, in like-minded blood." He shrugged, his lips twisting. "Honestly, I don't know. Halting the conversion has been my focus for years, not the bond." He sighed. "But Malcolm was my assistant for centuries for a reason. He's ingenious and resourceful...when motivated to be."
Teren sighed, looking around the remaining family members. "So, since he tried misdirecting us before he yanked the bond away...where do we look?"
Gabriel pointed north. "I'll check out that direction." He looked over to Halina. "You check east, as far as you can." Halina nodded, confident that she'd be the one to find him. She blurred away to begin her search while Gabriel twisted back to Teren. "You two stay here, protect the rest of your family."
Teren stood, shaking his head, Hot Ben standing with him. "I'm not just sitting around while he's out there, alone." He pointed to our door. "I can't do that."
Alanna stood with Jack and Imogen. "We will take everyone to the ranch, Teren." Alanna looked over at her mother. "Between the two of us, Nika, Linda, and Ashley, will have night and day protection there."
Jack walked over to Teren, his warm brown eyes full of barely contained emotion. Placing his hand on Teren's shoulder, he nodded at the door. "Go find your son." That was all the encouragement Teren needed, he blurred out without another word.
I gasped as his presence streaked away from me. Hot Ben ran his hands through his hair, looking a little lost as to what he should do. Since he couldn't move as quickly as we could or follow a scent like we could, he probably felt a little...human.
Placing a hand on his shoulder, I forced myself to smile. He looked over at me, a sigh escaping his gorgeous face as he guessed what I was about to say. "I'm sorry, Ben, but you won't be able to search with us." I cringed. "You're just not...equipped like we are, and we can't wait for you."
He hung his head and Ashley came up to put a hand on his back. Leaning down to his face, I added, "But we'd really appreciate you looking anyway. If you want to drive around the city, ask around if anyone saw anything...weird recently." My hand came up to stroke his face. "I know Teren would really appreciate that."
Ben nodded, his jaw setting as a task that he could handle was given to him. Nodding at me, he said, "I won't let you down, Emma. I won't stop looking."
Tears pricked my eyes as I watched the brave man leave. It was almost hard to imagine a time when Ben had been a shivering, cowardly mess of a man who'd thought Teren wanted to eat him. Saying quick goodbyes, he dashed out after Teren at a much slower pace.
Gabriel put a hand on my shoulder. "I'll be north, Emma, if you need anything." He patted his pocket. "I'll call...if I find him."
I was still nodding as he phased away.
Twisting back to the Adams and Taylors still left in the house, I shrugged and cringed. "I can't stay either. I need to...do something." I felt my husband's presence drifting away from me, to the very outskirts of the city, and longed to follow.
My eyes rested on my daughter though, finally having cried herself to sleep on my mother's lap. Mom lazily stroked circles into her back, looking worn herself. "Go, Emma," she whispered, her eyes locking to mine. "We'll be safe." Her eyes flicked up to Alanna's and the vampire smiled, fangs exposed.
Cocking an eyebrow at me, Alanna seriously said, "No one will harm them." Smiling around her teeth, she added, "Don't forget, Halina is a part of me too."
I nodded, giving her a hug and then the rest of my family. I lingered on my sleeping daughter last, placing soft kisses in her hair. She stirred under my cool touch, but remained asleep. Dried tear tracks were clear to me in her skin and I lightly brushed them off. A part of me wanted to wake her, to ask her if she could still feel Julian, but I didn't. I let her get her rest, and hoped that whatever reason Malcolm had taken our child, his intention was not to harm him.
I ran to where I could feel Teren, at the edge of the bay. The smell of saltwater surged through my nose as I dashed along the sandy beaches. I moved so fast, I barely left an impression in the dunes. I found my husband searching under a pier. His eyes scanned every nook and cranny of the dark wood, looking for any trace of a child, ours or not. The faint glow of his eyes twisted to me as the sweetness of our bond announced my arrival. He didn't even crack a smile, only nodded, his lips set in a hard line. I nodded back, and together, we began the futile search for our son.
It was looking for a needle in a haystack, we both knew that, but our only other alternative was to sit at home and do nothing. Nothing wasn't an option for us, so we searched. We ran in short bursts throughout the city, searching every hidey-hole that was large enough to place a toddler. We looked through every home and business that was open, and quite a few that weren't. Then we streaked away to the next location. It was tiring, searching and streaking with no real direction.
I checked in with my family often, tracked my daughter and the rest of the girls as they shifted east, to the ranch. It brought me a little peace that my loved ones were on high alert now; that meant that another swiping was unlikely, not without a fight at least. But the majority of me was starting to feel despair, and fatigue. Endlessly searching hundreds of miles was an impossible task. And our bodies weren't designed to maintain super speed. By the next evening, I had to walk, I couldn't phase anymore. And I was starving; Teren and I had searched all day without pause.
Feeling aches in areas of my body that I didn't know could ache, I put a hand on his arm as he shifted to streak to a new location. "Teren, stop, I can't..." Even though I didn't need it, my breath was hard from the exertion.
Teren looked back at me, his breathing harder too, but determination and a stubborn refusal to give up masked the weariness on his face. "Go home, Emma, rest."
He twisted and lunged, but I still held him tight. "What about you? You need rest too."
Flicking down his body, I clearly saw the grime and tear marks of hours of frantic searching. I knew that I was equally disheveled, but I didn't really care, my son was out there in the world. Teren sighed as he looked back at me. "Go home, get something to eat...I just want to check out one more spot, then I'll be right behind you." He peeled my fingers off of his arm and then he was gone. I knew he was as tired as me, but pure love-filled panic was driving him. I had no idea how long it would drive him, before he just keeled over.
When two more entire days past and Teren still never came back to rest or eat, I started to worry about him. When our forty-eight hour window had closed on us, Teren's search had actually picked up pace, and length. Having given up on the city, he blurred up the coast. He hadn't gotten any leads to send him that way, he was just picking a location and doing the best he could. Feeling that my child was closer to home, I stayed in the city. I kept running back home, to see if any more blood written letters had been left for us, but we heard nothing from the kidnapper. For all we knew, he wasn't speaking ...because Julian wasn't alive any more. It was hard to negotiate the return of a deceased person. The very thought chilled my icy flesh though, and I forced the hope back into my body. There was no point in killing Julian, so he wouldn't.
I repeated that every ten seconds in a never-ending loop.
Finishing a thermos sized glass of blood, to keep my strength up, I mentally checked in on my husband. A euphoria building in my chest told me that he was on his way back to the city, back to me. I closed my eyes and felt for him, hoping beyond hope that he'd run home and tell me he'd found...something. I briefly considered calling him, but then his presence shifted east, and I knew he was only picking a new location. Nothing had changed.
Our son had been missing for over seventy-two hours, and nothing had changed.
Feeling so weary that my enhanced body no longer felt real, I wondered what my husband must be feeling. He hadn't slept or ate, I'd asked. Every time I'd called him or met up with him, he'd told me that he just wanted to check out one more place, and then he'd come home and get something to eat. That one place had led to one more place, then another and another, and he still hadn't rested. I was running on fumes, Teren was running on pure will power.
Wanting to help him, I prepared the largest sized thermos we had with some blood. Our supplies at the house were starting to dwindle a little. We kept about a month's supply in the freezer, with a couple of day's worth of fresh stuff in the fridge. It had been time to go "shopping" at the ranch when Julian had been taken. We'd just been too busy to think about it since then. I wasn't too worried though. We wouldn't be reduced to snacking on pets when we had fields of fresh cattle under an hour away. But still, keeping a full fridge was one of those little mundane things that you had to do, regardless of the horror you're facing. Like paying the bills, some aspects of life didn't care if your world was falling apart.
Like my job. I'd completely forgotten all about the fact that life was still progressing around me and I was expected to show up to work. Hot Ben had been my saving grace there, calling me when Tracey started asking where I was. I'd called her with a fanciful story of a family member passing and a funeral I needed to go to a State over. I'd sobbed into the phone with Tracey, my depression completely real, even if my story wasn't. She'd offered her condolences and promised up and down that she'd get everything squared away with HR, even if she had to backdate a vacation request. Telling me she loved me, I returned the sentiment and silently thanked her for all the times she'd made me feel better without even realizing it.
Getting in my car, since I was too tired to run, I made my way to where Teren was. I forcefully ignored the back seat. I couldn't look at the car seat where my son should have been safely buckled. I couldn't stomach seeing his favorite truck wedged between the cushions. I couldn't even stomach listening to the radio. My car was silent as I drove along, but I still heard Russian nursery songs in my head. Everything, everywhere, reminded me of him. Every section of my silent heart burned.
When I found Teren, I shut the car off and stared at him openmouthed. The man before me was not my husband. Walking out of an abandoned building that looked like it had once been a grocery store, he staggered on his feet, looking like he'd just stepped out of a war zone. While his face lifted and his eyes were in my direction, I don't think he even saw me. His clothes were torn, streaked with blood and dirt. His walk was haphazard, like he was going to collapse to his knees at any moment. But none of that compared to his face. I'd never seen a look of such desolation on a face before. He'd never looked that way, not even when my fate had been in question.