Archer had been the one who’d walked her back saying that Bogey needed to go potty, and I knew he’d stick close to the house to keep an eye on her while we waited for my cousins to arrive. Only two of them had, though, Webb and Jesse, because the others had taken the route that was blocked by the accident.
When I walked into the bedroom and saw the bed made neatly and the bathroom light on, that’s when I realized something wasn’t right. Lottie would never go to the toilet with the door open in case I came home, and she would have crawled into bed by now or called out when she heard us if she wasn’t in it.
Panic that she’d fallen and hurt herself hit me as I walked into the bathroom. What I saw on the floor wasn’t at all what I expected, though.
“Hey, did you know there’s a broken… Whoa, Levi,” Elijah clapped me on the back. “I never knew y’all had it in you. That’s quite a collection.”
Crouching down, I picked up the wrapping paper and the tag next to it.
Here’s to hair pulling, butt spanking, shmexy sex.
Merry Christmas!
Love, Lily, Luna and Dahlia xxx
Ps welcome to the family.Reading it over my shoulder, Elijah muttered, “Can’t say I’m surprised it’s from them. They got me cock soap and this thing to keep my balls warm.”
Those had been his gag gifts and we’d all gotten something like that. Well, aside from my parents who were still feeling victimized by the fact they hadn’t gotten anything filthy.
Turning around, I broke into a jog as I moved around the house looking for her. “Lottie! Where are you?”
Between the two of us, we had every room checked and every light in the house on within minutes.
“I’m not sure if this is related, Levi,” Elijah said as he tried to catch his breath. “But there’s a window in the bedroom at the back that’s broken.”
Running through to the room, I screeched to a halt on the wooden floors when I saw the grass and dirt on top of the glass, with muddy footprints leading out of the room.
“Fucking shit,” I yelled at Elijah. “Call everyone and tell them we need vehicles, guns, and lights. Tell Dad to call Barron and Connor and tell them that Retter’s here and he’s got Charlotte.”
Pulling his phone out of his pocket, he rang straight through to Dad and started relaying the message while I grabbed my torch and went outside. There was an old shed about forty yards from my house, so I ran over to it and almost tripped over the body in dark clothing lying in the grass. It was too big to be her, but I turned it over and yelled out for Elijah when I saw the blood running down Archer’s face.
“Elijah, tell them we’re at the old shed and that Archer’s hurt.”
Confirming he heard me with a loud curse, he repeated what I’d just said to Dad and then hung up. “They’re on their way. How bad is it?”
With both of our torches now on his face I could see the full extent of the damage to Archer’s head. He had a split lip and his nose was bleeding, but it was the large lump on the top of his head with the deep cut in the center that was the biggest worry. I also had a problem.
“Elijah, I need to find her,” I rasped, looking up at him desperately. I was torn between making sure my brother was ok and also finding Lottie before he could hurt her badly, or worse – kill her.
The grim look on his face confirmed he had those exact same concerns, too. I’d filled him in on a lot of what had happened since he’d gotten here and he and Lottie had also become good friends, so I knew that he understood what I was going through.
Standing up, he skimmed the beam of his torch across the ground around us. “There are fresh footprints in the mud over there. I say we follow them until the others catch up with us,” he ordered, sounding more like he would if he was at work than he did outside of it. “Uncle Jerome’s coming here so he’ll look after Archer.”
Kneeling down, he turned my brother into the recovery position on his side.
Standing up, I tried to do what I needed to do – remove the emotions making it hard for me to breathe, and think where he could take her. The problem was, there was a lot of land and I didn’t know how well he knew it all by now. “What if he has a weapon?”
Pointing for us to go back to the house, he smiled wickedly at me. “So do we.”
He was right. We were all good shots – with the exception of Tate, but even then I’d trust him with one tonight – and we knew the land like the back of our hands.