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I suspect Black felt the same things I did.

Likely all of the seers did, and all the humans, too. We’d likely all come to the same conclusions about what it meant,even before Black and Jax broke down the door to that upstairs storage room.

We hadn’t heard a thing as we ascended the rickety staircase that led upstairs. Parts of the wooden railing were splintered and broken, but there was no way of knowing if that had happened today, or sometime earlier, even weeks or months ago. The railing was so loose in parts, I didn’t want to touch it.

Nothing and no one awaited us when we reached the top.

More empty boxes. A dusty rack of clothes. A large box of shoes someone probably needed to throw out. Boxes filled with receipts, old ledger books, gift cards, and flyers. A few lonely mannikins stood in a corner with scratched up bodies and faces.

I looked around dutifully with everyone else, but I hadn’t expected to find anything.

All Jem left behind was a partly-open window, a few shoe marks in the dust, and a number of areas on the floor and sill where his presence had wiped the layer of dust away entirely. Nothing personal remained. Nothing specifically tied it to him.

No shells were left behind on the floor.

He’d obviously taken the rifle with him.

Though I’d expected all of it, disappointment soured in my chest.

Had I expected a note? An explanation? Something that said “Sorry” or “Help me” or “I can’t stop myself”?

WhathadI expected, exactly?

I tried not to worry about Nick. Practically, I knew that Nick had probably been too late, too, and now was tracking him.

I understood why he wouldn’t want us along for that, especially Cowboy and Black, but it bothered me that he hadn’t trusted us enough to tell us where he was going. He could have called in and given us some kind of update, at least, or reassurance that he was all right, that he’d either lost Jem and was looking for him, or was following him now.

Nick had to know I’d worry.

He had to know Angel and Cowboy, and yes, even Black, would worry, too.

As much as I told myself Ididn’tneed to worry about Nick, that he was a vampire now, and a hell of a lot stronger and faster than Jem, not to mention immune to Jem’s seer gifts, it was concerning that he hadn’t checked in.

Could Jem have found some way to overpower him, or even to convince him to flee with him? Would Nick just gowithJem, maybe in the hopes of talking him down?

The thought worried me a little, but it was preferable to the alternatives.

Wherever Nick was, whatever he was doing, he wasn’t picking up when we tried to reach him through the comms. All we could do is wait for him to check in, or for Alisha to pick up something on the CCTV.

We spent a few minutes more going over the room with a fine-toothed comb, but we didn’t find anything useful and I hadn’t expected to, frankly.

When Alisha still hadn’t pinged us with new coordinates, Black ordered us back downstairs and across the street to help the others with their gruesome job.

Black checked in with the others once we’d returned to the store’s showroom.

“Anything?” he asked on the open comm.

“No,” Dexter said at once. “I mean, assuming you’re asking about the girl, no one’s found her yet.”

“Did you have any luck identifying anyone else?” Black asked.

He didn’t voice his relief, but I could feel it.

A part of me struggled with the same.

A vain, hopeful part of my light struggled to be heard, one that wanted to believe it meant something that they hadn’t found her body yet, that Jem maybe hadn’t killed Aura after all.

“We’ve got maybe fifteen ID’s so far,” Mika spoke up, her voice even more grim than Dexter’s. “Four might be relevant. I’ll have Alisha send you the full list.”