Page 20 of After All The Wreckage

ME: I’m checking with the guys on the basketball team.

Which was a joke. India knew as well as I did that Monte wouldn’t be with them. He was barely friends with them. Theguys tolerated him because he was tall for his age and had good ball skills.

After I set Ivy in her seat at the counter, I placed the cereal bowl in front of her. I was trying desperately to rein in my emotions because she’d go off if I let them out. I stepped away from her, farther down the small hallway leading to the bedroom we shared.

When I called River, he answered in a husky, fuck-you-it’s-too-early tone. “Better be an emergency.”

“Monte’s missing.”

Silence for a beat.

“What do you mean? I thought he was with India.”

“She’s out of town and hasn’t seen him since Friday.”

“He never called last night?”

“No. And now he won’t respond. He…” I choked on the lump that had formed inside my throat.

“We’re on our way,” River said.

The phone went dead, and I looked down at my naked chest and flannel pajamas.Fuck. I jogged into the bedroom, pulled on jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt, and my work boots. I grabbed a baseball cap to hide the wild tufts of hair sticking up after my restless sleep.

As I made my way back into the main room, my gut turned violently. Something was horribly wrong. It had been all fucking weekend, and I hadn’t listened to it. But I knew better. My inner voice had saved me more than once. In high school, they’d had me ducking a fist, and when I was chasing storms in the Midwest, it had earned me the nickname the Storm Whisperer.

And yet, I’d fucking ignored that instinct for days now.

“I want Monte,” Ivy said. Her tiny, fairy-like voice cracked with emotions as she finally sensed what was going on.

I swallowed hard, kissed her on the top of her head, and talked around the lump. “Soon, Ives. Soon.”

But if he’d gone to D.C., how the hell was I going to find him?

And why had he stopped responding? Where had he been all weekend? On the streets? That thought curdled my insides further, thinking of my tall but innocent-looking brother wandering the streets of the city at night… in the dark… where bad shit went down all the damn time.

With another inward curse, I finally remembered the app on my phone showing our locations. When I pulled it up, I expected to see the Capitol Building because he’d been desperate to talk to Representative Dunn and warn him. Even if there was no way he would have gotten in to see the man, that’s where he would have gone first. But if he had gotten to talk to the congressman, after two seconds of listening to Monte’s wild talk, they would have tossed him out. He’d be home by now.

It took longer than I wanted for the app to ping his last location. It was some random street in D.C., but now the phone showed as offline.

Crap.

Had he been mugged? Was he bleeding out somewhere?

Had something worse happened?

Some fucking guardian I was. I hadn’t helped him, and he’d decided he had to go by himself. I debated what to do. Call the cops? Go to D.C. myself and search the streets? I felt paralyzed. Then, a different fear curled through me. If the cops thought I wasn’t doing my job, if they thought I hadn’t been watching over Monte as I should have been, would they call Child Protective Services? Would they take Monte and Ivy away from me?

There was no way I was letting them take my family from me.

No. Fucking. Way.

They were mine. I couldn’t lose them. Not like this. Not after everything I’d done, everything I’d given up, to keep us together.

A key in the lock drew my gaze to the door as Audrey and River rushed in. She was in a pair of sweats covered in paint andclay, which meant I’d dragged her out of the studio. River was in jeans and a flannel shirt, looking as wild-eyed as I felt.

They glanced from me, to Ivy, and back.

I motioned my head down the hall, and we ended up in my bedroom with the door shut and voices hushed.