Page 39 of Beautiful Scars: Unshakeable (The Beautiful Scars Duet #2)

Chapter Thirty-Four

Zane

I stare at the screens until my vision blurs, fighting the exhaustion that threatens to pull me under. Twenty hours since Jade disappeared. Twenty hours of nothing.

The front door slams downstairs, followed by heavy footsteps. Colt appears in the doorway, dirt streaked across his shirt, his eyes hollow. He doesn't say anything—doesn't need to. The defeat is obvious with every step he takes.

"The warehouse off Highway 9?" I ask, though I already know the answer.

He shakes his head, slumping against the doorframe. "Empty. Just like all the others." His voice is hoarse, probably from shouting Jade's name into abandoned buildings for hours.

"Any info on the truck?" Wolf's voice crackles through my earpiece.

"Dead end." I rub my eyes, trying to focus on the data scrolling past. "Reported stolen three months ago. No prints, no cameras, no witnesses."

The sound of power tools from downstairs makes me wince. Colt left behind a lot of damage last night. It leaves us vulnerable at a time we can't afford it. At least we'll have the gate repaired in the next few hours.

Colt grabs his laptop and I watch him head to the kitchen and take a seat.

Our biggest lead right now has been learning that the code he found during the power outage turned out to be elaborate misdirection.

It was hiding the real backdoor into our system—the one that let whoever is working with Garrett override our door locks and trap Jade outside.

Colt's positive that he'll be able to find something now that it's been discovered.

"Z?" Chase appears in my doorway, his face grim. "The new monitors are here, but we're having trouble with the installation. Something's corrupted in the base coding."

"Of course it is." I push back from my desk, muscles protesting.

Sunny's curled up in the armchair by the window, finally asleep after refusing to close her eyes all night and most of the day. Levi sits at her feet, his hand wrapped around her ankle like he's afraid she'll disappear if he lets go.

"Any word on her phone?" Levi asks quietly as I pass.

"Nothing." The word tastes bitter. "Either destroyed or being blocked. Wolf's still trying, but..."

A crash from downstairs makes us all jump. Sunny stirs but doesn't wake. Through the security feed, I watch Colt slam his laptop shut and stalk outside making his way down the driveway.

"I've got him," I tell Levi before he can move. "Stay with her."

I find Colt by the remains of the front gate, staring at the scorched dirt and weeds where the truck exploded. His shoulders are rigid with tension.

"The code was perfect." His voice is raw. "Every piece of it was a perfectly crafted decoy. I really thought our system was clean, Z. I really thought there was no way for him to get in."

"We'll find her." The words feel hollow after the past twenty hours.

"Will we?" He turns, and the devastation he feels shows in his eyes.

"Because right now all we know is that a professional team managed to infiltrate our security, plant sophisticated, untraceable code into our system, coordinate a multi-point attack, and disappear with her without leaving a single lead to track. "

I can't argue with him. Every angle we've pursued has led nowhere.

The runners who breached the gate vanished into thin air.

The truck's explosion destroyed any evidence it might have contained.

The security footage shows nothing useful—just a couple of masked figures moving with military precision.

"She trusted me." Colt's voice cracks. "She trusted me to keep her safe, and I couldn't even... I was right there. Right fucking there, Z."

I've been where he is. The guilt of knowing I'm responsible for putting him there threatens to choke me.

I was the one who pushed for getting them outside again. I was the one who designed the security protocols that failed. I was the one who didn't watch until I saw she was completely inside.

"We underestimated him." I force the words out, letting the word 'again' die in my throat because it won't help either of us.

"Yeah, you think?" His laugh is bitter. "I don't know how I can do this, Z. I keep thinking about that phone call with Sunny. About what he—" He cuts himself off, hands clenching into fists.

He kicks at a pile of blackened rocks.

"One hour." Colt's voice is deadly quiet. "You said give you an hour to find something. It's been almost an entire day, and we're no closer than we were when she disappeared."

"I know." The admission burns. "But we keep looking. We analyze every frame of footage, check every camera in a hundred-mile radius, run down every possible lead until we find something."

"And what if we don't?" He finally looks at me, and the raw fear in his eyes matches the knot in my gut. "What if this time, we're too late?"

I have no answer for him. No reassurance to offer. Because he's voicing the same fears that have been eating at me since we discovered Jade was gone. We've always been able to get the answers, come up with the plans, the solutions. But now...

"Z?" Wolf's voice in my ear again. "We've got the new security measures online, but... " His voice trails off and there is a long pause before he continues. "Just get back here."

I key my mic. "On my way."

I follow Colt back to the house and inside. The living room falls silent as we enter—a heavy, suffocating kind of quiet that makes my skin crawl.

Sunny's awake in the armchair, but her eyes are vacant. She's staring into the distance, fixed on something only she can see. Her knees are pulled tight to her chest, arms wrapped around them in that defensive posture I haven't seen since we first brought her home from the warehouse.

"Angel?" I keep my voice soft, approaching slowly. She doesn't respond, doesn't even blink.

Levi kneels beside the chair, his hand hovering near but not touching her. The fear in his eyes when he looks at me twists something in my chest. "She woke up screaming. Won't let me touch her."

"Sunny..." I try again, crouching to meet her eye level. Nothing.

"It's my fault." Her voice is barely a whisper. "He took her because of me. Everything he does is because of me."

"No." The word comes out sharper than I intend. I force myself to soften my tone. "This isn't on you, Angel. None of it."

She shakes her head in a jerky, almost violent motion. "You don't understand. He's never going to stop. Not until..." Her breath hitches. "He's going to hurt her like he hurt me. Because of me. Because I wasn't good enough, wasn't careful enough, wasn't—"

"Stop." Levi's voice cracks. "Please, Sunny, don't—"

"Should've known better." She continues like she hasn't heard him, words spilling out faster now as she digs her nails into her leg. "I'm so stupid. So fucking stupid."

I reach for her hand but she flinches away, pulling further into herself. The movement is so familiar—exactly how she reacted those first days after we got her back.

"He's going to kill her you know." The words come out dead, emotionless. "Like those other girls. To punish me. He's going to make sure I know it's my fault. Because I didn't learn. Because I thought I could get away."

"Look at me." I try to put every ounce of authority I possess into those words. She doesn't respond. "Sunny. Look at me right now."

Her eyes finally flicker to mine, but there's nothing behind them. Just emptiness where my fierce, brave girl should be.

"We're going to find her." I hold her gaze, willing her to believe me. "And then we're going to end him. For good this time. I promise."

"You can't promise me that." Her laugh is hollow, wrong. "You couldn't protect her. Couldn't protect me. He's always going to win. Don't you see that? And I can't..." Her voice breaks. "I can't watch anyone else get hurt because of me."

Levi makes a sound like he's been punched. I know exactly how he feels. We've seen Sunny scared before, seen her hurt and angry and ready to give up. But this... this emptiness, this defeat...

"Angel, please." I risk touching her cheek. She allows it but doesn't lean in like she usually does. "Stay with us. Don't let him take you back there."

"I never left." The words steal my breath. "Not really. He made sure of that. And now Jade..."

She starts rocking slightly, a movement so subtle I almost miss it. But Levi sees it too—his face goes white.

"I should just go to him." The words come out mechanical, rehearsed. "Before anyone else gets hurt. Before he—"

"No." Levi's on his feet, panic clear in his voice. "No, Angel, don't talk like that. Don't you dare—"

This is exactly what Garrett wants—to break her spirit, make her believe she has no choice but to go back to him. And watching her slip away like this, seeing her retreat back into that shell...

"You're not going anywhere." I make my voice firm, commanding—the tone that usually centers her. "You hear me, Angel? We're not letting you go. Not now, not ever."

But she just keeps rocking, keeps staring through us like we're not even there. And for the first time since we found her, I'm truly terrified. I don't know if we can reach her this time.

Levi catches my eye, his face a mirror of my own fear.

We both know what's at stake. Both know that if we lose her to this darkness, Garrett wins, and we may never get her back.

Neither of us knows how to fight an enemy we can't see—the voices in her head telling her she deserves this, that it's all her fault.

"Wolf needs me in the security room." I hate to leave her like this, but we need whatever lead he's found. To Levi, I add quietly, "Don't let her out of your sight. Not for a second."

He nods, settling back beside her chair. But as I head for the door, I hear her whisper again:

"You need to let me go."