Page 49 of Her Wicked Knights (Their Hallowed Queen #3)

"Marley." I snap. "Where the fuck is she? What did you do to her?"

"I don't know. I haven't seen her since..." He breaks off, and I watch Tripp's fingers curl white around the phone he's holding out between us, "I tried texting to apologize, but she hasn't answered."

A text apology.

I'd laugh if I wasn't wound so tightly right now. I'm not sure what he tried to apologize for—cheating on her with her best friend, killing her parents, or nearly strangling her outside the funeral yesterday. I don't think a text message suffices for any of them.

I don't wait to see what else Tripp asks; I begin striding toward the door, pulling my keys from my pocket as I go.

"Where are you going?" Carson calls after me. I don't do him the courtesy of answering.

I'm at the door when Rev draws up beside me, and a moment later, Tripp takes my other side. Something is wrong, and while I'm not sure exactly what, I know how to find out. And if Hadley doesn't let me in, I'll let myself in.

I've nearly beaten down the door before I hear the shuffle on the other side, the scraping of the lock opening.

Hadley appears in the door, her face unusually pale, her eyes red and swollen.

She's clearly been crying, hard, and the tissue clutched in her hand is evidence of that.

Her makeup is smeared across her skin, like she's tried to wipe away the tears and only managed to spread her mascara before crying fresh tears.

"Of course." She says, shaking her head and letting out a strange little laugh. "I thought maybe you were Marley... I thought maybe she changed her mind."

"Changed her mind about what?" Tripp demands, trying to look around Hadley to see if maybe the girl we've loved since we were kids is hiding behind her sister.

"Leaving." Hadley sniffs. "She's gone."

"Where?" I demand. I left my car on; I'm ready to hop back in and drive wherever I need to. I'll go to the end of the earth to find her.

"I don't know. She was gone when I woke up. She didn't take anything, didn't leave a note, nothing. She just fucking disappeared, and now she's disconnected her phone."

"She just left?" Rev asks, clearly not buying it. "Just like that? You haven't heard from her?"

I know Hadley. We grew up with her, too.

She doesn't take no for an answer, and she sure as hell wouldn't have just accepted that her sister was suddenly gone after losing her parents and then after Marley witnessed a murder.

She wouldn't just believe that Marley ran off without explanation; she'd have called us, searched the town, called the police.

She'd be doing everything humanly possible to find her sister if Marley truly hadn't been in contact.

She's too caught off guard to stop me when I push past her, using my arm to force her out of the way as I stride into the kitchen and her objections follow me. "What the hell? I told you, she's not here!"

None of us are going to accept that, though.

"Sorry, Hads." Tripp says apologetically, taking advantage of her surprise to move past her too. He goes immediately for the steps, to Marley's room. I know he won't find her there.

I scan the room but don't see what I'm looking for, so I head into the living room, where Hadley's phone is sitting on the coffee table next to a box of tissues. I snatch it up and thank fuck she trusts Marley enough to not keep a lock on her phone.

"Colton!" She snaps when her and Rev enter the room together to find me scrolling to her text threads. I click on the one with Marley's name and read the last message.

3:22 A.M.

I'm okay, but I can't be here anymore. I can't do this. Need to unplug and escape. Don't look for me. I'll reach out when I'm ready. All my love, Mars.

"When did you see this message?" I demand.

"What message?" Rev moves to take the phone, and I let him.

"I don't know. When I woke up... like 8:30."

8:30.

Marley texted her sister not to come look for her at 3:30, and Hadley didn't even see it ‘til five hours later. Now it's been almost eighteen hours. Eighteen hours could get her anywhere. Halfway across the country by car, in another country by plane.

"You have to report her missing." I shake my head. "Put out an Amber alert or something."

"An Amber alert?" Hadley huffs a laugh. "She ran away because she can't handle everything right now. She can't handle all of you."

"Us?" Tripp asks from the staircase, where he is standing, looking like a lost puppy. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, you guys are too much. You're fucking suffocating her, and she needed to breathe, so she left."

"I think you're projecting." Rev laughs coldly. "I know you're hurt, but there's no reason to swing at us."

If anyone was smothering her, it's Hadley, and she knows as much. "She didn't run away. You can't really believe that?"

"What else am I supposed to believe?" Hadley shakes her head. "I know you guys don't want to believe that she could have left you guys. Trust me, I don't want to believe it was so easy for her to walk away and leave me alone, either. But that's what happened."

"No." Tripp shakes his head. "No, she could be in danger. She could need our help!"

"She doesn't need you!" Hadley snaps.

As soon as the words leave her tongue, she puts a hand over her lips, as if she can press the words back in.

Tripp stares at her for a moment in shock, not saying anything as her hand falls away from her mouth to reveal her lips parted around the mistake.

That was cruel and unnecessary, and downright wrong.

Marley does need us... even more than she needs her sister.

And it's a truth that hurts Hadley, which is why she's taking her shit out on us.

"You're wrong." I shake my head, thrusting the phone back into her hands and walking away before I resort to fighting with her. "One day, you'll see how wrong you were."

I just hope it's before Marley ends up in a fucking casket because Whit's drained her of every use he has for her.

Whit may have been there, in the memories with us. He may be bound to us. But I don't believe that he's bound to her by anything other than a need to control her, to take from her. He may need Marley, but he doesn't love her. And that makes him fucking dangerous.

I don't look back to see if Tripp or Rev follow me. When I slide into the truck, they haven't even appeared at the front door, so I take that as my sign that they're giving up.

But I'm not. I'm not relenting, because she's out there, and she needs me as badly as I need her. She just doesn't know it yet.