Page 41 of Revived (Lucky Ones #1)

Chapter thirty-one

Sullivan Byrne

“ C an you stop?” Flynn grounds out beside me.

Okay, to be fair to him, I haven’t stopped squirming in my seat since we got here.

I’ve seen Addy and even Kenz warming up, but no sight of Elle.

My stomach has been churning all day. I want to blame nerves, but something gnawing at me tells me it’s more than that.

He’s here. I don’t know where, but I know he’s here. I can feel it in my bones.

“Sorry.” I grumble, my eyes eating up every bit of space in the large open gymnasium.

Xavier leans over to me from my other side and half whispers, “I don’t see her. Can we go check on her? Something doesn’t feel right.”

I couldn’t agree more. She should be out there right now.

Even if she was just sitting against the wall with her headphones on.

I pull up her tracker on her phone. It says she’s in the locker room, and the only time she leaves it is if she’s on the mats.

She’s either in the locker room or on the way out here.

“Her phone is in the locker room. Let’s give her five more minutes, then we’ll all go look.”

He nods in agreement, and we all go back to scanning the crowd. Mac’s voice rings through my ear from the earpiece we’re all wearing.

“I’ve got a picture. Sending it now. You see this guy, you let me know. No sight of Elle yet. I have the footage from every camera in this place on mine and Lee’s computer. If she’s in the building, we’ll find her.”

I pull out my phone and shoot off a text to him, letting him know he’s got five minutes before he has five pissed off men storming every inch of this place to find her.

My eyes find Kenz again and find her looking right at me.

A puzzled look crosses her face as she subtly shrugs and tilts her head.

She’s asking where Elle is. I shrug back and point to her, a silent way of asking if she’s seen her.

Kenz subtly shakes her head then nods towards Addy, whose back is to us.

That’s weird. How do you live with each other but haven’t seen each other?

Kenzie's eyes drift to the hall that leads to the locker rooms before looking back to me and raising her eyebrows. I elbow Flynn and X so they see too. Xavier elbows Knox, who elbows Dom, and wordlessly the five of us stand to make our way to that hall. Whatever she has to say is something that my intuition is telling me I’ll need to hear.

It takes us only a couple of minutes to make our way down to the tunnel. Mackenzie waits for us there in her official warm ups. I notice her fidgeting as we approach.

“What’s up, Kenz?” I ask with skepticism.

“Have you seen Elle today?” Xavier barks out, clearly not giving a shit about playing it cool. Honestly, I’m grateful for it. I’m just as on edge and need answers as soon as possible. I just don’t want to scare her friend in the meantime.

“No, I was going to ask you the same thing?” She tells us and takes all the air in the room with that one question. “I left before she was up and ready. By the time we needed to start warmups I’d seen everyone but her.”

“How is that even possible?” Knox practically growls out from behind me .

Kenzie flinches slightly before lifting her chin and holding her head high.

“It’s actually not that hard, there’s every bit of forty gymnasts here.

It’s not abnormal for more than one of us to find a little nook to hide in while we mentally prepare for competition.

You guys know this. How many of these have you been to over the years? ”

My heart races and my limbs become numb.

Were we too late? Am I going to lose her like Flynn lost Annie?

No, I can’t. I won’t survive it. Let me make myself very clear.

I won’t even attempt to survive it. There is no me without Elena Rossi.

Mac’s voice slides through my ear, centering me to the present.

“I have eyes on every single exit to this place. No one has come out. She’s still there. Find her.”

My phone starts to ping at the same time as everyone else's. SHIT! The color drains from my face as Dom pulls out his phone and checks the notification.

“Wherever she is, her sugar is tanking.” He tells us with a panicked edge to his voice.

I feel like I’m being stabbed in the heart. Fuck how I felt when she pulled her safe word last week. I’ll take that a thousand times over before the feeling that’s consuming me right now.

Kenzie’s alarmed expression breaks through my pain and registers. She has no idea what’s happening or where Elle is. “How can I help? We have to find her!” She practically screams as her head begins to whip around the empty hall.

Addison turns into the hallway. There’s something off about her expression, but I can’t place it. “Kenz, come on. We’re going to get in trouble… Oh, hey guys. Where’s Elle?” She looks down the hall, but the way she’s glancing around has something screaming at me from deep in my chest .

“We don’t know. Have you seen her today?” I ask while trying to keep the suspicion out of my expression.

“Yeah, actually. She was sitting in the locker room before telling me she had to go meet up with someone. I assumed it was one of you.” She shrugs like it’s no big deal that Elle never came back.

Could she be gone? What if he has her right now?

An ear piercing scream echoes down the hall. My head whips to the side on instinct. That’s Elle. Kenzie and Addy look at each other, panic written clear across their faces.

“We’ll go check that out. Go get someone in charge and tell them we need an ambulance.” I yell over my shoulder, already starting for the back hall.

They both call back their agreement before heading in the opposite direction. At least, I think that’s what they do. I can’t be too sure, because my brain, my soul , is focused on one singular thing. Get to her as fast as you can.

I can feel Flynn and someone else at my back.

I’m not sure where the other two went, nor do I really care at this point.

I skid around a corner in just enough time to hear the most pitiful whimper.

My heart cracks in half as I dart for the door to the room I just heard the whimper come from.

It’s reckless to charge forward without a plan.

Every bit of what was drilled into my head as a mafioso and all the years as a firefighter has taught me nothing if not that.

The problem is that all logic goes out the window when Elle is in the equation.

Before anyone can stop me, I burst through the doors like my SCBA is empty and the only clean oxygen is on the other side.

The door is an entrance into what looks like an old locker room.

I don’t get a chance to fully take a survey of the room because my focus is solely on Elle lying lifeless on the floor while a man stands over her with a hammer in his hand. Her arm is bent at an unnatural angle .

My body moves on its own accord as I run straight for the man.

My arms circle his middle as I throw my entire weight into him and send us sprawling across the concrete floor in the next second.

The hammer skids across the floor, stopping only when I watch it hit the side of Knox’s foot out of my peripherals.

The man starts swinging in the next moment. His fist grazes my temple, but that’s the only hit he’s about to land. I can’t even focus on what he looks like aside from his almost white blonde hair and menacing ice blue eyes. He looks so familiar, but my brain isn’t catching on anything right now.

I grew up with five brothers, one of which fought for fun. So it’s a no-brainer that I can throw a punch as well as I can take one. You had to if you wanted to survive in my house growing up. I was catching strays just from walking into the wrong room at the wrong time.

I sit on his hips, squeezing my thighs to keep me in position as my fists rain down.

Every ounce of pain, fear, and hurt that I’ve felt ever since this sick bastard walked into our lives is packed into these hits.

Blood splatters across my shirt, but I still don’t stop; I can’t.

It isn’t until arms wrap around me from behind and pull me off of him that the red haze dissipates.

My eyes wheel over to Elle, who’s still laying on the ground unconscious.

I scramble out of Flynn’s grasp and over to her.

I’m scared to touch her, but I’m more terrified of anyone else touching her.

With shaky hands I carefully press two fingers to the pulse point on the side of her neck.

The sweet smell assaults my senses, and I silently curse at whatever higher power is out there.

My eyes close as I hold my breath and wait in agony until the weak pulse pushes back against my fingers. It’s thready at best, but it’s there.

I don’t even notice Mac in the room until I watch him and Flynn carry the man’s unconscious body out of the locker room, murmuring about putting him on ice. It’s code for storing him somewhere until we can question him properly.

I’m not sure why, but my body moves on instinct as I lay beside her body on my side.

Too afraid to actually touch her, like my heart screams at me too, my hands run through her hair as gently as possible as I whisper to her about waking up and coming back to me.

I’m not sure how much time passes, but the next thing I know there’s medics in the space.

Xavier clamps a hard hand on my shoulder until my eyes come to his.

“You need to let them help her, brother.”

He looks blurry, and it takes me a second to realize that I’m crying.

I don’t know what to do or how to help, but I know I can’t let anyone hurt her again.

The medics begin to work around us, calling out terms to each other that I know but can’t quite unscramble right now.

They move her to a stretcher and wheel her to the ambulance.

The entire time I follow behind like a lost puppy.

Once we’re in the back of the ambulance, I do the only thing I can think of; the only thing that I can think to do right now while watching them try to stabilize her near lifeless body.

Without another thought, I press the button and bring my phone up to my ear.

He answers on the first ring. Of course he does.

His voice comes out panicked, probably from hearing the noises in the background, “Sully? Sullivan, what’s wrong?”

My voice breaks. “Da…”