August is missing.
I’m not sure how it’s possible for a guy who’s six and a half feet, with shoulders so wide he has to turn sideways through doorways, can just… disappear.
He must have been bleeding pretty badly. After all, he tore an August-sized hole in the wall and plowed right on through and that’s not to mention all the other damage he did to the gym. And yet, it’s been days now and no one’s reported a rampaging berserker on the streets of Stoneraven.
“Do you think he’ll have been himself when he woke up?” I ask Nico. It’s approximately the hundredth time I’ve asked the same question in the three days since we found the gym empty. Instead of scowling at me, or just ignoring the question like he would normally, he tousles his dark hair with one hand, clicking his tongue piercing with his teeth like he does when he’s thinking.
“I don’t know. Like I said, it was the first time I’ve put someone under for so long. I don’t know what state he’ll have woken up in. Although—"
Judging by the daylight flooding through the massive hole. We can both agree that whatever state August was in, it wasn’t good.
August hates being confined. I learned that first-hand when we got stuck in the tunnels under the city together. I can’t stop thinking about it, how scared and stressed he must have been to destroy this place as thoroughly as he did. The berserker inside him must have completely taken over, considering the trail of blood after he must have cut himself and then kept on going until he’d smashed a hole in the wall with his bare flesh. I sweep up shattered and bloodied pieces of mirror, trying to keep my inner turmoil from spilling out, as Nico straightens up the exercise equipment.
I think Nico can tell that I’m a woman on the edge. While we’re not exactly back to the Nice Nico of a few days ago, he’s not returned to his usual snappy, dickish self either. Meanwhile, Cass has been steadfastly ignoring me. It’s like our relationship has taken a hundred steps back after I came home after being kept in a cell by his asshole brother and he blew up at me about being a liar and decided he was done with me.
Frankly, I’m done with dealing with him too. If he wants to think the worst of me, he can.
“You want to do another sweep of the streets after we’re done here?” I ask Nico. “I was thinking of heading to the library again but need to drop in and see JJ first.”
“Five minutes,” he says.
Baby Saskia is less than a week old and I already feel like I’m failing as her aunt. Searching for August has been taking up so much time, I’ve only managed one visit so far and I’m surprised I’ve even managed that. I can’t remember the last time I ate a full meal or slept for more than a snatched couple of hours.
“Uh, what?”
“Give me five minutes,” he says slowly, really enunciating each word, just in case I’d forgotten what an ass he can be.
“You’re coming with me?”
“Yep.” He gives me a look, like I’m an idiot for even asking. “I want to see Nat and we’ll cover more ground looking for August together.”
I’m not sure that’s true. So far, we’ve been kind of splitting the city in two, the both of us walking miles every day so that we can try to hit as many of the likely spots where August might have gone as we can.
We finish tidying up the room until it no longer looks like a bomb went off. It looks better, but even without the massive hole in the wall, the mirrors are mostly shattered, and half the gym equipment has pieces dangling off it and are unusable.
“These all need replacing,” I mutter. “Can you order some so they’ll be here when he comes home?”
There’s a pause and I’m half expecting Nico to reply something cutting about us having no idea about when that might be. Instead, he surprises me by just giving me a nod.
Pretty sure that Nico agreeing to something without bitching is one of the first signs of the apocalypse.
“We’ll find him, Manon,” he says, squeezing my shoulder and I have to bite my cheek to keep my wayward feelings in check. I think it’ll be pushing him a step too far if I start blubbering on his shoulder. I think I need him to push back a bit, to argue with me so that I have somewhere to direct the surging mess of guilt and fear and anxiety that’s filling my veins.
We head over to Nico’s sister, Natalie’s house. She lives in a cute, little townhouse just down the road that’s tiny compared to the guy’s mansion but is a million times nicer than JJ’s bungalow, where I’ve been staying ever since Cass kicked my ass out of their house.
“Christ, you look about as bad as I feel,” JJ greets me, pulling me into a hug. “I. Am. Shattered. But good to see our favorite babysitters have come to the rescue so that we can take a little nap.” He moves out of the doorway, letting us in. “Mommy and daddy could do with a little alone time.”
I roll my eyes, keeping my attention on Nico to check his reaction to my brother’s teasing. But he just slaps JJ’s shoulder, ignoring his wink and moving past him.
It’s weird. They seem to be getting along a lot better than before. I haven’t heard Nico threaten JJ’s life since before the baby was born.
I head inside the house and as soon as I step into their living room am greeted by the sight of Nico with a tiny baby in his leather-jacket clad arms. She looks so little and delicate being held there, I can practically feel my ovaries squee-ing.
I’m far too tired and emotionally drained to cope with the visual of the highly attractive asshole looking down at a tiny baby with something a lot like reverence in his eyes.
Big fat nope.
“How are you all doing?” I ask softly.
“It’s a little chaotic, but it’s good.” Natalie flashes a tired smile. “Can’t remember the last time I brushed my teeth, but we’re all doing okay. Especially with my big brother and his pot roast delivery.”
I blink at that, glancing between her and Nico. Pot roast delivery? “You’ve been cooking them meals?”
Nico smirks at me over the top of the baby’s head. “Sure have. Better step up your game, love, or you’ll be out of the running for best family member.”
I just stare at him in amazement. When the hell has he had time to cook and deliver them food? We’ve been scouring the streets until the small hours of the morning every day and then he’s been juggling jobs with our search for August in the daylight too.
“No sign of the big guy, then?” JJ asks.
“Nope. We’ve been to all his favorite places in case he finds his way back there.”
There aren’t exactly a lot of them. The library, his old foster home, my old apartment. We’ve even scoured old job sites, just in case his berserker brain decided they would be a safe place for him to hide out as he no doubt heals from numerous wounds.
JJ raises an eyebrow. “Sounds like you’re looking for a stray dog, not a man.”
I just shrug at him and Nico chimes in, keeping his voice low, tone soft as I’ve ever heard it. “If he’s still in berserker mode, he’s more beast than man. He’s fueled by rage normally, but when I took that little trip inside his head, he was panicking. It makes sense to imagine that he’ll try to return to spaces where he feels safe.”
“That’s what we’re hoping, anyway.”
JJ yawns massively, slumping onto the sofa. “Has your boss noticed he’s missing yet?”
“Lucky he’s so self-absorbed, it should take a while. We can always just say that he’s sick.”
A heavy silence falls and I studiously avoid looking at Nico or at the way his hair is flopping down onto his forehead so that I just want to lean up and brush it away for him.
I need to keep my emotions and my hormones in check and he looks far too good at this moment, particularly for a guy that must be running on fumes.
“I need to get going,” I announce to the room.
I need to focus.
Find August.
The real reason we’re up most nights and have been wearing holes in our boots, searching the city for any signs of our berserker, is because as long as August is out there, he’s in danger.
August isn’t his own man. He’s owned by the city and doesn’t have the freedom to take time off work or disappear.
He especially cannot be caught raging out in public.
And if the authorities find him and decide that he’s dangerous. They’ll put him down.
I really need to get out of here.
“I thought you might hang around for a bit so we could—” JJ starts.
Nope, I’m not hanging around the baby-making chemicals that are clearly still in the air. That’s my only explanation for my mouth going dry as my eyes dart back to Nico, cuddling the baby close to his chest.
“As fun as it might be for us to sit around while you mess around with my sister in the next room, we need to get back out there,” Nico says, delicately passing Saskia back to his sister.
We extract ourselves without too much bother and my brother seems to understand that I cannot physically stay here, can’t stay still. Not while August is missing.
He pulls me into a massive bear hug. “Get some sleep, Manon. You look like shit.”
With that, and with a massive grin, he shuts the door in my face.
The dick.
“Library first?” Nico asks as soon as we’re outside.
I rub my tired eyes and sigh. It’s already dark out, but I know I will not sleep tonight until we’ve checked there, plus my old apartment. I’ll then head back to JJ’s bungalow where I can hopefully pass out for a few hours before starting all over again.
Tomorrow will be day four. If August was as panicked as Nico says he was, there’s a chance he ran and just kept on running. If that’s the case, he could be miles away from Stoneraven by now. I don’t even want to consider that as a possibility. It’s not like we can tell anyone that he’s missing without the possibility of alerting the city authorities or our boss at the same time. So right now, we’re keeping the search local and just hoping he’ll find his own way back after he’s cooled off.
“Why don’t you try the library—that’s the big building with all the books, by the way,” I say. “I’ll check my old apartment.”
I’m not subtle about the fact that I need a bit of space from Nico. Just a bit of breathing room. A chance to think and wallow and stew in my own guilt and anxiety without having to worry about him thinking I’m weak.
Three days we’ve been looking for August. What if we don’t find him, or the wrong person finds him first?
The thought is fucking terrifying.
August is my safe harbor. Even when he didn’t like me all that much, he was the person I had a long-standing library date with. He’s sweet, smart and loyal.
And he’s mine. I need him.
Nico stays silent while I’m spiraling, lost in my head
“Fine, I’ll try the book building. You go to the apartment and try not to pick up any diseases while you’re there.”
I shoot him the middle finger, but then slightly ruin the effect as I say, “And then you need to get some sleep.”
I generally try to avoid looking too closely at Nico’s face. He’s too attractive for his own good for one thing, and normally his face is sporting a sneer. That must be how I missed the dark circles under his eyes.
We’ve both been running ourselves ragged and he must have been sleeping even less than I have if he’s been helping his sister.
“I’ll sleep when you do, love,” he says, waving a hand and striding off down the street in the opposite direction to me.
My old apartment building is a bust. Somehow they’ve rented out my old place to some other poor sucker in the months since I moved into the guy’s mansion and was subsequently kicked out. The whole place still has an incredibly strong smell of mold and trash in the air, like they pump it through the air vents or something. I check the stairwells, keeping my torch high and a knife at the ready since this is not the safest spot to be hanging around after dark. I then head up to the top floor and work my way down, searching for any damage or other indicators that August might have been through this way.
I’m fit to drop by the time I head back to JJ’s bungalow, although that doesn’t stop me from doing a onceover of every alley I pass.
No August. But I do catch sight of a bunch of rats and a few bare asses of people that decided that fucking in a piss-soaked alley was a good idea.
Letting myself in to the bungalow and kicking off my boots, I don’t bother to put any of the lights on as I head straight to the bedroom and slump down onto my crappy bed with its musty sheets. I’m just drifting off when there’s a bang at the door and someone starts obnoxiously rattling the handle.
A little kernel of hope expands in my chest as I jump up and head to the door, swinging it wide open.
It’s not him.
I try not to let the disappointment show on my face as I frown at Nico on the other side of the door.
“Any luck?”
He shakes his head and then maneuvers me out the way, plopping himself down on the sofa and unlacing his boots like he’s sticking around for a while.
“What are you doing?”
“As someone helpfully pointed out, I need sleep. So I’m going to do that. If you’ve got some spare bedding, that would be appreciated. I’d prefer not to put my face directly onto this monstrosity.”
He seems entirely unmoved by my frown and I’m far too tired to argue. I have no idea why he’d choose to spend the night on JJ’s shitty sofa rather than at home in his mansion on his very comfortable bed, but who am I to question Nico’s decisions?
That doesn’t stop me from chuntering to myself, rubbing my temples—since, you know, he’s just rocked up at my house and started demanding things. But I do fetch him a spare pillow and blanket and even manage to fight the urge to smother him with them.
I’m awoken a little later by the sound of something dropping to the floor in the living room and the clink of the letterbox.
Leaping out of bed, I slide across the floor in my socks in my haste to get to the door. Nico’s already there, looking sleep-rumpled and grouchy. He’s holding a little box in his hand.
“What is it?”
He dumps it out with no regard to whether it might be something we don’t want all over the floor… or, like, an explosive or something. Something hard and plastic clatters to the floor.
“It’s a phone.”
I take a step closer. It’s not just any phone. It’s mine, the one that was taken off me when I was in Kitos’s basement.
As soon as I pick it up off the floor, it starts to ring.
