and white gloves that reached his elbows. “You need to leave.”
“Dr. Drake come past here?” I asked, ignoring the guy’s demands and walking further into the space. He seemed hesitant as I came closer, though I can’t imagine someone who loves working with dead people had great people skills when it came to the ones who were breathing.
“Dr. Drake?” he questioned, his eyes moving to the right, giving me the answer I needed before he even said, “Yeah, moved a body through to the loading bay. Said the family was coming to see it before we went through the motions.”
He came after Myth and me as we rushed down the long hall that opened out to a large space with a roller door that was wide open. “How long ago?”
“Like fifteen minutes?”
“Check it out,” Myth called, stepping outside.
I followed, instantly noting the empty bed and the sheet blowing in the breeze.
But no fucking Avery.
“Goddammit!” I screamed, grabbing the bed with two hands and hurling it across the concrete area outside, sending it crashing into the high wire fences. The young guy backed away slowly, but before he could escape, I rushed over, my hand going straight to his throat.
I slammed him back against the wall, jolting his body hard and knocking the air from his lungs.
So Garrett had her.
I could get her back.
I fucking knew that much, at least.
But there was one itching feeling sitting in the back of my mind that, up until this fucking point, I’d tried to ignore. How the fuck did he get her out of here without her warning someone she was there.
Avery was not a go-quietly type of girl.
Which meant I needed to ask a question I didn’t want to know the fucking answer to.
The kid struggled to breathe, his weak hands tugging at my wrist where I had him pinned to the wall. “Was the body on the bed dead?” I managed to force out, though it felt like as I did, someone was reaching down inside my throat and dragging my insides out.
I’d just officially made her mine.
Losing her was not an option.
I released the pressure on his throat, enough so he could suck in a breath of air and hopefully speak.
“The sheet was… it was over the…” he stuttered, wheezing between words. “I didn’t see any move—”
I shoved him to the side, his skinny body hitting the wall with a hard thump.
“Come on, brother,” Myth advised, pointing back the way we came, urgency now in his eyes.
“Wait!” We both spun on the kid, his eyes not focused on us. Instead, he stared at the wall like it had the answers to the universe. “There was!”
His head bobbled unsteadily. “There was a breath of air.”
I stood taller like my lungs had been filled again. “Say what?” I demanded, taking an urgent step back toward him.
His whole body jerked, hitting the wall again. He was clumsy and nervous, and everything I imagined someone who liked to spend their days down here with the dead would be. “When he pushed the body past, I thought I caught the sheet puff up over the mouth like someone was breathing out.”
“And you’re sure?” Myth questioned, getting right in the guy’s face.
“Yeah, yeah,” he nodded. “I called out to him, but he ignored me. I thought maybe he was playing a joke on someone. Like he had a buddy under the sheet, and he was gonna jump out and surprise someone.”
“And you couldn’t have fucking told us that before?” I roared, just the volume of my voice sending him stumbling further back even though there was nowhere to go.
“I didn’t know he was stealing people!”
Myth and I turned and headed back through the morgue and up the stairs, leaving our buddy down there to probably have a mental breakdown.
“Call Auron,” I ordered as we stomped through the hospital, finding Meyah and Kennedy with the kids waiting by her car. “Tell him to cruise by any place he followed Garrett to while he was watching him. Let me know if he sees the bastard or anything suspicious.”
Myth nodded, his phone already pressed to his ear.
“We’ll find her.” Kennedy tried to ease my thoughts as she buckled Gage into the back of the car. She stepped back, and I ducked my head in, swiping my hand over his head, his soft baby hairs like silk under my rough fingertips.
I clenched my jaw.
We had to find her.
I couldn’t do this shit on my own.
It’s because of her that Gage was