Kings of Anarchy (Brutal Boys of Everlake Prep #3) - Caroline Peckham Page 0,264

"Come on, siren, tell us where you’ve got to."

Silence followed as we all waited for her response and I clambered back out of the water with Nash at my side.

"Princess?" he asked when the silence seemed to stretch too long.

"Maybe her earpiece is broken?" Blake suggested.

"Those are military grade bits of tech," Saint snarled. "They're the best money can buy and practically indestructible. Civilians shouldn’t even have them. So no, I don't think it's broken."

"Then maybe it fell out?" I suggested as we began to walk up the hill towards the path.

I could practically hear Saint grinding his teeth at that insinuation and I chuckled darkly, but a shiver of unease ran down my spine all the same.

"Tatum Roscoe!" I yelled at the top of my voice, cupping my hands around my mouth to make sure the sound carried far and wide. "Get your fine ass down here so I can get my hands on it."

"Real classy, asshole," Monroe muttered and I wanted to wink at him and make some remark about the two of us tag teaming her to make ourselves feel better, but the fact that there was still no reply from her had me on edge.

"You don't think there could have been three of those Ninja assholes, do you?" Blake asked cautiously, but before I could answer that, Saint hissed at all of us to shut up and listen.

I didn't know what I was supposed to be listening for until I realised that I could hear footsteps crunching on gravel over the earpiece.

"Are either of you walking on a gravel path?" Saint hissed and Monroe and I grunted a no as we stood silently beneath the trees.

A shiver of dread shifted beneath my flesh as we stood there and the footsteps continued before the sound of a soft, male curse came next.

"What the fuck?" Blake breathed but Saint shushed him aggressively.

"Tatum?" I demanded forcefully, not giving a shit if Saint wanted to listen in on whatever the fuck was happening on that earpiece because I had all the information I needed. There was only one place on campus with that much gravel and that was up by the main gates.

When she still didn't respond, I took off running and Monroe was right beside me as we ran for the pathway and then raced up it towards Aspen Halls.

As something metallic clanged over the earpiece, I yelled Tatum's name again but she still didn’t answer me.

My heart thundered with panic so fiercely that it felt like it might crack my ribs with its ferocity. I didn’t know what the hell was happening, only that it didn’t feel right one fucking bit.

Monroe was yelling for her too and as we charged up the path, Saint and Blake appeared from the trees, the four of us sprinting for Aspen Halls and the only small clue we had as to where our girl was.

The moon slipped out from beyond the clouds just as we reached the enormous, gothic building and I yelled for her again as we ran towards it in desperation, no sign of anyone near it on the gravel drive. Could we have got it wrong? Maybe the footsteps hadn’t been on gravel after all. Maybe they’d been down by the shore or somewhere else, but I just couldn’t fucking think where.

I yelled and yelled, the others echoing my cries for our girl as we all sensed the utter wrongness of this situation. But it didn't matter. By the time we made it to the open space outside the building, there was no sign of anyone anywhere in sight and no matter how much we shouted Tatum's name, the only thing we could hear from her earpiece was silence.

The four of us fell still as hopelessness consumed us and I swung my baseball bat at the wall of the building, bellowing my rage and fear from my lungs as my heart disappeared into the night.

I woke up like I was resurfacing from a deep, dark pool of water, my mind twisting with memories of the trees, the dark, my enemies, my men. I was disorientated as my eyes flickered open and glaringly bright lights shone down at me from a stark white ceiling.

I was in a single bed, the cushion thin beneath my head and metal rails lining either side of the mattress.

"-don't know, maybe there's more of them, maybe they have her somewhere," Monroe spoke urgently in my ear and I tried to move my lips to answer