Page 188 of Shattered Silence Duet

“They are headed in our direction. We’ll get there sooner than Dom. Depending on where she stops, maybe even sooner than Atlas.” I nod while grinding my teeth in frustration.

“She must be terrified,” I whisper. Our phones ping.

“It’s an audio file from Ben.”

“Play it.”

He hesitates for a second, then presses play, and we hear Atlas’s voice.

“…tracking you. I’m close, and the others aren’t far behind me.”

“I’m scared, Atlas. I can’t survive her or Simon again.”

“Baby, I need you to listen to me. You’re going to be okay. No matter what happens, I will always come for you. We will always find you. No matter where you go or how far you are, we will never, ever stop looking for you. You belong to us, with us, and we will stop at nothing to get to you. Now, I’m going to claim my favor you owe from the deal we made earlier. Whatever happens, you will not give up. You will fight as hard as you can to stay alive, safe, and come back to us. You will NOT give up. Do you understand me, Malishka?”

“Yes.”

“Baby, promise me you will fight to stay alive for me.”

“I promise. I love you, Atlas!”

“Atlas, we’ve stopped. She’s coming!”

“Okay, don’t let her see your watch, pull your sleeve to cover it, quickly now!”

I wipe my face and see Tucker doing the same.

“Jasper, we have to get her before they hurt her again,” Tucker says with fear and worry in his voice.

“I know. She sounded terrified. We were supposed to keep her safe.”

“We will. We’ll get her. She promised she’d fight, and that doesn’t stop when we save her. This won’t break her.”

I just hope that’s true.

Atlas

I can’t believe she’s been taken on my watch. I’ll never forgive myself if something bad happens to her. Something worse. I already know this kidnapping isn’t something I’m going to get over easily, even if we do get her back unharmed. Thank god she has her watch on her so I can track her, I could kiss Ben for giving her that.

“I think they stopped!” Ben yells. He’s sitting beside me in the SUV, with Max in the backseat with a bandage around his head. When I saw him lying there in a pool of blood, I was terrified. Thankfully, head wounds often look worse than they are.

He was already waking up before I reached him, pointing to the drive where a car was pulling away and yelling, “Mina!”

Ben speaks, pulling me from the memory. “It’s moving again, but really slowly. She must be walking.”

“Where are they? What’s there?” I ask him.

“It’s—nothing. Just forest.”

“Fuck!” Max and I say in unison. You don’t take a girl to the woods to do anything other than rape or kill her.Or both. I press my foot down on the gas.

“I think we’re less than ten minutes out if we can keep up this speed,” Ben tells me.

“Are they walking towards something in the woods? Is there a cabin out there, or are they on a trail or something?” Max asks him, leaning forward to look at Ben’s phone over his shoulder.

“Hmmm. I don’t see anything. It’s literally the middle of nowhere. We might even lose her signal since it’s so remote.”

“We better not,” I grind out, gripping the steering wheel harder.