A few minutes earlier…

Rhiannon couldn't understand the sharp pang of guilt stabbing at her over the look of betrayal on Lucas's face. He was a killer, after all. She'd only known him for a few hours. But…he'd held her when she was cold. He'd tried to comfort her. He'd nearly killed himself trying to find a way for them to escape.

The voice of reason stepped in to contradict that last: He was trying to escape for his own reasons—you just happened to be there.

Anyway, none of it mattered, because she had to protect Stevie. She needed to get to her daughter. Now.

She ran for the door, but then she heard Plusick and Yardley laughing and the unmistakable sound of the Taser. Her hands, already on the door handle, stilled. She shook her head. Started to open the door.

Stopped.

If she hadn't seen it on the mad dash to the door, she never would have bothered. But she had, and so she did. She quietly reversed course and ran the ten steps down the hall to the electrical panel. She opened the metal door and slammed down the red lever, hopefully shutting down all power to the warehouse. She may have betrayed the Atlantean, but she was giving him a fighting chance. That's all she could do.

She ran outside the warehouse and immediately realized her dilemma. The damn place was out in the boonies, and since they'd kidnapped her she had no car. On the other hand, Yardley's oversized, mud-covered truck was right in front of her. She felt her mouth stretch into a feral grin. She'd seen him casually toss his keys in the cup holder when they'd arrived the night before. Maybe he thought he was too scary a badass for anyone to dare steal his truck.

Think again, asshole.

She broke every speed limit and traffic law in existence on her way home. The only thing in her mind was her desperate need to get to her daughter. Luckily the streets were all but deserted this early in the morning.

Stevie, Stevie, Stevie.

She trusted Viola, she tried to convince herself, as shudders of terror wracked through her body. Not enough, though. Not with the most precious person in the world—the center of Rhi's existence. If V had allowed one hair on Stevie's head to be so much as mussed, she was going down.

Squealing around a sharp turn, Rhi wished, not for the first time since she'd gotten involved with shifters—and that had been a bad, bad, terrible idea—that she had a gun. No matter what else happened, buying one and learning how to use it would be first on her priority list once they found a new place to settle down--Far from any shifter packs.

Nobody was ever going to separate her from her daughter again.

Finally, finally she reached home. She didn't bother trying to find to find a proper parking space in front of her building, but slammed the gear into park, yanked the keys out of the ignition, jumped out of the truck, and hit the sidewalk at a dead run. On her way into the building, she paused to throw the keys as far as she could and felt a fierce moment of triumph when they landed in the middle of a hedge of thorny bushes. Let him figure that out.

The elevator would be too slow. She ran up the stairs to her fourth-floor apartment and tried the door, which was unlocked.

Why the hell was it unlocked?

No matter. She slammed the door open and ran inside, already screaming for her daughter, but then immediately stumbled to a halt and looked around in shock. While she'd been gone, somebody or something had trashed the place. It looked like a tornado had crashed through the middle of the combination kitchen/dining area/family room. Chair were overturned, dishes and a flower vase were smashed and lay in shards on the floor.

Everything was destroyed.

Worse: the room was empty.

"Stevie," she screamed. "Stevie!" Rhiannon ran through the room, stumbling over a broken stool and then jumping over broken glass. "Stevie!"

The bedroom door was open, and she barreled through it. "Stevie!"

But Stevie wasn't there. At first, Rhi thought nobody was, but then she heard a soft whimpering that she almost mistook for the ringing in her skull.

"Rhiannon."

Rhiannon raced to the other side of Stevie's pink and white bed, only to see Viola huddling in a corner of the room, hidden by the bed. She was bleeding… everywhere. Her eye was swollen shut, and deep gouges down her face looked like claw marks. Her leg was clearly broken, too, because nobody's knee bent in that direction.

But Rhiannon didn't have time to care about any of that. Not now.

"Where is my daughter?" She advanced upon the woman who been her friend up until Viola stood by and let Yardley and Plusick drag Rhiannon away from her daughter the night before.

"She's… gone," V whispered. "They took her."

"Who took her?"

Viola's eyes drifted shut – she was probably losing consciousness. Rhiannon had no time for that. She grabbed her former friend by the shoulder that looked less injured and shouted at her. "Where is my daughter? Where is Stevie?"

"They said… Grandma." With that, Viola slumped sideways and passed out.

Rhiannon screamed so loudly it felt like she shredded her vocal chords. Grandma. That nasty bitch had finally figured things out and then come after her granddaughter. They'd be long gone now, on their way back to Washington state.

Agony swamped her--almost drove her to her knees--but she didn't have time for that, either. She took a deep, calming breath, inhaling the sweet scent of baby shampoo and sugar cookies that was wholly, quintessentially Stevie. She had to go after her daughter now, hopefully catch them on the road, because it would be almost impossible to get Stevie back when she was securely in the wolf enclave.

When Brock found out he had a daughter. That Rhi had stolen his child.

Suddenly ice cold, she ran for the closet and grabbed her go-bag. She'd kept one packed ever since she first escaped him. The only thing she didn't have was that damn gun, but maybe she could find one before she left town.

The last thing she grabbed with Stevie's favorite toy – a small stuffed bear wearing a giant pink bow. Terror and rage rose in her throat until she thought she'd choke on it. She rounded the bed again and stared down at the unconscious woman.

 "If you weren't so battered, I'd beat you myself," she told Viola, but then she reconsidered. Maybe the destruction of the apartment, and V's injuries, too, meant that she'd fought to protect Stevie. Maybe Rhi was misjudging her friend.

But then Rhiannon looked down at the bear clutched in her hand, and her heart hardened. Whatever Viola had done, it hadn't been enough. Stevie was gone.

 She grabbed one of several burner phones in her bag and dialed 911. "Somebody came in and destroyed my apartment while I was gone and attacked my friend. She's injured very badly. Can you please send an ambulance?" Rhiannon gave her address and then, ignoring repeated requests to stay on the line and provide more information, she hung up and dropped the burner phone on the floor next to Viola and looked at her friend one last time, to imprint the lesson in her own stupid mind: Never, ever trust anyone ever again.

"I'm sorry you got caught up in this, V. And I hope you recover."

And then she ran out the door.

She tossed her bag and Stevie's bear into her car and started to climb in, but then she had a thought. What if Yardley was the kind of man who kept guns in his car? She hadn't bothered to lock it, so she didn't need the keys she'd thrown away. She ran over to the car and yanked open the passenger side door, opened the glove compartment, and there it was.  A handgun. She didn't know guns, but she was sure a YouTube video could fix that. She grabbed the gun and the box of ammo next to it, stuffed them in her purse, and slammed the truck door. This time, though, she locked it, in case there were any other surprises in the truck that neighborhood kids did not need to find. Then she ran for her car.

I'm coming, Stevie. Don't worry, baby, Mommy's on the way.

And every single wolf in Washington who had anything to do with this had better watch out. She put the car in gear and reversed out of the parking lot and, for the first time since any of this started, she smiled.

Watch out, you bastards. There is no vengeance in the world as harsh as a mother protecting her child. I'm coming for you, and I will burn down your world.