I missed her.

Somehow, in the hour it took me to drop Em at her grandparents’, I missed Liv.

Just like that.

She was right here in my house, but a slip in time, in fate, and we passed each other right by, flirting on the edges of each other’s lives but never quite touching.

I stare down at the note on my work table. The note and...a check?

I don’t understand the check. Can't fathom how she can think this number could ever represent everything losing her has cost me. But I can hear her voice, her sweetness in the note, and that strange maturity, too. The things she’s not saying. The warmth, the kindness, the hope.

The faith she still has in me.

It's a fucking killer.

I just have to find her, because without Sky and Gabe watching over her, there’s no telling what kind of trouble she could fall into.

I just need my gear.

Fortunately, the old habit of a soldier helps me now, always having a go bag ready.

It’s come in handy for security gigs, too, and the Enguard Security branded duffel bag I keep on the top shelf of my bedroom closet is already primed to go with weapons, ammo, burner phones and infiltration devices, rope, plus a few other practicals. First aid kit, cash, a couple fresh shirts.

I sling the bag over my shoulder and nearly vault down the stairs, heading for the door, which rattles with a knock just as I put my hand on the knob.

The half-second of sharp alertness vanishes when a head of sandy hair bobs just below the door inset. That kid Ryan again.

Shit, I don't have time for this. I just hope his father’s nowhere nearby.

I pull the door open and step through, gently nudging him aside so I can lock up.

“Hey,” I say, trying to keep my voice calm. No point in scaring him. “Em’s staying at her grandparents’ tonight. You can come back and see her tomorrow. I gotta run.”

I hadn’t even really been looking at him, preoccupied, ready to be on my way, until I see it.

He stops me in my tracks when he suddenly tries to get one word out and can’t.

Not when it breaks off in a sob, and I turn from the door, watching as he bursts into tears. Full-on gasping, gulping, red-faced despair, shaking his head and burying his face against his palms.

“Mr. Woods...y-you...you have to...help...”

He’s falling apart, panicked, frightened, can’t even get sensible words out. I’ve got my own issues to deal with, but fuck, I can’t be heartless enough to leave him here like this, especially when he might be in real trouble. I step closer, resting a hand on his shoulder.

“Breathe, son,” I say. “Slow, deep breaths. Calm down. Clear your airways, then try again. Tell me what’s wrong.”

Ryan nods quickly, rubbing at his cheeks and taking several heaving breaths, sniffling and swiping his forearm across his dripping nose. He opens his mouth to speak again.

Instead of his voice, I’m treated to the sound of tires screeching as a car pulls up to the walk outside my house, a little Honda that jolts to a stop so fast it rocks forward on its wheels and then bounces back.

The driver’s side door opens, and Mike angles himself out, raising his voice to carry across my lawn.

“Ryan, get in the car!” he orders. At first his voice sounds sharp, commanding, but what’s really driving it is a sheer edge of raw terror.

Ryan flinches, but turns back and glares at his father. “No,” he retorts, and for all that he’s shaking, voice trembling, it’s the clearest thing he’s managed so far. “He has to know. He has to know or she’s going to get hurt!”

I go stone-cold.

The only she either of them might have to tell me about is Em or Liv...and either of them being hurt is not an option.

Not unless someone wants blood today.

Mike comes scrambling through the gate and up the walk toward his son. I look between them both, then settle on Mike.

He deserves the sick, frozen dread that crosses his face as my gaze lands on him. His kid doesn’t.

“I want you to be very clear,” I say slowly, forming each word precisely to be certain neither my words or the threat riding silent between them is misunderstood. “What do I need to know, who’s going to be hurt, and by who?”

Ryan starts to open his mouth, but Mike catches his eye and shakes his head, before catching his son by the arm and dragging him behind him. Mike flashes me an ingratiating, practically shit-eating grimace that looks less like a smile and more like he’s trying not to piss himself.

“It’s nothing,” he babbles. “It’s nothing, nothing, I’m so sorry Ryan bothered you, we’ll just –”

“Ryan?” All I have to do is say the boy’s name for dread silence. I meet his eyes over Mike’s shoulder and ask softly, “Is your old man lying to me?”

All it takes to prove Ryan is more of a man than his father will ever be is a single wide-eyed, determined nod.

“Thanks,” I growl, nodding.

Then I catch Mike by the collar, whip him around, and slam him against the front door of my house.

Four things happen simultaneously.

Ryan yelps. Mike outright screams. The door rattles on its hinges. And I drop my grip on Mike’s collar so I can slam my palm in the center of his chest, pinning him there with my hand spread, pushing just hard enough that he’ll be able to feel his sternum strain.

Not one of his karate techniques will get him out of this, but he tries. He twists, he grabs at my arm, he whines – and all he ends up doing is kicking his feet against the porch, making the door rattle even more.

“Hold still,” I command. “You’re upsetting your son.”

Mike freezes, save for the heave of his chest under my palm as he breathes in slow, swift gasps through his teeth, mouth open on a clenched jaw like a frightened animal. He stares at me, wild-eyed.

I look back flatly, calmly.

“Simple questions, Mike,” I say. “Simple answers. Who’s going to be hurt?”

He’s shaking wildly now, the stink of terror rising off him like vinegar. He shakes his head frantically, but suddenly he’s quiet as a mouse.

I sigh, shifting my hand so the heel of my palm presses against a precise spot on the center of his chest. “You know about the human body, Mike, being an instructor and all. Do you know about the xyphoid process?”

He nods rapidly, chokes, his sweaty skin going pale.

“Sweet. Then you know that if I apply just the right pressure, that little spur of bone will break right off your sternum. If you’re lucky, it’ll just hurt. If you’re not so lucky...” I shrug. “It could lodge in your heart and kill you. I don’t want to do that. Especially not in front of your son. It’s really up to you if that happens or not, and you have a choice to make. Start deciding.” I lean in just a little harder, just enough that he’d feel bone creak, and he lets out a horrid little whimper. I'm careful to hide it from Ryan, make it look like I've just got him pinned.

If Mike has any functioning brain cells, he'll fucking thank me for that later. “Now, tell me what’s going on. Why your son's here crying on my doorstep over something you don’t want him to tell me?”

“It’s the Pilgrims!” Mike blurts out in a high, cracking screech, arching against the pressure of my hand before going limp as an empty sack, shoulders sagging. “They said they’d take Ryan...said they’d kill him if I didn’t –”

“If. You. Didn’t. What?”

“If I didn’t give them Liv!” he screams, before bursting out in muffled sobbing.

Liv.

Part of me wants to give him a better reason for those tears.

Part of me wants to break him apart right here, right now, and leave him to suffer and bleed.

But I can’t. Not in front of Ryan, and not when I don’t know what I’d be driven to do if I was forced to choose between Em and a stranger's life.

And now that I’m coming down from the original shock, it registers that Mike’s left eye is a pulped and swollen mess of red and purple and bruise-yellow, probably from a fist. Not mine.

I can’t pity Mike. I just can’t, not when he’s already shown himself a coward willing to sell people out for money.

But I can have mercy. Mercy, yeah. That, I can do.

Besides, I'll need to conserve every ounce of my rage and darkness to get Liv back.

I step back, letting Mike go. He crumples in a mewling heap on the stoop, curling forward and wrapping his arms around himself. He’s small in my shadow, but not trying to run. He won’t look at me, cutting his eyes to the side, keeping his head bowed and hunched like he's just waiting for the final blow to come.

“Enough,” I say. “Stand up and tell me exactly what happened. Then take your son and go home, and make sure I never have reason to see you again.”

Mike curls up, pulling his knees to his chest. Ryan starts to edge past me, glancing at me warily, almost as if he's asking for permission, and I nod subtly.

Fuck, I don’t want this kid scared of me. He’s a good kid, brave, smart, and I trust him to understand what’s happening right now.

He returns my nod, and then rushes to his father’s side, sinking down next to him and wrapping his arms around his shoulders. Mike latches on hard, clinging, burying his face in Ryan’s hair, and for all that I loathe this cowardly piece of shit, I can recognize something else, too. The familiarity of holding your child close just to remind yourself that they’re safe in your arms; just to comfort yourself with the weight of their being.

He takes several deep breaths, calming, and then speaks more steadily. “I don’t know how the Pilgrims figured out I was connected to you. Probably thanks to Mr. Holly. But they cornered me. The big one, Lion, the one in charge, he...he made sure I understood how much he could hurt me. How much he could hurt Ryan.” He gathers his boy closer, looking up at me with a mixture of fear, shame, and defiance. “And he told me I had to find Liv and bring her. So I...I thought she'd be at your house, and I was on the way there when I saw her walking. I had to lie to get her in the car, and then I texted the signal to the Pilgrims and took her to the designated pickup. They came in black cars. Lion took her, and they drove away.” He fumbles in his pocket, then produces a dirty, scratched up pinkish gold iPhone with a cracked screen and thrusts it at me. “Sh-she dropped this.”

I feel as cracked as the screen as I take the phone and stare down at it.

It's Liv's.

Fuck. There goes any hope of tracking her by GPS.

Looks like we'll have to do this the hard way.

I shove her phone into an outer pocket of my bag, then pull my own phone from my pocket, striding toward the Wrangler.

Throwing the back door open, I shove the duffel bag into the back seat, then slam the door and point at Mike. “Take him home. Lock your doors. Don’t answer for anyone. I’ll tell you when it’s safe.”

He stares at me, though I’m half-ignoring him, already dialing Landon’s number. Mike makes an odd noise, then says, “How can it be safe? How can any of us ever be safe again?”

“Because,” I say, hefting myself behind the wheel of my car. “By the time I’m done, there won’t be a single Pilgrim left alive.”