Page 13 of Iced Up Love: Part Two
The light is wrong when we land.
Not dark, not fully day, but that washed-out grey that settles over everything just before the sun properly rises, when the world feels like it hasn’t caught up to itself yet, like it’s still suspended between one state and another.
It doesn’t feel real.
The city moves past the window in silence, streets half-empty, buildings catching that dull early light that flattens everything, drains the color out of it, and the further we drive, the more it feels like I’m watching it from somewhere just outside of it, like there’s a layer between me and everything else that hasn’t lifted since the moment I heard she was gone.
Lucian is already working, speaking quietly to the driver, adjusting things without needing to explain them, while Christian sits beside him with his phone pressed to his ear, voice low and precise as he moves people into place.
Jackson leans forward, elbows braced on his knees, his focus locked ahead like he can force answers to appear if he stares hard enough, while Zach sits further back, too still, too quiet, like everything in him is being held in place by sheer control.
No one says it anymore.
Where is she?
Because the longer that question sits without an answer, the less it feels like something that can be spoken out loud.
I lean forward slightly, my forearms resting on my thighs, my hands hanging loose between them, still marked with blood that has dried into my skin, cracked along my knuckles, dark against everything else.
I haven’t cleaned it.
I don’t care to.
It doesn’t matter.
None of it matters.
Not compared to her.
Not compared to the fact that someone put their hands on her.
The image presses in again, trying to form, trying to settle into something I can hold onto, but I don’t let it, don’t give it space to anchor, because I don’t need it yet.
What I need is direction.
Who took her.
Where they took her.
How I get to them.
Everything else comes after.
The car turns into the drive.
The house comes into view through the trees, quiet under that dull morning light, untouched, unchanged, like nothing has happened here, like this is still a place where she should be safe.
This is where I left her.
The car barely stops before I’m out of it.
The air hits colder than it should, sharp against my skin, but it doesn’t reach anything underneath.
The door opens before we reach it. Killian steps out. And everything in me pulls tight.
It draws inward first, all of it compressing at once, the house behind him, the silence of the morning, the weight of what this place was supposed to be.
Safe.
