----------- Chapter 46 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Haden’s POV)
I take a moment to close my eyes and take a deep breath. I have to stay calm. If I panic, it won’t help Jessica in the least.
“Matt, do me a favour and check on Jess please,” I whisper. Matt nods his head jerkily and dashes off.
In the pit of my stomach, I know she isn’t going to be upstairs. Carter wouldn’t give me warning before he attempted something. He wasn’t one to play fair, not even when we were kids. Winning is everything to him. And I should have realized that he wouldn’t ever get over Jess leaving him for me.
“What’s going on?” Alex asks cautiously, taking a step closer.
“Carter called. To wish me. And to tell me how lucky I am to have Jessica. Commended me for getting her all dirty. He says she looks sexier than usual,” I murmur emotionlessly.
“How would he know?” Alex muses, pacing. “You think he’s watching us?”
“No. I think he has Jessica,” I murmur, feeling my heart shatter a little.
No! I have to keep it together. I must be at the top of my game, and breaking down would just make things worse.
Just then, Matt runs back into the room, his face pale. “She isn’t there,” he pants.
“I know,” I mumble. Despite knowing she wouldn’t be there, there was a part of me that wished she would be there.
“Haden, why would Jess run away?” Matt asks, perplexed.
“She didn’t run away. Carter took her,” I respond evenly.
“Are you sure? It seems like she left. She took her phone with her,” Matt informs me.
Would she leave? Why?
“Haden, I don’t think she ran away. I think Carter took her phone along too. Maybe he wants you to call her to make sure? Maybe that’s his idea of torturing you even more,” Alex murmurs, as he grits his teeth.
He could be right. It’s sadistic enough to be something Carter would have thought up.
I punch Jess’ number into my phone and wait with bated breath to hear her voice.
“Hay?” she asks unsteadily, finally picking up the phone after ten rings.
“Babe,” I whisper, letting out the breath I didn’t even know I was holding.
“I’m afraid,” she whispers, her voice trembling. I can feel her fear. What sort of guardian am I? I should have protected her!
“It’s okay, baby. I’ll find you. I’ll come,” I promise earnestly. “Are you alright?”
I hear a muffled sob before she even attempts to answer me. “No. I think something is wrong,” she breaths after a moment.
“What?!” I demand, running my fingers through my hair in agitation. If he so much as touched a strand of her hair, I will kill him!
“I’m bleeding,” she stutters. She’s obviously hysterical, I can hear it in the way she’s trying to sound as normal as possible. “I think something happened to the baby.”
“The baby?!” I ask obliviously. How could anything happen to a baby that doesn’t even exist?!
“Hay, are you almost here yet?” she asks, hope in her voice.
“Yeah, baby. Almost there. Don’t worry, I’ll be there,” I lie quietly. I can’t let her know that I haven’t a clue where she is! She needs to believe I’m almost there. I need her to keep positive and keep fighting Carter off.
“Hay, be careful, please,” she pleads.
“Baby, listen to me. I need you to fight Carter off as much as you can, alright? But don’t hurt yourself, just fight him off baby. Don’t let him touch you, please,” I beg, almost in hysterics myself.
“It’s not Carter, Hay,” she whimpers.
The next thing I hear is her sharp intake of breath before she lets out a tortured scream.
“Haden,” a male voice greets. I can still hear Jess sobbing in the background. But she’s right. This new voice doesn’t belong to Carter. I haven’t heard it before.
“Who are you? What do you want with her?” I demand, my blood boiling.
“The girl doesn’t matter to me. You and the baby she’s carrying is an entirely different story though,” he murmurs.
“No! You have it all wrong! Jess isn’t pregnant! She just thinks she is! You have to let her go! She’s just a kid! She’s frightened. Please? I beg you! Please!” I plead, my voice rising with every word.
“This is rich. The Haden Carter... pleading? Not so high and mighty now, are we?”
“Listen, I don’t know who you are or what you want, but please, let Jessica go. Please? If you want me, I’ll come. I swear it! Just let her go,” I bargain.
“Tempting. But why would I let her go when I know that with her here, I can make you do whatever I command? Sucks having someone have supreme power over you, doesn’t it? How does it feel prince?” he mocks easily.
“God damn it! Please! Please! She didn’t do anything! Please don’t hurt her!” I whisper half heartedly, my voice ragged.
“You sound like you’re giving up. I’m disappointed! I expected more spirit from the most talented Reaper of the past five centuries.”
“So you know me, you know I’m a Reaper? Then you know the influence I hold in the enmortal community. Okay, I’ll give you whatever you want! Riches? Name the price! Power? I can give it to you! Just please, let Jessica go,” I beg.
“Perhaps if you had offered me that in the beginning of this call, I would have accepted. However, I seem to have the one thing you value. I think that’s a pretty good bargaining chip, don’t you agree?”
“Jessica? Baby? Can you hear me?! Hang in there baby, I’m coming!” I shout, hoping beyond hope she’d be able to hear me. I can hear her sobbing, chances are she can hear me too.
“Did you hear that Jessica? Your prince just made you a promise he can’t keep. He has no idea where you are. He can’t come find you,” the guy murmurs maliciously.
I hear footsteps and then Jessica’s sharp intake of breath. There’s a muffled conversation and suddenly Jessica screams again, her scream full of agony.
I close my eyes, trying to stop the scream from searing itself into my mind.
“Jessica doesn’t appreciate you lying to her,” the guy informs me, coming back on the phone. “But don’t worry. I’ll look after your little slut.”
“Don’t you dare touch a strand of her hair,” I glower, beside myself with rage.
“Did you know she was such a slut? No modesty at all. Split her legs at the first opportunity she got. She thought that’s what I was after. Poor thing, so inexperienced she ended up getting hurt and bleeding,” he whispers.
Oh god!
“I’m at a disadvantage here. You know everything about me, but I don’t even know your name,” I whisper. I need to change the topic, I can’t listen to anymore of what he did to her.
“Haden, have you become so human? Since when did the name mean anything? Your question should be what am I. But it seems I may have overestimated your ability a little. But it’s understandable. I have the love of your life at my mercy, and just like any normal, scared little girl, she’s willing to do anything. Do you know that I told her I’d hurt you if she didn’t cooperate? She immediately stopped resisting. Were you to have fallen for an enmortal girl, she would have realised I was bluffing. Your baby is so naive,” he whispers softly. “So a hint for the prince who is beside himself with agony. Go to Carter’s apartment and then Moira’s.”
The line disconnects and I sink to my knees, my entire body trembling.
“No Haden. You can’t fall to pieces, not now. We have to go,” Alex instructs me, pulling me to my feet. He grabs my coat and wraps it around me before leading me to the garage.
“Haden, we’ll find her. You just have to believe, okay? He gave us hints. We’ll find out what we can, and this time, all three of us will do this. You aren’t going alone,” Matt murmurs, behind the wheel. Alex keeps casting me worried glances from the front.
“I’m fine,” I snap after this goes on for a few minutes.
“She’s going to be fine. She’s afraid, yes. But she knows you, she knows us. She knows we’ll come for her. It’s not going to be helpful if you get yourself hurt though. So we’re doing this the smart way. We know whoever it is isn’t human. And since we’re dealing with an enmortal, we have to be extra careful,” Alex murmurs.
“Are you so stupid?” I spit, unable to control myself. “He wasn’t an enmortal, damn it! How could the two of you not have sensed it?!”
“Wait! What?” Matt demands, the car swerving out of control a little.
“Damn it. I can sense an enmortal even from the voice. That voice didn’t belong to an enmortal,” I explain tiredly.
But if it isn’t an enmortal and it isn’t human, what the hell is he?!