Soul

S
he’s gone
, but I can still feel her. My soul aches to be with its mate. If Gillian was dead, I would know it, for I too would cease to exist. One cannot live with only half a soul. I’m so tired, but I can’t sleep, not with her still out there. It’s been three days with very few leads. Austin is still unconscious. He barely survived the lethal dose of the Etorphine the stalker gave him. Every day that passes is another day the woman I love is with a madman.

The resort performed a forced lockdown at my insistence. Every hotel guest was offered a couple free nights off their stay for their inconvenience, and each person was questioned. One couple gave the best lead. Right around the time that Gillian was kidnapped, they were walking the path behind the bride’s room. Said they saw a man, wearing a uniform, pushing a laundry cart. The staff confirmed that the laundry service is far more discreet and doesn’t wear the grey utility uniforms; they wear the standard black and white, connoting the housekeeping service. And the staff knew not to be anywhere near the location of the wedding, at the time, unless specifically requested by my assistant, Dana.

The two only remembered that the individual was a white male and built. Meaning, he was either overweight or worked out a lot. They couldn’t recall any descriptive features, aside from him being very tall, a few inches over six feet. Unfortunately, that didn’t narrow things down at all. We were at a complete dead end until Austin woke up. He’s the only person who saw the kidnapper face-to-face, and he’s unconscious in a hospital bed, in another country. We’re still in Cancun, Mexico. The city where I was supposed to marry the only woman for me. Also, the place where my Mother took her last breath.

Deep gut-wrenching pain sears through my gut, twisting and swirling. For the umpteenth time I swallow and convulsively grip my stomach. I cannot lose it. Staying strong is the only thing I can give to Gillian. As it is, I can’t keep any food down. Coffee is my only salvation. Reflexively, I clench both hands into fists and stare unseeingly at Austin’s prone form and close my eyes. Once again she comes to me.

Red hair spills over porcelain skin. The towel is covering her lower half as she dips a toe into the steaming water. My gaze focuses on the skin of her rounded shoulder, the slight curve of her spine where her back arches and her waist slopes in. The small indents at her lower back catch the light, and I salivate, wanting nothing more than to press my lips against those smooth patches, maybe even bite down until she purrs.

With one hand, she sweeps the fiery locks over a bare shoulder exposing her silky back to my view. It calls to me like a homing beacon. A halo of light sparkles around her as she turns her head slightly. I can now see the swanlike column of her neck, except something’s not right. I shift my gaze the moment the towel drops away. Her heart-shaped ass is glorious. My love turns just the side of her face but her eyes, are dark, hollow, tortured. They’re not the stunning green of the most perfect emerald like they usually are.

I gasp but no sound escapes. I try to move toward her but cannot. As I watch immobile, something red trails down the pearlescent skin of her back like paint dripping down a canvas. Her head tips back and a gnarled gaping black hole stretches along the front of her neck from ear to ear. She turns completely around and purple and green bruises mar every surface of her face. It’s swollen, bloated and splotched with dried rusty colored blood.

“No! Gillian!” I scream but nothing comes out.

Her eyes close and that’s when I become aware of her entire body. Dark black and blue bruises cover her breasts, her ribs, and stomach as blood pours down her chest and sternum from the wide cavernous hole at her throat, mimicking a bloody waterfall.

I yell and shout and battle with my unmoving limbs, trying desperately to get to her, but I can’t move.

With everything I have and through sheer force of will alone, I send her love. All that I have to give, the grief, the sadness, the ache of not being with her. I need to be with her.

I open my eyes and she finally speaks. “Wake up, Chase,”

Gillian’s body shimmers and disappears as white light pierces my eyes and a hand presses down on my chest.

“Chase!” Dana shakes me, and I push her away forcefully, jump out of the chair, and back up until I hit the wall, still stuck in the gnawing clutches of the sick and twisted dream. Three sets of eyes are staring at me. Dana’s, Jack’s and Austin’s. “You were dreaming; you’re okay,” Dana whispers, eyes brimming with tears.

I suck in a breath, rush to Austin’s side and clasp his arm. “Can you speak?” I swallow down the bile stuck in my throat.

Austin blinks and licks his dry lips. Dana rushes over a cup with a straw. Austin takes it between his lips and sucks the water down. I can hardly breathe as I watch him take one, two, three, gulps before looking back to me. His eyes water. “He got her,” he croaks.

I close my eyes and breathe in slowly, tamping down the desire to shake him, yell, or pound my fists into every surface within a mile radius of us. Instead, I nod.

“I’ve seen him before.”

Jack comes close to the other side of the bed. “Where?” His voice is tight and all business. Thank Christ someone here has a level head.

Austin swallows, and his voice comes out sounding pained. “Pictures, you have them.” He sucks in another breath, grits his teeth, then closes his eyes. “She knows him.”

Jack pulls out his phone and pulls up something. “From the pictures I showed you?” Jack asks. Austin tips his chin.

“The penthouse. Her stuff that we moved in,” the tone turns into a scratchy roll of words. Dana brings him the water, and he drinks more. Once he’s got his fill, he pushes it away clearly frustrated. He tries to sit up, “have to go there. He’s in the pictures in her stuff. Blond, blue eyed. Big fucker. Huge.” The southern drawl is in full affect. Something that Gillian loves about the bodyguard.

Both Jack and I notice the moment he goes for the IV in his arm. I push him back against the hospital bed as Jack grabs his wrist before he can rip out the lifesaving meds being pumped into his arms. The doctor said once he woke up he’d be in the hospital for a while. He needs the antidote, which is helping to stabilize his vitals. Besides, he’s no good to us dead. Not that some part of me doesn’t want him dead, for allowing the sick fuck to get to her.

Blaring alarms start in the room from the various medical equipment. “I have to get to her!” he roars. “It’s my fault; he’s going to hurt her!” Austin’s eyes look wild, completely black, like a man about to lose it.

Several doctors rush in, one holding a needle. “Everyone out!”

“No, no! He knows who took Gillian! We need him awake!” I press through the doctors trying to get to Austin. I make it to his bed as random arms claw and grab at me.

Austin holds my arm. “Scar, scar on his hand…like a…like a burn,” he says, his breath coming out in a rush of compressed air. That’s when the doctors stick a needle into the port for his meds, and I sink to my knees. The tears finally come ripping down my face. I grip my hair and pull on it. She’s gone. I fucking need her!

A heavy set of arms lifts me up and drags me out of the room, before slamming me against the wall. “Chase, pull yourself together man! We have a lead on him now!” He holds me against the white wall outside of Austin’s room. Jack’s eyes are focused, and his mouth held into a snarl. “We need to move. Call the girls. See if they know him?”

Instantly a calm resurgence of hope smothers the fear like stepping inside a perfectly heated hot tub. With shaking fingers, I pull out my phone and dial Maria.

“Chase?” Her voice is strained, sorrow filling her tone when she answers. Everyone is beside themselves with worry, waiting for any shred of information about Gillian.

“Maria, does Gillian know a man who’s blond, has blue eyes, and is big?” She gasps into the receiver, and I hold it tight against my ear. “Has a scar on his hand, like a burn?” I said the rest in a rush.

“
Dios Mio
. That could be Danny.”

I bite my lip so hard I taste blood as that tingling sensation skids down my spine. We are close. I can feel it. “Danny who?”

The line is scratchy but I can hear her. “Danny Mc...uh, Mc-something. Bree? Kat? What is Danny’s last name?”

At the same time that Maria said McBride, so did Jack who is already lifting his phone. “Daniel McBride, get there now! His work, his house, his gym, now!” He growls into the phone. “I want everything you have on him. I want to know who his parents are, his childhood friends, what he fucking had for breakfast this morning! Now! Every man on it.”

For the first time in three days I’m able to breathe. We have a lead. A solid one. She is closer. Has to be, because I can feel her essence, now, more than ever before.

“Daniel McBride,” Dana says, her face pale. She leans against the wall as tears pour down her face. “No,” she shakes her head. “No it can’t be!” she whispers.

“I’ll call soon.” I drop the phone into my pocket before taking the few steps to Dana and cup her shoulders. “You know him?”

Dana’s eyes flash, and her face contorts into a pained expression. “He’s my…my boyfriend.”

Three days. He’s had me for three days in this room with no light, no warmth and no way out. A cinderblock room. which has no windows and is incredibly cold. The deep chill makes me think it might be underground, possibly a basement. He’s kept me in and out of a semi-conscious state, since he took me. All I know for sure is that we were in a car for a long time before I woke up here. He admitted last night we are back in the States. Even laughed when he told the story that he set me up like a sleeping bride in the car, when crossing border. Makes more sense as to why he was in a tux when I woke the first night. At the time, it didn’t dawn on me, being drugged to the gills. Then Danny proceeded to tell me how he is going to use that tux for our wedding when the time is right. He went so far as to share that Austin was likely dead based on the horse-sized dose of tranquilizer he gave him, and that Chase’s Mom was definitely dead. That I remember. It plays on a constant loop in my mind. Danny even lamented on how excited he was that he was leaving that present for Chase to find along with a missing bride.

The doorknob jiggles and then opens. I cower into the corner where a mattress is lying on the floor. He moved from ropes to chains, and a pulley system. Now, I can walk over to the pot in the corner that he left for me to use as a bathroom.

“Been three days, princess. You ready to be nice?” Danny grins, his lip curling sadistically at the edge. His blond hair is cropped tight to the scalp, the long layers he had yesterday now gone. Maybe another attempt at looking different in case Chase and his men figure out who took me. God, I hope they’ve figured it out by now.

Instead of responding to him, I stay silent. The first day I spoke. Since then, I’ve kept quiet, not knowing what to do. My stomach growls violently, not having had any sustenance for the past three days.

“I can hear you’re hungry.” He sets down a tray with a sandwich, an apple and what looks like a glass of milk on the lone side table near the mattress. “If you eat, I’ll reward you. Give you a blanket. How’s that?” he offers.

I shiver. My revealing wedding dress is the only thing I have on. No shoes, no bra, just a slip of lace and the dress. The bare back is lovely, and the sheer overlay on the sleeves beautiful, but it isn’t meant for warmth. It takes me but a moment to realize I’m going to need food if I’m going to survive until Chase finds me, and I’m frightfully cold. My teeth have been on a permanent chatter since Danny not so gently tossed me into the cinderblock room. Danny points to the food, and I make my way over to it and sit on the mattress. The chains rattle and shriek as I move like a hundred-year-old woman toward the mattress; my limbs and joints no longer have full mobility.

Danny waits, leaning against the opposite wall. He watches while I lift the apple and take a bite, figuring this is the least likely item to be laced with more drugs. The entire time I’ve been here, I’ve felt lethargic, with a sour stomach and fuzzy head. Either I’ve got a cold or some twisted fuck is drugging me. I am pretty certain the latter is the culprit.

“Good girl,” he says condescendingly. “Now, we’re going to get right to the point today. I’m going to keep you here until I believe that you’ve seen the errors of your ways, have forgotten about the rich fucker, and are ready to see that we’re meant to be together.”

The apple starts to roll and churn, like acid in my gut, ready to shoot up my throat in a volcanic burst of vomit.

“That is not going to happen, and you can’t hold me forever, Danny. This is crazy. Y-y-you killed a woman!” I finally allow the fear to tear from my lungs.

He ruffles a hand through his short blond hair. Back in the day, I loved his long blond layers. They were so soft and shiny, especially for a man. Women would have killed to have hair like that. Now it just makes me wish I could run my fingers through Chase’s dark, thick, cappuccino-colored locks. God, he must be so worried. The ache and need to be with him is devastating. I choke back a sob, not wanting Danny to see how frightened I am.