Until Fools Find Gold (Providence Gold 1)

“Is she…” he broke off, unable to bring himself to hear if she was in a bad way. I’d wanted to know the same thing when she rang, especially after I heard how weak her voice was, but I’d known that getting to her was the priority and then I could check for myself.

“Unknown,” I muttered, eyes flicking down to the screen of my phone to check that I hadn’t missed a call or text for her. Seeing nothing, I pressed down slightly harder on the accelerator. “It didn’t sound good though, man.”

A door slamming was followed by a hissed, “Fuck!”

“Yeah.” My voice was flat when I replied.

I’d worried about her constantly over the last four years. Worried what that bastard was putting her through. Worried that I would never get to see her again. Worried that she’d be dead and I’d never know.

We’d been best friends since we’d met in sixth grade. Her mother had just overdosed and died, and her dad had thought the town we lived in was the best place for him to continue being his asshole self. It was also a great place to pawn his daughter off on other people.

Her brother was eight years older than her and was living his own life. His father wasn’t a complete asshole either, so Madix had grown up in a real home surrounded by people who loved him after his dad had won custody of him – no contest.

When Luna Blue had walked into the classroom looking like a scared owl, I’d decided that I was going to help her. What I hadn’t banked on was that we’d become as close as we had.

Over the years, everyone had assumed that our friendship would grow into something else. In fact, my mom had all but begged me to make an ‘honest woman’ out of her, thinking we were more than we were or that I was holding back for some reason.

The truth was, we were nothing but best friends and I loved her like a sister.

“Bring her back,” Noah’s voice cut into my thoughts. “Go straight to Archer’s house,” he directed.

Archer was our oldest brother and the best one at straightening shit out and forming a plan of action.

Confirming I would, I hung up and went back to thinking.

Noah may be four years older than us, but he’d taken her under his wing too and had protected her from the bullies when I wasn’t around. Not that many people had the guts to go up against her knowing how close we were, but there was always some deluded twat waiting for someone out there. I’d warned him from day one not to touch her, and as she’d gotten older, I’d repeated those words more regularly.

She may be my best friend, but I wasn’t blind to how beautiful she was.

She was tiny, just over five feet tall which put her at over a foot shorter than both me and Noah, even during our teen days. She had long dark hair that hung to the middle of her back and her eyes were a unique shade of brown - the color of coffee with a lot of cream in it. That’s what had made her look like an owl to me on that first day– those big eyes watching everyone closely.

Everything about her stood out, but it was her personality had always made her seem inches taller than she was and that had attracted a majority of the males in our school to her. Not once did she look at any of them in that way though. She had been oblivious to how interested they were, so convinced that she would never be worth anyone’s attentions, and assuming that they just wanted to be friends. Most of them had been devastated by the friend zoning, but I hadn’t given them the chance to argue against it. None of them were worth her love or her trust in that way.

One day she’d come over and when she’d leaned to pick up her drink, I’d seen the raw red lines and dark bruises on her arms when her sleeves were pulled up.

I’d questioned bruises many times over the years, but she’d always been so convincing in her explanations. These were obviously not accidents, and they looked like they’d be agony.

When the truth had come out, thanks to my parents and Noah, Dad had visited her asshole of a father and had threatened him. We’d thought it had been dealt with and that seeing as how her eighteenth birthday was just around the corner, we could bring her to come and live with us after it.

Then, it had all gone to shit.

She wasn’t answering her phone and then didn’t turn up to school, so I’d gone to her house and had found the place trashed and her gone. Dad had hired someone to try to find her, but that bastard had managed to hide his tracks from everyone.