I feel tears at the corner of my eyes. I’m holding my breath, and the pressure in my lungs is causing my diaphragm to contract. I want to scream, but I can’t open my mouth. I want to pound my fists against the counter, the wall, the window—I don’t care which—but I can’t make myself move.
Breathe, Arden! Breathe!
I gasp as I drop to my knees on the hardwood. A huge wave of tension flows over my skin, and I almost fall the rest of the way to the floor. I end up with my palms against the wood planks, rocking slightly. I stare at the patterns made by the grain of the wood, focusing all my attention on the wavy lines and circles.
A minute later, the feeling has passed. I glance up, and Ralph is still there, staring at me.
Little bastard.
I swallow, push myself off the floor, and go back to the bedroom to pull on a dirty pair of jeans and a T-shirt that doesn’t smell too awful. As soon as Alina gets out of the shower, I inform her that I’m taking her back. I don’t even offer her a fucking cup of coffee.
I really need to get my shit together.
Chapter 9—Missing Person
“Evan, hang back.”
“I’ll catch ya later, brotha.” Jonathan leaves with the rest of the group, and I stay in Rinaldo’s office to see what he needs
from me.
Despite the sleep I’d had last night, I’m mentally exhausted. It has been a while since I had a proper panic attack, but I’d had them often enough in the past to know just what they are. Afterward, I’d be left in a foggy, confused state for several hours and sometimes for days. When I have had them before, I had always known what the trigger had been. This time was different. I really don’t know what set me off.
I’d killed someone. I’d slept well. I’d finally fucked Alina. Everything about the past twenty-four hours had been good, so why the freak-out?
There are things you don’t know.
Felisa’s last words echo through my head. I have no idea what she might have meant, but I had been too impatient to have her out of the way to find out.
“What have you found?” Rinaldo walks over to his desk and leans one hand against it.
“There’s definitely a connection to Seattle.”
“Really?” Rinaldo raises a brow. “They are still scrambling and fighting with themselves. How do you figure this?”
“I should say”—I raise a finger in the air—“that there is a connection to people formerly associated with the Seattle group.”
“Which is?”
“As much grief as you gave me for taking care of Justin Taylor, I was doing you a favor.”
“Justin was playing with the numbers.” Rinaldo’s conclusion is correct but incomplete.
“Definitely,” I say with a nod, “but there’s more to it than that.”
“What else?”
“Look at this.” I pull the laptop to the center of the desk, and Rinaldo sits down to check it out. “Justin Taylor’s brother, Joshua. Look familiar?”
Rinaldo studies the picture for a moment. When he doesn’t see it right away, I bring up the picture from the surveillance video.
“Same guy?” he asks.
“It is.”
“Avenging his brother’s death?”
“That’s what I would have thought, but look at this picture.” Clicking around at the screen, I find the picture of Landon Stark from the tournament files. “He and Landon Stark go way back. In fact, Justin trained with Stark for tournaments before he relocated here. Sebastian Stark replaced him.”