“Aw, love you too, baby brother,” I cooed.

“I just got a tear in my eye,” Cameron sniffed.

Luce flicked him off, ushering me forward as he began walking backward. “Mack said she got separated from them inside an old high-school, that’s where she saw the Stag too,” he explained, purposely aiming his light right in my face.

“Quit it, dickhead,” I growled, shoving his arm down and shouldering past him.

He laughed, spinning around to walk correctly.

Annie wordlessly fell right into step behind me, covering her brown hair by pulling up the hood of her acolyte robe.

I passed Nyx one of my two flashlights without stopping, heading for the town’s threshold.

“What do you wanna do with Mack?” Butcher asked.

“Leave er. Have her get down on the floor and lock the door. Her fear is a beacon for anyone thirsting for a late-night thrill, and I’m not much in the mood for playing superhero,” Nyx replied. “We need to focus on finding them. Sam has been gone too long,” she continued.

“We’ll find them, babe,” Butcher soothed, wrapping an arm around her as if he hadn’t been in the metaphorical dog house less than a few hours ago.

From my peripheral, I spotted Cameron frowning at them. I grit my teeth, reminding myself that this was not my business. Not unless Nyx wanted it to be.

Entering the actual town, the first thing I noticed was the severely uneven terrain. “Watch your footing,” I warned the others, continuing on my path.

Cameron sped up until he was by my side. “I’ll be your guiding light, princess,” he jibed, shooting me a sly smile that I couldn’t help but return.

“I’m honored,” I deadpanned, aiming my flashlight at the graffiti-covered asphalt so we wouldn’t trip over anything while he aimed his straight ahead of us so we could see.

I side eyed him for a minute before focusing on our surroundings again.

If I didn’t consider him my blood cousin just as much as I did Nyx, he would have been the perfect man.

Unfortunately, that would be way too weird for me. Every time I looked at him I saw, Uncle Cobra. He had the same silver eyes, lean yet muscular body, and red hair.

He also had the perfect combination of him and Aunt Blue’s attitude—a big heart, and lethal to anyone who hurt those he cared about.

“Do you guys see that?” I asked after we’d been walking another few minutes.

“That looks like smoke,” Luce commented, shining his light over the same crack in the asphalt I was looking at, where a thin wisp of grey was rising.

“Let’s just find these kids and get out of here,” Butcher stated flatly.

That I fully agreed with, even as each step deeper into this empty city of derelict buildings had a growing sense of foreboding in the pit of my stomach.

I refused to consider the possibility my baby sister had been snatched away by some unknown faction. I couldn’t even fathom that.

They had to be here still, hiding or something, which wasn’t like Bella at all but I was grasping at straws.

We’d come this far.

A flap of wings came from the right. Luce leveled his beam towards it, illuminating Charon, who I’d almost forgotten about.

A soft breeze rattled a pair of wind chimes in the near distance, aside from that the entire town was still as death.

“Did she happen to tell you guys where this school was?” I asked Cameron since he was right beside me.

“Uhhh, negative. But it’s a high-school, that can’t be hard to miss.”

I shrugged, he had a point.

Tags: Natalie Bennett Badlands Romance
Source: readsnovelonline.net