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Chapter Seventeen

This could not be fucking happening.

He could still hear her screaming.

Fisting the strands of his hair, Gabriel blew an exhausted breath of air out of his nose. It'd been less than twenty minutes until Sang had gone missing, but they wouldn't give up. He wasn't going to fucking allow it.

He yanked his hand out his hair with a barely audible growl, the sound echoing over the assembled group.

Something acidic boiled in his veins, mixing with his fear and anger in a noxious combination of emotional bullshit. The feeling was so crushing he could feel tears soaking his lashes, but he refused to give in to the hopelessness festering around him.

But goddamn it, he couldn't comprehend how it had all gone to shit so quick. One second they were having fun, trading jokes around with his brothers and using their budding crushes on the mortal against them. It had been a goddamn miracle to see them all smiling again.

He was going to kill the unoriginal bastard who borrowed the plot of Jaws to ruin their fucking afternoon.

"Are we sure we did everything?" Gabriel didn't know how many times he'd ask the question, but he sure as shit wasn't going to stop, "How the fuck can we not get into her house? She fucking summoned us!"

It was such bullshit. He knew that house. There was no fucking way he shouldn't have been able to just zap over there.

A few feet away, Victor rested atop the sand. His brows were furrowed in barely concealed frustration, "I don't know what else we can do." Damp brown eyes trailed to the sky, "I can't even feel her anymore."

No, he didn't want to even think of that. Fuck whatever everyone else might be assuming. Gabriel knew Sang wasn't dead. She might be lost somewhere in the astral, but she wasn't fucking dead.

There was no damn way his trouble was going to die like that— there was no fucking way.

"Don't say that shit," Gabriel slashed a hand through the air, "She's not fucking dead. She fucking can't be."

Rubbing a hand over his chest, Kota spoke. His voice was gravely and low, trying to soften the edges of his hurt, "Nathan and North have gone to investigate. But we... we don't know what happened..."

"She isn't dead!" Throwing a hand toward the sea, Gabriel snarled, "Luke— you saw it. Something fucking grabbed her!"

So far, Luke had been removed from the conversation. After failing to swim after Sang, he'd returned to the beach and simply sat. They'd tried to pull him out of it, but nothing had worked.

Like Victor, his eyes had lost their spark. It'd eventually gotten to the point where North had thundered out, grabbing Nathan by the scruff of his shirt and tugging them who-the-hell-knows where.

Even still there was an air of regret hanging about him and, at the callout, Luke's expression darkened in self-loathing, "Yeah, it was hard to see though. It looked huge—" his eyes shut as an unwelcomed shiver crested his shoulders, "There were so many hands."

Gabriel could sympathize— he'd felt fucking useless out there.

Still, his point was proven, "See? Something fucking took her."

"That doesn't..." Kota trailed off. His eyes were narrowed behind his glasses, "Who would want to take her?"

Something clicked in Gabriel's head and he blurted, "I bet it was that stupid bitch, Elenore or something." With the possibilities gnawing at his head, he continued, "Obviously, she already knows about us or that bitch wouldn't have yeeted Sang into her mind space— she's probably working with fucking Hope."