Page 75 of Still Missing You

“He’s not here,” I cut in. “Jim would have probably tried to use him as leverage to find out how much we knew. He wouldn’t have left him accessible to me.”

“Unless he’s somewhere else on the property.”

The words hit me like a jolt of electricity. On the property.

I close my eyes and remember looking out the window from our room a few mornings ago and seeing the old outbuildings on the other side of the woods.

My eyes snap open.

“There are some sheds through the forest,” I say quickly. “Old buildings.”

Linc nods slowly. “If Jim needed somewhere private, but close...”

“That’s where he’d take someone.”

My pulse starts hammering again. “Let’s go.” I’m already moving.

“You’re thinking Jim took Dylan to one of those buildings,” he says.

“It’s the best lead we’ve got.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Dylan

Pain throbs behind my eyes as consciousness returns in fragmented pieces. My head feels like someone is driving a spike straight through my skull, and every shallow breath makes it worse. My face aches, and my skin feels too tight. Every heartbeat sends sharp flashes of light across the darkness pressing in on me.

I notice the cold next. It seeps into my flesh slowly, curling around my fingers, my face, the back of my neck. The air smells like damp wood and rot, thick and stale enough to taste.

I groan and try to move. Bad idea. The world tilts violently, nausea surging up hard enough that I have to clamp my teeth together to keep from throwing up.

“Easy.” The voice is rough, weak, shockingly familiar, but not Jim’s. Despite my churning insides, I force my eyes open.

Darkness, thick and heavy, broken only by a thin strip of pale light leaking through warped wooden boards, presses in from all sides. It takes a second for my vision to adjust, for shapes to start forming out of the shadows.

I’m on a floor. Dirt scrapes beneath me every time I move, splintered wood rough against the side of my face. And I’m not alone.

My gaze locks onto the figure slumped against the far wall. My breath catches.

“Matthew?” I rasp.

He shifts slightly at the sound of his name, a broken, painful movement. Metal rattles, the sound made louder by the unnatural quiet around us. Chained. Even in the low light, I can make out the metal links coiled beside him.

“Yeah,” he whispers.

“Jesus. You’re alive.” Relief slams into me, and I push myself up onto my elbows, fighting the dizziness. My head screams in protest, but I force it down, focusing on him.

Horror settles in fast. He looks... bad. Worse than anything I imagined.

His face is swollen, one eye nearly shut. Fresh bruises layered over older ones, a patchwork of violence that’s been building for days. His lip is split, dried blood crusted along his jaw.

He was always slender, but now he looks emaciated. The chain around his wrist is bolted into the wall, the metal biting into skin that looks raw and infected. He’s shivering. Not just from the cold. His skin has that flushed, uneven look that screams fever.

“Jesus,” I breathe.

He lets out a weak huff that might be a laugh, but turns into a cough, and the sound rattles in his chest. I push myself upright, swaying for a second before steadying. Every movement sends pain ricocheting through my skull, but I ignore it.

“Jim did this to you?” I ask.