Insight (Web of Hearts and Souls #1)(45)

“I didn’t expect to. The storm is blowing the other way,” Brady answered, still staring at me.

“Do you think you could try and tell me what happened so I can help Landen and the others if they need me?” he asked.

I nodded quickly. “I made a passage from a town down the street to Franklin. Drake has taken people from there. When we were in the string, Drake showed up, then the string roared and the current erupted. Landen and I pushed through. He’s hurt. His arm is burned really bad.” I said it so fast that my words collided together.

“It’s going to be fine,” Brady said, smiling confidently.

He had a way of making me feel a little better. It could have been his resemblance to his brother. My words and reason were slowly coming back to me.

“What is taking so long? You two traveled in just moments?”

“They’d have had to find them first, and that storm could have taken Drake and your friends anywhere.”

Brady moved me to the couch. My mind was replaying what had happened in the string, as well as how confident Drake was. What did he mean, ‘our destiny was threaded together’?

The cabin door opened. I didn’t bothering turning; it wasn’t Landen. Brady was talking to someone. I heard a beautiful girl’s voice. It had to be Clarissa and her soul mate.

“Willow,” I heard my name from a familiar voice, one that didn’t belong there.

My mind had to be playing tricks on me, and my eyes joined in. Before me stood an old friend, the one I’d always shared a kinship with: Dane. Behind him stood a beautiful young woman with olive skin, short dark brown hair, and beautiful pale green eyes like Aubrey. She was smiling at me, dressed in a black dress. A red belt gave shape to her petite figure, and long gold necklaces tangled around her. Why was she there with Dane? He was in Franklin, not New York.

“Willow, are you okay?” Dane asked me in an alarming tone.

I just stared back and forth between Dane and Clarissa. “How…how did you…you went to New York?” was all I managed.

Dane glanced up at Clarissa. That one glance told me everything I needed to know, the emotion between them was remarkable. Soul mates. I was too freaked out with all that was going on to realize how ironic that was.

“I told you I knew if I stayed close to you, I’d find what I was looking for. After you left, all I could think about was New York. So I flew there the next morning and found your hotel. I knocked on your door, Clarissa answered, and everything suddenly made sense for the first time in my life.”

“Everything happens for a reason,” I whispered as my mind raced back and forth, realizing that some things are planned out to perfection by the heavens above.

“Do you know where he took Willow’s friends?” Brady asked.

“I know they were all talking about going to Florida to sail on his boat,” Dane replied, looking at me. “Monica was trying to convince everyone to go.”

“Who is ‘everyone’?” I asked, realizing I didn’t know who was missing.

“Chase, Josh, Jessica, Hannah…and Olivia,” Dane said, feeling guilty. “I’m sorry, Willow, I didn’t think she would go,” he said, looking at me with regret.

I had asked him to watch over Olivia. I was her closest friend, and with me gone, I could see her latching on to Hannah and the others.

“I’m the one that left…I’m the one he really wants,” I said through my teeth, trying to block out the pain I was feeling.

Aubrey and Clarissa flocked around me.

“This is not your fault,” Aubrey said, squeezing her arm around me. I nodded just to give them peace, but nothing would change the way I felt.

My mother came back in and sat down next to me.

“Did you find anything out?” asked Aubrey.

“Sharon said she panicked when Monica didn’t call. No one will help her. They keep telling her it’s summer love and that she’ll come home in a few days.”

“I bet they’re still here, at least some of them,” Brady said. “There’s no way he could have carried that many people through the string within a seventy-two hour window, not with as bad as the storms have been across the last few hours.”

Clarissa nodded in agreement. I stood quickly, thinking that if I moved, the pain would go away. I could deal with this, think clearly, if I didn’t have to deal with ripping pain.

“Do you know where he would have taken them?” I asked, almost pleading.

Brady and Dane shadowed me, thinking I was going to fall. I started to pace the floor.

“If they’re right about him, he’d need to use a large passage, and the only one down there would be the Great Barrier Reef,” Clarissa said, walking backwards in front of me. I must have looked really weak.

A chill rippled through me. I knew we were all over the string yesterday, and we could have crossed him at any moment. How did we not see him?

“Are you going to look?” my mother asked Brady.

“I’m not going anywhere until Landen is back. He’d kill me if I left her unprotected.”

“Could he still come here?” Dane asked, looking across me at Brady.

“He could if he lost them. It’s a long shot, but I’m not going to risk it. I’d want Landen to do the same if the situation were reversed,” Brady said.