Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 143382 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 717(@200wpm)___ 574(@250wpm)___ 478(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 143382 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 717(@200wpm)___ 574(@250wpm)___ 478(@300wpm)
My baby has excellent teeth, I captioned.
He looks like he’s roaring.
I checked.
It was true.
I also decided to print that picture and frame it, since it was awesome.
He wasn’t. He was yawning, I told Jeff.
That’s because you’re boring.
I chuckled.
I also sent a middle finger emoji to my brother.
Eric came from cooking in the kitchen (we were having chicken tacos, the maiden voyage of my Crock-Pot) to stretch out on the other angle of my couch, his head close to my head, reaching to scratch between Henny’s ears.
“Not sure all cats adapt to a place as quickly as this guy has,” he murmured.
Henny had to sit with me in the car while Eric did an emergency pass through a PetSmart to stock us up on supplies. When we got him home, there had been some sniffing. We showed him his box when we got it set up. His food when we got that set up.
After that, he just jumped up on the couch, curled up on one of my throws, and fell asleep.
That said, he’d been at the rescue for eighteen months, so, I figured he knew home when he smelled it.
“Jeff’s jealous,” I told him.
“He can get his own cat.”
“He’s plotting on stealing mine.”
“Then maybe you should tell him I own a gun.”
That made me laugh.
Henny opened his eyes to share the vibrations were disturbing his rest.
I stopped laughing.
Henny closed his eyes again.
“He’s got you wrapped around his paw,” Eric noted.
“We’re down with that, aren’t we, Henny?”
Henny kept purring.
Oh yeah.
We were so down with that.
There was a knock on the door.
“Bets on who it is?” Eric asked as he angled up. He was definitely getting the hang of the Oasis.
“Raye,” I told him. “She knows we were going to the rescue today, so she’ll be all about meeting Henny.”
Eric opened the door.
I was right. It was Raye.
Along with Cap.
Raye looked at me, and then Henny, but she didn’t come to us. She and Cap just stopped once they were in enough to close the door.
I wasn’t surprised about this, considering the feel they brought with them and the looks on their faces.
Eric felt it too.
“What’s going on?” he asked Cap.
“We gotta go into the office, brother,” Cap replied. “Someone in the camp got word to Mary. Mary got word to us. They took someone else.” He paused and said, “Then Tex phoned in a report from the police station. He tried to stop them, but they shot at him, and he had to abort. Fortunately, no one was hit. Another bonus, Tex confirmed this Clown guy was with them. So we have confirmation on the crew we’re dealing with.”
My heart lurched, and I cuddled Henny to me as I shot to my feet. Henny didn’t like the sudden movement, and he squirmed to get away, so I dropped him on the couch.
“The sun isn’t down yet,” I said to Cap.
“They’re getting bolder,” Eric noted darkly.
But Raye and Cap were both still giving off weird vibes, and I didn’t like it one bit.
“What?” I asked.
“Oh, Jess,” Raye whispered.
My lungs stopped functioning.
“What?” I wheezed.
“Honey,” she kept whispering. “This time, they took Homer.”
At this news, my heart flatlined.
TWENTY-FOUR
LEROY NEIMAN
I hadn’t jumpstarted my heart in the second it took Eric to grab my hand and drag me to the bedroom.
Once he got me there, he bent so he was an inch in front of my face.
“I know you’re gonna rally the women and go out,” he stated.
Fuck yes, I was going to rally the women and go out.
I didn’t get the chance to confirm.
Eric kept talking.
“Whatever you get, you feed to us. We know of this crew, but we don’t know where their operations are. But they’ve got guns, Jessica, and you know they don’t hesitate to pull the trigger. You get a location before we do, you feed that to us too. And then you back the fuck off.”
I nodded, and I meant it.
I wasn’t going to tangle with these motherfuckers. I didn’t even want Eric to tangle with them, and I was half convinced he was an immortal god.
What I wanted was Homer back in his tent.
Then, in a voice I’d never used in my life, it was small, fragile and afraid, I begged, “Please find him.”
I watched the fire burn in Eric’s eyes, but he didn’t respond verbally.
He didn’t have to. I read him loud and clear.
He then caught me by the back of my head, pulled me to him for a hard kiss, let my head go but took my hand and dragged me back down the hall.
Raye was cuddling Henny to her chest (of course).
“We’re gone,” Eric grunted at Cap.
And then they were gone.
After the door closed, Raye told me, “I already called Harlow and told her to head over.”
“Call her again and tell her to switch to the Sportage on the way,” I ordered, moving to my Vans to put them on. “We’re gone too.”