He nodded soberly. “I’ll put one of the other guys on your patrol tonight. You do what you have—”
“Lucan.” Rio met the male’s gaze and held it. “I have to be with Dylan until she’s through this ordeal with her mother. It could be weeks, maybe months.”
“So, what are you telling me?”
Rio cursed under his breath. “I’m telling you that I’m leaving to be with her, for as long as it takes. I’m quitting the Order, Lucan. I head out for New York tonight.”
“Here’s a box for those things, honey.” Janet came into Dylan’s mom’s office carrying an empty copy paper container. “It’s nice and sturdy and it’s got a lid too.”
“Thanks,” Dylan said, setting it down on the cluttered desk. “Mom is kind of a pack rat, isn’t she?”
Janet laughed. “Oh, honey! That woman hasn’t thrown away a note or a greeting card or a photograph since I’ve known her. She saves everything like it was gold, bless her heart.” The older woman glanced around the room, her eyes going moist with tears. “We sure are going to miss Sharon around here. She had such a way with the girls. Everyone adored her, even Mr. Fasso was charmed by her and he’s not easily impressed. Her free spirit drew people to her, I think.”
Dylan smiled at the sentiment, but it was very hard hearing her mother referred to in the past tense already. “Thanks for the box, Janet.”
“Oh, you’re welcome, honey. Would you like some help finishing up in here?”
“No, thanks. I’m almost done.”
She waited as Janet made her exit, then she went back to the task at hand. It was difficult to tell what might be important to her mother and what could be tossed, so finally Dylan just started gathering papers and old photos by the handful and placing them in the box.
She paused to look at a few of the pictures—her mother standing with her arms around the thin shoulders of two young shelter girls with bad 1980s hair, tube tops, and short shorts; another of her mom smiling behind the counter of an ice cream shop, beaming at the “Employee of the Month” award the young girl next to her was holding up like a prize.
Her mother had befriended nearly every troubled young woman who came through the place, genuinely invested in seeing them succeed and rise above the problems that had made the girls run away from home or feel that they didn’t, or couldn’t, fit into normal society. Her mother had tried to make a difference. And in a lot of cases, she had.
Dylan wiped at the tears of pride that sprang into her eyes. She looked for a tissue among the clutter and couldn’t find any. Just what she didn’t need, to be sitting in her mother’s office crying like a baby in front of the evening shift staff.
“Shit.” She remembered seeing a stack of loose paper towels in one of the drawers of the back credenza. Pivoting her mother’s chair around, she scooted across the worn carpet and began a quick search of the cabinet.
Ah. Success.
Dabbing at her wet eyes and face, she spun back around and nearly fell out of her seat.
There, standing before her on the other side of her mother’s desk, was a ghostly apparition. The young woman was joined by another, both of them wavering in and out of visibility. Then another girl appeared, and still another. And then, finally, there was Toni again, the girl Dylan had seen in her mother’s hospital room the other night.
“Oh, my God.” She gaped at them, only half-conscious of the shelter employees going about their business outside, completely unaware of the ghostly gathering. “Are you all here because of my mom?”
The group of them stared at her in eerie silence, their forms rippling like candle flames caught in a stuttering breeze.
Help them, one of the unmoving mouths told her. They need you to help them.
Damn it, she did not have time for this now. She wasn’t in the right frame of mind to deal with any of this right now.
But something prickled within her, something that told her she had to listen.
She had to do something.
He won’t stop hurting them, said another ghostly voice. He won’t stop the killing.
Dylan grabbed a scrap of paper and a pen and started writing down what she was hearing. Maybe Rio and the Order could help make sense of it, if she couldn’t.
They’re underground.
In darkness.
Screaming.
Dying.
Dylan heard the pain and fear in the mingled whispers as the dead Breedmates tried to communicate with her. She felt a kinship to each one of them, and to the ones they said were still alive but in terrible danger.