Page 12 of Requiem & Reverie

He ran up to his room, still upset about the suspension, when I went out back to confront Voss. What if Voss had killed me? What if he’d gotten so pissed off with me calling him out that he sliced me open?

Stop it, Nola. Stop asking the what ifs, for fucks sake!

Stomach still churning, I turn the knob and open the door to Oliver’s room. “Oli?” I peek inside, taking note of the empty bed across from me, the empty space between, the empty desk and the open, empty closet.

Empty.

My heart thuds to a halt.

“Oliver?” Abandoning his room, I make my way down the hall to my bedroom.

Empty.

The bathroom.

Empty.

The guest room.

Empty.

With every room I search, my chest gets colder, the grip of panic tightening around my lungs, squeezing the air out of me.

“Oliver! Where are you?” I race back down the stairs and conduct a terrifying sweep of all those rooms, producing no sign of my son. “Oliver Tensley! If you’re in this house, you better answer me!”

Maybe he has his earbuds in somewhere. It’s happened, sometimes, when I’ve sent myself into a nervous search for him, only to find him huddled somewhere with his music blasting in his ears.

For the second time, I run back up the stairs to his room. The cold emptiness brushes across my skin as I scan over the stillness. His earbuds lie curled up on the bed beside his cellphone. The only link I might’ve had to him, discarded like a slap in the face, which tells me he probably didn’t run away. No way he’d have left his phone behind.

But if he didn’t run away, then … someone must’ve …. Nope. No. I’m not even going to imagine that. I can’t.

The room widens and shrinks, and I fall to my knees with dizziness overwhelming me. My nightmares swallow me up, and for a moment, I can’t tell if I’m asleep, or awake.

The house spins in my periphery, the air not quite filling my lungs enough for me to catch my breath. I stumble back down the stairs, twisting my ankle on the way.

The rush of adrenaline has me brushing off the pain, and I hobble out the back door to the in-law apartment, where Jonah took off to when he first arrived.

“Jonah!” I scream for my brother while climbing up the staircase, but it feels the way it sometimes does in dreams when everything is heavy and I can’t run fast enough. “Jonah!”

At the top of the stairs, my approach is halted by a sharp thump to my chest.

Jonah stands between Voss and me, and for a split second, a zap of confusion hits me. Surely, he’d have taken him away by now. Arrested him. But all that is forgotten for the panic still burbling in my gut.

“Just back up a little, Nola.”

“Jonah, please. It’s—”

“Nola!” He gives another hard thump against Voss’s chest as the bigger male lurches toward me.

“Nola, what’s wrong?” Voss’s voice carries an edge of concern that I want to rip from his throat.

“Where’s my son!” Tears finally break as the truth blasts from my mouth. “He’s gone!”

The anger is speaking for me. I’m confused and volatile, irrationally searching for blame. I know Voss didn’t take him, a realization that comes to me reluctantly. I know this, because the last time I saw Oliver was just before I let Voss take me against the wall.

The very thought repulses me now.

“What?” Jonah releases Voss and guides me back down the stairs by my arm. “You checked throughout the house?”