Taken: The MISTAKEN Series Complete Third Season by Renna Peak Read Free Book Online

love to me again and we had fallen asleep in each other’s arms, just like he promised we would do every night for the rest of eternity. But it had been daytime—it was morning when we had fallen back asleep. I was positive of that.
    I vaguely remembered getting up a little while later to make him breakfast. Eggs and toast—the only meal I was remotely capable of pulling off without the possibility of the cabin catching fire. Probably. It was possible that the eggs that were on the floor in the kitchen were the result of some kitchen accident that I had caused—I wouldn’t have put it past myself. Maybe I had dropped the frying pan and hit my head when I bent down to clean up the eggs… I had no recollection of it happening, but it wasn’t outside the realm of possibility.
    I just couldn’t remember anything—and if what had happened to me in the kitchen was an accident, why did Brandon leave me there? And where the hell had he gone? He wouldn’t have just left me lying in a pool of my own blood for however many hours it had been.
    There were no clocks in the cabin. Brandon had said something about time not mattering, and at the time, I hadn’t cared. Not caring about time had been nice, but now, I needed to know how long I had been out. I stood up and walked over to the closet that was across from the end of the bed. I slid the door open and pulled out my purse—I hadn’t needed it in over a week, and I had only taken it out once before in the days since we had arrived here.
    I pulled out my phone and the battery that Brandon had made me take out before we got on the flight to Missoula. I slid the battery into the back of the phone and waited for it to power on. I felt a small pang of guilt for what I had done before. Brandon had told me there wouldn’t be a phone signal here, but I hadn’t believed him. I had just wanted to talk to Melissa. I had only wanted to tell her that I was okay and to tell her to not worry about me. I figured I could send her a quick text—there had to be cell service here—I had thought there was cell service everywhere, and one text wouldn’t hurt anything … but he hadn’t been lying. There was no service—no signal. And I never was able to send the text to Mel, even though I had tried. I just knew she would worry about me—we hadn’t gone very long without at least texting in the years we had known each other. And she was the only friend I had—the only person besides Brandon who didn’t look at me and think I was some privileged, spoiled brat who was more at home spending her family’s money than working for a living. She was one of the only people in the world who I could trust.
    The phone was taking forever to power on. When it finally did, there was still no signal, but I was shocked at what the time read—five a.m. It seemed impossible to think that I had been unconscious for almost an entire day. It seemed impossible to think that Brandon had just left me there, bleeding.
    I ran back out to the living room, almost tripping over the piano that crowded the small space. I knew that the piano was a symbol of Brandon’s love for me—he had brought it here—somehow—to show me that he loved me. But right now, it was in my way, and I skidded past it, almost sprinting to the door.
    The keys were still there. The car keys—they were still hanging on the hook just inside the front door. I wasn’t completely sure if that was a good sign or not—but the keys were still hanging right where he had left them the previous week.
    I flipped on the porch light and opened the door. The cold air blasted through my thin t-shirt and pajama bottoms, but I padded onto the porch in my bare feet to look outside. The car was still there, too.
    I still didn’t know what had happened, but I knew one thing with absolute certainty. Brandon hadn’t left. Not on his own.
    He had been taken.
    And somehow, I had become collateral damage. I went back into the house and slammed the door