*CHAPTER 58*

*CHAPTER 58*
"I don't know what happened," The blue-haired girl babbled, the bangles on her arms jingling as she twisted her wrist around in an anxious gesture, "He was here fifteen minutes ago and now he's gone."

The guy with the shaved head holding a pair of drum sticks nodded in agreement. He glanced to Malcolm as he spoke, "All his equipment, his guitar, his keys, phone, everything is still here. We don't know what happened. He just never came back."

The bouncer who was taking notes on a tiny notebook looked between us skeptically, "The guy's only been gone for fifteen minutes? Is it possible he got cold feet about playing tonight?"

Malcolm barely spared the bouncer a glance, asking Caleb's friends "Where was the last place you saw him?"

"He ran out to his car to grab his lucky guitar pick. You know he never plays shows without it." The girl said.

The guy with a long braid down his back grimaced, "When we went out to look for him we found his keys under the tire of his car. The door front door was still open."

An eerie feeling had crept over me. He'd disappeared in the club's parking lot...like Ricky had. It was all just too similar to be a coincidence. Everything in me was screaming that Caleb had been taken by the Eye. The same man who killed George. Who had torn him to shreds and left in him the middle of the road. The same man who had ripped out Ricky's eye.

The big mountainous bouncer behind me spoke up, and I startled at the sound of the deep voice directly behind me, "We can check the security footage. We'll start with the parking lots, but it's going to take roughly an hour to comb through everything."

An hour? We didn't have an hour.

My lungs tightened. If we waited that long, who knew if Caleb would come back at all? The sick wrenching feeling in my gut was becoming all too familiar lately. Dread. Helplessness. Loss. I couldn't let this happen—couldn't lose another person. I'd lost too many people already. I couldn't let this happen again. I wouldn't.

Malcolm handed each of them one of his black cards he'd given me the first day we'd met, "Text me at this number if you come across anything in the footage. Kassie and I will go through the parking lot. Lewis, Dan, and Kiera, look through the club to make sure he didn't end up inside on the floor somewhere. Recheck the bathrooms and the exits. Dan, do you have Jenna and Richard's phone numbers?"

The bald drummer nodded.

"Call them and let them know what's happening. And I'll let you know if we find anything."

Everyone nodded, but Malcolm didn't wait to see if anyone protested. With a firm grip on my upper arm, he lead me out a pair of blackened doors with a blazing red exit sign on the top. His mouth was a hard slash, the deep golden orange color I sometimes saw flashes of flickered in his eyes as we stepped out the emergency exit and into the lot. He set a brutal pace, eyes combing over the cars as he searched for Caleb's car. My ribs protested as I struggled to keep up, but I wasn't complaining, not at all. It was a small remote employee lot, so it wasn't too hard for him to find.

Malcolm stopped in front of a small black car. Malcolm clicked on the flashlight on his phone, stepping back to get a better view of the area. Around the driver's door of Caleb's car, the gravel that made up the parking lot was gouged through with deep marks.

I swallowed hard, taking in the scene, "A struggle?" I asked, my voice feeling too loud in the dampened silence of the parking lot.

"Caleb wouldn't go without a fight." Malcolm said, voice flat.

He shook his head as if shoving away unwanted thoughts, swearing low under his breath. He pulled out his phone, dialing a number.

"Yeah, it's me," he said into the speaker, turning away to wrench open the handle on the car door. It was still unlocked like the girl, Kiera, had said. I heard Malcolm giving the club's address to someone on the other end of the line, but I wasn't paying him too much attention. My thoughts catching and snagging on what Malcolm had said.

Caleb, wouldn't have gone with whoever had grabbed him without a fight.

And what came most naturally to him? Like Malcolm?

He would have used his Magic on him.

If he'd had time to fight him physically like the marks on the ground indicated, then he'd have had time to blast him a few times with his Air Magic, right? I eyed the brash and unmistakable marks, roughly hewn under the lot's single flickering street light. If this were the Eye's hunting ground for victims, and this was also where he'd dumped Ricky when he was done with him, then it didn't seem too crazy to assume that this wasn't too far away from where he was performing his next Ritual. He seemed too careful to go back to the location of his last Circle that the Oculus had already found. His pattern said he stayed pretty close to where he grabbed his victims.

So if I could get a sense of Caleb's Magical Signature in the area, then maybe...Maybe I could follow that to where he'd been taken. I glanced over to where Malcolm was still talking on his cell, rifling through Caleb's car as he updated the person on the end of the line.

Repeating the exercise Malcolm had forced me to try in the hospital, I closed my eyes. I wrestled to get my tense and panicked body to slow its too-fast breaths into something resembling calm. With a shove, I pushed all thoughts out of my head until my mind was blank. Like in the hospital, I focused on breathing. In and out, in and out. In. Out. I focused in on the normal smells of the parking lot. Exhaust fumes, the dumpster close by. And as my mind calmed, I sensed something. A cool peppermint-y smell followed by a chilly sensation that prickled my scalp. Like staring in the face of a cold winter wind, my nose tickled.

A calm cold breeze.

Caleb. It had to be him.

I clung to that sensation, let it wash its way over and through me until I was connected to it. It was faint, but unmistakeable. I clung to it for dear life until I was positive that it wasn't going to slip away.

Now that I'd found the trail, I wasn't sure if I'd be able to follow it. Wasn't sure how or where to even begin. But the longer Caleb's Magic settled in the back of my mind, I just...knew. An instinct, maybe. My blood was a hot buzz under my skin, a tug in my gut wanted to steer me the way I needed to go. I did it! Holy crap, I did it! I could find him.

"Malcolm," I peeked open an eye, keeping the larger part of my brain focused on the sensation tugging me where we needed to go. Terrified if I wasn't paying close enough attention I would lose the hold I had on Caleb's Magic.

He glanced in my direction, raising his eyebrows at me. Something in my expression had him lowering the phone from his ear.

"I think I can find him. His Magic. He must have used it when he was attacked, because I can sense it, like in the hospital."

He stilled, "You're sure?"

I nodded.

He raised his phone back to his ear, eyes still on me, "I'm sending you my location, we're picking up a lead." He hung up, pocketing his phone.

"You think he's close?" He asked me.

"I have no idea."

"We'll take the truck."