Free Conquer (Control) by M.S. Willis

was sleeping the night before.  Okay, maybe explained is the wrong word.  Rather, I dissected every little detail and nuance until David felt satisfied that, even though he slept through the events, he knew enough to feel like he had actually been witness to everything.  At some point during my story-telling, Alex had returned to the couch and I received a thorough talking to from both of them for venturing out into the woods during a lightning storm.  Apparently, I’d made some doozies of dumb decisions in the last twenty-four hours.  But who could blame me?  My world had been turned upside down, shook around, dropped to the floor, kicked around like a tin can, and then handed back to me to deal with the crumpled and tattered version of my life.  
    The afternoon dragged on as Alex slept on the couch and David and I sat around bored out of our minds.  The only entertainment in the place was the TV in Daemon’s room, so David and I eventually found ourselves snuggled up on Daemon’s bed, watching old movies.  Eventually Alex joined us and our two man pity party became a threesome as Alex quickly fell back to sleep.  I’m not sure when exactly David and I fell asleep, but I can imagine it didn’t look very good when Daemon came home to find the three of us cuddled together on his bed.
    Daemon cleared his throat which caused me to instantly wake up.  I went to sit up but found that David’s head was on my shoulder and his leg was tossed over mine.  I pushed his head aside and…was that drool?  Ew.  After removing his leg, I turned to remove Alex’ arm from around my waist.  Scootching off the bed, I stood up and shuffled over to wrap my arms around Daemon as he continued standing in the doorway.  Resting my head against his chest, I said, “It’s not what it looks like.”
    Daemon’s chest vibrated from silent laughter, which was replaced by his low voice.  “It looks to me like you fell asleep with two of your friends while watching TV.”
    I looked up at him just as his head lowered to place a kiss on my lips.  “Like I said, it’s not what it looks like.  We were actually making wild monkey love with each other.  A couple of circus performers were involved, but they had to go home early.”
    Daemon smiled and shook his head as he took my hand to lead me back out into the living room.  He dragged me into the kitchen and grabbed a beer from the fridge.  Popping the top, he leaned against the counter and I could see the exhaustion weighing down on his shoulders. 
    “How’d it go today?”
    “Good, I guess.  I found out that no one was killed last night as a result of the explosion or fire.  Apparently, Chris was able to somehow plant the device in the storage room, which basically sheltered most of the main portion of the club from the blast.  Detective Troy was out today and she was concerned about our safety here at the apartment.  She’s ordered that three officers constantly patrol.  One will be located in the garage and the other two will monitor the perimeter of the building at all times.”
    “So, I take that to mean they haven’t found Chris.”
    “Precisely.”
    A long heavy sigh sounded from me and I walked over to Daemon to cuddle into his large frame.  “How bad was the damage at Tomb?”
    “Pretty bad.  It will take several weeks to get it up and running again.  Luckily there was no structural damage so it will only be a matter of rebuilding parts of the interior, but luckily, most of the costs are covered by insurance.”
    “We’ve got to find Chris, Daemon.  This can’t keep going on.  He’s only getting worse.”
    Daemon was silent for a few minutes.  I was concerned that he would object to my statement, but eventually I felt the tension in his body release as his arms came up around me.  “I agree with you, Damsel.  What can we do to find him?”
    My investigator instincts kicked in and I decided that we would have to go about this in the same