Around ten in the morning the dot on the tracking app finally stopped moving about, remaining for hours at the same location - Glitter Beach. It was the only moment of the day that he felt hopeful -- until the dot didn't move more. The longer the dot remained unmoving, the darker his thoughts grew. By early afternoon, he was sure that she was dead, laying on the beach. To confirm his suspicions, he turned on the human news and kept it low as he made his calls and did whatever searching he could from his house.
At four in the afternoon, Damien heard a whine and a soft scratch at the door. He leapt up from the office chair and pressed his ear to the front door, extending himself mentally.
Delilah and no one else.
A great swell of joy pushed tears to his eyes and Damien carefully opened the door to let the dog in, avoiding the sunlight that flooded the house by standing behind the door. He slammed it shut and went to cradle his dog, checking over her fur for injuries. There were knicks all over her, her coat covered in brambles and thorns and dried blood. She cried out when he pressed on her ribs too heavily and avoided him when he touched a very tender back leg. When he released her, she went straight for the water bowl with a significant limp that worried him. He would have to call the vet to come look at her.
By the time the sun dipped under the horizon, Damien was waiting on Pierre to arrive so they could both go search the beach. He tried not to think about the likelihood that Rachel was dead - after all nothing had shown up on the local media. Perhaps there was hope after all.
Damien drove them across the city to the beach as soon as Pierre had arrived, barely talking to his fledge. Everytime he opened his mouth to speak to him, Damien could feel the fear and anger bubble up in him, and he couldn't afford to give it anymore space than it already had.
They would find Rachel. They had to.
When they arrived at the beach, he followed the green dot on his app, eyes wide and scanning the beach for any sign that she had been there. He neither picked up her scent nor saw anyone that even resembled her. Damien was losing hope when he caught sight of something on one of the park benches nearby - a traffic cone. It was enough to draw him in, looking around as if it were some kind of trap. Pierre followed at a distance, allowing his sire the space he may need to maneuver, should the need arise.
Damien went closer, but an idea was beginning to form in his head. Sure enough, as he approached the traffic cone, he saw nothing out of the ordinary - until he lifted the orange cone. Beneath the hollow center was the small device that Damien had given to Rachel just yesterday. Disbelief surged up through him and he checked his phone to be sure. Both dots were in the same location.
Laurent (or some passerby) must have found the tracker and placed it here for Damien to find.
With an exasperated shout, he threw the tracker into the ocean, useless as it was now. Pierre stood silently by him and only interfered with Damien's frustration when he lunged for the bench and tried to wrench it from the concrete foundation in which it sat. Had it been anyone else, Damien would have used all of his strength to break free from that bear hug and kill whoever held him back. It was because that person was Pierre that Damien fought only briefly against the hold before giving into the other's strength and sagged in his despair after a few furious moments.
"I've fucked everything up, Jean-Luc," he whispered hoarsely, no air left in his chest. He felt as if he were being dragged into the sands and he wished for nothing more than for the Earth to just open up and drag him to Hell. The roll and spray of the ocean stood only as an ironic reminder of his loss.
"No you haven't," his fledge responded, still maintaining his hold on him, though it softened as Damien relaxed his violent impulse. "You did everything you could for her." Something about his tone sounded too final, too complete - as if the search for Rachel was over. He gathered breath and was about to give Pierre a taste of his anger for suggesting such a thing when his phone rang. Anger forgotten, he dug the phone out of his pocket, barely glancing at the name on the screen. For a moment, he stupidly believed it would be Rachel. Before he could even answer the phone, Jake's voice came through the line with a chilling message.
Damien swatted Pierre away, knowing that he had heard those words as well. Blood filled his ears in a rage as he processed Jake's words. Everything inside of him turned to fire and Damien started for the car. If Laurent was at the Rabbit, Damien could kill him and find Rachel. He didn't stop to think about why Laurent might be at the White Rabbit, those details seeming superfluous.
"Laurent is at the Rabbit? How the hell did he even get in?"
