Total pages in book: 113
Estimated words: 110360 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 552(@200wpm)___ 441(@250wpm)___ 368(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 110360 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 552(@200wpm)___ 441(@250wpm)___ 368(@300wpm)
I threw the car into drive and floored it.
The coordinates led me to an old auto garage at the end of a dead service road.
Dark. Quiet. Dead space between dead buildings.
I killed the engine and stealthily climbed out. Weapon already drawn.
The front was locked.
The side deadbolted.
I kept moving around the building, staying low and alert.
I stopped at the corner, peering around to the back.
One bay door.
Open.
Barely.
Just enough to breathe.
My pulse spiked as I moved closer. Hiding with my back against the brick wall, I reached out and tapped it, hoping to draw out anyone he might have had guarding her. Not so much as a leaf moved.
Dropping to the ground, I peered under the door.
Tires.
Dark paint.
Blue.
Gotcha, you motherfucker.
I grabbed the door and yanked it open in one hard motion. Metal screamed as it rolled up. I ducked under, weapon up.
Clear left.
Clear right.
I walked around the car, peering inside.
So utterly empty, just like my chest.
Then, suddenly, the world tipped back on its axis.
A moan.
Small.
Muffled.
Broken.
Alive.
“Zoey,” I called. “It’s Devon. Lofton sent me to help you.”
“I’m in here,” she cried from the trunk. Relief damn near took out my knees.
The doors of that piece-of-shit were locked.
I reared my elbow back, shattered the driver’s side window, and then reached in and caught the release.
Careful to keep my gun low so I didn’t scare her, I moved to the back of the car and slowly lifted the trunk.
She flew straight into my arms. I caught her against my chest, loud wails escaping her throat.
Emotion filled my own throat as I whispered, “I got you, baby. It’s okay now. I promise.”
“Marty was supposed to come get me,” she sobbed into my neck. “He said I just had to tap three-two-two-one. He said it was magic, he would come get me.”
My throat closed.
I pressed my lips to her head, holding on tighter.
“He did,” I said. Rough. Barely controlled. “He just sent me instead.”
She continues to cry even as she said, “That’s okay too. I guess.”
A chuckle rolled up my throat, finally knocking back the emotion. “Come on, let’s get you back to your mom.”
For one fragile second, everything felt… right. Like maybe we’d outrun it. Like maybe we’d won.
A gunshot cracked through the night.
Sharp.
In the distance.
In the direction of the warehouse.
I froze.
Everything inside me went still.
Lofton
“She never took it off,” Brooke said, for what must have been the third time. “Not once. Not since the day he died. She slept in it for the first two weeks. She told me it was magic. He must have told her that.”
Jude leaned over the table, studying the alert on my phone. “I mean, it’s definitely possible. Something small enough that a kid wouldn’t even feel it. That’d be some serious foresight.”
I looked at Brooke. “He knew. He paid Jason to leave us alone, but then he made sure she was safe if he came back.”
“So she could always be found,” Brooke finished.
We looked at each other, and for a moment, the surrounding chaos seemed to fade as reality sank in. Marty had known. He had seen the storm coming long before any of us had even realized there were clouds in the sky.
Marty didn’t like to worry me. He used to tell me I had a tendency to spiral when I got scared.
His words from those last moments on the bathroom floor came back to me.
“You’re not drowning, kiddo. And even if you were, it’s impossible for you to sink.”
And he’d been right, because Marty had always been my life jacket.
And now, even after he was gone, he still was.
“Any word from Apollo?” I asked.
Lark shook his head while continuing to stare at his phone. He pressed a button, put it to his ear, only to bring it right back down.
Apollo was never quiet. The man thrived on chaos and problem-solving as much as Devon. Apollo just did his from behind a computer, narrated by keystrokes and punctuated by facts.
Silence from Apollo might have been the scariest part of all. Lark and Jude had shared far too many knowing glances each time their calls went unanswered for me to feel otherwise.
The police radio on the officer nearest the door crackled. The words came through broken and tangled in police codes.
I didn’t understand all of them.
But I understood enough.
Shots fired.
Chatsworth warehouse.
Man down.
I stopped breathing even as the room kept moving.
Brooke’s head came up, her fear matching mine.
Jude and Lark were already across the room, moving toward the officers clustered near the entrance. They spoke over each other, demanding information.
But I sat completely still in my chair.
Devon had walked into that.
Devon and Leo had walked toward that warehouse, and now there were shots fired and a man down, and I didn’t know if it was Devon or Leo or Jason.
My brain told me it was Jason.
But my heart wasn’t as confident.
I loved Devon, wholly and completely.