by S. Massery
She stops short when she sees me.
I stand, holding the phone in one hand and the note in the other. She comes closer and hugs me, and I hold my breath so I don’t exhale my grief all over her. My eyes feel puffy. I think I cried in my sleep.
“It’ll be okay.” She pats my back. Her hair is longer. Lighter brown. She seems… happier. Beyond the worry anyway.
“Her tracker went dark.” I straighten, moving past Delia and Dalton. Those two alone in the same room, even with me as a buffer, is trouble I would rather avoid.
Jackson is in the living room. He grins when he sees me, but it drops off. “Damn,” he mutters. “It’s good to see you, buddy. But—”
“I look like hell?” I grimace. “Your wife beat you to that sentiment.”
“I didn’t say that,” Delia protests. “I was thinking it, but I didn’t say it.”
Jackson laughs. “Mason is on the plane with Zach and Reece. Are you ready?”
I had picked this house out of a brochure, rented it for three months, and it’s become a house of horrors. Not all of them mine—Hadley’s, too. I almost bought it outright, and now I’m more than relieved I didn’t.
“I’m good to go,” I say. “How has the honeymoon been?”
Delia blushes. “We have news.”
I raise my eyebrow.
“We’ll tell you on the plane,” Jackson says, grabbing Delia. He presses a loud kiss to her temple.
Before, I didn’t quite understand the type of love Jackson and Delia had. It came on fast—in my eyes, at least—and was powerful enough to rattle the foundation of Delia’s entire family. Now… I’m beginning to get it.
I lock up the house and follow them back toward the car. I nudge Dalton. “I’m surprised they let you out of the plane.”
He elbows me back. “I threatened them with a lot of pain if they didn’t let me out.”
“He threatened to sing,” Delia says.
“I would’ve let you out if you’d started your yodeling.” I chuckle as I picture it. Dalton’s singing voice is bad. Like, a warble that is so off-key, no matter what he tries…
Jackson puts the car in drive and speeds toward the airport as we all break into laughter.
The sun is setting by the time we clamber up the stairs, into the plane. Mason and Zach grin at me.
“I wish this reunion was under better circumstances,” Zach says. “Griff, this is Reece. Reece, Griffin.”
I glance toward the cockpit.
Reece is half out of his chair. “You put the shitstorm on my dad.”
“Sorry.” I wouldn’t be surprised if he refused to fly us.
He cracks a smile, and my chest loosens.
“Bastard deserves it,” he says. “Love him, but, you know.”
“Sure.”
We shake hands, and he sits back down.
Dalton is still outside .
“Come on, D,” I say.
He looks up and down the plane. “You know, it seemed a lot bigger… last time.”
“Bigger is better?”
He makes a face. I glimpse his hand tremble before he crosses his arms over his chest.
“Just give me a minute,” he says.
“Did it take you this long to board in Miami?”
Mason steps up beside me. “Longer.”
He hops out and grabs Dalton’s arm. Dalton, to his credit, doesn’t fight him. He sort of shudders as he passes the threshold, and then he falls into the very last row of seats, strapping himself in.
Reece turns around. “You good, buddy?”
Dalton closes his eyes. “Yep. Let’s just freaking get there.”
Reece chuckles, closing the plane door as we all take our seats.
“Full boat,” he says, and Dalton groans. “Oops, sorry, D.”
“Can we get out of here?”
Once we’re in the air, Jackson looks over at me. Delia’s hand is in his lap, and she leans into him. She meets my gaze.
“We’ve been waiting to tell everyone,” she starts. “But we have an announcement.”
Mason grins. “Yeah?”
“Well…” Jackson smiles at Delia.
“We’re pregnant,” she blurts out. “I’m pregnant. Again. For real this time.”
Dalton grips the seats in front of him. “Congrats, guys. That’s amazing.” He reaches over and pats Delia’s stomach. “Give them hell, kid.”
Delia swats at him, then eyes me. I can’t wipe the big, goofy grin from my face.
“I’m just so fucking happy for you two,” I say. “When are you due? When did you find out?”
Her attention bounces between Jackson and me. “We found out a few days ago.”
“In New York City?” Zach wiggles his eyebrows. “How’s that apartment?”
“Thoroughly christened,” Jackson answers.
Zach’s face drops, and I snort.
“You saw Wyatt?” Zach asks him, and I swear Delia flinches.
Jackson says, “We went to his grave, yes.”
“What happened, Delia?”
All the expression on her face drops. “What do you mean?”
“You flinched…” I raise my eyebrow. She’s come a long way from when I first met her several years ago. But not that far.
“I think it was a chill,” she says. “Right, Jackson? You felt it?”
“Yeah. The pregnancy is making you super sensitive to temperature.”
I debate whether to let it go or not.
“So,” Delia says pointedly. “What’s the plan? What’s her name? Why didn’t you tell me about her?”
Jackson chokes on a laugh.
“Her name is Hadley,” I say. “Her mom was the social worker who got me away from my dad.” The abusive fucker. I can say that now that I’m slightly more well-adjusted, but back then I was a wreck. “I lived with her family for four months after my aunt died, then Judge took me in. I… kept in contact with Hadley up until we went into Scorpion.”
Understatement. I was attached to Hadley in a way I didn’t understand. She was magnetic.
Delia smiles. “So you knew her from way back. She was familiar.”
“He saw her in NYC not too long ago and nearly had a heart attack,” Dalton adds.
Zach chuckles. “That was fun.”
“Right.” I shift.
“Where you’re from?” Delia asks. “I just realized I have no idea about… your past. That’s weird. We’ll have to talk about that.”
“A small town in New York,” I say, shaking my head and holding back a frown. “I was transplanted to another small New York town—Bitterwood.” It helps me take my mind off the fact that, for the next five hours, I can’t do anything to help Hadley. “I went back because Judge had been attacked, and I couldn’t resist going to see her. It turned out to be the right call, because the attack on Judge was because of me. They went after Hadley next.”
They all stare at me. Well, except for Zach and Dalton. Dalton’s eyes are squeezed shut—the plane bounces through some turbulence—and Zach already knows the ending of this story. Even Reece is paying attention, although he doesn’t turn around.
“In order to keep her safe, I suggested that she come with me.”
“We found her in the panic room in Wyatt’s cabin,” Zach cuts in. “She had passed out from a nosebleed. It just went downhill from there.”
“She eventually admitted that she had cancer. Santos kept finding a way to get to her—so I got her as far away as I could. But… It wasn’t far enough.”
“And you left her there,” Dalton adds.
“You sound a little bitter about that,” Delia says to him.
He flips her off, his eyes shut again. “Reece,” he snaps when the whole plane jostles. “Can you fly straight?”
Reece laughs. “I could do a flip if you wanted.”
“Fuck off.”
“You put a tracker on her? It went dark?” Delia asks.
I shake my head. “I met someone…” I roll
my eyes. “I don’t know who she was, but she gave me the phone.”
“So, it could be a trap?”
Mason’s head is halfway in his bag. He reveals his laptop. “Give me the phone.”
“You have Wi-Fi?”
“I always have an internet connection,” he retorts.
He plugs the phone in, and the same map appears on his screen. We all watch, a bit mesmerized, as he opens up another window and types at the speed of light.
“She’s still there,” he says after a few minutes. “I think they’re in a signal dead zone. I can get a radius from their last known location…”
“Leave him,” Reece calls. “Dad gets the same way. Sucked in.”
We lapse into silence. Delia falls asleep against Jackson. Zach nods off. Dalton keeps his eyes closed, but he’s too tense to pretend he’s not freaking out. My mind spins in frantic circles, and I change seats to peer over Mason’s shoulder.
“You’re smothering me,” he murmurs. “We have two hours left to go. How about you sleep?”
“How about we wake everyone up and come up with a plan?”
He looks over at me, up and down, and it stings worse than a verbal reprimand.
“Okay,” I say. “I get it. Don’t rush into anything.”
“That’s what Wyatt would say,” he says in a low voice. “Jackson’s tactical. You called him. Remember? Let him come up with a plan.”
“Of course I remember,” I say.
“He’s not attached to Hadley like you are—”
“He wasn’t calling the shots when we rescued Delia,” Zach answers. “Actually, fuck, she rescued herself. But she wasn’t calling the shots when we rescued his ass from her family either.”
“It was my idea to ride that bike down the mountain,” she says from behind us, apparently not sleeping. “Right, Griffin?”
“Y’all would’ve been screwed if I hadn’t been there,” Dalton says from the back.
Jackson chuckles. “Okay, I guess everyone’s awake. Let’s hear it, Griff. Who took Hadley?”
I fill them in on what I know: that Smith, for whatever reason, sabotaged my blood supply, murdered Argo Junior by proxy, then managed to stay under the radar until now. Why he took Hadley is anyone’s guess.
When I’m done, Jackson jabs me in the arm. “You promise to listen to me?”
“Sure,” I say. “Why wouldn’t I?”
“Because your girlfriend is a hostage,” Delia says. “Don’t talk to me about what you’d do for love—what any of us would do for love.”
Dalton groans. “Not me.”
We all turn and look at him.
He holds up his hands. “I tried my hand at… getting involved.” His eyes go dark. “And I ruined her.”
I ruined her.
“Well, same,” I say on an exhale. “She’s going to hate me.”
Dalton shrugs. “I wouldn’t blame Hadley if she totally hated you.”
“Rude,” Delia whispers.
“He left her on a fucking island to fight cancer, Delia,” Dalton says. “That’s low.”
Delia winces. “Yeah, okay…”
“Hey! You’re supposed to be on my side.” I drop my head into my hands. “I tried to do the right thing.”
“And that’s probably your only saving grace,” Delia says. “Although, I left Jackson… he forgave me.”
He snorts. “I understood that you had to go back to your family. Totally different.”
“You guys are making me feel great,” I say. “Thank you.”
They laugh.
“We’re landing in ten,” Reece calls. “Buckle up. Weather’s rolling in.”
Dalton groans as the plane drops. “I hate all of you.”
Delia raises her eyebrows. “We’re not going to die. Okay? Reece is going to get us to the ground safely. Your cr—”
“Do not say it was a freak accident, Delia Skye,” Dalton growls.
He’s white-knuckling the armrests, poor guy. The wind throws around the plane, and even my stomach seems to jump into my throat.
“Ugh.” Mason closes his laptop with a click. “Reece, you said weather, but I think you meant a cyclone.”
“Just a little thunderstorm,” he says. “Nothing to worry about.”
“I’m going to be sick,” Delia announces.
It’s amazing how fast Jackson moves. I close my eyes, and she pukes into the bag Jackson holds open for her. It lasts an eternity. The gagging. The dry heaving. I try not to tune in to it. Hadley’s puking, I could deal with. It made me feel guilty as sin listening to it, but—
The plane shoots up. My stomach rolls.
Delia finally says, “Sorry, guys.”
“We just love the sound of vomit,” Dalton mutters. “No worries.”
At last, we land. I peer out the side windows, almost—but not terribly—surprised that I recognize this airport. We used it once, in the middle of the night, because it’s usually not staffed. It’s kind of a free-for-all if pilots want to use the single runway, Smith explained to me at the time.
“Okay.” Reece points to one of six hangars. “Who wants to jump out and open those doors?”
“I do,” Dalton says. He unbuckles and is at the door before any of us can say anything else.
“One more,” Reece suggests. “They’re heavy.”
“I’ll go,” Jackson says.
He follows Dalton across the tarmac, and Reece follows with the plane. They slide the doors open, and once the plane is inside, they close us in.
Lights flicker on overhead, and we all get out.
“Anyone can use these?” I ask.
Reece shrugs. “No. I just happen to know the guy who owns this one. He owes me some money.”
“Smart,” I murmur. There’s a staircase in the corner that leads to an upstairs office. “Should we talk up there?”
“Sure.” Jackson is the first up, two bags in his hands.
I grab mine and look for Hadley’s, then freeze. Of course hers isn’t here. Dumbass.
“Hey,” Delia says behind me.
I glance back and try to wipe the expression off my face.
“It’ll be okay.”
“I feel unprepared,” I admit.
Everyone else is upstairs. It’s just Delia and I, and she reaches out to me. Her thumb brushes my cheek.
“Listen to me,” she orders. “It. Will. Be. Okay.”
“And if it isn’t?”
She shrugs. “Then you can leave Griffin Anders behind.”
Like calls to like. It’s why we’ve been friends since Jackson brought us together—she understands me. And I understood her the moment I met her outside her cousin’s house. I recognized her fury, her fear, her empathy. I helped her squash the latter so many years ago.
“Good idea.” I set my jaw.
“We’re going to make sure that doesn’t happen.” She drops her hand and turns for the stairs.
I hoist my bag and follow her, hoping she’s right.
23
HADLEY
First there was Patrick. Then Santos and his goons. Now, Smith.
“Is this a trap?” I ask. “Why do you want Griffin dead? Who are you working for?”
He blinks at me, face blank.
“Damn you.” I resist the urge to fist my hands.
He watches me pace in front of the blacked-out window.
“What are you planning on doing with me?”
“Do you ever stop talking?”
“Why don’t you just give me some freaking answers, Smith?” I cross my arms, trying not to lash out. My temper has been fraying ever since he put me in the car. We drove for hours. I think I fell asleep. I woke up when the door opened and I was yanked out.
He walked me into a giant house through the back door, his gun pressed against my side and his arm gripping my biceps. We went up three flights of stairs. I expected to see people—guards, maids, something—but the place was empty. Just me and Smith… alone.
Coura
ge, Hadley.
I am more confident in my body. That’s what six weeks of not dying has done for me. That’s what three weeks of training with Elizabeth has given me. If I ever have to use the moves she taught me, they’ll be sloppy. They might not even work. Fear may make me forget how to execute half of them. But the muscle memory will give me a chance I wouldn’t have had a month ago.
Smith sighs. He sighs a lot, I’m learning. Unfortunately, that’s the only thing about him that I’ve figured out. He was never chatty, but now, he’s damn near silent.
And there’s been no sign of Santos. For a while, I expected Santos to be pulling Smith’s strings. Now… It’s too weird. He leaves me alone in my small room, but every so often he takes me out, binds my hands with zip ties, and sits me on a chair in the basement. The place is more fortress-meets-bunker than a house. It could withstand a bomb. A small one. Maybe a large one.
Yet, he hasn’t been the worst. He’s fed me twice since we arrived, although my stomach has been in a constant knot. He seems to be waiting for something… And that makes me expect a visit from Santos. He wanted Griffin to pay, after all. Shouldn’t he be here to torture me? I guess he’s just putting me on ice until I’m of use to him.
That’s another thing I’ve mulled over in the past few hours: how he’s going to pay. The obvious answer is that I’m going to be killed in front of Griffin. Or maybe tortured. Or maybe—
“Your thoughts turn dark, girl?”
I jerk. Smith has opened the door to leave my room, and he takes up most of the doorway. The flower wallpaper behind him distracts me. The room he keeps me in is white, white, white. The windows are boarded over from the outside and painted shut, so I can’t tell what time it is or where I am. The rest of the house is an interesting mix of old and new. Dark-wood molding, wallpaper that looks brittle to the touch, gleaming hardwood floors. The furniture is more for decoration than comfort.
The locks, though, are high tech. To get into almost any of the rooms, Smith scans his thumb. He didn’t really give me a tour, but there are a series of doors we go through to get down into the basement. I doubt I’d have much luck running away without Smith attached to me. I’d be locked in a hallway or out of a room.
“I don’t want Griffin dead,” he eventually says. “I want Griffin’s head in the game. And the only way that can happen is if you’re not in the picture.”
