by Lindsey Iler
Breaker’s eyes widen, and he turns to me. “Is Reagan one of the girls?” I nod in answer. “I’m sorry, man, but I promise we’ll get her.” Breaker tells Dixon our plan. Once he tucks his phone in his pocket, we don’t waste any time. “He’s staying on the line, just in case we need him for something.”
“Just get me to the stairs.”
“Follow me.” Breaker leads us out into the hallway, and the two bodyguards are waiting at the corner.
Everything goes pitch black, and screams of panic and disbelief explode. Footsteps rattle around the house.
“Fix the fucking lights!” Henry yells. “Right. Fucking. Now.”
Knowing the dark will cover us, Breaker and I cross the room and run up the stairs. At the top landing, we pause, hoping to hear something, anything, to tell us where the girls are.
The lights blink several times, shocking my eyes for a second, then everything is washed in a soft yellow glow. We’re completely exposed and running out of time before someone finds us.
“Fuck!” Breaker fidgets, trying to decide what his next move should be to get to Delaney.
“NOOOO!” A blood-curdling scream startles both of us.
Breaker wastes no time, racing down the hall and disappearing into a bedroom. Loud clatters and shouts are muffled behind a door of horrors.
The floors creak as I walk down the hall, but when I stop, the noise doesn’t. Who’s behind me?
Expecting an attack, I spin around, and Henry lunges, trying to take me out at my legs. As I jump out of his way, I slam my hand on his head and knock him to the floor.
“Get up, you piece of shit,” I goad him. “Let’s go.”
“You don’t want to do this, Marek. This will be yours. I’m setting you up for a lifetime of ease.”
“Blood money isn’t my idea of wealth. Now, where is she?” My eyes shift around the landing, stopping at every door.
“You’re too late. Too bad. I’ve heard Eberstark can only get it up by inflicting pain on his girls.”
The second he’s off the floor, I rush him, grabbing his head and smashing it into the wall. A frame crashes to the floor. Henry grabs a piece of glass and tries to slash my stomach. He nicks my shirt, cutting a clean line through the fabric.
“I’ll fucking kill you if he lays a hand on a single hair on her body.” I dive straight for him, not caring if he slices me open. My arms wrap around his waist, knocking the glass from his hand, and take us both to the floor.
The sound of his bones crushing under my punches fuels my anger even more. Blood spreads over my fingers as I crush him beneath my strength. When he stills beneath me, the shallow, breaths lifting his chest prove he’s alive.
The click of metal has my eyes turning upwards. Never in my life have I ever thought I’d be staring down the barrel of a gun. I’m even more pissed off to find Dillon holding it in my face.
“Stand up!” Dillon demands, shaking the barrel. “I said stand up, now.” His growing anger should worry me, but something tells me Dillon is too much of a pussy to pull the trigger.
I stand, holding my arms wide, hoping to prove to him I’m not going to do something crazy. Crazy will set someone like Dillon off. There’s no room for error in this situation.
“Why don’t we just calm down?” I ask him, my voice soft and gentle as if I’m dealing with a child. “We can talk.”
“AHHH!” A spine-chilling scream erupts behind me.
I jerk, and the sharp movement must spook Dillon. Cold metal presses into my skull. I close my eyes, reminding myself I’m not dealing with a sane person. At any moment, the slightest pressure on the trigger could end everything.
“How do you do it, huh? How do you get where you are without corruption and bloodshed?” Dillon asks, jealousy and wonder laced through his words.
Dillon pushes me forward, and I face him, hoping to distract him from whatever is happening down the hall.
A door opens, and I leap forward, putting distance between us and whatever is behind me. Guttural cries escape some poor girl’s mouth.
“Marek,” Breaker whispers behind me.
Shit, that’s Delaney crying. I can’t look behind me, too afraid of what I’ll see.
“I know, Break. Whatever you have to do, just get her out of here.” I glance over my shoulder and ease sideways, using my body to shield them. Breaker carries Delaney towards the staircase. She’s covered in blood.
“No one is going anywhere!” Dillon shouts, waving the gun at us.
“You don’t need them. You have me. Just let them go,” I plead.
“Marek.” Breaker rushes my name out, knowing I’m placing myself in front of him to make sure he’s safe.
“Get her out of here, Breaker,” I whisper. “Go.”
I move with them, forcing Dillon to choose. The gun tracks me, giving Breaker the time he needs to get out of here.
At my left, another door opens. Henry starts to moan and roll around. Officer Franklin busts into the hallway, drawing his concealed weapon and pointing it at me. I’m stuck between two forms of evil. The kind that’s meant to protect me but lives selfishly, and the one no one expects.
The evil in Dillon’s eyes is fueled by insecurity and youth, driven by the need for power, and fostered by those who should care for him, but instead, allow him to fall into a trap for which he will never escape.
“Keep your hands up where I can see them,” Officer Franklin demands. “I’ve been counting down the days, kid.”
Henry struggles to his feet and snatches the gun from Dillon. He twirls it in the air, his finger on the trigger. One false move, and he can end my life with a single bullet.
“I have it from here, Dillon. You can go,” Henry states.
Dillon clearly thinks he is more important to this organization than they believe him to be. He’s been dismissed, no longer needed in this venture. With his head hung low, he slinks down the staircase, sadness weakening his posture. It doesn’t take a genius to know Henry will dismiss anyone he doesn’t deem important.
“You’re smarter than I thought you are.” He closes the gap between us. “I believed I had you convinced that this is the place you needed to be. You’re a legacy, after all. This was meant to be your future.”
“I don’t want one piece of this.”
“Well, that’s a relief, because you won’t be touching this empire.”
“I have to ask. How do you get away with it? All this time, no one has been able to stop it.” I cut my eyes to Officer Franklin. Though his gun is pointing at me, his eyes are on Henry.
“The thing is, what we do is everyone’s darkest nightmare. We’re evil, and we own it. When something so vile happens within our society, we, as humans, choose to ignore it. It’s too jarring. It’s too real. We’re too afraid to see the truth.”
“Which makes it easier to conduct business out in the wide open.”
“Precisely, and there’s big business in bodies.”
“You’re a sick bastard.” I spit at his feet.
“We aren’t that much different, Marek, so don’t try to act like a saint.” The barrel of the gun fluctuates around different areas of my body, like he can’t decide where to put the first bullet.
“Don’t you dare compare us.” I grit my teeth, trying to come up with a way out of this for Palmer and me.
“Trust me when I say I know your preference firsthand. Your deviancy may be legal, but we are cut from the same cloth.” He shakes his head, frustration and anger marring his features. “We sell girls. It’s how we keep control of our circle of elite who walk the halls of this academy. It’s how it’s been done for generations before this.”
“Let me guess, you keep records, recordings to blackmail? You give the girls a false sense of urgency, claiming to have dirt on them that could destroy not only them, but also their families?”
“See, you are capable of working in this business. No one had to tell you how we do it, and you knew.”
“It’s
what assholes like you have been doing since the beginning of time. You aren’t original. What you’re doing isn’t original, but it ends now, if I have any say in it.”
“What are you going to do, huh?” He ghosts his hands in the air, trying to prove his dominance. “You going to be the one to stop us? Take a look around, Marek. We have the justice department on our side, not to mention your pretty little girlfriend as collateral.”
Another door flies open, and Palmer is ushered out. Reed’s hand covers Palmer’s mouth, muffling her cries while her feet drag beneath her.
“It would be a shame to see such a young life ended.” Reed laughs, using her other hand to brush the matted hair away from her face.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Palmer
“Palmer,” Marek cries out, trying to rush to me. Officer Franklin blocks him from getting close. Marek holds up his hands and retreats, knowing this is a lose/lose situation.
Marek once told me nothing is what it appears to be. At the time, I realized he meant this about himself. To solve the mystery of my sister, he was cruel and savage to me. Now we know the mystery has always been Reed. She isn’t who we believed her to be, and every time she tried to prove it, we didn’t want to see it.
Marek spent years allowing Reed to control him, which he obliged because he believed in her and how he felt when she was around.
To me, Reed is my big sister. She protected me when I was young, held up camp around me to make sure the world didn’t get ahold of me too soon. Time ran out on me, though. Her true colors have poured out, giving me no choice but to believe what I see.
“Reed, please,” I beg through her fingers.
“Whining won’t get you what you want.” Her grasp winds tighter around my neck. My trachea buckles under the heavy weight of her hand, and I find a bit of relief from scratching at her, praying she’ll show mercy. She grabs my arm, stopping my nails from digging deeper into her skin.
“We know too much,” Marek says, taking a small step closer that no one seems to notice.
“No, you didn’t play the way I thought you would.” Reed grips my arm tighter, holding me in place. “When I went missing, I didn’t expect you to use my sister to find me. That was your first mistake. You dragged her into a situation she should never have been a part of, so I tried to handle it as best I could, thinking she would be smart enough not to get tangled up with a murderer.”
“I’m not a murderer!” Marek shouts.
“No, but I tried like hell to make it look like you are.” Reed’s expression matches my feelings. Confusion. “Jesus! Are you two that stupid? Georgina? This is why you’re in the position you’re in. Use your fucking brains.”
I grip her hand, and with all my strength, I yank her off my mouth, finally getting a full breath of air. “You killed her,” I blurt.
The click of metal startles me. I catch the silver blade from the corner of my eye and try my hardest to get away, but I’m pulled back.
“I killed her for you,” Reed whispers in my ear while I fight against her. “What if I killed someone for you?” She recites the words from the note on my door. It was her.
“Don’t put that on me.” I grab Reed’s hands, trying like hell to loosen her hold as the knife presses closer to my skin.
“It’s how you knew where her body was, and how they found her,” Marek intervenes, inching closer.
“But you didn’t seem to catch on as quick as I thought you would.” Reed’s laughter is manic. “It was right there in front of you, sister dearest. You should have known to keep your distance, but even when they were cruel to you, you held on for dear life, so I knew I’d have to kick it up. Do something drastic. I kept sending signs to Byron, reminding him of our love.” Her voice drops when she says love, proving nothing she feels for him is affection. “He fell for it, and when I noticed his attitude towards you, I knew it was only a matter of time before he’d snap. He’s not the calmest of creatures, proving time and time again, he’d do absolutely anything for me.”
“You’re a stupid bitch!” I shout.
“No, sis, I’m not. I’m a crazy bitch. That’s how I knew that everything would go to hell when I showed up. I lied, pretending my only mission was to clear Marek’s name, but in reality, it was to see what you knew about this. I’ll commend Dixon on trying to crack that code in the notebook, but you’d have never figured it out, even if you spent the rest of your life trying. It was put there to distract you.”
“What was happening while we were distracted?” Marek asks, putting the pieces together like I am.
“We created an empire right underneath your noses. While you were busy being cruel, trying to prove something, we were counting down the days until this came to a head,” Reed explains.
“Why, though?” Marek asks.
“Because we couldn’t continue this with her still alive. A sister’s love is endless, and Palmer would have never given up searching for me.”
“So, the only option is to remove her.” Marek’s eyes hold me hostage as he says the harsh, dark truth.
“If I’m being honest, it’s kind of fucked up, right? But the thing is, we’re all a little fucked up.” She shrugs as if she’s speaking about a grocery list and not the senseless murder of her sister.
“So, that’s that, you’re just going to kill me?” I beg, tears streaming down my face.
“Haven’t you learned anything? Family doesn’t mean shit in this world. Anyone can destroy your life. It just so happens to be me doing the damage to you this time.” The sharp edge of the knife bites a little harsher into my skin, nearly breaking the sensitive flesh.
A loud clack echoes through the house. Everyone freezes. Byron appears near the top of the staircase, and Reed sighs in relief, dropping the knife from my neck. When he joins us in the hallway, Marek’s eyes plead with him for help.
Byron looks around and tries to figure out what’s going on, stopping on me last. Right away, I know he isn’t here to save the day. Byron Decatur doesn’t have a humane bone in his body.
“Byron, baby.” Reed gushes over him, playing to his feelings. “Do me a favor and make sure Marek doesn’t do anything stupid, will you?”
When Byron doesn’t do as she says, she gestures for Officer Franklin to take me. It’s like watching someone being hypnotized. She saunters to Byron, gazing into his eyes. He tries his hardest to keep his attention anywhere but on her. We know what will happen if he locks in on her. She’ll convince him with a single glance.
“You’re on my side, aren’t you, Byron?” She stands on the tips of her toes and presses her lips to his. Their affection escalates. His hand cups the nape of her neck, deepening their kiss.
When she pulls away, she’s wearing a perfect grin as she strolls to me. Officer Franklin hands me over to my captor.
“Now, should we do this here or somewhere quiet?” Reed giggles. “Who am I kidding?” She points at Marek. “I’m going to make you watch, since you’re responsible for this. Her blood is on your hands, baby.”
Marek’s eyes search mine. He’ll only see desperation and heartbreak for things I lost long before this moment, and the things I’ll never have. I lower my stare, too afraid to see the same helplessness in him. He can’t stop this. For once, there is no plan. I can’t prevent anything from happening. We stand with our grief, wanting to hold each other, but unable to. Our power has been stripped from us.
“Palmer!” Marek says. The urgency in his voice has my head snapping up, catching his glare at Byron to release him. “Let me go to her. Please.”
Byron releases him, and to my surprise, Reed lets me go, allowing us to embrace. His arms wrap around my body, holding me tight.
“Listen to me, I’m not going to let her hurt you. I promise. I can’t lose someone else, Palmer, so I’m going to need you to fight just a little while longer, okay?”
“Okay, enough of that.” Reed yanks me out of Marek’s arms.
A knife driven by anger and cruelty
digs into my neck. Reed tightens her hold, drawing enough blood to make my stomach churn.
“What do we have here?” Mrs. Hawthorne asks as she walks towards us. The last time I saw her, I was kneeling on the stage about to be sold off like livestock.
“It’s about damn time,” Henry says, aiming the gun at Marek. “Where have you been?”
“You abandoned a crowd of guests, so I entertained everyone. This shit show you two have created hasn’t exactly been quiet,” Mrs. Hawthorne explains, grimacing at the sight of Reed and me. “Can’t have them walking in on a double homicide, now can we?”
“It’s okay, because we’re just about finished here,” Reed explains.
“Damn right, you are.” Mrs. Hawthorne reaches through the little space between our bodies, drives her arm against Reed’s, and slams Reed against the wall, catching us off guard. The knife cuts deeper into my skin. I cover the cut and drop to the floor, rolling away from any threat.
Officer Franklin shifts the barrel of his gun from Marek to Henry.
“Freeze! he shouts.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Reed screams. Mrs. Hawthorne has the knife in her possession, holding it against my sister’s neck. “This isn’t the fucking plan. This isn’t how this goes down.”
“Your plan has been fucked since the beginning,” Officer Franklin explains. “We’ve been building a case on Henry for ten years now.”
“Okay, let’s not act too hasty.” Henry bends to place his weapon on the floor.
“Kick it over to me,” Officer Franklin instructs. Henry obliges him, lifting his hands in compliance. “Now, turn around.” He places his gun in his holster and approaches Henry.
“Watch out!” I scream as Henry grabs at Officer Franklin’s hip, gripping the butt of his gun.
Henry spins, aiming the barrel right at me. Slow and steady, I get to my feet, refusing to take a bullet laying down. This man has stolen enough from me and the ones I love. A loud boom explodes, echoing in my ears as I fall. There’s no pain, just bright white lights.
“Palmer!” My body shakes, my head striking the floor over and over again. “Open your eyes, Palmer. Open your eyes.” A short, light pressure skims up and down my limbs and torso. My eyes flutter open, and through my distorted vision, Marek is looming over me. “There you are. Can you hear me?”
