by Ann, Bry
“Fine. I’ll drop it, for now. But I'm warning you, you like her, Landon. Anyway,” she changes the subject before I leave, “you can’t.”
My heart sinks. “What?”
“You won’t make her smile right now.” She shrugs. “If she’s in a place as dark as I’ve been, maybe darker—” Definitely darker. “... then you won’t make her truly smile right now, but you can be there. Show her she can smile one day. Show her she’s not alone. Show her there’s more to life than this.”
She grabs her head with her fingers way too roughly, so I gently take her wrists and pull them away with my lips pulled tight.
“Than what’s in her head,” Evie whispers.
I cock my head to the side. “And what’s on your mind?” I whisper.
Right as Evie opens her mouth to finally answer a question about herself, my phone rings.
“Shit,” I curse, pulling my phone from my pocket. “Sorry, Evie.”
“No, I get it,” she mumbles.
“Landon Parker,” I answer.
“Landon, it’s Rob.”
The man coordinating Essie’s security with me. I open my mouth to respond when he cuts me off.
“She’s missing.”
Everything skids to a stop.
“Excuse me?” I hiss.
“We were switching shifts. I went back to check on Ms. Taylor. She’s not here.”
He’s trying to keep his voice even, but I hear the panic in his voice. He knows what’s at stake here.
I shoot to my feet, heart racing. Evie follows suit, but I ignore her for a moment. I have to.
“Did you check the security footage? Do you have men searching the perimeter? We have to fucking find her, Rob!”
“I know, man. I know. I have to go and help my men, but I’ll keep in touch.”
“Call Carson and Kyle and get them over there.”
“Will do. Anything else before I go?”
“Find her, Rob.”
He doesn’t reply.
“I have to go,” I bark, jamming my phone and keys in my pocket with shaking hands. I don’t even notice Evie getting closer until her cold hand wraps around my shaking wrist, halting my movements.
I glance up at her. Her eyebrows are creased, but her features are soft.
“What happened? Is it your girl?” she whispers in that almost melodic voice my sister has.
“She’s gone,” I croak. “Holy shit.”
“Hey.” Evie squeezes my wrist tightly. “You’ll get her. You’re the best agent I know, Landon.”
“You’re biased.”
I quickly and half-heartedly wrap my arms around her before storming off toward the exit. I don’t hear Evie follow until I'm in the cold, night air.
“Wait!” her soft voice calls out the window.
I spin, feeling my heart race and my head pound.
“I love you, Landon. No matter what.”
Fuck, I'm the worst brother. I quickly run back and wrap her up in my arms, hating the feel of her bones everywhere I touch.
“Love you, sis. Keep fighting for me, ‘kay?”
She nods. “Landon. Find her.”
My lips become firm and my eyes harden.
“Don’t worry. I will.”
Chapter Nineteen
Essie
“She’s still a nut job. Tell me again why we want her alive?”
“Are you questioning me, Damon?” a deep voice growls.
My eyes flutter, even though they were already open. It feels like I'm waking up from a deep sleep or something.
“If she dies, the person responsible will take her fucking place in the ranks. Understood?”
I don’t hear this man, Damon, respond, but he must because he’s not dead and nothing else is said about it. They don’t know I'm conscious yet. Hell, I don’t know how long I’ll be back or why I am, but…
Oh God.
My stomach churns. This man that looks like Z is carrying me. He’s touching me. His skin…
“Tammy,” Z’s voice calls stoically from our doorway.
Both Sage and Pamela glance at me, fear and pity lacing their expressions.
I push to stand on legs I no longer feel and walk over to him. His fingers tangle in my hair. I'm not even two feet out of the room before he slams me against a wall and forces himself inside me…
Before I know what’s happening, my stomach revolts. I lean over the man’s arms and vomit. “Egh!” he screeches, dropping me so I crash the five, or however many, feet straight onto my tailbone. Pain rockets up my spine so powerfully I fall onto my side and squeeze my eyes to try to escape it.
“You bitch,” the man snarls while I try my hardest not to cry at the excruciating pain. “Did you hear me!?”
His fingers tangle in my hair and yank up hard so I'm looking at him. The pain makes my eyes water.
“Hello, Tammy, right?”
He grins but it’s cruel. Tears spill over. The man tsks.
“No, no. None of that.” Then his eyes go cold. “Get up.”
I immediately do. Once I'm standing toe to toe with his overpowering presence, he brushes my hair back. It’s gentle, but it’s a threat.
I can fucking kill you and everyone you love.
“Do you know who I am?”
I shake my head no, feeling tears fall. He snarls and jerks on my hair.
“Simon Rogers, you whore.”
My eyes widen. “You’re-you’re Z’s…” Dad. Father. Teacher. Jenny’s monster.
“Z always said you were a genius,” he hisses.
Fear like I’ve never known, not even with Z, Marcus, and Sty, coils around my heart, gripping it tight. This man is a monster. I know monsters. I’ve faced them of all kinds. I am one, but him, he… he’s different. Worse. Evil incarnate.
“You’re gonna clean up your shit, then you can see Ellie.”
My mouth opens to ask if she’s okay. Stupid, dumb, useless question that it is. Before I can get the words out, Simon’s finger is in my mouth.
“Suck.”
Despair washes over me… but I do. At least I start to. It’s only a brief moment before a pelican starts calling for me in the distance… and I go. I fucking go. My body will do what it needs to here. It knows what to do.
* * *
My eyes blink open. Fuck Landon and the psychology staff for trying to “cure” me, because it halfway worked. Before they got their hands on me, I never surfaced. Now I'm going in and out. Now I have to be here some of the time. I treasure my animals, my crazy math equations.
Groaning, I push to stand. Immediately, I know I'm not alone. I look over my shoulder to see a new face, a man, fucking some woman against the wall. She’s from the other unit. I know it immediately. Her eyes are completely dead. She’s already broken.
No one’s ever admitted it, but if Nix got me and Sage out, Z, Marcus, and Sty are dead. Dead. My brain spins. Z’s no longer alive, but his father… his father is. I can’t think about Z right now. Things are running as if the three men in charge of us weren’t killed off. Things are just the same as before. Just different faces to the same crimes.
While he’s still fucking her, he glances over at me.
“Closet’s open, slut. Clean up your shit before it starts to smell or you’ll pay.”
I won’t pay, Ellie will. They know I don’t care anymore, and even if I did, I wouldn’t be around long enough to suffer. Damon asked a good question—why are they keeping me alive?
I'm useless.
Pushing to my feet, I go the closet and start to mop up my mess. It’s disgusting, but I'm past having a light stomach. So I do my thing and wait for further instruction.
I deserve to be here. I deserve to be here. I deserve to be here. Don’t panic.
Ellie. Ellie. Ellie.
“You done?” the man grunts.
“Yes,” I murmur, keeping my head down and trying to appear as meek as possible like they love.
He pulls out of the girl. She shuffl
es away, numb, not even bothering to put her clothes back in place. When she’s gone, he pulls out his cell phone and rattles off a text.
“Stay here. Don’t move.”
And he walks off. I stand here. Don’t move. I just wait. Five or so minutes later, Simon walks in. He looks me up and down, shaking his head, disgust written all over his face.
“I should kill you.”
If it weren’t for Ellie, I’d beg him too.
“You’re a fucking disaster.”
Tends to happen when you’re trafficked, Rogers.
But on the outside, all I do is shrug. Rogers. Why call him by his last name? Why link myself to anything that was once Z’s? What is wrong with me?
“Did you even bury her?”
Z scoffs. “Your little friend? Of course not. She’s nothing.”
My heart aches. He thinks I mean Pamela, which is no better, but I meant…
“Jenny,” I whisper. “Your daughter.”
Remember her, you bastard?
For the briefest moment, Simon falters, his jaw slips open, and his muscles tighten, but when I say brief, I mean brief. The slightest bit of vulnerability he lets show slips away as fast as it came.
… and I pay for it.
In two seconds flat, he’s across the room and his fist is swinging across my face. I immediately go down. Pain immediately fires across my entire face, matching the pain I still feel in my lower back/tailbone area.
A whimper even escapes my lips.
“You fucking whore. You’re only alive because I say so. Your parents, because I say so. Ellie, because I say so. Everyone else you care about is dead at my son’s say-so. You’re nothing.”
“I know,” I murmur.
His eyebrows go up. “Well then, don’t fucking ask me about Jenny. Ever. Understand?”
“Yes.” No.
I want to know if he buried her. I want to know if he regrets her death. Scratch that. Even if he does, he’s a psychopath. He’ll only regret it for selfish reasons and that means nothing.
“Good. Now come.”
Simon yanks me up by my tank top and starts dragging me across the floor. My back protests, but what the fuck does that matter?
We stop when we reach a far too familiar door. Without pausing, he swings the door open. My heart races, beating so fast my head starts to spin.
“You have an hour.”
He shoves me forward. I plant down on all fours.
“And clean your fucking mouth.”
Bang.
The door shuts and I fall to the ground on my stomach. It’s not like the bed is any more comfortable.
“Are you okay?” the tiniest voice squeaks from the other corner of the room. My head snaps up.
Crawling toward me is the smallest little girl with white-blonde hair and ice blue eyes. She’s young, with that signature full face of youth, but her body is clearly malnourished. Her collar bones juts out, and that’s just what I see.
“Are-are you okay?”
She slides up next to me and moves the hair from my face with careful fingers and creased brows.
I push myself to seated, biting back the urge to cry out at the pain. The little girl’s eyes widen. Before I can figure out what’s wrong, she’s crawling into my lap and running her fingers over my face.
“I wish I could get you ice. Here.”
She scrambles out of my lap and extends a hand.
“I’ll help you to the bed and tuck you in. Mom does that when I'm hurt. I’ll even tell you what she says. Come on.”
She wiggles her fingers in front of me, meanwhile my heart is shattering, breaking, ripping apart in a million little pieces. She looks like Pamela. She is exactly the type of daughter Pamela would have raised.
“Miss, my hand is still here.”
I choke out something like a laugh to keep from crying and slip my hand through hers. God, I can’t use the same defenses I used against Pamela and Sage and even Landon. She’s a child. My best friend, my sister’s, child. The one she kept hidden. The one she fought every day to protect. Even though I know she was too young and never intended to have this child. Suddenly, Pamela makes so much sense. I understand why she never stopped fighting.
Ellie.
Ellie pulls me to the bed and immediately pushes me down on the mattress, gently. Once again, she runs her fingertips over my face. I haven’t said a word yet, mind you.
“When I'm hurt, my mama always says…” She pauses, looks at me and smiles, despite her tear stains… “You ready?”
I'm so relieved no one’s touched her. That’s obvious right about now. I’ll have to keep it that way. I will keep it that way. I don’t care if I die in the process.
I promise, Pamela. I’ll save her.
“Yes,” I whisper, voice cracking.
She grins. “Pain makes you raise your game, so be strong.”
When I don’t reply, she pauses and looks me over, seemingly disappointed.
“Did that help?”
“Yes, it-it did. Thank you. I need to up my game,” I whisper.
“Me, too,” she murmurs, wiping away some of her dried tears. She looks down, then back up at me. “Do you know my mom?”
I wish I was strong like Pam, but the memory of her has my eyes filling with tears and my brain splintering.
“I did, hun. Um, I need to tell you something,” I rush out.
She sits back on her heels, her eyebrows adorably creased.
“Okay.”
“How old are you?” I murmur.
She smiles proudly, but the fear in her eyes is still there.
“Six.”
Oh… god, such a baby.
“You’re so big,” I choke out.
She smiles.
“I need you to be strong for me when I tell you this, ‘kay?”
Chirp, chirp, chirp, chirp… Stay here. Just for one more minute. I picture Landon’s intense, but playful blue eyes. I remember him telling me to stay, and I hang on.
“Okay!”
“So, I have this… um, sickness.”
She frowns.
“My brain’s kinda funny. Sometimes it makes me go away and I say silly things. I may not be the same, and I may be silly, but I'm still here with you. You’re not alone, okay?”
“That’s okay! Mama always said,” she clears her throat, “we don’t know why people do crazy things, so always be nice.”
“That’s right,” I whisper, trying not to cry. “She’d be so proud of you.”
“Really?” Ellie’s eyes shine. “Do you know where she is? They-they promised I could see her if I came, but I'm scared. I don’t like it here and I haven’t seen Mom.”
“Hun, I…” CHIRP. CHIRP. CHIRP. “Hun, I'm leaving. I—”
I don’t remember anything else.
Chapter Twenty
Landon
“She’s not afraid of the cameras,” Kyle murmurs. “Interesting.”
“She looks right at them,” I growl, shoving off the counter to pace the floor. “She knew we’d see them. She knew she’d be long gone. Why the fuck would she leave? It’s not safe! She may not be well right now, but she knows it’s not safe.”
“Think with your head, Landon!” Kyle uncharacteristically shouts. “Collin will pull you from this case. You’ve already called him and lost your shit. He’s one mistake away from suspending you. He’s generous, but he’s still the fucking boss!”
“Besides,” Carson cuts in in that even-keeled voice of his. “None of this is helping you find her. Neither of you are thinking. Landon, you’re personally involved, and Kyle, I don’t know what the fuck is up with you.”
If I could think, I’d be worried about Kyle, too. He never loses it. The man’s almost not human, he’s that serious and focused.
“And Derek’s gone.”
Agent Derek Enzio Johnson, our old teammate and Collin’s childhood best friend, was our undercover agent. He was incredible, but he met a woman, Iris Jane Shelby, on a case and
fell in love. He lives with her and her family over in Burrows, TX.
“So listen to me. It’s no coincidence that Essie tries to kill herself, and a week later, she runs. Come on, you idiots. Think. Landon, you said she mentioned a video on a cell phone. What was on that video? What made her think she needed to run?”
He side-eyes me as I run my fingers through my hair.
“She obviously connected with you, Landon, but she wasn’t, like, in love with you. She wasn’t running from you. In fact, she probably, if anything, would have wanted to lean toward you. So she ran because she felt cornered. The question is why, because,” Carson glances at me and softens his voice, “we all know where.”
“Fuck! I'm gonna go insane.”
Brad enters the room then—storms in is more accurate. He’s furious. It’s emanating off of him. His suit is pressed and perfect, but he’s blazing.
“Collin will be here in two hours,” he barks. “Play the tape, Carson.”
Carson immediately does, so we see Essie limping down the halls once again. When the tape finishes, Brad rounds on me.
“You were in charge of her security!”
“She’s a genius, Brad. I took every precaution. Every single one. She got past four guards and two staff members in a private, monitored facility at night. I’ve spent every day with her since she was free. I’ve seen firsthand what they did to her psyche; the last thing I ever wanted was to see her hurt again, Brad. I put everything I have into protecting her. I-I failed.”
I failed her.
Brad studies my face and whatever he sees must get him to back off, because with a huff, he steps away.
“Carson, check the streets. See if any shops have outside surveillance. If we can see which way she goes, that’ll give us a lead. Kyle, you’re with me. Landon,” Brad sighs, “you know Essie best. Use that. Search her room, sift through past conversations. Have Carson pull those tapes for you. Look, I know Collin gives you shit, but I'm in charge ‘til he gets here. Use your feelings to think through what she’d do, where she’d go.”
“Will do,” I murmur. “I know this. Whatever her plan is, she won’t be able to stay present long enough to accomplish it. This I'm sure of. So either she had help, she was taken, or she’s on the street somewhere.”
