“Yeah,” I told Reed.
The air sat heavy around me as a moment of silence stretched out between us.
“The guy didn’t have any idea where to find Lipton?”
“No. And I believe he didn’t know much. He wasn’t the one running the team.” I blew out a long breath. “He pretty much shut his mouth and accepted his fate.” Saying it like that made a knot form in my stomach. I was never eager to kill or hurt anyone, and when I had no other choice, it stayed with me long after.
“Doyou… know where he might be?” Reed asked, the hesitation in his voice ringing out like an alarm. But I wasn’t mad at him for asking. I knew he wasn’t accusing me of anything.
His question gave me pause.
Did I?
Lipton had been fooling me for years, but that didn’t mean I was clueless about him.
I’d been to his house. I knew his family. I knew his hobbies. I knew his habits.
Shit, why hadn’t I thought about it before?
“You don’t think he’d be somewhere that I know about?” I asked back because I couldn’t believe it would be that easy. The fucker couldn’t have been hiding right under my nose while I was running for my life, could he?
“You tell me,” Reed said.
I was silent for a long time.
“Listen,” he cut in, clearly taking the silence for what it was— confusion and exhaustion, “you head to the safe house. Some of the team and I will meet you out there. I’ll bring Dune to look over the two of you just to be on the safe side, and we’ll figure this out.”
“Yeah,” I said, voice a bit raspy. I was choked up with too many emotions.
I was angry about being betrayed by someone I thought was like family to me. But here I had Reed, ready to have my back even when I didn’t expect him to. Looking out for me as well as his team. He was more like family than Lipton had ever been. Reed wouldn’t ever lie to me. He was truly a good person.
“Thanks,” I said. “Send me the address.”
“Will do. See you soon,” he said and ended the call.
I sighed as I sagged back in the seat. Both hands still had a death grip on the wheel, and I didn’t see that changing anytime soon.
My mind spun. I was leaving behind a burning house and a bunch of bodies. Likely mercenaries, but still. With the recent snow, I was almost positive the fire would be contained to the house, and once it burned itself out, that would be it.
All we had was what I’d raided off the dead people, which hadn’t been much. They must have not been the type to used debit cards because I had gotten a little over three hundred dollars in cash off them. I’d also found an opened pack of gum. Not to mention all the weapons. Taking their stuff felt like a really shitty thing to do, but I had no damn choice. I hoped that when Austin woke up and found out what I did, he wouldn’t hate me. I was reaching new lows being on the run. Nothing was making me think otherwise. Not even when I reminded myself they were horrible human beings, and tried to convince myself that they’d probably killed more people than we had tonight.
Could I ever come back from this?
I reached the end of the dirt road and stopped. I had no idea which direction I was going.
I didn’t really want to use the phone, especially not for directions. Did I think Austin wasn’t trustworthy? No. I trusted him. But there was a little nagging voice in the back of my head whispering that this was bigger than a backup phone. The weight of it and all the unanswered questions hung thick in the air.
My eyes cut across the space, taking in Austin’s limp form. His head was against the window, hands in his lap where I’d put them after I’d buckled him in.
I couldn’t resist the urge to brush the hair off of his forehead. Yeah, it was just an excuse to touch him. It was stupid and silly, but at this point, I didn’t care. Things might change completely when he woke up— when I got some answers. I didn’t want them to, but there was this thing hanging over us and I wouldn’t be able to move forward until I knew why he had this phone.
With a hard sigh, I checked the text Reed had sent, then typed the address in to get directions.
Turn left.
All I had to do was turn left.
Just one turn.
