Something was definitely wrong. Ice filled my veins, freezing the remaining alcohol and making it possible for me to think.
“What’s going on?” Link asked.
I couldn’t worry about him right now. I held up a finger.
“Yes,” I said into the phone. “You told me doing the right thing sometimes hurts someone you love, but at the end of the day you need to be able to look yourself in the mirror and know you were true to yourself.”
“I need you to promise me you’re still that little girl.”
“Why, Grandma? What’s happening?” An overwhelming sense of dread stung my eyes.
Link sat closer, wrapping his arm around my waist.
“What are you telling her?” a male voice I didn’t recognize asked from the other side of the phone.
“Grandma? Who’s there with you?”
“Promise me, Emily.”
“Cut that shit out and say what the boss told you to say,” the man growled.
“I love you, sweet girl. There hasn’t been a day in your life that I wasn’t proud of you. Your parents would be so amazed at the woman you’ve beco—”
There was a loud smack. Grandma cried out, but the sound was immediately muffled.
My heart lurched into my throat. “Grandma!” I shouted. I listened, but couldn’t hear her at all. “Grandma!”
“Calm down,” the unfamiliar man said. “That old bitch is just fine. Despite the trouble she’s caused me, she’ll stay that way as long as you do what you were told to do. If not, you’ll never see her again.”
The phone clicked off.
Shocked, I stared at it.
“Em? What did she say? I need you to tell me everything.”
Link’s arm anchored me to him. To life. How much had he heard? I couldn’t say it aloud, because that would make it far too real.
Grandma.
What had she said? The phone call replayed in my mind. The smacking noise made my stomach roil. Had he hit my grandmother? Some asshole had taken my grandmother and hit her?
It was too much. I sprang from the bed and started pacing. How dare he! It had to be someone the mayor sent. I’d find him and I’d… I’d…
“Em.”
Link stood in front of me, his hands on either side, blocking me from moving.
“Listen. We’re going to find her, so I need you to tell me exactly what she said.”
“I think that bastard hit her.”
Link rubbed my arms. “I know. We’ll make him pay, I swear. But right now I need you to focus, sweetheart. What did they say?”
Barely keeping it together, I relayed the entire conversation. As I’d suspected, saying it out loud made it sink in. Some unknown man had my grandma and had threatened her life.
“She is in her seventies. What sort of monster would drag her into this? I’ve been so careful with her. Nobody but Jayson even knows where she lives.” More ice filled my veins. “Shit. Jay.”
“Call him,” Link said, handing me my phone.
