Sure enough, Harper’s location appeared on the map.
Lowering it, I glanced at Hudson, “What?” he shot out, glancing at my phone.
“I need your keys,” I stated, holding my hand out. I couldn’t chance taking the Jeep as the gas light was on.
Hudson shook his head and turned to Molly. “Stay here until Ma gets back. Tell her we think we’ve found her.”
He then strode past me. “You’re in no fit state to get behind a wheel. I’m driving.”
I nodded as we both got into Hudson’s truck.
Hudson fired up the engine and turned to face me.
“Let’s go get our girl.”
Damn straight.
HARPER
A loud noise erupted, followed by angry hissing and bubbling. It sounded like it came from miles away, and I tossed my head to the side, suddenly trapped in that old nightmare I used to have. The one where I was stuck in my house whilst it burned to the ground around my mother and me. The smell of smoke tinged my nostrils as I thrashed against the mattress, attempting to wake myself the hell up.
I’d only closed my eyes for a minute, hadn’t I?
My brain was recalling how I had felt the moment I had pushed the door of my bedroom open, crying for my mother, only to see that part of our house was on fire.
And suddenly I was transported back, reliving that very moment.
Thick black smoke was pouring down the stairs, and the immense heat forced an instant sheen across my skin. Glancing down at my body, I had my Disney princess PJs on. They were my favorite as they had been a present from Daddy for my tenth birthday. And they still fit. Would I ever get big?
“I can’t even look at you,” Phoenix’s angry voice came from above me, somewhere in the ceiling, and I glanced up. It didn’t make sense. It was the night of the fire, that awful time, that I lost my parents. What wasNixdoing there?
And then I heard screaming, the sound of my mother as she burned to death in her bed, and I drifted away again, seeing nothing else but blackness.
White noise…
The distant sound of sirens started to sink into my consciousness.
And then my nightmare became a reality as my eyes shot open and I saw the film of smoke spreading horizontally across the ceiling in all directions.
And I was awake.
What the hell?
Pushing up on my elbows, I glanced around my old room. Shit, I must have fallen asleep, or should I say, cried myself to sleep.
Panic kicked in as I looked around my bedroom at Radcliffe Manor.
It was foolish to go there after my fight with Phoenix, but I just needed somewhere that was familiar to me. I knew they were due to knock it down, but I had just needed one more moment.
Although old and fusty, my bed was the same as I had left it that night. Even the position of the sheets as I had peeled them off my body. It was both haunting and comforting at the same time.
I took a deep breath, maybe the smoke was all in my head, a figment of my twisted imagination, but as I choked, I realized it was real.
Eyeing the fumes, terror pooled into my stomach, and my limbs started to shake.
The house is on fire, again, for real? How long had I been sleeping? I could see daylight through the window, which must have meant I’d been there all night.
I was at Radcliffe Manor, my old home that was due to be demolished. But why were there flames? I could hear noises coming from outside, again sirens, but closer now, and then the sound of machinery. Were they demolishing the building now, with me in it? Surely, they would have checked what was left of the building first? What about squatters or the teenagers I had caught there once? Or maybe my father had come back from hell to finish the job?
