Damian finally lifts his head, his eyes dark and furious.
Bridger exhales, rubbing the back of his neck, his hesitation stretching too long, too thick. Then, finally, he mutters, “We’re looking for our mom.”
The words don’t compute. I blink. What? I stare at him, waiting for him to clarify, to make it make sense, but he just stands there, silent.
I scoff, shaking my head. “Yourmom?”
Bridger doesn’t react.
Something inside me snaps. The frustration, the tension, the goddamnsecrecy, it all boils over, fast and merciless. “Jesus Christ.” A sharp, humorless laugh tears from my throat. “She probably ran away from you. I would.” I gesture between them, my anger spilling out unchecked. “I mean, why wouldn’t she? You’re criminals. You kidnap innocent women. You break into bakeries like fucking idiots—” I throw Damian a glare, my voice dripping with venom. “She’s probably embarrassed as hell.”
The second the words leave my mouth, Damian moves.
No warning. No growl of anger. No razor-sharp retort.
Just a sharp pivot, his boots grinding against the floor as he strides for the door.
And then,boom.
Theentire room shakesas he slams it behind him, the sound like a gunshot, like the crack of a bone.
I flinch, my pulse hammering, breath too fast, too shallow. But I don’t care. I don’t. He wants to be pissed? Let him be pissed. He doesn’t get to be mad at me.
Cody exhales sharply, dragging a hand down his face. “You really don’t know when to shut up, do you?”
I snap my glare to him, my arms crossing tighter, holding myself together. “If no one’s going to tell me anything, then I get to make my own assumptions.”
Bridger watches me for a long second, then shakes his head, muttering under his breath. He drags a chair away from the table and sinks into it, his shoulders slumping under something heavier than exhaustion. When he finally speaks, his voice is quiet. Too quiet. “Our mom has early-onset dementia.”
The room tilts.
I open my mouth, but nothing,nothing, comes out. The words don’t fit. They don’t belong here. They feel wrong, like I misheard, like this is some kind of joke.
Kidnappers don’t have moms.
They don’t have human problems that I would feel bad about. They don’t sit in worn-out chairs, running their hands through their hair, looking like the weight of the world is caving in on them. They don’t speak in voices that sound too raw, too careful, like they’re holding something fragile together with nothing but sheer will.This is a joke.
But Bridger doesn’t laugh. Doesn’t smirk. “She wanders through the house sometimes,” he says, careful, like he’s afraid the words might break apart midair. “But now she’s just fucking gone.”
I look out the window at the wasteland they live in, where coyotes, scorpions, and rattlesnakes slither beneath rocks. And she’s out there. Alone. With dementia. The thought digs into me, sharply. She could be wandering, lost, confused, with nothing but the endless miles of nothing stretching in every direction. No landmarks. No safety. Just the blistering sun by day, the cold dark by night. I swallow hard, but it sticks, lodged deep.
My grandmother had it too: Alzheimer’s. Vick dumped her in a state-run facility before the ink on her diagnosis had even dried. Within three months, she didn’t know my name. I wasnever close with her, though—Vick made sure of that. But I remember how fast the forgetting came, and how Vick stopped visiting after a while.
All the anger I’m holding unravels. I stare at him, my breath caught in my throat, my heartbeat hammering against my ribs like it’s trying to escape.
We have to find her.
Chapter Thirteen
DAMIAN
The heat presses down on me, thick and stifling, but it’s got nothing on the fury curling tight in my chest, simmering just beneath the surface, waiting for the smallest excuse to explode. I rake a hand through my hair, my fingers digging in at my scalp before I drop them, my hands flexing, needing something to hit. I pace the length of the porch, muscles wound so tight I feel like I might snap.
She probably ran away from you.
Marlowe’s voice slams into me, sharp and fucking cruel, like she took a knife and buried it straight into my ribs.
She had the goddamn nerve to say that. Like my mother, mymother, would just up and leave because she was embarrassed of me. Of us. Like she had a choice in any of this. Like I haven’t been up every damn night for weeks, knowing her memory is slipping faster than I can catch it.
