“At what cost?”
“Your own life.”
He picked up a wired, brown helmet, reminding me of Medusa. The wires connected back to the box. A cold sweat beaded on my forehead as he carried it to me. And that was it. I lost it. Like an animal, I unhinged, started screaming, crying, pleading. My voice wasn’t mine, I was no longer me. I was a woman about to die.
As he tried to secure the helmet to my head, I bucked, fought the binds like a rabid beast.
He punched me in the face.
I stilled, dazed, bile rising to my throat for the third time.
The helmet clicked into place. “It’s you or her, Rose,” he whispered, a low hissing like a snake. “You die, or June dies. It’s your decision.”
He stepped back to the machine, one hand poised over the dial like some game show host waiting for the audience to vote.
“Tell me, Rose,” he said. “Will your survival instinct overcome, or will the guilt you’ve carried for twenty years kill you? It’s your decision. You or June. Save her, or kill her.”
I couldn’t breathe.
I couldn’t move.
The light bulbs swung slightly above my head, castingflickers of shadow across the walls like the room itself was watching. Judging.
Outside, thunder cracked.
Inside, Theo smiled.
“It’s time to decide.”
42
PHOENIX
“Forget Kline and Associates, I’m going to need backup at thirteen-sixteen Sycamore,” I yelled into the phone, nearly deafened by the roar of hail pounding the roof of Gage’s truck.
Rustling and sirens crackled through Jagg’s end of the line. The chaos of whatever roadside nightmare he was handling painted a clear picture—hell was breaking loose across the county.
“Where are you now?” he shouted.
I glanced at the GPS, my pulse thrumming in my neck. “Heading east on Highway Twelve.”
“What’s the address again?”
I rattled it off through gritted teeth, barely hearing my own voice over the thrum of hail and screaming wind.
“I’ll be there as fast as I can,” he said.
I hung up and hurled the phone at the dash, my hands shaking as I looked over at Gage. “Dammit, Gage. Faster.”
He didn’t answer. He just pressed harder on the gas, his focus razor-sharp, guiding the truck through a storm that had driven every other car to the shoulder. It was likeplowing blind through a war zone. We couldn’t see more than a few feet past the hood. Lightning spiderwebbed across the windshield, a jagged streak slamming down just ahead of us with a ground-shaking pop that lit the sky like a battlefield flare.
Another hit—a fist-sized ball of hail cracked the glass. A second and third followed, spidering the corner of the windshield.
“Shit,” I muttered, heart pounding. “If one more hits like that?—”
“This is the biggest hail I’ve ever seen,” Gage muttered, gripping the wheel so tight his knuckles were bone white. “This is bad, Feen. Tornado-level bad.”
“Here,” I said, spotting the turn on the GPS. “Snakepit Road. Take it—it cuts through the mountain.”
