I shook my head, seething inside. “You don’t get it.”
His eyes narrowed to slits. “What don’t I get?”
I leaned my head forward, as far as I could, and said softly, taunting, “I am not like your women. You won’t have to worry what Eight will do to you. I’ll handle you myself. I don’t have the same moral code as your best friend’s cop.” I saw the surprise in his eyes and laughed, an edge to my tone. “Yeah. I did my research, too, dumbass. When you find yourself getting kidnapped one time, you educate yourself on who might do it asecond fucking time. Thanks for that, dickhead. But I knowyour woman, too, and I don’t need to wait for my switch to get flipped like she does. I’ll come out swinging with a gun in one hand and a machete in the other.That’swhoI am.”
The door opened behind him. A sharp command, “Ashton!”
He was quiet until, “Eight?”
I’d messed up. I hadn’t meant to let that slip, but I continued to glare back at him. “I like machetes. I have a favorite back in my room.”
He scoffed before he left.
I went back to finishing the last knot on my left hand. One last tug and the rope fell away. I didn’t need to catch this one. I let it fall because it wouldn’t matter. By the time they’d come back, I wouldn’t be here.
I sprang.
First course of action, I took the chair to the camera, climbed up, and angled the camera so it was looking away. After that, I tried the second door. It was locked. That wasn’t surprising, so I took the chair under the panel, removed it, and began to climb up. Once I was high enough, I nudged the chair aside so it wouldn’t be so obvious I had climbed up. I didn’t want it to fall and make a loud crash, but there was only so much control I had over that. Some things were more important, like getting out of there. When it fell backward on the plastic sheets, which cushioned the fall so it was only a mutedthunk, I said a quick thank-you to the universe.
I put the vent back in place behind me and began crawling. The venting system was big enough for me and sturdy enough so I wasn’t too worried when I heard shouting behind me.
They knew I was gone.
Turning the camera would give me some leeway. I was hoping they’d assume I had gotten through the second door and relocked it before concluding I was in the vents. Yeah, going through the venting system was almost commonplace in movies, but not in real life.
Real life, they’d think about windows and doors first.
I was hoping that would give me enough time to find an exit door for wherever they’d brought me, so I stayed calm and I kept crawling.
As I did, fury and tears began to build up in me.
This was Creighton’s fault.
Again.
I was hearing their shouting underneath me, behind me, ahead of me. They were all over, and here I was, moving my way through whatever type of building this was, and I waslivid.
A tear from frustration slipped down my face, but I wiped it away and kept going because that’s what I did. I kept going. Like always. My throat closed up as emotions were beginning to pile on top of each other.
West and Walden. They weren’t happy with each other right now, but their closeness was there. It was so thick that it was visible. They were family to each other.
I didn’t understand normal families. They were an anomaly to me. Two months ago I was kidnapped, which set off the chain of events that led me back here, but through that situation, I met a family. A real family. Aunts. A mom. Cousins. They loved each other. I could see it in front of my eyes. It was palpable.
I hadn’t understood it then.
I’d heard Palma on the phone with her sisters one night. Shewantedto talk to them. She was laughing and giggling. They talked for over an hour.
That perplexed me.
It was the same with Marshall. I heard him on the phone with his mom the other morning. He laughed at something she said, and I froze. I hadn’t meant to eavesdrop and overhear, but he was in the living room, and I was coming down the stairs to go to the kitchen.
I hadn’t been able to leave. My legs ceased to work, so I sat on the stairs, listening to his entire conversation.
I couldn’t say what they talked about, but I’d been rocked by the love I heard in his voice. It was real and authentic. In his mom’s, too, as I could hear her speaking through his phone. Sheadoredhim.
Those were the types of relationships that I started to think didn’t exist. They were the unicorn relationships.
No one wanted me. It’s why I was in the foster system. I was just a foster kid.
