And my brain crushes down on that thought so hard it’s like a physical cramp.
“It’s okay,” Mum says in the soothing voice she uses when I’m ill. “Let’s just open the door and see what we’re dealing with, okay?”
What if I abducted her and left her handcuffed to the bed because I didn’t want her to run away?
But there were deep bruises on her throat. Scratch marks.
You like holding girls by the throat. You did it to Em outside the pawn shop. Maybe you did it again?
I clutch my mother’s shoulder, trying to stop her moving. My senses are all on high alert. The world heading towards me in slow motion right now but gearing up to get faster, to crash straight into me.
She takes the keys from my pocket, leaning me against the alcove wall while she fiddles with the lock, sliding them home.
I can feel the pulse beating in my neck as she swings the door inwards, then helps me cross the threshold. Even from this close to the door, I can see straight into the bedroom. I can see Em isn’t where I left her.
Dread drips down my body as I shuffle into the room, checking on the far side of the bed to check she didn’t manage a contortionist act and fall down there.
Nothing. Just the dents on the mattress where she was, and the fluffy handcuffs tossed aside like an afterthought.
“What’s wrong?” my mother asks as I stagger backward, straightening when my back hits the wall. There isn’t time to be this weak-arse version of myself. I need to get things together and work out where she could have gone.
Another thought spears me and I run through to the bathroom, my physical limitations forgotten as the terrifying idea penetrates my mind, spewing up a montage of horrifying images.
For a second, I flash on Em’s dead body, the neat hole just slightly off-centre in her forehead. Then I blink and it resolves into Robbie, then disappears as I blink again and force myself to see, really see what’s in front of me.
An empty room. A cupboard door sitting slightly ajar, catching on a cord instead of closing snug.
I pull it wide and stare into the shelves, noticing more what’s missing than what’s there. The gun. The bullets.
There’s an empty box in the rubbish—one that used to hold a magazine.
Self-protection? Whose stupid fucking idea was that?
Em’s gone. She’s armed herself and she’s gone.
I stare at the floor, dialling my mother’s concerned questions down to the lowest volume setting while I think through the options.
If she wanted to kill herself, she could just as easily have done it here as anywhere.
Em and a loaded gun.
Ten points for guessing who else in the city might deserve a bullet from her right now.
I turn back, grabbing for my mother’s shoulder when reality pays a visit to my injured body and reminds it that it’s in no fit state. I cling to her, desperate to drive, to reach Em, to help my girl if it’s not already too late.
CHAPTERTWENTY-EIGHT
EM
It’s hard to hold on to my thoughts, they whirl too quickly for me to explore them. A surface appraisal would be they’re all bad. A second glance at some options just confirms that opinion.
It was late afternoon when I was escorted from the hideout. When Stefan bundles me into his car for the second time, it’s night.
My mind buzzes with worry for Caylon. Scared the call his boss received was to say he was hurt or worse.
When the fear grows too large, I cease thinking altogether. My mind turns into a white blizzard of terror.
It holds that way throughout the short drive and after the car comes to a halt inside Wilbur’s garage, I stay seated. My hand snakes up my throat, curling around the area where the bruising still hurts. I close my eyes, not sure if my rising panic is because of what Wilbur drove me to do or because I failed.
