My parents might be inflexible when it comes to what they believe is the correct path to a good life, but I was always safe. Quick punishments followed by moving on like nothing had happened was the way my family worked. I hadn’t needed to survive years of psychological and physical warfare.
They have.
So, I settle into doing the few things I can do to help. I make sure we have two solid meals available every day, even if I can hardly get Clara to eat any of it. I help RJ sift through the hours and hours of security footage he’s collected looking for a hint of where Mattie and Bryce could be. After a visit with the PI on the street, I convince him to reach out to Trips’ dad, and he gets called off, just like I thought he would.
The man knows exactly where we are, and that we’ve done whatever we set out to do. With no loyal soldiers to bringTrips and Clara back, he’s just going to have to live with them staying exactly where they should be: at home, with us.
At night, I hold Clara or just touch her if she’s settled between RJ and Jansen, needing her to know that I’m here for her.
But when the silence gets to be too much, I continue to work on my mural, every wall of my room now swathed in angry colors with hints of hope glimmering on the ceiling.
I get why Michelangelo didn’t want to paint the Sistine Chapel—it’s horribly uncomfortable. But it’s the only safe place I can put my grief and anger.
I can’t point it at Trips, not when he’s already suffered so much. I can’t point it at his father, as the man isn’t here. And there’s no way I could ever point it at Clara, for all this was her plan. She’s suffered more than enough; her screams in the night and her silent tears leaking during the day are more torturous than I can stand.
So I paint, and I fume, the icy air from my open window the only reprieve I have from the fury I’m carrying.
But I don’t know how long I can continue this way. I don’t know how long any of us can. The cracks are showing, but no amount of paint will ever be structural.
Chapter 66
RJ
Ithought I was done spending every waking moment in front of my monitors, but it turns out that when things go to shit, I’m the only clean-up person available. Mostly.
Walker’s helping, and I’m grateful, but with so many places to look for Mattie, it’s all but impossible to wade through every lead.
So I’ve reverted to my origins—online stalking.
I dig up every friend of Mattie’s I can find, then go about getting access to their phones. Some happily open my link to the worm that lets me in, while others require Jansen to detach himself from Clara and go do some real work. Between his fatigue and his separation anxiety, he’s driving me crazy, but Clara doesn’t seem to mind.
Instead, she zones out with her head in his lap, staring at nothing while tears leak over her pale cheeks. I just want tofind Mattie so I can be there for Clara. So she can come back to me.
I want to hold her, wipe her tears, stroke my fingers through her hair, God, all of that. She might be out of that prison of a mansion, but she’s still locked away from me, and I hate it. I hate everything about how things went down.
I will never forgive myself for setting off the blanks that got her father shot and killed but were at least distracting enough for the shot to go wide, keeping my girl alive.
More than a year ago, I told her healing takes time. It does. But watching her in this frozen state is torture, one that I’m so grateful I get to see while wishing it away at the same time. The most alive she seems is when Fluffington sprawls across her torso and demands she pet him.
She’s not eating, not sleeping, not moving or smiling or laughing. She’s a shell, and I can’t fill her up with what I have at my disposal. My kisses can’t mend what’s broken, nor Jansen’s touch, Walker’s feasts, or Trips’ constant guard. So I do what I can to save another girl, not mine, to put an end to a hellish chapter of our story.
Bryce needs to be dealt with once and for all.
But first, I need to find him.
Chapter 67
Clara
The sky is dark, but I’m pretty sure it’s still morning. Time is tough right now—whenever I dare pay attention to it, it reminds me that my dad doesn’t have any more of it. No more minutes or seconds, no more breaths or heartbeats. No more dad hugs or telling me how proud he is of me.
The shock of it steals my breath, and once I think it, I can’t stop. It plays over and over again in my mind, like the worst movie I can’t seem to turn off. His eyes were so serious as he fell on top of me, but they’d softened as he held onto me. His weight had pinned me to the ground while the metallic stench of his blood seeped into yet another carpet in that damn office, my dress first slick, then sticky with it.
He wore a weak smile as he gave his last breath. Then came the shock. The way my hands shook as the paramedic tried to take me from the room while I screamed at him to help my dad. Falk, bumping into me as unfamiliar cops dragged himout in handcuffs. The regret strung across his face finally let it sink in.
My dad was gone.
My dad is gone.
