“It’s not what you think,” the old man groaned, wincing as he shifted on the ground.
“You’re in a cabin with a little girl,” I snapped. “Why don’t you tell us exactly what it is.”
“You have to leave,” the old man whispered. “Take the girl and leave. Now.”
Something was very wrong here. Why would he kidnap the girl, only to try to save her?
I got my answer seconds later when Cassie cried out behind me.
The sounds of terror ripping from her throat had me spinning around, gun raised. Confusion swirled in my mind as I took in the woman who held Cassie to her.
The look of sheer anguish on the woman’s face as she held a knife to Cassie’s throat almost had me pulling the trigger. Shoot first, ask questionslater. But that knife was already drawing blood from Cassie’s neck, and if the woman fell back, she’d cut Cassie’s throat.
“Who are you? What do you want?” I shouted.
“She’s mine,” the woman cried, tears streaming down her face. “You can’t have her.”
The woman was insane. She appeared somewhat normal—clean clothes and her hair pulled back in a frizzy bun—but that’s where the sanity ended. I could see it in her eyes. Not necessarily evil, but deep confusion and need. She was not okay, and as long as Cassie was in her grip, that little girl didn’t stand a chance.
“She’s not yours,” I said gently. “This is Cassie. She has a mother—someone who loves her very much.”
“I love her!” the woman shouted. “Don’t you understand? She was meant to be mine!” The woman’s face crinkled as she broke down in tears. “They were all meant to be mine.”
There was only one girl who went missing twenty-five years ago, so what was she talking about?
“Grace,” old man Callahan said from behind me. I shifted slightly, needing to keep an eye on both of them. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched as he got to his feet, his hands gently raised as he spoke softly. “She’s not yours, honey.”
“She is!” the woman screamed. “You can’t have her!”
“Sweetie, this little girl belongs to someone. Look at her.”
Very slowly, the woman shifted her gaze to the little girl in her arms.
“She doesn’t look anything like Jim or you. This is not Annabelle.”
The woman’s eyes filled with tears as she looked back at John. I tensed as she tightened her grip on the knife, pulling Cassie closer. I purposely kept my eyes off Cassie, worried that if I looked at her, I wouldn’t be able to look away when it mattered most.
“She’s…mine.”
“She’s not, honey. This is not your Annabelle. You have to let her go.”
The woman looked down at her captive, her head shaking furiously with every moment that passed. “No. No! She’s mine! I won’t let you?—”
A gunshot ripped through the night, and a single hole appeared in the center of the woman’s head. For a split second, she was suspended in the air, her eyes staring sightlessly in the distance.
I leapt forward just as the woman and Cassie started to fall backward. My fingers wrapped around the woman’s hand, and I tore her hand free fromwhere it was pressed to Cassie’s neck. The three of us crashed to the ground, but only two of us came out alive.
Rolling over, I pulled Cassie with me, away from the woman’s dead body. She clung to me, crying hysterically as I stared at the woman with the hole in her head.
Raising my eyes, I saw Parker standing in the doorway of the cabin, his gun still gripped tight in his hands, but his eyes were locked on me.
“Parker,” I whispered.
His eyes flicked to Wes, checking him quickly before he rushed across the room, dropping to his knees beside me. He let out a shaky breath, then his lips were on mine, pulling me from the little girl as he crushed me to his chest.
“Don’t ever fucking do that again,” he murmured against my lips.
“Language,” I whispered, kissing him again.
