"Nessa. Do you know where it is?"
"We think he left her there," Beckett says from the back. "Tied up. We need to know if you recognize it."
"What is so special about her?" She's not asking either of us. She's asking the windshield, the road, the dark. "What is so special about her that even you—"
"Nessa—"
"Why does everyone want her so badly?" Her voice cracks wide open. "Cody. You. What does she have that—"
"If you know where that place is—"
She spins the wheel.
The car whips through a full 180, tires grabbing, then sliding, then grabbing again, and for one second, the headlights are pointing back the way we came. I have my hand braced against the dash, and Beckett has gone completely silent in the backseat. Then she straightens it out and accelerates again, going the other direction now, going somewhere specific, and neither of us says a word.
She's crying again, but she doesn’t speak until we’re ten minutes down another road.
“I saw you with her,” she says.
“What are you talking about?”
“You took her to Gas Works Park, laid out a blanket, and read a book to her.”
I still. “Did you follow me?”
“I followed her.” She glares at me. “So tell me why my boyfriend and my brother are so fucking obsessed with her? What’s so special about her, Theo?”
I glance at Beckett in the mirror. He looks back at me.
She knows where Adela is.
She's already taking us there.
We just handed the wolf the location of the lamb.
Chapter 52
Adela
Theroadgoesnowhere.
I've been walking for long enough that my feet no longer register the cold of the asphalt the way they did at the beginning, which I understand is not a good sign, and the road stretches out in front of me in both directions. No sidewalk. No lights. Just the dark and the sound of my own breathing and the distant tree line that doesn't get any closer, no matter how long I walk toward it.
One car passed me twenty minutes ago. Maybe thirty. I don't have my phone, so I don't have a clock. The car didn't slow down for me. Didn't even drift to give me space.
I keep walking.
And my mind won't stop replaying Cody's voice. The things he said while I was blindfolded, but especially the last thing he said to me.
I was waiting for you to come out, so I could give you a ride home, Adela.
He wasn't upset that I left him tied to the bed, blindfolded.
Am I making a bigger deal about something than it really is?
I wrap my arms around myself and keep walking.
I think about how this morning started.
