His mouth pops open. “Me?”
“Yes. If you can figure out where he’s heading, that’s likely where I am going too.”
“You’re leaving?”
“I have to.”
“Hunter will kill me.”
A humorless laugh escapes me. “No, but he might kill me.”
My phone rings this time, and I scowl at the caller ID. I reject it. “Out, Carlson. The longer you sit here like a gaping fish, the longer Hunter is in the dark.”
He practically falls out of the truck but has to try closing the door twice before he finally gets it to latch. I connect my phone to the truck and punch in the address for Green Hay. My stomach sours. Twenty-six minutes away.Hold on, Steph, I’m coming for you.I catch his panic-stricken eyes with my own deadened gaze, nodding once sharply before leaving Carlson stranded in the parking lot.
My phone rings twice more with the call forwarding, and with each rejection, the tightness in my chest increases until I’m struggling to breathe. The next call is the one I’m waiting for.
“Tell me,” Fox says, full-on military mode activated. He is aware of the danger. He knows what this means.
“Jonathan is holding Hunter’s sister hostage unless I go to him.”
“And he agreed to let you walk into your own death?”
Death would be a mercy. “He doesn’t know,” I whisper. My breath catches in my chest, and I turn off the woman I’ve become over the past few weeks. I don’t need Happy, Full of Life Eleanor, I need the Ghost. I need the shell I used to be, wearing the robotic armor I donned for years. It’s my only chance. I give him the rundown of where we are and what happened, my foot pushing harder and harder on the gas.
“Right, so that was five minutes ago, meaning you are, what, twenty minutes out? But King’s an hour from even being contactable?”
“That’s right.”
“Make this make fucking sense, Ghost.”
“He won’t kill me. Not right away. You have time, and he is arrogant enough to consider himself untouchable. Follow the evidence, follow the tracker, but don’t come for me if you aren’t one hundred percent sure you can do so safely.”
“King will murder us both,” Fox groans. “You know that, right?”
“Why would he kill you?”
“Because I failed in talking you out of this stupid-ass plan to throw yourself at the mercy of a fucking monster.”
A slow smile stretches across my face, and I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror as I parrot Hunter’s words. “Some people are made to hunt, and some are made to be hunted. He thinks he knows which I am, but he’s wrong.”
“Ghost?” Honor’s soft voice puts a crack in my shell. “It’s my turn to pick the damn movie, and you will be sitting throughLove Actuallythis Friday because you promised after making me watch the remake of It.”
My heart squeezes in my chest, and I send a desperate plea to whatever deity is listening that I make it out of this. For the first time ever, I want to.
“Deal.”
My phone lights up again, and a cold, calm fury settles over my bones. Time for the devil to meet the monster he made.
Chapter Forty-Seven
Eleanor
Best laid plans go to shit in a second.
Time is a constant, an immovable measurement unable to be manipulated or cheated. But with time, comes change. Sometimes slow, like the noose that has been tightening around my neck since I left my mother in those woods, and sometimes it’s fast, like the shift in my heart already filled with Hunter’s light and love. Both have a profound effect, and yet, as I pull up to the entrance of Green Hay to face my demons, I know Hunter’s love will, no matter the outcome, always fill my soul. I cling to it underneath the shell of ice I surround myself with, desperate to hang on to the woman I’ve become.
Jonathan shoves Steph out of the front door the moment Hunter’s truck barrels through the gates. Unlike movie villains, he doesn’t bother with drawn-out showdowns or gloating monologues. He’s too impatient, too stubborn in his belief that his word is law. Sunlight catches on their faces, and myimagination paints his skin red and adds horns to the top of his head.
