Rissa only hesitated a second before she took off, dragging Olive by her collar, both of them looking over their shoulders at Dad with sickened expressions.
The blue one caught Dad’s frying pan in one big hand.
If the cheap metal bothered him, he didn’t show it.
Calmly, the other fae moved to the table where Rissa had last signed the paper. She touched it.
The paper glowed softly.
With that one touch, she ripped the fight out of them.
Dad let go of the frying pan, hands falling limply to his sides. But the worst part was the way his face went slack, like the lights had turned off.
A few seconds later, Rissa and Olive shuffled back into the kitchen with their jackets half zipped and boots thrown on, laces untied. Though tears left tracks across their cheeks, their eyes were dry. Blank. Just like Dad’s.
“Make sure to cover our tracks,” the pale one said to the blue hulk, turning to the back door. “And get more creative while you’re at it. It needs to be something different than the last few times or the humans will get suspicious.”
I ducked before she saw me in the window and threw myself off the steps, landing by the corner of the house and rolling around it as if I were in a clumsy spy movie. I barely made it out of sight before the door swung open.
Breathing hard, I caught the air in my lungs and refused to let it out.
If they discovered me—well, I didn’t honestly know what they’d do, but I didn’t want to find out.
They’d clearly come for our whole family. That explained why I’d had so much trouble tracking down family members of people who’d been taken before. Dad had never gotten a chance to tell them about me though. They didn’t know I existed. Which meant I had an advantage.
Slipping my beat-up phone from my coat pocket, I tried to call 911, desperately hoping the word vomit issue wouldn’t apply this time since their contract seemed different than Mom’s.
The nine worked fine, but the cracks across the top left corner had spread so far that no matter how many times and ways I tapped the screen, the one wouldn’t dial.
My eyes swung wildly about the yard, searching for a weapon.
Nothing.
Not even a shovel for the sidewalk, because none of us had gotten around to doing it yet.
Gritting my teeth, I pressed into the shadows along the side of the house, careful not to let them see me as they passed by.
They trailed out the back door single file, following the fae female toward the woods.
Dad, Rissa, and Olive didn’t say a word.
They moved after her like obedient zombies, and a second later, the big blue one shut the back door with a quiet click and brought up the tail.
It was an exact repeat of Mom’s kidnapping.
Except this time, a crazy plan formed.
