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She was reeling through a fog of benzodiazepines; I watched it play out from the driver’s seat. Her blood speckled face and wild, roaming gaze were worth the bullet I’d wasted on Penny.
She kept looking around like she’d lost every ounce of wit she’d once possessed, when her gaze crawled toward the van and she began to stumble toward me I got all warm and tingly inside.
Chapter Thirty-Two
A Lamb to Slaughter
Kennedy
That surreal feeling kept coming and going as we traveled the roads between Penny’s house and a property I’d never seen before. There was a house to the left of the driveway he stopped in. The perimeter was littered with rubble and blown-off shingles. The drapes were open, and the walls inside were bare.
Something about the emptiness of the place made me shiver inside. Was I going to end up amongst that rubble, or buried in the woods out back?
“Come on,” Kingston grunted, before slamming his door and jarring me out of my thoughts.
The barn smelled like livestock, and soiled straw. A row of sturdy dog pens lined the back wall. I followed him toward them, my heart dropping a little further toward my stomach with each step.
“Where is he?” I managed, when all I saw was a dark, empty cell.
Kingston snorted, his gaze shifting past me in a way that made me uneasy. When I stumbled with my efforts to turn and investigate, he swung the door open and shoved me into the cage. I didn’t even bother trying to catch myself, I was so stunned by the sight of Roy that nothing could have caught me.
It was a mental and physical free fall.
He was unrestrained and moving around of his own free will. Tears leaked from my eyes as I finally accepted that he had never been my savior.
“I hope you never forget me,” I seethed, and it was true.
I hoped the memory of how low he had stooped, and how wrong he had done me haunted him until his last breath.
“Emergency meeting. Forty wants all hands on deck,” Birdman announced.
Kingston gravitated toward him, leaving me in the cage. Meanwhile, Roy somehow managed to look remorseful, and it made me want to spit. Why was he still trying to keep up his act? Did he really think I was that fucking mindless?
“Get the fuck out of my sight,” I whispered, hoping he could read my lips.
Chapter Thirty-Three
She’s Worth It
Royal
Pain seared across my bloodied back. My shirt stuck to me in places from the dozen cuts and superficial stab wounds my father had gifted me. He’d threatened to kill me, death by a thousand cuts, but she didn’t know that.
And I didn’t dare do anything to tip my hand. I’d convinced them my loyalty belonged to my family, so all I could do was walk out of the barn with them.
We climbed into the van, all three of us and Birdman started it up. The vehicle rolled all of five feet, before it lurched and came to a stop, the engine making a funny noise before it went silent.
“What the fuck?” he mumbled, lifting his hand up to stare at the dash. “Are you fucking kidding me? Your stupid ass didn’t put any gas in before you left town?”
I sighed as Kingston began to shout back at him and all hell broke loose.
“There was a gas can near the barn,” I recalled, but it didn’t stop their fussing.
I hurried to the barn and leaned down, making a good show of raising one can and shaking it, before grabbing another. There were four in total.
“I need you to trust me,” I said, as loudly as I dared. “I know you think I’ve fucked you over, but I need you to believe me. I will not forsake you, Kennedy.”
“Shut the fuck up,” she growled.
