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No. "Savannah?" Cash says. And when I open my eyes, he's already callin' her. Already got the phone to his ear. "Savannah, pick up the fucking phone. I need you to text me, or call me…"

He ends the call.

I can't think about Savannah. Not yet. Not yet.

Cash comes back down the ladder. "Mercy," I growl. "Where the fuck did he put her?"

He holds out the note. "That's it. This is all he left."

She's dead, Legion. She's dead. She's already in the dirt. Maggots⁠—

"No! No! This is not happening. He doesn't get to ruin everything."

Cash is sweepin' his flashlight around the silo again. "There's got to be another clue. There has to be."

But he's wrong.

There doesn't have to be.

Marcus isn't that kind of man. He's not gonna give anything away. He's not gonna miss the opportunity to destroy me. That man violates little boys. He doesn't give a single fuck about a nine-year-old girl.

And if she's dead, he probably⁠—

Don't. Don't think that. You cannot think that.

"Give me your phone," Cash says, hand reaching out.

"What?" I ask.

"Just give it to me. Let's read the first clue again."

"Why? It led here. Right where he wanted us to be. This note is proof."

"Yeah, but haven't you noticed that Marcus is the kind of guy who says things in code?"

I just look at him. "What?"

"He says things like… like… when he wanted me to help him kidnap Savannah. He said, Your sister isn't well."

I stare at him.

"He never said take her. Never said lock her up. He said she was having an episode. That she hadn't been herself since you got out. That you'd been working on her since she was fifteen, and she was too close to see it." Cash's jaw works. "He had some specialist in Denver. Said it was a dependency. Like you were a drug and she needed to dry out."

"And you bought that."

"I bought it 'cause it sounded like help. He said she needed quiet. Somewhere safe, where you couldn't get to her. He said, We just need to give her some space to remember who she is."

Space? She spent three days zip-tied to a bed in a cabin that was turned into a Little Ashby Princess shrine.

"'I need time,' he told me. To work the outlaw out of her mind. Those were his words. He never mentioned drugging her, obviously. But that's what he meant."

"And me?"

Cash doesn't flinch. I'll give him that much. "He said someone needed to remind you of your place. That's all. Remind you. He didn't tell anyone to beat you half to death."

He holds his hand out again.

"He never says the real thing, Legion. He says the thing that sounds like it, and he lets you fill in the rest yourself. So you tell me what you filled in."