“She’s not missing,” Liam begins, and the machine kicks up to alarming levels.
“No,” I snap, kicking my leg from the bed and pulling wires and tubes from my body. “She can’t be dead!”
“Fuck,” Rowan shouts. “She’s not dead. Stop before you hurt yourself, you goddamn idiot!”
Rowan’s words still me long enough to listen to Liam. “She’s not missing-she left.”
Left? “Why the fuck would she do that?” I growl. This shit doesn’t make any sense.
“Get back in the bed, or this conversation is over,” Rowan’s father instructs as David strides back into the room. Mr. Calloway waves him over.
I reluctantly sit back in the hospital bed and let the nurse insert a new IV line. No one says anything until he finishes and exits the room.
Locking eyes with the Council members, I state, “Somebody better tell me what the hell is going on, or not even the Council will stop me from leaving.”
“I chose Samantha,” Rowan grumbles.
“Chose Samantha for what?” I ask, seeking clarity because there’s no way he means what I think he does.
Rowan moves to stand in front of me before he answers, “For our Chosen.”
I feel my left hand begin to jerk, the imperceptible twitch noticeable only to me. “And why the fuck would you do that exactly?”
Rowan sighs but replies, “It was you or her.” He must notice my confusion because he explains without me having to do anything but flare my nostrils. “I received a message forcing us to choose Samantha or lose you. I chose to save you.”
“But why would Emma leave after knowing that?” I ask.
“She doesn’t know,” Sebastian explains. “It was a stipulation. Rowan had to make her believe we chose Sam, or you’d die. Rowan made the wise decision of saving you.”
A scream burst from my lips, “You fucking chose wrong. You should’ve let me die!”
Before anyone can rebuff me, the room door slides open, and our attention shifts toward the intruder.
“Wonderful. You’re finally awake,” The demon spawn of lip fillers’ saccharine voice claws at my ear drums. Samantha doesn’t wait to be acknowledged before she continues. “Now we can finally begin.”
LIAM
“You can’t disable it?”
We’ve been working for weeks to find some workaround for the damn chip the Senator had implanted in Karl’s arm. When Samantha strolled into the room a month ago, any hopes of finally getting Emma back died with the Senator’s demands. Any hint that we aren’t doing as instructed, and Samantha will activate the chip and kill Karl. Needless to say, no one’s been in the cheeriest of moods, much less up to celebrating. Rowan’s and August’s nineteenth birthdays came and went. Rowan was forced to spend it with Samantha, and August disappeared from town altogether. He’s been doing that more often, and I have a sneaking suspicion as to why.
Her.
As I listen to Colt and Coop, I rub the building tension that hasn’t left the space above my right eye for weeks. “This is a level greater than even we can hack. I can ask on our server. Maybe Q can help,” Colt suggests, and I snort.
“Q isn’t an option.”
The bronze skin of both their foreheads crease as their frosty ice-blue eyes narrow on me through the computer screen.
Fucking twin shit. “Why not? Q’s a beast,” Coop says.
I smirk. “Q’s definitely a beast, but we need a different type of hacker for this. We need someone who not only can get into government systems, which we all can do, but also hack into the chip software, which was created by one of the best tech teams the U.S. can recruit.”
Eshe Solomon is one the brightest biotechnology engineers. She’s responsible for some of the most advanced research and technology in the last two centuries. The chip they’ve implanted in Karl is state-of-the-art tech, and short of Samantha giving up the detonator or us getting our hands on Eshe, we’ll need someone to figure out how to hack this shit.
“Fine, we’ll keep working on our end, but we might need to call in a favor from Lyc?an,” Colt states.
The dull ache above my eyes expands. I don’t want to reach out to them at all. The Lyc?an isn’t a fucking group you call on unless it’s absolutely necessary. “That needs to be our last possible resort,” I state.
They both nod. “We know that. No one wants to ever call in their one favor with the Lyc?an. Shit, they’re like the Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Each one brings some level of destruction you never want to encounter,” Coop huffs.
A knock on my door has me checking my screen.
Karl. “I’ll be in touch soon. Keep working on your end, and I’ll keep working on mine. I’m sure we’ll find a solution between the three of us.” I end the call just as my door opens.
Karl steps into the room, his skin still sallow from the remnants of the bruises that have yet to heal. But it’s not the outward wounds I’m worried about. Karl hasn’t made one attempt to sate his usually bottomless thirst for pain. There have been zero attempts to cut anyone. Shit, he hasn’t been seen with any knife but Lola.
“Hey,” he says, taking a seat next to me. “Find anything?”
“No,” I sigh, “but we’re just getting started. We’ll figure this out.”
Karl looks at a spot on the floor like it has all the answers before turning his hazel gaze on me. The unbridled rage storming in their depths doesn’t match his tone. “And until then, I can’t see her.”
Her. The pained way he says that three-letter word mirrors my own feelings. “No,” I resignedly confirm, recognizing that no is seemingly the only word on repeat in my vocabulary today. “We can’t risk-.”
Karl cuts me off. “I fucking heard you all the first time.
We can’t risk you, Karl,
” he mocks.
“We had to save you, Karl. We’ll get her back as soon as this ends, Karl!”
He abruptly stands, “I don’t want to hear it. You all sound like a broken goddamn record.”
“O-,” I try again, but the look he levels me with silences me. I recognize the vacant stare.
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.