Something was wrong.
What if this message wasn’t really from Beckett? Worse, what if they’d somehow grabbed him like they’d grabbed Dad? What if, even right now, he was waiting for a dose of naloxone to save his life?
I pressed a hand to my stomach, doubts and indecision warring with my first instinct to race to the barn to find him. To help him. I could be walking into a trap. But if Beckett was at the barn, lying on the ground, drugged… I had to go. There was a med kit at the hotel. I could save Beckett’s life and call for help.
Saving him was all that mattered.
Saving him but also making sure we had help on the way.
I put a hand on Chuck’s arm. “Can you do me a favor? Find one of Wylee’s deputies and tell them to meet me at the barn.”
Chuck’s eyebrows lifted. “You okay? You need me to come with you?”
“No.” I shook my head violently. “What I need you to do is find an officer to come to the barn.”
He took off at a dead run, and I slid into the driver’s seat of the nearest golf cart, hands trembling as I turned the key while Vader leaped up next to me.
The cart’s headlights barely made a dent in the dark as I headed back up the hill to the main buildings. A partial moon shone over the fields andtrees, turning the landscape into a weird panorama of shadows and light. The hot day hadn’t quite rid the earth of the damp from the storm, and the air smelled of both.
As I pulled the golf cart into a slot by the barn, the quiet of the hotel and outbuildings felt eerie. Almost like it had felt when I’d approached the watchtower yesterday. Like a horror movie on repeat—one nearing the climax. A shiver went up my spine in the silence.
The fancy lanterns on the outside of the barn made triangular, yellow shapes on the ground, broken by the shadows Vader and I cast as we approached.
Only one of the large barn doors was open, and I hesitated at the entrance. My instincts were screaming at me to run, but my head and heart weren’t listening.
Beckett was here, and he might need me.
But Vader hadn’t gone running inside to greet Beckett like he would have if he’d smelled him. Instead, the dog was pressed up against my leg, and the fur at the scruff of his neck was raised. My entire body trembled as I called Beckett’s name. I got nothing in return but the quiet greetings of the horses. Soft nickers and snorts. Sounds that should have been reassuring but weren’t.
I looked down the road toward the lake and up the other way to the castle. Should I wait for whoever Chuck grabbed? My nerves tightened more, fear traveling along them. I’d promised Beckett I’d stay at the grandstands. That I wouldn’t go anywhere alone, and yet here I was…alone.
Stupid, Maisey. You’re so stupid.The hissed taunt from my past almost felt real.
A noise hit me. A quiet groan followed by the rustle of movement in the hay.
Beckett!
My feet flew toward the sound.
Behind me, Vader yelped in pain, and I whirled around to see him lying on his side in a stall just as a blond-haired woman I didn’t recognize slammed the door shut. Fury bled through me. At him being hurt. At this person, who I didn’t know, coming after me and my loved ones.
“Don’t you dare hurt him!” I raged, stepping toward her.
The scraping of shoes behind me screamed a warning, but I had no time to react. Strong hands grabbed my arms, twisting them backward. The brutal force shot pain through my shoulders, and I cried out just as a firework exploded.
The horses whinnied nervously, pawing at the ground uneasily.
“Stupid choices, Cornlette.” My sister’s voice came from a face I didn’t recognize. The woman reached up and pulled a silicone mask, hair and all, from her head, revealing the person I’d grown up thinking was beautiful. Chelsea dropped the mask at her feet and pulled pins from her hair before brushing it out with steady hands.
“You’ve made a series of stupid choices in the last two weeks.” My sister’s voice was cold. Detached. “Why in the hell did you decidethiswas the time to leave your saintly obedience behind? Why didn’t you just do what you were told and leave?”
It was hopeless to talk to Chelsea when she was like this. For twenty-six years, she’d always walked away the winner of our arguments. But perhaps I could talk some sense into Gavin.
I twisted, desperate to catch his eye, but pain lanced through my shoulders at the movement. My captor yanked my already strained joints higher just as a familiar, overpowering cologne hit me.
By the time I caught sight of him, the shocked acknowledgment was already ripping from me, “You!”
“Hello, metal breath.” Carter’s sneer matched the feverish mania gleaming in his eyes.