My hands let her go, and she rolled on her side, a giant, bloody hole visible in the back of her head.
I stumbled back as if I’d seen it for the first time. As if I didn’t feel relieved the day she ended her miserable life.
Suddenly, it all came back to me, how I hated her even more that day, how I’d never shed a tear over her loss. Unlike Dad, she had seen no wars. She hadn’t had to kill people or watch her friends die or feel the fear of losing her life any fucking second.
She had no excuse.
The pathetic note she’d left after the police wouldn’t look for Annie anymore said she couldn’t stand the guilt of losing her. Guilt my ass. If she’d had any conscience, she wouldn’t have neglected her little daughter and never noticed she was taken until the next fucking day. She wouldn’t have left her other daughter alone in this life drowning in all that pain and grief. Sylvia had taken the coward’s way out. Even at our darkest hour, she wouldn’t stick around. I wished she’d lived to suffer the loss of her own daughter.
Like I should.
I’d left Annie, too. Her blood was on my hands like on Roar’s and Sylvia’s and Dusty’s and Dad’s. We all killed her, and we all had to pay for it one way or another.
I searched for Annie and Dad, but they’d disappeared. The backyard went dark, and I found myself in the bunker. Dusty was still there as I left him, shackled with a collar around his neck. He couldn’t see or hear me.
Dusty? Dusty, please, talk to me. Why can’t you see me?I touched him, but he didn’t move.
“Dusty…”
Heat woke me up. I blinked at the early sun rays. The salty taste of my tears drifted in my mouth, mixing with vomit residue. Shooting pain hit me all at once. I tried to move my hands, but blood seemed to have left my entire arms. My feet weren’t any luckier.
I arched my back, yanking my butt an inch away from the trunk. “Oh God.” I bit my lip in pain. It felt like that tree dug a place inside my flesh and mashed with it. If I lived, I’d have bark marks on my backside forever.
A burning sensation spread through my vagina, and the dreadful memory punched me in the gut. That was when I noticed I wasn’t alone.
“Had a nice sleep?” Dusty’s mother, sitting in one of the beach chairs, was looking at me as if wondering how I could have slept when all this mess was going on.
How long had she been there? And why didn’t she put out a cigarette in my chest to wake me up or something?
When I didn’t answer, she rose and stood, facing me. “I’m Beth, by the way.”
I hope you rot in hell, Beth.Scratchy and hoarse, my voice disobeyed me. My tongue felt like parchment. I was thirsty, and all the vomiting and screaming made it way worse.
“Don’t be so cold, bitch. I’ve just told you my first name. Do you have any idea what the means?”
I’d studied MCs and their fucking codes for months so I did know what she was trying to do, but I played dumb.
“It means I’m risking my ass for you here to earn your fucking trust,” she explained. “We never reveal our first names to strangers.”
“And to what do I owe the fucking honor?” I slurred painfully.
She sighed. “I know you don’t like me so much, but right now I’m your only friend.” She leaned in to whisper in my ear. “The only one who can get you outta here.”
Her smell nauseated me. Would my stomach flip again? I hoped it would.
“I’ll help you, Cameron,” she whispered.
“Help me?”
“Yes. I’ll get you outta here in one piece. I can even help you leave the country and disappear.” She pulled back and stared at me. “All you have to do is give me my boy back.”
I sneered. “Let’s say I’m too stupid to believe you, you really think I care about my life anymore?”
“You must. You don’t know what he’s going to do to you.”
“Well,Beth, tell your monster to bring it, and…yeah…go fuck yourself.”
She looked at me like a lioness about to pounce on its prey. But she didn’t. “Fine. I have a better offer for you.”