“I didn’t have a choice.”
“There’s always a choice,” I say, my voice rising. “CJ—what did you do?”
Movement flickers in the corner of the room, to my right. I whip my head in that direction, and I start swinging, but it’s not fast enough. My phone slides out of my hand. But my body isn’t moving. Everything happens too fast.
“They said they won’t hurt you,” CJ yells over the chaos. “I told them her real name.” But his attention is on something behind me. His Adam’s apple bobs, and he takes a step back. Then I hear the soft pads of footsteps. The movement to the right was a distraction. The real attack came from behind.
Something sharp pierces my neck. A needle.
My body goes heavy instantly. My vision blurs as I stumble sideways, crashing into the floor. The world tilts, sound stretching and warping. Before the darkness takes hold, I see CJ scramble to his feet and dive on my phone.
Darkness rushes in. My last coherent thought is painfully clear: Alana is going to be so pissed at me.
CHAPTER 37
Alana
Day 13
I wake up to an empty bed. Well, not completely empty. Midge is curled where Grae should have been, but Grae isn’t here. I knock on the bathroom door. Nothing.
A hollow feeling opens in my chest as I search the house. Each room empty, echoing my own solitude. I rush to the kitchen, half hoping he’s down there cooking, but there’s no noise, no smell of butter melting.
There’s a note on the counter. ‘Getting coffee. Be back soon.’ The entire house is on lockdown. What? How? Why? This isn’t the kind of gone where I’m afraid that he’s left me forever again. He didn’t abandon me, and there’s no sign of a break-in. No. He left willingly.
I go to grab my phone from its charging dock, and that’s when I see the messages. None from Grae. But one from a number I recognize from my files.
CJ: They’ve got G—they know you’re Kinsley.
Who’s got Grae? Why would he leave? My stomach twists as I open the next message. My brain slowly processes what I’m looking at, and it makes me sick.
My mother. My father. My brother. Guns to their heads.
There’s Lena in a different location. And Amanda, also somewhere else. Then Grae, looking up into the camera with an ‘I’m so fucking sorry’ expression in his eyes. More messages follow.
Unknown number: I have them. Who are you going to save?
I have no one. All my allies are gone. They’ve scattered across the area because I told them to. I have nothing. This is my fault. Or… I only have one option. And I’ve never had to use it.
Not until now.
I open my phone to a group chat, and I type the one word I swore I would never say.
Help.
CHAPTER 38
Grae
Day 13
He takes my picture.
He’s an unimpressive, squirrely little piece-of-shit man. He literally has a mark on his hand shaped like a dick. I think it’s a birthmark, but it could be his villain-origin story. Nothing about him seems menacing. Honestly, that’s probably intentional. He looks as harmless as possible as he chuckles.
“I couldn’t fight Alana, so I had to fight Kinsley.” He says this like it’s his foolproof endgame. Like he’s looked at all the options and run all the algorithms. He’s so smug my stomach drops.
“Wait,” I say. “Wait, wait, wait. You want to fight Kinsley?”