I’m never, never going to be free
Until I die,
Or they capture me.
I’m not sure what ending’s worse.
Chapter 2
Ayden
Four hours later, I’m in the police station with Lila and Ethan, waiting for Detective Rannali—the person working my brother’s murder case and my sister’s kidnapping—to come speak with us about what happened tonight.
“I wish this could have just waited until morning.” Lila restlessly jiggles her foot up and down as she scans the busy room full of officers. She has flour on her jeans and shirt because she was cooking for a wedding she’s catering when she received the call to come here. “It’s too late for him to be out on a school night.”
“Honey, I think, considering what happened, it’s good that they want to tackle this tonight.” Ethan places his hand on her knee to settle her. “Be thankful they’re not shoving it aside.”
“I am.” She ceases bouncing her leg. “I’m just really tired of all of this and those damn people. Why can’t they just leave us alone?” Regret fills her eyes as she looks over at me “Sorry, I know I’m making this worse.”
“You don’t need to apologize.” I slump back in the seat. “Besides, I’m the one making this worse. I brought this on everyone.”
“Don’t you dare say that,” she starts to protest, but stops talking when Detective Rannali strolls up.
His white, button-down shirt is wrinkled, his tie crooked, and his hair is disheveled. “Sorry to make you wait. It’s been a long day.” He nods his head at his office door. “Come inside. There’s some stuff I’d like to talk to you about.”
The three of us simultaneously rise to our feet, file into his office, and take a seat in front of his desk. Once everyone gets settled, he opens a folder that contains the note I found tonight.
“So, ever since this all started, we’ve been wondering why the Soulless Mileas are so fixated on you—leaving notes, stealing your knife, taking your hair—yet they never actually make any threatening moves. We’ve had some theories, but we couldn’t be positive.” He glances from the note to me. “This note is starting to confirm our suspicions.”
“And what are you suspicious of?” Lila asks, grasping onto Ethan’s hand for support.
She has been doing that a lot lately, revealing just how much stress this ordeal has been putting on her. It makes me feel so damn guilty all the time because it’s my fault. I brought these people into their lives. I brought the stress into their lives.
The detective closes the folder and overlaps his hands on top of it. “When I was first put on your sister’s case,” he speaks directly to me, “I remembered interviewing this woman in the neighborhood who believed the people who took Sadie stalked her first. She reported seeing people breaking into the house. I didn’t look into it too much, because the source had ended up being highly unreliable. But, over the last few weeks, I’ve been noticing a pattern.”
“They’re doing the same thing to me.” My fingers curl around the armrests of the chair, and my fingernails scrape at the wood. “And, eventually, they’re going to try and take me.”
Lila gasps, covering her hand over her mouth. “That’s not what’s going on,” she says in denial.
“I never said that,” the detective says with caution. “I just said that there are some similarities between your case and your sister’s. And the note, well, it’s just more proof that you need to start being extremely careful.”
“How can I be more careful?” I ask, dumbfounded. “I already spend no time alone. There’s an alarm in the house. My therapist walks me to my car.”
“We’ll do more to keep him safe.” Lila places a hand on mine. “It’s going to be okay.”
“No, it’s not.” I stand up, ignoring their protests to come back as I exit the office.
I want to walk out the front door of the station and just start running until my legs give out. Run away until I feel safe. But nowhere is safe, and running away is only going to put me in harm’s way. So, instead, I wait for Lila and Ethan by the glass entrance doors. They don’t show up for another thirty minutes, and by then, Lila looks like she’s been crying.
“Is everything all right?” I ask her as she strides up to me.
“Everything’s great.” She folds her arms around me and yanks me close, despite my rigidness. “Everything will be okay.”
Lies. Lies.
Everyone lies.
Lies to save me.
Lies to break me.
Lies to make me ache.
How many more lies are in my future?
“What do we do now?” I ask Ethan from over Lila’s shoulder as she continues to hug me so tightly I can barely breathe.
“The only thing we can do,” he replies, wrapping an arm around his wife. “Go home and make a plan that will keep you safe.”
I nod in agreement for his benefit. But no matter how many plans they make, I’ll never truly be safe.
Those that step in, never get out.
Never, ever, ever.
Chapter 3
Lyric
The most depressing song of all time is playing from the surround sound. Definitely not my choice of music, especially when so much dreariness haunts Ayden’s life already. Every day, he’s plagued by the fact that the same people who kidnapped him and his siblings over four years ago are holding his sister. The same people have also been tormenting him for the last several months by breaking into his house, stealing his hair, and as of three days ago, leaving him creepy notes in his car.
With my sketchpad propped open on my lap, I stare across the room at him, assessing the pain he tries to keep hidden while drawing the shadows of his smoldering dark eyes framed by the longest, darkest eyelashes I’ve ever seen.
Today, he’s dressed in all black and sporting the leather bracelets that match mine—Christmas presents we gave to each other a few months ago. Each stroke of my pencil captures the pain concealed below the surface of his strength.
As I’m shading his eyes, the iPod shifts to the next song, which turns out to be equally as energy draining as the first.
“Who picked out this playlist?” I climb off the sofa and pad over to the stereo that’s below the flat screen mounted on the wall.
Ayden peers up from the notebook he’s been scribbling in for over the last hour, sweeping wisps of his inky black hair out of his eyes. “I thought you did.”
“Yeah, right. These songs are too depressing for me to be listening to at the moment.” I frown at the stereo. “My mom must have turned it on before she took out the sugar junkie clan for dessert.”
The Gregory’s kids are staying over for the night while Ethan and Lila are away at their son, Everson’s, football game. At fourteen-years-old, Everson is living his dream already, playing quarterback for the middle school league. While the Gregorys wanted to take the whole clan with them, they thought it’d be best if they stayed behind, considering it’s a school night. Lila acted like a nervous wreck when they dropped everyone off and gave my mother an hour-long lecture about keeping Ayden in the house at all times with the alarm on and an adult always around.
After dinner, my mom suggested everyone go get ice cream, but Ayden and I stayed behind with my dad who retired to his office about thirty minutes ago to put together a band line-up for his club.
I tap the skip button, moving to the next song, “My Heroine” by Silverstein. “Much better.”
“Much better?” Ayden cocks his brow. “It’s as slow as the last one playing.”
I hold up a finger. “Give it a minute.” I sway my hips to the slow rhythm of the song while sweeping my hands through my hair. When the tempo quickly picks up, I grin cockily at Ayden. “See. Much better.”
He chuckles, a rare but breathtaking sound. Then he sets his pen and paper aside on the coffee table and stretches his arms above his head. “Do I lose points against me for not knowing that?”