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“Get out of the road!” I screamed, running for her.
I grabbed her just as the van stopped. The back slid open, and four men jumped out. I recognized one of them immediately.
The thug from the hospital. The one who had been asking about Lucy. The Castillo guy.
They snatched Lucy first, clamping a hand over her mouth to muffle her screams. Two of them carried her into the truck, while the other two advanced toward me.
I was still close to the tunnel. I could have made it back and locked the door from the inside.
My gaze fixed on my sister.
I couldn’t leave her alone. I didn’t fight when they seized me. I wanted in that van beside Lucy. They pushed me in carelessly, and my scraped knees burned painfully against the floor. They tied our hands roughly with duct tape, shoved a bag over my head, and then the sound of the doors shutting rattled my teeth.
After another moment, the van started.
“Lucy, are you okay?” I worked my wrists behind my back, sawing them back and forth, trying to free them.
She moaned. They must have taped her mouth after her hands, probably because she’d been screaming so much.
“It’s okay. Don’t worry. It’ll be okay,” I muttered like a chant. I needed to hear it myself, because things felt pretty far from okay right now.
Renato knew about the bug. He’d already known. Did he hate me? Was he playing with me? The part of me that was used to being alone crowed its triumph.See, it snarled,you are supposed to be alone. Who could ever love you? He was just playing with you, and you believed it. Pathetic.
Renato’s deep, confident voice from my memories spoke in my head.
“You are perfect, Charlie. Perfect and good and pure as the driven snow.”
“You light up the room.”
“You fascinate me.”
I got hold of the writhing insecurity in my head, the one that warned me never to trust anyone else. The one that had been born to protect me and my sister. The one I didn’t need anymore.
“Don’t worry, Lucy. Renato will come for us. He’ll find us, and he’ll take us home,” I reassured her.
Lucy made a quizzical sound through the tape.Are you sure?
“I’m sure.”
31
CHARLIE
Ididn’t know how long we drove. I wrestled with the tape on my wrists. A sawing motion loosened it. I was sweating, and my wrists burned with the friction by the time I managed to slip it off, but bringing my arms around my front was worth it.
I pushed the bag off my head. Lucy was lying on her side, her eyes wild and desperate. I crawled to her over the van floor, being as quiet as I could. I reached Lucy and gently pulled the tape off her mouth, holding a finger to my lips to signal for her to be quiet.
Loud Spanish conversation crowded the air from the cab. The dialogue was rapid, but I could make out the gist of what they were saying. They were taking us somewhere to switch vehicles, and from there, they’d split us up to make it harder for Renato to keep up.
Terror beat through me at the thought of being separated from Lucy and having no way of finding her. Myhusbandwould have no way of finding her. I couldn’t just let that happen.
Renato hadn’t put another tracker in me, as far as I knew. But he was always three steps ahead, always strategizing. Had he really let me wander around without a backup plan? It didn’t seem like him at all.
“Shh, don’t scream. We need time to think,” I whispered to my little sister.
She held on to me and nodded. I stared down at my bleeding wrists, racking my brain for a plan of some kind, and my ring caught a strand of light through a crack in the newspaper taped over the window.
Renato’s ring. The family heirloom. The one his paranoidnonnohad given hisnonna. The one Renato had warned me to never take off.
