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“I had to,” he said through clenched teeth.
“You had to kill your granddaughter?”
She felt as if she were having an out-of-body experience. Surely, this wasn’t real. Maybe she was having a waking nightmare. She watched blood gush through his fingers with detached fascination.
“Tell me why.”
He glared at her. “Fuck you.”
His phone flashed in the pocket of his bloody pajamas, catching her attention. Even as her father tried to reach for it, she knocked his hand away and held it up.
A text from a blocked number flashed across the screen:Fifteen minutes out.
His phone had service. She stared at her father as everything coalesced in her mind, and the blood in her veins turned to ice. “You’re working with him?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he puffed.
Something erupted inside her. She kicked her father right over his bullet wound. He fell flat on his back with a tortured yell she didn’t hear over the roar in her head. The taste of betrayal permeated her mouth. She raised the gun as she stood over him.
“Tell me the truth about Mom.” When he didn’t answer fast enough, she pulled the trigger. He writhed beneath her, clearly in agony, but she felt nothing. “Talk.” She didn’t have time.
Fifteen minutes.
“They have her.”
“Why should I believe you?”
Although his eyes were dilated with pain, hatred gave him the strength to spit, “They raped her in front of me. One right after the other.”
The hand holding the gun wavered. She felt as if she had been kicked in the stomach.
“They told me if I wanted to see my wife again that I would go to your house.” His body shook as if he were receiving tiny electrical shocks. “It was supposed to end there. They didn’t know there was an escape route. There’s a bug in my phone that disrupts electronics, which is why the phones don’t have service.”
“You should have told me this from the beginning! We could have done something.”
Her father’s sneer was a weak imitation of his normal disdain. “Why? You think Gavin can solve this? He can’t. His shit has leaked into my life, and now your mom’s… Now she’s...”
“Why kill Nora?” she asked, but there was no reply. He was gone.
Lyla jumped when the phone chimed, a reminder of the unread text. She pulled up the exchange of messages from the blocked number.
We’re tracking you. Any sign of Pyre?
No, her father replied.
Where are they traveling to?
A safe house in Arizona.
Are they able to use their phones?
No.
There was a long lag and then her father said,Blade left to go to the city.
Good. Save us time. Take care of the brat. Don’t kill your daughter. He wants her.
There were no more other messages from her father, but that last text made her heart race.
