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“Thank you,” she says quietly, and I don’t have to look over to know she’s crying.
We ride in silence the rest of the way home. I don’t bother pushing her tonight and she doesn’t offer any thoughts.
What I can’t get out of my head is how easy it was for them to desecrate those women. How mundane it had gotten for them that throwing the bodies of their victims in the incinerator was just an everyday job.
It’s not until I pull to a stop in the driveway that I realize she’s asleep in the passenger seat. She looks so damned peaceful. After the heat of today, the attack, and now, everything that we’ve just learned, I don’t want to wake her.
She doesn’t stir until I’m laying her in her bed.
“Mason . . .” she grumbles, eyes still shut when I undo the knots on her shoelaces. I’ve never done this before. Not without sex involved. I don’t like it. It feels too . . . intimate. Too much for me to think about later when I can’t sleep.
I remove her shoes and place them by the old vanity I set up for her when I ran my errands today. It was Mom’s, but I knew Hannah would like it. It’s been sitting in storage, anyway. “Little doe, sit up so I can take your jeans off.”
She blinks one bloodshot eye open at me, burning in the dim light of the nightstand lamp. She complies though, lifting her hips, so I can slide her jeans down her legs and toss them in the hamper. Finally, I slip her into the center of the bed and she rolls over, quickly falling back to sleep.
It hurts to look at her. She’s too fucking perfect and in my head, I know I can’t keep her.
We’re too different. Too close to enemies to be anything else, but . . . as I cover her up with the comforter and step from her room . . .
Suddenly, I wish I could.
“You get information about where Melissa Gaines could be hiding out and you don’t think to tell me?”
I didn’t want to come here. It’s late and there’s a storm raging outside. Savannah’s already in bed, but I knew I needed to alert Logan of the warehouse before Michael and his band of merry traffickers had the chance to move.
Besides, the conversation Savannah wants to have is the last one I do after tonight.
Places like that don’t stay in one place. They shift, jumping from building to building so they can avoid being caught. Michael’s not an idiot. Well . . . at least not in that sense.
“I’m telling you now. And she wasn’t there.”
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Logan grumbles, scrubbing a hand across his face. “And you took Hannah, of all people. Her damned sister.”
“You wouldn’t have that information if it weren’t for her.”
He shakes his head. “Look, I don’t give a shit about whatever Romeo and Juliet situation you’ve got going on. But do you really think if she’s going to this length to find her sister, that she’ll just turn right around and give her to the cops?”
“Yeah, I do.” In fact, I know she would. Logan eyes me, his dark gaze reproachful. “They’re hunting the kids of the Brethren, Logan.”
He seems to understand the gravity of my statement after a moment.
“Don’t tell Savannah.”
“Not a smart move. She finds out, she’ll be pissed.”
“I know she will, but . . . your sister’s learning how to feel safe. I don’t want this fucking everything up. She’s got security. She’s got me. She’ll be protected.”
“You don’t sound so sure.”
Logan eyes me, calculating.
“When your sister went missing, I fucking lost my mind. Destroyed my house. Threw some kid through a wall. All because I failed her. Because I let her be taken.” He leans forward, lowering his voice. “That won’t happen again.”
“Then you’ll understand when I tell you I’m going to kill the governor of California.”
The room falls silent, only the sound of the AC whirring in the background.
“And I suppose you want immunity.”
