Page 107 of Till Death Do Us Part

Falling in front of me, screaming as she went.

Falling.

Elaine.

I squeezed the desk tighter, tighter, tighter, until the wood splintered and snapped under my hand.

“Vera,” Petra started, but more footsteps raced in, and Yulia’s voice cut in.

“We traced a call,” she said. “Just before leaving, Elaine got a call from her mother. The car was last seen heading in the direction of her mother’s house.”

Of course.

They knew the mother. Knew the dynamic with her and Elaine. It was in the report I’d been given.

Once they’d attacked the manor and driven a wedge between me and Elaine, they would have paid off her mother to call her, beg her for help, to come back to the house.

Elaine.

Images flashed through my head: a knife to the throat, a bullet through the skull. Elaine’s body getting dumped in the river, dropped from a cliff, falling.

I had to believe she was still alive. I had to find her.

And if anything had happened to her… anything…

There wasn’t going to be one Blackbird left alive.

Not one.

I finished putting the gun back together with a click. “No signs on the car she went in?”

“We’re still working on tracking it,” Yulia said. “Bad camera footage, but we’re scanning the database.”

Didn’t matter. I didn’t need any of them.

I’d done this to Elaine.

I could do this myself.

elaine

I thrashed against the restraints the whole time, trying to bite at the muffle tied around my face, wriggle my hands to grab the ropes around my wrists, but nothing worked.

I was going to be sick. I didn’t even know where we were going. When I refused to cooperate, Quayle knocked me down in one motion so fast I didn’t even register what was happening until I had my hands tied behind me and a gag around my mouth, and then a cloth pulled down over my face until I couldn’t see and every noise I made was muffled. Glenn and Quayle walked me out, and I got shoved into a car, where we drove with my heart pounding wondering where they were taking me.

And why they were taking me. Were they going to force me to give up the South Yard somehow?

Would they torture me?

And if they did, would I have the willpower not to give in?

Horrible visions flashed through my mind the whole drive, and then while I was ripped out of the car again and walked into what must have been an elevator, but when I was down on my knees again and they finally pulled the cloth off my head, it wasn’t the sight I was expecting.

A construction site, high up off the ground—the frame of a skyscraper. It took me a second to remember the project, the Phoenix Building, an ambitious shot at the city’s tallest building here in downtown. I-beams ran in webs around, scaffolding in various stages, and the wind was intense, whipping at my face, lights on around the perimeter as the sun was getting low on the horizon.

And in front of me was Glenn, standing over me with a cruel smile.

“You look better on your knees than trying to resist, Elaine,” he said. I bit down on the gag, gritting my teeth, and I cringed and tried to pull away when he stroked my hair. “Now, now. Be a good girl, and this will go much smoother for everyone involved.”