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“Ah, girl hug!” Vadum taunts from the driver’s seat.

Bree snarls and kicks his seat again. “Shut up, fuckwit!”

Vadum snickers, but I pay him no mind. He is the least important person in this situation, no matter how annoying or dangerous he might be. Instead of giving him the attention he obviously wants, I focus on getting as much information as I can from Bree. Once the car stops, I’m more than ready to run for my life. I will force the shift to break these restraints and get away from these sickos.

A sudden question pops into my mind. I don’t bother to consider if asking it will be a good idea, I just voice it. “And you think Talon will be okay with this? That he’ll just leave with you after he finds out the price of his freedom?”

“I’m doing this for him!” Bree screams as if I just insulted her in the worst possible way.

“Are you, though?” I press. It might cost me to anger her, but I’m willing to keep pushing her buttons. “Or are you doing this to get back at our mother? To get back at me for receiving the love she never gave you?”

Bree’s eyes widen in shock as she frantically shakes her head and raises her hands in denial. “What? No! I would never! I have nothing against you, Harlow. Or Zara. Nothing! I just wanted to get to know you! Why do you think I pulled you both from that car?”

I blink at her, utterly shocked at the sudden confession. I was mentally prepared for Bree to say something about causing the accident, but I never would have guessed that she saved Zara and me from dying with our parents.

As the wheels in my mind start turning, another, somewhat unexpected realization hits me. “It was you. You were the one who drove us off the road. You were the one who forced us into that ditch!”

Bree looks away and presses her lips together. My mind takes me back to that awful day. The smell of gas. The sound of my mother’s screams as the car caught fire, and she was engulfed in the flames.

Zara and I were hanging upside down in the backseat. My father, who was driving, died on impact. Yet, I heard my mother’s screams as she burned alive before my eyes. I can still smell the scent of their burning flesh. My father’s seat was pushed back against my legs, trapping me in the car. I thought Zara was dead. Half of her face was hanging off.

I passed out before the flames reached us. I can remember waking up and looking around, wondering how we got out of the car. The next thing I remember is waking up again to the paramedics working on us. I kept falling in and out of consciousness, and I spent the next few days drugged up on painkillers before we were taken to the facility.

“When I hit the back of your car, I was just hoping that you’d have to pull over, and she would explain to you both who I was. But your car spun out of control. It smashed through the barrier and down the hill before rolling into that ditch,” Bree whispers, pulling me out of my dreadful memories.

“By the time I drove down there, the car was already on fire. I tried to get to her, but… there was nothing I could do, so I pulled Zara out first. I was barely able to get you out after her because your legs were trapped. I dragged you both up to the road and called for help.”

“Then you ran. You killed my family, destroyed my life, and then fled the scene,” I spit at her. She might have saved our lives, but she is the one responsible for all of it. Bree is the one who took everything from us.

“And she destroyed mine!” Bree snarls.

Tears prick my eyes as I recall the small fragments I have of the accident. Zara remembers the day at the fair, but she doesn’t remember anything from the accident. I never told her that Mom was alive. That I watched her burn. Her screams haunted me until, eventually, they became a distant memory. Until I was able to pretend that the screams that woke me every night for months weren’t my mother’s.

I can’t stand to look at Bree anymore, so I turn my gaze back out the window. So much for her claim of not being a monster. She is worse than that.

Chapter Thirty-Four

Thane

We have all our friends, every person who works for us—and even their friends—out scouting the city. No one was seen leaving, so they have to be here somewhere, hiding right under our noses.

However, as hours pass with still no sign of Harlow, I start to lose my mind. I’m not alone on that. My mates are going just as crazy as I am. I’m about to go knock on every door in the entire city when we get a hit on Vadum’s car from a speeding camera, one town over. Then another lead from a gas station where Vadum is caught on the CCTV, filling his car up.

We retrace his steps and find his car, but it was abandoned as a ploy to make it look like they haven’t left the city. They used the tunnels, and another car was waiting out near the old mine shafts, right outside the city border. That car was stolen, and we manage to track how they made it out of the city via cameras.

Now, we have the make and model of the stolen car, but that only gets us so far. No doubt, he already changed the plates, making it more difficult to trace.

“Thane? Where are you going?” Raidon perks up and asks as I walk outside to stand on the front porch.

We’re at Elaine’s house. We came here to drop off Emily and Scarlett, so they will have a safe place to stay while we go look for Harlow. Also, I am planning to do bad, bad things to that asshole, Vadum, once I get my hands on him, and that definitely isn’t something the kids should be around to see.

We all know where Bree is heading. She is taking Harlow to Corbin in exchange for Tal. However, we are facing a major obstacle. We have no clue, not even a hint, about Corbin’s location. We aren’t even completely sure which direction Bree and Vadum went because there’s a few major highways not far from the gas station where Vadum’s last picture was taken, and there is no footage on any of those highways.

“Thane!” Raidon raises his voice as he calls out my name.

“Just let him be, Raidon. He has a lot on his mind. Leave him alone to think!” I hear Rhen snap at Raidon from a distance.

While my mates keep bickering in the background, I accept that we are still too short on people. We will need more help if we want to check out all the highways.