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“Greg chose you because you were vulnerable. Navarro chose to buy you because he’s a monster. Hayley chose to search for you because she’s your mother.”

Tears fill her eyes.

“None of those choices belong to you.”

“But she found them because she was looking for me.”

“Yes.”

“And now they have her.”

“For now.”

She stares at me.

“You don’t know that you can get her back.”

“No.”

The word surprises her.

Yesterday, I would have told her I knew.

I would have promised.

She already called me on that.

So this time, I give her the truth.

“I don’t know what we’re walking into. I don’t know how many men are there. I don’t know where they’re holding Hayley.”

Her eyes fill further.

“But I know what Taylor, Arthur, Will, and I can do. I know Sheriff Vega isn’t going to stop until every girl in that mine is safe. And I know Hayley.”

“You knew her eighteen years ago.”

“I knew enough.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means they made a mistake taking her alive.”

Sage blinks.

I look toward the motel office where I watched Hayley break one man’s nose and nearly escape three attackers. She must have been training to fight like that.

“Your mother fought her father for sixteen years. She protected you before you were born

I meet Sage’s eyes.

“She isn’t sitting somewhere waiting for us to save her.”

Something changes in my daughter’s expression.

“She's fighting.”

“I guarantee it.”