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“Her name is Doe.”
My head snapped up. “Doe?”
Boston nodded. “I don’t know, maybe it’s stupid, but I saw it and I just felt that maybe it was a sign…Doe…Fawn…”
I swallowed hard. “It’s perfect. And when Fawn comes home, she’s going to love it.”
I said it with as much conviction as I could muster. But the wobble in my bottom lip gave me away.
Boston didn’t miss it. “We’re going to find her, Eve. I promise.”
“I know.”
But the silent words neither of us wanted to say hung between us, out of place in the happiness we’d created.
When we brought Fawn home, would it be to cheers and hugs…or would it be to tears and a body bag?
EPILOGUE
FAWN
Bright flashes of light broke through the endless black. I squeezed my eyes shut against it, praying for the darkness to engulf me once more.
Because I remembered everything. Eddie and Eve. Her screams. Him pushing me down the stairs. The pain of slamming into steel steps, the force shuddering through my entire body. The thump on my skull as the world around me cut out entirely.
There was too much pain in my body for me to be in a hospital. If I’d felt nothing, maybe I could have believed that he’d taken pity on me and dumped me in a hospital emergency room. Or maybe I could believe I was dead. Instead, pain curled around every limb, every organ, making it known that I was very much alive and still in the same hellhole.
I had no tears left.
Just hate. I hated him with everything I had. I hated myself for being so stupid and sticking around one place long enough for him to find me.
The flashes went off again. “Eve,” I murmured through cracked lips.
There was a long silence and then, “She’s not here.”
That wasn’t Eddie’s voice. Somewhere in the back of my pain-riddled mind, I remembered the lower, quieter tone. But for the life of me, I couldn’t work out where or why.
I forced one eye open.
Cat-green eyes pierced the darkness, trained intently on me.
There was only one person in the world I knew who had eyes that color. “Zane?”
He didn’t say anything.
“Where’s Eve?”
“Gone.”
Fear knocked at my door, sharp and strong. “What does that mean? Gone where? Is she in another room? Did you take her home?”
An evil cackle of laughter from the other side of the room made me jump. “Do you really think we’d do that, sweet girl?”
A sob crept up my chest. Because that laughter, that cruel, taunting sound had haunted my life and then my nightmares for years. And there was only one person who called me sweet girl. I couldn’t even look at him, because if I did, I knew I would break down completely. I focused on Zane because it was all I could do to keep calm. The madness of insanity tried to breach my defenses, tried to invade and force me to shut down. I couldn’t. Not yet. Not here.
“Zane, no, what did you do? Tell me.”
He didn’t respond.
