Page 109 of Hold the Line

“There!” Hailey leaned in between us, pointing to a crooked storage shed at the end of the drive. “That’s where he has her.”

Distant sirens howled, but sound carried for miles out here. They were too far away. I wasn’t waiting for them to get here. Neither was Caleb.

He threw the truck into park outside the dilapidated structure and ran around to the back. While he grabbed his rifle, I turned to Hailey, pinning her with a stare.

“Do not move from this truck. I can’t help Phoebe if I’m worried about you.”

She swallowed hard and whispered, “I won’t move. Just get her.”

I met Caleb at the front of the truck. He shoved a baseball bat into my hands, his rifle slung over his shoulder.

“I have the gun, I go first,” he said, voice like gravel.

There was no time to argue. He charged for the door hanging crooked on its hinges. I was on his heels, every muscle in my body coiled.

But I wasn’t ready for what was in that room.

Blood, everywhere. Pools of it. Splatters on the walls and surfaces. At the center of it all—my brother.

Richie lay sprawled, his body unnervingly still, half of his head blown off.

“Phoebe?” Caleb’s voice was cracked and broken. His rifle slipped from his grip, hitting the floor with a dull thud. “No, baby. Oh, Christ, no.”

My gut churned as my gaze dropped lower. Beneath Richie, a motionless body, half-hidden—a body I knew almost better than my own. My world tilted, caved in on itself.

No.

No, no, no.

I looked at Caleb. “That isn’t her.”

It couldn’t be Phoebe. That rope soaked in blood couldn’t have been her long, beautiful hair. That wasn’t her body that lay eerily still under Richie’s. The silence in the room wasn’t from her lungs not pulling in air. Her eyes weren’t closed. Her laugh wasn’t snuffed out. That wasn’t her. Itcouldn’tbe. I was still standing, and if that were her, I’d no longer be in this goddamn world.

“Phe-Phe,” Caleb rasped, dropping to his knees. He shoved Richie’s body aside like it was nothing. Too bad the bastard wouldn’t feel it.

And there she was. So. Utterly. Still.

Caleb kneeled beside his sister, his hands hovering over her. They shook as he reached for her, stopped, then reached again. His jaw clenched, his breath hitched, but he couldn’t bring himself to touch her.

“It isn’t her,” I muttered again. “Not her. Can’t be her.”

I stumbled forward until my knees gave out. Then I crawled to her. She was on her side, still bound to her chair. There was so much blood. It had soaked into my jeans, and my hands slipped in it. In the back of my mind, I registered it was still warm.

I reached her, grabbing her fingers. Plastic dug into the soft skin of her wrists.

“She needs her hands.” My gaze flew to Caleb’s, wild, pleading. “She has to have her hands. We can’t—we can’t leave her like this.”

He jolted, like waking from a nightmare. But there was no waking from this. Digging into his pocket, he fumbled for his knife and shoved it toward me.

“She needs her hands,” he echoed, voice barely above a whisper.

Then he just stared at her. Like, if he blinked, she’d be gone.

She wasn’t gone.

She was here—my girl, my world.

So much blood.

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