Page 39 of Protect

When the silence draws out, I slowly look up. Jaxon is fuming. He’s put his hands on top of his head. He stares at the ceiling for a long moment. Knox keeps looking between Jaxon and me. Finally, he says something.

“He could be lying. He’s fucking with us. All of us in different ways. Dimitri?”

“Didn’t say much to me,” he reports. “Was mostly passed out thanks to you. When he came to, he asked if I’d visited my dad and how that went.”

Knox rolls out his neck.

“He said he buried her below the white tree. I don’t know what that means. All the trees here are brown and green,” Jason says slowly.

No.

I don’t realize I’ve said the word until all of them look at me.

“A white tree. Her favorite tree. Nicest thing he ever did for her,” Jaxon continues while watching me.

A whimper leaves my throat and Knox perks. “Who’s watching him?”

They all look towards the back and Dimitri stands, ready to take over, but all I can think about is the tree with the white flowers. The flowers she would weave into my hair. The tree I carved “Mom and Hope forever” into, proud that I spelled it all right.

I don’t know that I’m running until I feel the ground under my feet and the burn in my throat as I pant. I have to get to it. I have to find her. If it’s a lie, I’ll know.

If it’s true…

It can’t be true…

Mom had a temper when he’d yell, but she was good. She was kind. She was soft and welcoming and gentle.

I see my carved message first, higher than when I carved it, and drop to my knees.

My fingers rip through the weeds, through the layers of fallen leaves and light dirt and seeds until I get to wetter earth. I keep going. I hear someone yelling my name. I hear the crunching of twigs and leaves under boots, but I don’t care. I can’t stop.

No. No. She can’t be here. If she’s not here, she’s safe. I can imagine her happy. She found love, but my dad kept her from me. He wouldn’t let her get close. Then I tried to disappear. She just hasn’t been able to find me and I wouldn’t know her name because she was hiding from him. Someone rescued her. A neighbor saw her and took her away. Someone…

“Hope, stop. You have to stop,” Knox insists.

As he tries to pull me away, my fingers brush something hard and smooth and everything in me starts to collapse.

KNOX

Hope is crazed. When I touch her shoulder, she nearly claws me. She digs hard and fast as she sobs. Dimitri reaches for her, then freezes. Hope lets out a cry and wail that breaks. Her whole body sags as I pull her into my arms and away from the half-skull that’s peeking out of the dirt.

She shakes her head and reaches out to it, but I turn her around and hold her against my chest. She beats against my shoulder, sobbing and babbling incomprehensibly. Dimitri just stares at it. He doesn’t react. He might as well be frozen.

I shudder, but Hope screams into my shirt, then goes utterly limp. I drop with her, rubbing her back.

“She escaped!” she yells, voice unfamiliar and ragged. “She got out!”

“Fucking…” Not even Jaxon can put this together.

He’s panting, but pale. None of us thought Coach was capable of this.

Hope’s mom left. She ran off with someone else. We had no reason to question him. We had no reason not to believe him.

We had no reason to believe that Hope wasn’t demanding sex from him either.

I curse softly and hold her tighter. “Sweetheart.”

Her hold on me softens as she continues sobbing. Even when I try to keep her focused on me, she’s restless. “Hope, don’t look. You don’t need to see it. We’ll take care of it,” I promise.

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