Page 56 of A Light in the Darkness
I can see the confusion on the senator’s face as I land on my side and scramble quickly to my feet, all without removing my eyes from him. I’ve got control of my hands again, my arms no longer tethered behind me, but my limbs feel too heavy to be of any use.
“Get away from me!” I warn him, trying to put distance between us as I take a step back—and he immediately takes one forward.
The alarm has stopped screaming, and all around the upstairs where we stand in a grand foyer, water is pooled across the wood floor. The man who took me isn’t anywhere that I can see.
“Stay right there!” I warn him, before the senator can take another step toward me. He’s got his hands out, like he’s making to catch a fly between his bare palms.
“I’m here to help. Dimitri called, he sent me here. He…” The senator pauses to catch his breath. That’s when I notice the red streaks on his shirt. I think it’s when he does, too. “You’re hurt. Let me help.”
“I don’t need your help!” I yell, cutting a glance at the door.
What was it my captor had said? Any one of thirty men could be my father. He’d simply taken what was offered…
“How did you get in here?” I demand, looking around for the man who’d lured me here from the start. “How did you have a key?”
“The owner of the house is an associate of mine.” He says, though it sounds more like a question than anything. “I know the door code.”
I can hear sirens in the distance, growing in pitch as they draw near. The fire still blazes through the darkness of the basement in my peripheral vision, but it’s blurry and tinged red, like the blood I shed is staining the whole world. “How did you have a key for the chain around my neck?”
“I didn’t.” He frowns. “I used bolt cutters to break it. What… how did you end up here?”
He doesn’t deserve an answer, and I won’t give him one. He can’t really expect me to believe Dimitri is such good friends with him that he’d call and ask him to walk into a situation he really had no idea about? I’m not buying it.
The sirens grow louder, and I hear the sound of vehicles approaching. “Dimitri is on his way—”
The senator shakes his head slowly, his eyes flickering to the door. I’m sure he’s assessing the situation, trying to come up with an explanation that will make sense to whatever authorities arrive. “Let me help you outside. You need to be taken to the hospital.”
“I don’t need anything from you!” I snap, making a quick move toward the open door.
Sunlight spills in from the open door, and in the middle of all of it is a familiar face.
It takes me a moment to pull through my memories, which are addled like my thoughts. I place it just as the senator draws up to my side, warmth cloaking my shoulders as he drapes a throw blanket over them.
Her name feels heavy and awkward on my tongue, and I wonder if I’m hallucinating. “Addie?”
“Get her out the back door!” The woman demands, looking at me like the gum under her shoe. The words are meant for the Senator, who hesitates for a moment, his eyes flickering from the woman to the fire truck that comes to a stop in the drive. “Now! I’ll deal with this!”
I’m too confused to even protest as the Senator wraps his arms around me and spins me in the opposite direction. “I’ll meet you at home.” She calls after him. “Don’t let her out of your sight!”
If I thought my world had caved in when the man told me I was the product of apparent gang rape, I was wrong. It didn’t cave completely—just narrowed enough to cut off my hopes of escape. But now, as I turn back to get a glance at this woman that I’ve known all my life, I realize there’s still room left for everything to collapse.
And so, I do.
Chapter thirty-four
Remy
“She’s safe.”
I stare at Kent for a minute, not sure I heard him or if I just hallucinated that. He’s nodding, his face serious as he stands, letting out a long sigh. “Dimitri is on the ground. He’ll be with her in ten minutes or less. Massarini has her.”
All at once, all of the rage and fear that has been building up in me, doubling with each second that I imagined her slipping away from me, wooshes away from me. It happens so fast that I get a head rush and have to drop my head to abate the sudden dizziness as I drop back into the chair I started to rise from.
“You crying?” Wes mocks, chuckling. “That’s cute.”
“I’m not crying, fuckface. And I don’t have any use for you anymore, so you should watch your back as we get off the jet. My knife may just slip between your ribs.”
“Your girl turned you into a knife man?” He muses, not the least bothered by my threat. “Sheisparticularly stabby. I’ve never known a woman to like knives as much as her.”
