Page 107 of Stay With Me
As I feel around the floor for her purse, a shadow comes over me. Before I can scream, my scalp burns when they pull my hair and put a sack over my head.
Someone with a deep voice whispers in my ear, “Don’t scream, or we will kill you. Do you understand me?”
I just nod.
I should fight. Noah has talked about how you should do everything you can to avoid being taken, but fear has me frozen, unable to do anything.
My heart is hammering in my chest as I fight for air under the cover over my head.
I hear a door open, and I’m pushed. My hands come out in front of me to stop myself from hitting the ground, but I only feel hard plastic beneath my palms.
As soon as the door closes, more voices float around me. I try to calm my breathing.
I stupidly wanted to show Noah that I could run to the truck on my own after feeling like I didn’t have a free second to myself the past few days. Despite knowing The Family was close.
How did they know we would be here?
Why now, after all these years?
The vehicle starts to move, and the whispers stop.
Before I can ask them to let me go, whoever is driving hits the gas, and I fall forward. I cry out as my face hits the floor, and the vehicle is filled with a loud noise. I scream, my hands coming to my ears. After what feels like forever, the sound stops and silence falls around me.
Goose bumps break out across my skin as someone cranks the air conditioning higher.
“It’s so hot down here. I hope we don’t stay here much longer,” someone mutters.
“Hush. We will do whatever Father tells us to do, and if that is staying here, then we will stay down here and rebuild our home.” Someone with a deep, cold voice scolds the first speaker.
That voice is one of the few I hoped I would never hear again. It’s Matthew’s best friend, Chris. I don’t know how I’m going to get out of this alone, but I hope they didn’t hurt anyone because I would never forgive myself.
FORTY-NINE
Noah
Thesmellofstalecoffee assaults my nose as Jess and I walk into the station. I follow the raised voices and turn toward my office when I see the whole gang. Jess hides behind me like she’s afraid of them, and they all stop in their tracks.
Sam spots me first. “What’s wrong? What happened? All you said was that we had to meet you here at the station.”
Am looks around. “Where’s Luna?”
The lump that has been lodged in my throat since everything started gets bigger. I clear my throat. “She was taken by The Family. She went back out to the truck to get something, and they got her.”
Silence falls as everyone processes that information.
Sam kneels down in front of Jess. “Are you okay, pipsqueak?”
She shakes her head. “It’s all my fault. I didn’t know what to do, and now you’re all going to hate me.”
“We could never hate you. You’re telling us now, right? We can help her if you tell us everything,” Pam says in a calm voice.
Everyone just nods.
“Okay, let’s go into a conference room and let Jess tell her story, but I need to get Special Agent Hunt on the phone so he can hear as well. The story only needs to be told once.” I gesture to one of the doors lining the hallway.
Everyone shuffles into the room.
I lean over to the girls. “When we head out to start the search, I’m going to need you girls to stay here with Jess. I want her with people I trust and who won’t treat her any differently.”
