Page 110 of Broken By Silence
“Hey!” I shout, or try to. My throat burns. “Get away from her!”
The blurry figure yanks open her door and reaches in. Lottie screams as they grab her. Her shoulder pops with a sickening crack, and the sound that tears from her throat is all pain.
“Stop!” I struggle against the seatbelt, clawing at it, at the crumpled metal trapping me. “Don’t touch her! Lottie!”
She kicks, fights, and I try to get a good look at who it is, but the man’s face is in the shadows as he hauls her out. She’s crying,screaming my name, and I can’t move.I can’t move.“Lottie!” My voice rips apart. “Lottie!”
Tires spin. Gravel sprays. The car peels away into the night, tail lights vanishing down the road until all that’s left is silence and the pounding of my own heart.
I can’t breathe. My chest heaves against the seatbelt. “No, no, no?—”
My hands fumble for my phone, slick with blood. I can barely see the screen through the blur. One name.Dad.
It rings once. Twice. Then, “Archer?” His voice is groggy, worried. “Son? What’s wrong?”
I choke on the words. “Dad… they took her.”
“What? Who—where are you?”
“Lorenzo’s men,” I cough, the taste of copper thick in my mouth. “The road by the cliffs… Lottie… She’s gone. They ran us off?—”
“Stay there. I’m calling the police. Don’t move. Do you hear me?”
“Dad, please—” My vision tunnels, the world fading to black around the edges. “They took her…”
The phone slips from my hand, clattering against the floor. The last thing I hear before everything goes dark is the echo of his voice through the speaker, frantic and breaking. “Archer! Stay with me, son… Archer!”
Chapter 36
Oscar
Roman’s sitting on the step, staring out at the driveway, a cigarette burning between his fingers. I watch the smoke curl into the air as I hesitate for a moment before stepping closer and sitting beside him.“I thought you quit.”
“I did. Just didn’t realize how hard it’d be having her away from us.”
“It gets easier,”I sign.“She’s with Archer. Nothing’s going to happen to her. So why the cigarette?”
He exhales.“Yeah. Guess the cigarette’s just… something to hold on to. A weird sense of comfort.”
Will appears out of nowhere, looking disheveled.
“What’s wrong?”My hands move rapidly.
“It’s Archer. There’s been an accident. Lottie’s?—”
My whole body goes rigid.“What do you mean by accident?”
“She’s gone. One of Lorenzo’s men took her.”
For a second, everything in me shuts down.“What?”
The cigarette drops from Roman’s hand, ember scattering against the concrete. “Where?”
“They ran them off the road. Archer’s alive, he’s being transportedto the hospital. They were driving near the cliffs, and he called me right before he passed out. I sent police out there, and he was found still strapped in the car, legs pinned. It was a hit and grab.”Will’s hands shake as he signs, and I can see how much this is affecting him.“We’re going to the hospital, and hopefully get there just as he does.”
I’m already on my feet.“Then let’s go.”
The hospital smellslike bleach and blood. The kind of sterile nothingness that makes everything feel worse. Archer’s in a room down the hall when we get there, pale under the harsh lights, his face split open along his hairline, a bandage around his wrist.
