Page 55 of Rise of the King (Checkmate 5)

“Until the tunnels.”

He pulls me in until our chests touch. “I was having a moment, but I’m back now. I’m here to make your world better. I’m so sorry, Sophia. So sorry about your baby sister.”

My breath catches in my throat and comes out on a sob. “Your brother is still alive.”

“Yes, he is. I’ll never let them get him.”

“Ellie will never come back.” Hot tears fall and mingle with the shower water until he pulls me in and allows me to cry against his chest. “She was just a baby, Jay. She was stolen, sold, abused, raped. It wasn’t an easy death for her. It wasn’t nearly as easy as Trenton’s, or even yours. It would have hurt her. She would have been so damn scared.”

“Stop now.” He crushes me against his chest and holds me together. We never saw her body in that casket. Never got to say goodbye properly. They nailed her coffin shut and warned my mom and dad not to look.

“They hurt her so bad, Jay, that we wouldn’t have recognized her even if we saw her.”

“Stop thinking about what they did to her, baby. She’s not in pain anymore. She can’t feel it anymore.”

“I can’t stop thinking about it!” I try to push him back, but he’s always going to be stronger than me. He’ll always be broader, bigger, in command. “I need to find who did that to her, then I need to look into his eyes while I hurt him. I won’t stop until he’s dead.”

“I’ll help you.” His lips travel over my temple, over the top of my head, and bury themselves behind my ear. “I’ll help you, I promise. This doesn’t end now that I know who you are. That same man who had me murdered has a contract on my brother’s head. I’m not walking away, I promise.”

“I just need to make it better,” I whisper against his tattooed chest. “I need to make it worth something. I need to make her proud.”

* * *

I sit on my bed in a bathrobe with wet hair dangling loose and one foot up as I work on the antiseptic cream and Band-Aids. I cut myself on something—rocks, glass, whatever. But it’s nothing I can’t fix at home.

My dancer’s feet will dance again tomorrow.

“You said they took her…” Jay laps my apartment in clean jeans and a long-sleeved shirt. His hair is wet, his sleeves rolled to his elbows, and his eyes wild. “How’d you know who took her, Soph? You were just a dancer waiting for her ice cream. How’d you know it was these people specifically?”

“Because they tried to grab me too.”

“They what?” He skids to a stop and spins. “When?”

“Three nights after she was taken, when she was still missing, I retraced her steps: my door to the store, my door to the store, my door to the store, a million times. My mom and dad were in the city looking for her. I was raised in BumFuck Albuquerque, but they came as soon as I called. I was told to stay inside, but obviously I was going to search for her too. I walked into that store during the day, but nothing. I walked there at dinnertime, but nothing. I walked it at two a.m…”

“Sophia! You were seventeen. You should’ve been in bed.”

I roll my eyes and go back to wiping a new layer of ointment on the bottom of my left foot. The skin is opened, and the frozen is wearing off. “I found them. They found me.” I shrug. “There were two of them, two just like Cole Fenney. Skinny, smelly, stupid. They grabbed me, and I guess I was partly in shock, but also kinda prepared for it, ya know? More prepared than Ellie was, anyway. She was mature, but innocent, you know what I mean? She was smart, but trusting, so they probably held a kitten for her to pet, and she would have let them close.” I meet his eyes. “She wasn’t stupid, Jay. But she was trusting. She refused to see the bad in people, even people with gold teeth and bad breath.”

“What did they do to you, Soph?” The way he digs his hands into his pockets, the way his shoulders hunch in and his big eyes sparkle… it’s like he’s a puppy, or a child, and this is a bedtime story. He makes me feel responsible for him, like, despite the fact he’s older, bigger, more experienced with the world, and lethal, he makes it so I have to tuck him in at night.

“They grabbed me from the back of that store. It was just a tiny convenience store, one of those twenty-four-hour places where all the prices are marked up and cockroaches skitter beneath the freezers. But ice cream is in a sealed tub, right? So we didn’t make much of a fuss about the bugs. I went in there, hung around right in the back near the freezers. Eventually, they came in. They carried this air of trouble with them, so it’s like I felt the change in the air. They split up and came down different aisles, like they were trying to trap me. I knew in my gut this is what happened to Ellie, so I kinda let it happen for a minute.”

“Sophia!” His roar echoes from the walls of my apartment and makes me jump. “Are you insane? You were seventeen, and you werelettingthem take you?”

“I did what I had to do!” I snap back. “How else would I find her? How else could I know what happened?” I drop my foot down and lift the other to repeat the process. “I’m not sorry, Jay. And I’m not going to sit here eight years later and question my actions. They grabbed me from the store, and when my eyes met the clerk’s behind the counter, I realized he was my first step. He knew what they were doing, and he made it so the emergency doors in the back wouldn’t alert anyone when they were opened.” I draw in a long breath and let it out on a hiss when my aching foot throbs. “They got me outside into a van, you know, one of those seven-seaters but without the seats. They tossed me in and tried to tie me down, but I kicked and kicked and kicked until my dancer feet were ruined. I got away, but I got license plates and IDs from their pockets on the way.”

“You pickpocketed them?”

I shrug. “It’s funny the things a desperate girl can do. I needed to find my sister, so I turned from small town good girl into who I am now.”

“Who are you now, Soph?”

I give a humorless chuckle. “I’m a murderer. A hacker. A thief. I’m a vigilante, because instead of calling the cops, I find muscle to help me take care of things when I can’t do them myself.”

“I’m your muscle.”

“Yep. I followed their trail. Once I got away that night, I went home, cleaned up, passed mysuspicionson to the police, but I never told a soul what happened to me, then I started my search. I was good. I was great, even, for my age. But I’m better now. I had an affinity for puzzles, and I had the motivation to dig in deep. Nothing happened overnight, but it was happening. Ellie’s body was found twenty-nine days after she went missing. On the thirtieth day, I went back to the store and smiled when the clerk recognized me.” I smile now, and remember the way he squealed like a pig. “I was just a skinny dancer, no reason for him to be afraid. But he thought I was dead, so when I came in and smiled, I swear, he crapped his pants.”

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