Page 121 of Whispers of You
I pressed the speakerphone button, and Jude picked up on the first ring. “Just in time. My fingers were getting a little twitchy.”
I bit down hard on the inside of my cheek. “Tell me where you want me to go.”
“Are you alone, Holt? Don’t forget, I know how your voice sounds when you lie.”
But he didn’t. Jude hadn’t spent any real time with me in a decade. He didn’t know how my demons had changed me.
“I’m alone. Now tell me where the hell you want me to go.”
“Don’t, Holt!”
Everything in me seized at the fear in Wren’s voice.
“Shut up!” Jude snapped.
A smack sounded, and then a muffled cry.
My fingers tightened around the phone so hard I thought for sure it would splinter. “Touch a hair on her head and I’ll end you,” I growled.
Jude’s dark laugh was back. “A little too late for that, my friend. Start walking west.”
I took one last look at Nash, Lawson, and my dad as I strode in the direction Jude had instructed. I cemented their image in my mind. I didn’t want to lose it. Needed to remember how much they cared for me. How they always had my back, even when I hadn’t had theirs nearly enough lately.
“I’m walking. What now?”
Jude was quiet for a moment. Waiting, I realized.
“Take the path that veers off the road. In half a mile, you’ll come to a barn. Knock real nice, and I might let you in.”
“Don’t do it, Holt! He’s just going to kill us both. Please, don’t—”
A sickening sound cut across the line. Not a slap. The sound of a fist meeting flesh.
“Shut the hell up, bitch!”
Another punch sounded, and then a crash. Wren let out an agonized cry.
“You are going to pay every second until he gets here,” Jude gritted out.
Then the line went dead.
42
WREN
My ribs blazedwith a fire I’d never felt before. I rolled into a ball, letting out a low moan. But I couldn’t regret my words—not if it saved Holt. We might not get our second chance, but he could get his.
Jude shoved his phone into his pocket and chuckled. “You just made lover boy’s end that much quicker. He hears one cry from you, and I bet he’s running his ass off to get here.”
The tiny flicker of hope I’d felt at warning Holt extinguished instantly. Because Jude was right. Holt would never back down. He’d never save himself if I were at risk.
Jude adjusted his grip on his gun, seeming to make sure everything was all in working order after laying waste to Amber. Making sure it was ready for Holt.
Fury burst free, dumping adrenaline into my system—adrenaline that numbed the worst of the pain. This wasn’t going to happen.
I moved before I had a chance to think it through. Before I had the opportunity to realize how dumb my plan was. Shoving up with my elbow, I sprang to my feet and charged at Jude.
Pain flared along my ribs, stealing my breath, but I didn’t care. I ran straight for him. I didn’t have a weapon to fight with so I would use what I did have: me.
