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"Emily," I whisper to her. "Who's that?"
"J-Jasper," she says. "O-One of the guards. Th-These are his keys…"
Shit.
I pull her down and tuck us around a corner into an adjacent room. It's an old-fashioned sitting area—or at least, it would be if it wasn't full of junk. There's the entryway that we came in on and then another on the other side of the room.
"I thought you said they were going to be out?"
"They were! They don't usually come back so early." I can hear the panic rising in her voice. If she pops now, there's no saving us. Whatever Holly would have had in store will be ten times worse with me out of my cage and Emily having tried to help me.
Shit. Shit, shit, shit.
Breathe.
I put my hands on her shoulders and force her to look at me. "Everything is going to be okay," I say, as the sound of stomping footsteps and curses gets closer. "Lead me through that door and through the house so we avoid him. He's gonna go to your room looking for you first, right?"
She nods.
"Then let's go."
Emily takes in a deep, shuddering breath. She's very much not okay, but I feel a surge of pride when she stands up on her own. She grabs my hand with trembling fingers, wrapping around them in a grip that I think is more to ground her than it is to ground me.
That's okay. She can take from me whatever she needs.
We dart from one side of the room to the other, our bodies crouched low. Jasper continues to yell for Emily, stomping through the house. I listen enough to know if he takes a pivot and starts getting close to us.
So far, he doesn't.
When we round the corner out of the sitting room, we're put into a hallway. At the end is a door. The front door.
Freedom.
Emily and I look each other in the eyes. Without a word, we both break into run toward it.
Being in the lead, smaller, and not with child, Emily reaches the door first, yanking it open. But rather than run through, into the night's freedom, she freezes on the spot, lets out a yelping scream, and tumbles to her knees.
I hear more yelling just beyond the door, but it's not the yelling that has me terrified.
It's Holly—with that godforsaken gun in her hand.
She looks at me and scowls.
Then she pulls the trigger.
61
REESE
Clairvoyance isn’t my thing. I run on pure intuition. Does this feel right? Does this feel wrong? So far in my life, it’s mostly done me pretty well.
But nothing could have prepared me for what happened when I stepped out of my car.
A separate vehicle, barreling from the opposite side of the road, coming to a skidding halt in the driveway of this little country house. Two burly ass dudes spill out of it.
And behind them?
Holly.
