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And the perfect place for my family to wait it out.
I wrench the hidden door open, revealing the pitch black hole. I pull my phone from my back pocket, hitting the flashlight app, and peer over the ledge. Adrenaline makes my fingers tremble as I reach for the steel ladder bolted to the wall. I’m at the bottom in what feels like seconds, my heart pounding in my ears like a drum.
The hook next to the metal door is empty, which means someone was definitely down here. I try to open the door, but it doesn’t budge. Urgency beats against my skin, and I pound my fist on the door. “Ma! Evangeline! It’s me, open the door!”
Silence fills the small space, the air thick with fragile hope. Time seems to slow down as I wait, and my breath turns ragged in my chest.
I slam my fist against the door again. “Hunter, it’s me. Open the door, son.”
I try the handle again, but it remains locked. The silence presses on me from all sides, and cold sweat trickles down my forehead as I wipe my brow with the back of my hand.
Heaving a breath, I thumb open Bane’s contact and climb the ladder back to my bedroom.
He answers on the first ring. “Did you find them?”
“No, but I think they’re in the tunnel. Door’s locked from my end.” I throw my leg over the top and step into my closet.
“Heading there now.”
“And there’s a Savage Soul bleeding out on my carpet,” I tell him as I step over him once more. There’s gotta be something I’m missing. “Heard from Nova?”
“Nah, but he would’ve called by now if they were there.”
My heart seizes at his words, and I grunt a response. “I’m going to keep looking here.”
“I’ll call you if I find them,” Bane says.
“Call me if you find anything.” I hang up and jog back downstairs and into the kitchen. Evangeline and Hunter spent a lot of their time in the kitchen, and I don’t know what I’m looking for, but maybe there’s something.
A clue or a piece of evidence—something to tell me where the fuck my family is.
I comb my hands through my hair, pulling at it in frustration. I stand in the middle of my kitchen, spinning in a slow circle and trying to spot anything out of the ordinary.
Thank fuck most of it escaped unscathed.
On my second rotation I see it. A piece of paper underneath a turtle magnet in the middle of the fridge.
It’s not the soft swirly letters I’m used to seeing. It’s hurried flicks of the pen, her penmanship messier than I’ve ever seen. Like it was written in a hurry. Like she wanted to tell me something, but I . . . I don’t understand what the fuck she means by any of it.
You and I are fated, written in the stars.
I was awake, but I was too scared to say it back and I should’ve.
We could’ve been epic, baby.
Watch Coco and eat the three dozen cookies I hid in the freezer for you.
5
BANE
I end the call with Silas and grip my phone in my fist and look around at what’s left of my house. The first floor is a chaotic scene of destruction, with furniture overturned and walls filled with bullet holes. A puddle of coffee stains the island from a broken carafe. Bits of ceramic plates and mugs litter the kitchen floor.
The room is filled with the eerie sound of broken glass crunching underneath my boots, the faint whistle of the wind through the shattered windows.
Their message is haphazard in its delivery, but fatal in its execution.
The upstairs is relatively unscathed, but strangely I find myself discovering a thread of gratitude underneath it all, because now—now there’s no excuse for me to hold on to this house.
