She was a paler shadow of the woman he’d long considered his only friend. He opened his mouth to say… something, but like Alice, no sound came out. He cleared his throat and pulled his radio off his vest.
“Bear.”
The response came back right away. “Go ahead.”
He looked at Alice again. At the woman with Greta’s face. She watched him with wide, exhausted eyes, her fist still tangled in Jonah’s shirt, hanging on for dear life. He turned away and raised the radio to his mouth again.
“Tell Greta we’ve got Alice. She’s alive. We’re bringing her in.”
thirty-five
Tell Greta we’ve got Alice. She’s alive. We’re bringing her in.
Greta had been in Walker and Johanna’s kitchen when the call came through. Standing by the coffeepot, pouring her millionth cup of coffee while Bear made noises about her getting some rest.
He didn’t understand that she couldn’t. Not while knowing with absolute certainty that Alice was out there.
The radio had crackled, and Evander had spoken the three most beautiful sentences she’d ever heard. Sentences that should have made sense together but hadn’t at first. Not while her brain was still catching up with the fact that the bones they’d found on Evander’s property weren’t Alice’s, that she’d stood beside a grave and buried someone else’s remains, that for fifteen years her sister had been alive and just a few miles up the mountain, and she hadn’t known.
Fifteen years.
Three weeks since they’d lowered a casket.
Two weeks since Greta had stood on a granite shelf and screamed until her voice broke.
Tell Greta we’ve got Alice. She’s alive. We’re bringing her in.
Now she stood on the porch steps, both hands gripping the railing hard enough to make the wood creak. Her breath came in short pulls that didn’t feel like they were bringing in any air, and her chest had gone tight with a pressure that threatened to crack her ribs.
The palomino was the first thing she saw.
Sundance. Sunny. Jonah’s horse.
Carrying him and a woman with pale copper hair.
She moved before she realized it. One foot off the porch step, then the other, but Bear caught her arm.
“Wait,” he said. “Greta, wait. Look.”
She wanted to whirl on him and knock his hand away, but she didn’t. Instead, she sucked in a calming breath and followed his gaze.
The woman wore Jonah’s coat over a tattered and dirty white nightgown. It hung too large on her frame, the sleeves covering her hands completely. Her feet were bare, ankles caked with mud. She was collapsed in on herself, curled up against Jonah’s chest, gaze darting around like a prey animal surrounded by predators.
“She’s terrified,” Bear added softly. “You can see it from here. If you run at her?—”
“I know.” The words came out rough. She made herself stop, made herself take a step back up onto the porch. “I know.”
But knowing it didn’t stop the pull. Her sister was thirty yards away, and Greta was standing still when every cell in her body was screaming to move, to run, to cross the distance between them in a single bound.
Alice was so thin. So small. Her face was half-hidden by hair that had once been a vibrant copper but now hung lank, streaked silver, and darkened by dirt. Her skin was pale with that sickly yellow undertone that came from living without sunlight. Herwrists were ringed with angry red marks that Greta immediately understood had come from restraints.
Fifteen years.
Fifteen years in a basement.
Fifteen years marking days on a wall.
Fifteen years of believing no one was coming for her.
