Lia hesitated. Then did something that broke her heart but had to be done. She lied. “I promise.”
He hesitated, but only for another few seconds. “Be safe, Lia,” he said gruffly, then was walking away.
“You too,” she whispered, staying where she was. His shadow disappeared quickly because of how dark it was. She wanted to rush to the house, but she waited longer than she wanted to. She didn’t want him to even suspect she wouldn’t wait for backup.
If this was anything like her experience, Sammy was…okay. For now. Maybe whoever had taken her inside had convinced her to take some drugs or get drunk. Maybe they’d…
No, she wouldn’t go down the route of all those maybes. In her experiences, groups like this eased into these things, because they didn’t want problems. They wanted people beholden, so they wouldn’t run away and cause complications for the group. They wanted and preyed on desperation. Especially these fringe type groups that were more stopping points than the big guns.
Sammy wasn’t the kind to be scared into behaving the way they wanted, but they’d no doubt use Dani against her, just as they’d no doubt used Dani to gettoher. They’d probably told Sammy she had to do things to keep her mom safe. Just like they’d probably told Dani she had to do things to keep Sammy safe.
But no one was safe. Clearly. Dani was hurt—and she hadn’t done those injuries to herself. Someone had hurt her and left her there. Maybe to die.
So Lia had to act. Once she was convinced Gard was far enough away, she crept back toward the house. She couldn’tpossibly wait for Royal to get here, but she wasn’t going to be reckless.
Not unless she saw a way to get Sammy out via recklessness.
She took her time, picking her way through the front yard, around piles of junk, and up to the porch. She carefully climbed over the broken and splintered porch stairs to leverage herself onto the warped porch boards. Light came from the house, but Lia stuck to the shadows as best she could. Sometimes the boards creaked under her feet, but there was so much noise going on inside, she didn’t think anyone could possibly hear it.
She moved around broken and warped boards and shards of glass on the porch and toward one of the windows. If she got an idea of what was going on insidebeforeshe went inside, she might have a better plan.
The big front window was broken, but she could see through some of the spiderweb cracks. Inside, people were visible. Drinking. Shooting up. Laughing. Not one of them was paying any mind to what was going on outside the house.
Then everything inside Lia stopped, because she saw Sammy’s dark hair with the blond roots. Lia could just make out her profile. Her face was red and puffy from crying, but she wasn’t actively crying. Her arms were at an odd angle behind her, which lead Lia to believe she was tied up even though Lia couldn’t see for sure from her vantage point.
It was both horror that she was here and relief that she was here and in one piece. Notsafe, but not visiblyhurtlike Dani.
There was a guy standing next to Sammy holding a plastic cup, and he leaned down to say something in her ear that made Sammy grimace and lean away from him. But the man grinned like he liked that response.
Fear and fury twined inside Lia, a dangerous combination. She tried to breathe through the emotions andfocus, but she knew she had to get inside. Now.
She moved for the door. Laughter and shouts and the murmur of voices spilled out of the house, but Lia knocked, already planning her greeting in her mind. She was a friend of Dani’s. Sad and in desperate need of help.
She could make that believable. She knew what desperate felt like, deep in her bones.
When nothing happened, she knocked again, louder this time. When no one came to the door, she inhaled carefully. She knew what she had to do.
She turned the knob and pushed the door open. A few people turned toward her as she stepped inside, but a lot of people didn’t even notice. There were little groups. People sitting on the floor, on tables, on furniture that was water damaged and molding. The group consisted of mostly men, but a few women were here and there—every last one of them looked high.
Lia’s gaze moved to Sammy, who did indeed have her hands tied behind her back. She had that belligerent set to her chin, and all the evidence of having cried, but she otherwise seemed whole and in one piece.
But Lia couldn’t stare at her. It would ruin everything.
Slowly, the talk and laughter in the room died down, and just about everyone was looking at Lia standing in the doorway. Even Sammy. But Lia couldn’t meet Sammy’s gaze, because there was a man with his hand around the back of Sammy’s neck possessively and if Lia looked too hard at that she might bloweverything.
So Lia looked around at the curious faces studying her. She adopted her best unsure, nervous expression. “Um, hi,” she said, eyes darting around like she didn’t know who to land on. “I… I was looking for a girl named Dani,” she announced to the crowd.
The man who’d had his hands on Sammy, pushed away from her and took a few steps toward Lia. He studied Lia with cold, critical eyes.
“What do you want Dani for?”
“I worked with Dani at the diner.” Lia kept her gaze on the man, even though she ached to rush over to Sammy. She was pretty sure this guy was the leader—if not of the whole group, at least of tonight’s activities. The way everyone turned their attention toward him, like they hung on his every word, made it clear he had some kind of power or leadership here.
“She said she had a good thing going here,” Lia said. She licked her lips nervously—both a little put on and very true. She leaned into the nervous—just like Agent Wood had once instructed her to do.
Don’t fight your real feelings. Use them for what you need to project.
“And I just got kicked out of my boyfriend’s place,” Lia said, trying to make her voice shake to go along with her fake sob story. “So I just thought…maybe you’d still be looking for people, but I can leave if I’m not…welcome.” She even took a step backward, toward the door.
