The air smells dry and dusty, and the path toward the tower is uneven, the gravel shifting under my shoes as I clamber over it fast.
“Elle?” I try again, but all my voice does is carry and disappear.
I swallow hard and push forward, ducking beneath the rusted framework and into the shadowed ground-floor room of the abandoned tower.
It’s cooler under here. The ground is packed with dry dirt and scattered debris—old beer bottles, cigarette butts, pages from old newspapers, and flattened cardboard shoved into corners like makeshift bedding.
“Elle?” I call out. “Bug?”
My eyes adjust as a figure steps out from behind one of the steel support beams of the building.
Stacey.
Her hair is pulled back, and it’s thinner than I remember. Her face looks sharper, and the skin around her eyes is hollowed out in a way that makes my stomach twist.
Behind her, leaning lazily against one of the steel supports, is a man I don’t recognize. Mid-thirties, maybe. He’s not big, but there’s something meanly solid about him. His dark hoodie is pushed up over tattooed forearms, and a scruffy beard creeps unevenly across his jaw.
He watches me with his head tilted, and I immediately hate the way it feels as though he’s assessing me.
I ignore him and scan the space again.
“Where is she?” I demand, already moving toward Stacey. “Where’s Elle?”
Stacey doesn’t answer immediately. She glances at the bag on my shoulder instead.
“Did you bring the cash?”
“I asked you where she is,” I snap. “Put her in front of me. Now.”
“She’s not here,” Stacey says.
My brain scrambles, and the words don’t make sense at first.
“What?”
“She’s not here,” she repeats slowly. “She’s with Remi.”
Relief crashes through me so violently, my knees nearly give out. She’s safe.
She’s safe.
But then the rest of the sentence catches up to me like a blade sliding between ribs.
“If she’s with Remi, then why did you say you had her?”
“I needed you to come,” Stacey says, her voice holding that same careless edge it did on the phone. “And I knew you would.”
The man shifts his weight, boots scraping against dirt, and understanding moves through me in stages. Confusion is replaced by the hollow drop in my stomach, then the sharp, burning clarity of it.
“You lied.”
Stacey shrugs. “It’s not personal.”
The words hit harder than anything else she could have said. Because it is. It’s very fucking personal.
“You threatened to take her,” I choke out. “You used a five-year-old girl to get money.”
“I wasn’t actually gonna take her,” Stacey snaps defensively. “Jesus Christ, Penny. You’re acting like I killed someone.”
