Page 21 of Barinov

“About time,” Knox mutters, barely glancing up from the map of poetry on the table. “You know what’s going on?”

“El filled me in enough,” Briggs says as he strolls inside. He pulls off his hat and sets it on the table with care, then drops into the chair beside Ellie.

“About time?” I repeat, my eyes darting between them.

“Ellie? What the hell is happening?” Cade asks.

The three of them ignore us.

“Keep goin’,” Briggs says as he leans forward and plants his elbows firmly on the table. “I’ll catch up.”

Knox nods. “Alright. From the looks of—”

“I’m sorry!” I snap, flailing my hands in the air. “Are Cade and I magically fucking invisible now? Can someone please tell us what the hell is happening?”

Ellie finally lifts her head. She glances at us, biting on her bottom lip. “I was going to tell you.”

“Tell us what?” I ask, the final t snapping against my teeth.

“I just,” she continues, interlocking her fingers with Briggs’s. “I just never found the right time.”

Cade steps forward, his eyes darting to his little sister holding hands with a Black Book gunrunning cowboy.

“Caleb and I have been dating.” She sighs. “For a while now.”

“What the hell?” Cade says, scandalized. “Ellie what do—”

“Later,” Knox cuts in. “We don’t have much time left.”

Cade glances at the countdown ticking away and glowers. “Fine. But once this is over, you’re explaining. All of it.”

“Okay,” Ellie whispers, her ocean-blue eyes beginning to water.

Knox nods and taps the page in front of him, dragging his pen along a messy web of scribbles. “Alright so a collar of fire, that’s the bomb collar. We know that.” The ink bleeds into the paper as he circles the line again. “The flame etched into bone. That’s got to be the brand.”

My jaw grinds at the sound of our girl’s screams still ringing in my ears.

“Luca didn’t just describe what he did to Zeke,” Knox continues. “He gave us a blueprint of what he was planning to do to Bella.”

Haley points to a line in the poem. “He taught him to crawl? What does that part even mean?”

“Is there any way Luca could be Zeke’s dad?” Ellie asks.

“Not possible.” Nate shakes his head. “Both of his parents died in a plane crash when Zeke was just a kid. That’s how he ended up in Miami.”

“Maybe Luca wanted to be a parent?” Ellie shrugs. “This is all just so—”

“Great,” I interject. “That’s all fascinating and completely fucking useless. It gives us zero clues to a damn location where he could be hiding her.”

Knox exhales hard. “I know.”

“Wait a second.” Cade places a hand firmly on the table and crouches down. He scoops up a handful of sand from the floor and lets it slowly spill out onto the table through his long fingers. “Maybe he watches. Maybe he hides. Maybe he waits on darker tides.”

I turn to look at him. “Yeah?”

He looks at me, hazel eyes now steady and certain.

“Maybe he waits on darker tides,” he repeats.