Page 21 of Requiem & Reverie

“Shhhh. Don’t scream.”

Voss’s voice adds to the terror already shooting through me, and I do exactly the opposite and scream into his big palm. Wriggling and kicking, I fight to get away, clawing at his arm. Defense moves I studied on Youtube flash through my head, while I make a poor attempt to bend his thumb backward.

He wrenches his hand out of my grip, but quickly braces me again. “Nola! I’m not going to hurt you. There’s something I need to tell you. Something I haven’t told you.”

Ignoring him, I keep on with my struggle, stomping on his foot, digging my nails into his arm, squirming against him.

The man is iron and steel. Immovable.

I scream again and feel his breath on my ear.

“I can help you find your son.”

I freeze. Hard breaths expand and shrink my chest faster than I can suck the oxygen from them, making me feel dizzy.

But his words. His words have rendered me almost paralyzed.

He lowers his hand from my face, allowing more air to steal away the urge to pass out.

“How?” I don’t actually believe him, but then, I’m so desperate, I can’t dismiss him, either.

“Jonah was right. I’m not who you think I am.”

A part of me always believed that myself, but I don’t tell him so. “Who are you?”

“My name was Barrett Voselick. I grew up about thirty minutes north of here. Forest Glen area.”

I knew that area to be wealthy, made up of extravagant mansions. We sometimes drove through there when we were younger, to admire the monstrous homes with equally spacious property, often surrounded by gates and high cement walls.

“Remember, I told you about my uncle and grandfather?”

“What do they have to do with Oliver?”

“Everything. I’m pretty sure it was my uncle who took your son.”

“Why? Because of you?”

“In part. But also because of you.”

Me? What the hell would I have to do with his uncle? “Why? How would I know him?”

“Because he’s the one who took your sister, Nora.”

The sound of her name on his lips hits me like a hammer to the chest. Everything inside of me is cold and numb. I have to will myself to stay on my feet, and maybe Voss senses this, as he half carries me to the bed, allowing me to sit.

“What did …. What did you say?”

“I have reason to believe this is a vendetta. That he lured me here to stage his revenge.”

“Revenge for what?” I don’t want to ask, because I already sense that, in the next few minutes, I’m going to find out exactly what happened to Nora. The possibility that she ran off, that she escaped, will be crushed beneath whatever Voss tells me. A quick glimpse of his face, pinched and troubled, tells me it isn’t good. It isn’t what I hoped for all these years. It’s exactly what Mother feared most.

“I tried to help her escape. My uncle intended to kill her. He’d planned to eliminate the evidence by burning her alive.”

Hand slapped over my mouth, I choke back the urge to throw up and breathe hard through my nose. I don’t know how many blows one person can take before suffering a heart attack, or a stroke, but the dizziness, the numbness, the surreal feeling that this is all a dream leaves me wondering if I’ve already reached that point. If I’m just one breath away from my body giving out on me. It’s worse than my mother feared. So much worse.

“I managed to knock him out,” Voss continues, drawing me out of my temporary paralysis. “Scooped up Nora and carried her out of the house, into the woods behind our property. She was … so cold. He’d given her drugs, and I’m pretty sure he gave her too much at once. We hid from Carl in the trees, and I tried to keep her warm. Gave her my sweatshirt, but I couldn’t …. I couldn’t keep her warm enough. And she started to shake, and her eyes rolled back. Tried to keep her talking to me. I could hear Carl looking for us in the woods. Taunting us out of our hiding spot. But I couldn’t leave her to get help and risk that he’d find her.” Brows pinched together, he lowers his gaze from mine, and I catch the bob of his throat as he swallows. “She died in my arms.”

My chest tugs with a sob, and I cry for my sister. The terror and pain she must’ve endured in those days we couldn’t find her.