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“She’s fine. She just ended up going to an abandoned building. She probably just thought that my premonition was wrong.”
I sighed heavily and stared at the endless road before me. “Any other times?”
“No, that’s it besides today.”
I didn’t speak for a long time as I thought back to the dreams I had about Ryan. In it, he had warned me not to trust the untrustworthy, but the last person I thought he would be referring to was himself. But now I realized my dream had been warning me not to trust Ryan. Despite trying to keep a guard up around him, I had let my defenses down and trusted him because I believed in him. My own instincts had betrayed me.
In the second dream, he had pressed his mother’s bloody medallion into my hand. I now believed that it was supposed to represent his sister’s murder of his parents, to shed light on the connection Ryan shared with his sister, but I just hadn’t put the pieces together. His last words to me in that dream had been that I didn’t know the difference between waking dreams and reality and to not take things at face value. I had taken Ryan at face value. I had trusted him and confided in him, and all this time he had been deceiving me.
The fact that I wasn’t able to interpret the meaning of my dreams until it was too late was frustrating, but that was the least of my problems now. I had a crazed person who was potentially possessed handcuffed to the car door and I was barreling straight into what was probably a trap to try to save Simon and my mother. My world seemed to be teetering on its edge and I prayed that I was able to right it before it was too late.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“We’re close,” Ryan said. We had been driving for almost an hour and we were still in the middle of nowhere.
“How close?”
“Close enough that we’re going to be on top of him in a few miles.”
Instead of slowing the car down, I pressed on the accelerator. Trap or not, I wasn’t going to let my father hurt anyone else I loved.
“Turn right.”
I followed Ryan’s direction onto a narrow dirt road covered by low overhanging branches. It added an eeriness to the night, as if skeleton arms were reaching for us. As we continued to drive, I saw a large barn come into view in the distance. Lights were blazing through the windows as if
someone was waiting to welcome us. I had a feeling I knew who it was.
“Are you planning on just driving up and saying hello?” Ryan asked sardonically. He seemed to have pulled himself together during the drive and was able to look me in the eye without guilt.
“What alternative do I have?”
“Park the car here and we’ll go the rest of the way on foot. I’m not sure if your father knows how close we are, but we can at least try to have the element of surprise.”
I nodded since I didn’t have a better plan. I stopped the car a good distance from the barn and killed the engine. I grabbed the gun that Ryan had briefly explained how to use on the drive over. I just hoped I would remember how to use it when it mattered. I looked at him warily.
“If I uncuff you, can you control your sister?”
“I think so. But if I can’t and it’s a matter of life and death, don’t hesitate to shoot me.” Ryan’s hazel eyes were deadly serious and I swallowed at the significance of his words but I just nodded my head. He had seemed so desperate to save his sister earlier, but now he was giving me permission to shoot him, along with his sister, if necessary. I wasn’t sure whether it made me feel grateful or uneasy.
I unlocked his cuffs and we swiftly but quietly exited the car, leaving the doors ajar since the last thing we wanted to do was alert my father to our presence by slamming them shut.
We walked quickly up the dirt road, careful to keep close to the trees so that we were camouflaged. My pulse quickened and I tried to regulate my breathing as a mixture of fear and anticipation surged through my veins. I was aware of my throbbing head from Ryan’s earlier attack, but I barely felt the pain. I was more than ready to face my father after our last encounter, and I had a feeling that only one of us would make it out alive. I was determined that it would be me.
I glanced back at Ryan who was close behind me. His face was serious and he nodded at me like he wanted to reassure me. I just prayed that he was able to keep his demonic sister under control because the last thing I needed was to face both her and my father.
We hunkered down when we reached the barn, moving close to the ground. I indicated to Ryan with a motion of my hand that I was going to approach one of the windows. He nodded in understanding and followed my actions. I expected my father to fling the door of the barn open at any minute, to be discovered and dragged in kicking and screaming. My heart was in my throat as I got closer, and it was with more than a little relief that I reached the side of the barn.
I sidled up next to the window and then crouched down below the sill. Ryan was right beside me and I put a finger to my lips to indicate that we had to be quiet. I was paranoid that his sister would take over his body at any minute and call attention to us. He just nodded.
I carefully looked over the sill of the window, raising my head slowly and hoping that no one would notice the movement. I first felt relief when I saw that my father was turned away from me, but the relief quickly vanished when I saw the rest of the scene.
Horror couldn’t describe the emotion that ran through me when I saw Simon. A thick rope had been flung over one of the rafters in the ceiling of the barn, and it ended in a noose that was around his neck. The tips of his toes were barely able to rest on a precarious stool beneath him and with his hands tied behind his back, his balance was unstable.
But the worst part was that Philip had the other end of the rope. He seemed to take glee in pulling on his end of the rope so that Simon was suspended in the air, his legs flailing wildly as the noose tightened around his neck, strangling him. Philip would pull tight for a few moments and then slacken the rope as Simon desperately tried to find purchase on the stool again. He would only get a few moments of relief to rest his weight on the stool and get in a few gasps of air before Philip would pull on the rope again, watching in amusement as Simon struggled to stay alive.
I didn’t know how long this had been going on, but Simon’s face was bulging red and I didn’t know how much more he could take. Pure rage took over and I raised the gun. I would feel no guilt in killing my father. He deserved to die and then I would force Philip to free my mother of the vardoger and then kill him too.
My finger on the trigger was steady but I froze when my father turned around. He was still using my mother as a human shield with a gun pointed to her head. He grinned mockingly at me, seeming to relish in my fear and frustration.
