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He reaches across the table, all eyes on his phone as silence surrounds us, the only noise coming from the heaving in the bathroom. He hits accept on the call before immediately putting the call on speakerphone.
“Hello?” a familiar voice comes through the phone, though it lacks the flair of arrogance that I remember so well. “Carver? Is that you? Are you there?”
Her voice is a broken and tormented whisper that turns my stomach upside down. “Sara?” My gaze shifting to Carver, wondering why the fuck Sara Benson would be calling him.
She lets out a soft gasp. “Winter? Shit. Is that you? Holy shit. I’m so sorry. Please, I need to talk to you. Please come and see me. I swear, I never meant to go insane like that. Please, I’ll do anything. Please come. I’ll tell you everything you want to know and I’ll never bother you again. I just have to get out of here. I can’t do it anymore. I’m begging you.”
Carver snatches the phone off the counter and takes it off speakerphone. “What the fuck can you offer us?” he questions, clearly not liking the idea of Sara speaking to me with such desperation, trying to guilt me into giving her what she wants.
Silence follows as Cruz comes striding out of the bathroom with a hand towel and whips it against the back of Grayson’s head, only to quickly realize that something is going down. He takes his seat, pushing his plate away from him and taking my hand on top of the counter. “Who is it?” he questions.
“Sara Benson,” King says. “She’s fucking desperate. She’ll probably say anything to get out of that place.”
Carver’s brows raise and he turns his gaze to Cruz, his eyes full of suspicion. “We’ll be there in an hour,” he says before ending the call without another word.
“We’re going there?” I demand, my eyes bugging out of my head. “I don’t know if maybe you’ve forgotten, but Sara is a fucking psycho. She was stalking me for weeks. She was in my fucking room.”
“Trust me, I haven’t forgotten,” Carver says, his gaze shifting back to Cruz again. “She thinks she knows where we can find Knox, and if she’s right, she wants us to get her out on the pretenses that she gets the fuck out of Ravenwood Heights and never comes back again.”
Cruz leans back in his seat, rubbing his hand over his face. “She can give us Knox?”
Carver shrugs. “That’s what she said.”
“And if she’s lying?”
Carver shakes his head. “She has no reason to lie,” he explains. “She tells us where he is, and if he’s there, we get him and she gets her freedom, but if he’s not, she stays. She gains nothing from lying to us. But on the off chance she is, what do we lose? A fucking night of looking in the wrong place? What’s the difference from every other failed night of searching?”
“True,” Cruz says, getting to his feet. “Then let’s do this. I’ve got a fucking score to settle with that bastard.”
I’m thrown back to the night, chasing Knox through the thick trees where I chose my own problems over Cruz’s need to end him. Knox offered me information on the night Sara abused me and my selfish need to get answers beat any kind of rational thinking. Knox got away and I’ve hated myself for it ever since. Cruz deserved retribution. He deserved to watch the life fading out of Knox’s eye for what he did to him, and I took that opportunity away from him. Now is our chance to even the playing field. Knox won’t be getting away from us again.
We leave our half-eaten dinner on the counter and pile into the Escalade, Carver careening down the road like a bat out of hell. Traveling at this speed isn’t so stressful when no one is following you. Though, the fact that the black SUV didn’t fall into the boys’ trap and got out of there before it was too late isn’t very comforting. There are so many questions and so few answers.
An hour later after knocking out two security guards and stealing their key cards, the five of us sneak through the quiet, dark halls of the mental institute the boys had stashed Sara in, and with every step I take, an uneasy shiver sails down my spine. It’s clinical, creepy, and downright fucked up. It’s barely even eight at night and the place is closed up, expecting their patients to go to bed this early. They’re probably given sedatives to help them get there and to keep the noise down. No wonder Sara wants to get out of here so badly.
Carver leads, searching the numbers beside each door until he comes to room 162. He swipes the key card over the lock and waits a moment for the red light to turn green. The door is pushed open and the five of us pile into the room.
