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One of the men grabbed the bag and left with the group.
I started to run, run as fast as I could.
“Motherfucker!” Benton screamed so loud, it sounded like he was right beside me. “I’m coming for you—”
I ignored the Malevolent who rushed me, and I kept running. I watched Benton and his crew leave the camp and return to the chopper parked yards away, the bag containing the bones of someone else. “Ben—”
A hand was clasped over my mouth, and his name died on my tongue. An arm crossed over my throat, and I was immediately choked. And just like the moment when I was captured, I was slowly pulled to the earth, the height of the trees surrounding me, my mind fading into oblivion.
When I opened my eyes, I was back in my bed, on top of the covers with my wings below me. The Christmas lights glowed above my bed, and the darkness from the window told me several hours had passed.
And then Claire’s face came into my sight. “Constance, are you okay?” Her sweet voice entered my mind, made waking up in this hell much easier. “Mom, her eyes are open.”
Beatrice’s face appeared next. “You okay? The Malevolent put you in here… We didn’t know what happened.”
I blinked a couple times before I sat up, everything coming back to me like it was a dream I was trying to hold on to. “Yeah, I’m fine.” My fingers moved through my hair, and I felt the weight at my back from the wings. “I… The helicopter.” I turned to Beatrice, remembering the scene clearly. “I heard a helicopter.”
“Yes, I heard it too.” She sat beside me on the bed and placed her hand against my back, finding the hidden zipper and pulling it down so the material fell from my shoulders. She knew better than anyone how heavy those wings could be, and the first thing we wanted to do when we were in our cabins was take them off.
Flashbacks moved across my mind, Benton trying to kill Forneus, the bag that was taken with him when he departed. The rest was a blur because I had been taken down, a heavy arm pressed into my throat so all I could do was collapse. Once the vision left, I looked at Beatrice, stared at her with a fresh mind.
She seemed to understand me telepathically because she turned to Claire. “Baby, could you give us a minute?”
“But is she okay?” Claire asked, still looking at me like my well-being was all that mattered to her.
I forced a smile as I stared at her, seeing those same blue eyes that Benton had, that same blond hair. The rest of her features were from Beatrice, but she definitely had a lot from her father. It broke my heart, seeing the way her father had been dragged away…heartbroken. “I’m fine, sweetheart. Don’t worry about me.”
When she heard it from my mouth, she returned to their bedroom and disappeared from view.
Beatrice turned back to me and immediately cut to the chase. “What happened?” She was in white jeans and a matching top, making the contrast of her dark hair even deeper. Every woman held as a prisoner in this camp had brown hair—except Claire.
“I saw Benton.”
Her reaction was instinctual, sucking in her breath and widening her eyes. “He’s here?”
“He was… He’s gone now.”
“What happened?”
“He landed in that chopper with a crew. They talked to Forneus for a while. He was given a bag…and then he tried to kill Forneus. I think…I think he came for you guys, and then Forneus lied and said you were already dead.”
“Why do you think that?” Her reaction started to dim again, her eyes slowly returning to their normal size, defeat snaking into her veins and her bones. “Did you hear what they said?”
“No, but Benton’s expression made it pretty clear that he was devastated.” I had seen the shine of tears even through the distance that had separated us. I’d seen grief in its purest form, watched a man go through each of the stages in a microsecond and then lunge to get his revenge. “I’d gone to the graveyard just before…and one of the graves had been dug up.”
She started to breathe harder, her eyes filling with tears. “No…”
My own eyes started to water, imagining the painful lie that Benton had to carry.
“He thinks we’re dead.” She faced forward and let her head fall into her palms, breathing hard as she had a silent breakdown, as she closed herself off from the world because reality was too traumatic to process.
I knew our hopes for rescue had been destroyed, but I considered my situation preferable to his. He thought that bag contained his daughter’s remains, that unspeakable things had been done to her and he took too long to get here. He had to go back to his life with that burden on his chest, knowing his daughter was dead and her spirit was in a place he couldn’t follow. I was in hell, but he was somewhere worse.
