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Her eyes met mine in a challenge, but relaxed when she didn’t find the answering one in my expression. In fact, I’d schooled my features to blank attentiveness, though I was severely concerned about both her comment and where this discussion was headed.Don’t ask, I thought.Leave it be. We’ve got bigger problems right now.
And whatever he’d done to earn the label, Emily was right, theywouldfind him.
“The bad news?” I asked evenly.
“Yeah,” she said. “That would be my bag.”
A memory of the lumpy duffle bag flashed in my mind, along with a dozen or so ideas of what it could have held. School books? Gym clothes? Chinese throwing stars?
She sighed. “Things have been kind of rough for me and Bri.” She winced at her own use of the name and my gut twisted. “I try to keep us together, to make things work.” She shook her head. “That doesn’t matter. The thing is, the bad news”—her eyes came back to mine—“everything important was in that bag. Everything I’d need. To run.”
It took immeasurable strength not to respond to her words, not to allow myself to envision what they’d been going through, what had happened to her and to Brianna.
I forced myself to remain composed, voice steady. “Can you tell me what, exactly?”
“There were a few things”—she hesitated, looked away—“from my mother.”
“What about your sister, Emily? Was there anything in that bag that linked you to her?”
A sick horror crossed her face. “Why? What… do you mean they’ll go after her?”
“No. No, I told you she was safe.”
Emily was bolt upright now, her blanket gathered in her lap as if she meant to run for Brianna that very instant. To save her.
I reached across the table to stop her, but dropped my hand before it got halfway. “They can’t get to her now,” I explained. “They don’t know where she’s at.”
She relaxed a fraction. “Then why? What are you asking me?”
I sighed. “They’ll come after you. To use you against her.”
Her face went pale. “There’s a photo of us. And some paperwork. It won’t be a question.”
Her words hung between us for a long while as she waited for me to reply, to tell her everything would be okay, but I couldn’t.
“What will they do?” she finally asked.
I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter.”
Emily was suddenly standing. “How will they use me against her? What will they do?”
Once more, I resisted the impulse to reach out to her. Instead, I gave her what truth I could. “They would… use you. To draw her out.”
Emily seemed to deflate as the vehemence left her. She’d seen me strung up, no doubt seen the blade threatening me. She was smart enough to imagine what their “use” of her would entail. She’d be wrong, though. The Council—Morgan—they would do much, much worse.
But she could imagine.
“It doesn’t matter,” I repeated. “They won’t get to you. And Brianna is safe.” I gestured toward the bed. “You should get some sleep, we shouldn’t stay here too long.”
She stared at me for two full minutes before finally glancing at the bed. I had no idea what was going through her mind, but it wasn’t the need for rest. She sat again in the chair and pulled the thin, faded-blue blanket tight against her cheeks. The bottom half of her face was buried as she simply stared across the otherwise empty room toward the only door.
In hopes that she would eventually give in, I clicked the lamp off, leaving the room with only the dim light filtering through the curtains, and then spun the very uncomfortable chair in which I sat around, kicked my feet up on the bedside table, and tilted my head back against my laced fingers. I closed my eyes to the stained plaster ceiling, but I had no intention of sleeping. Emily needed to rest. We would be running again in the morning, and whether Morgan’s men found us or not, it wasn’t going to be easy.
It was more than an hour later when she spoke again, this time her words barely above a whisper.
“I know you didn’t kidnap her.”
When I didn’t reply, she went on.
