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She turned to go and I reached up to stop her. The instant my hand touched her left shoulder, the bag dropped from her right and she spun to strike me.
“Whoa,” I said, throwing my hands up. “Easy.”
Her jaw tightened. “Don’t touch me.”
I resisted the urge to bring up the dozen or so times she’d had a hold of me since we’d met. “Fine,” I answered. I waited a moment for her to calm. “What do you mean ‘back?’”
Her face relaxed to confusion. “Back to the house where I found you.” She pointed absently toward the east. “My car is parked in an alley two blocks down.”
I automatically stepped forward to grasp her arms, to shake her, and had to restrain myself. “No. You can’t go back there. You can never go back there.”
She opened her mouth, the words ‘my car’ silently forming through her shock at my vehemence.
“Forget the car. It’s lost to you.” I shook my head, furious. “Morgan’s probably already found it. His minions have probably sniffed out every clue in it. The registration, it’ll have your address, your name. They’ll know. They’ve got us now.”
“Seriously,” Emily said, “do we need to get your medication or something?”
I threw my hands up, and then stopped short when the pain cut through my shoulder anew. “Aaaaahhhh!”
Emily leaned back, suddenly leery instead of determined.
“I am not mentally ill,” I said in as calm and even a tone as I could manage. “That…manyou saw earlier, the one who chained me by the ankles”—I waited until her expression indicated she was remembering the image—“he is the insane one.”
I was quiet while she let it sink in. Slowly, she began to nod. “Yes, that makes sense.”
I let out a long breath, grateful I was finally getting through.
“So, you’re both insane,” she decided. “Did you meet in the nuthouse or is there like a club or something?”
An exasperated growl escaped me. “I’m not insane!”
A petite hand came to rest on her hip as she leaned forward again. “Oh, really? Then, why, pray tell, did you kidnap my sister?”
My palm slapped against my face and I took two long breaths before opening my eyes to peer through the fingers at her.
She waited.
I dropped my hand in defeat. “Circumstance, Emily. Circumstance.”
“I don’t think I believe you,” she said, only a hint of a tremor in her voice. “I can’t think of any circumstance that would call for you stealing Brianna.”
“And I can’t think of any circumstance that would call for a girl with a screwdriver to drop me from a chain to break my shoulder against a concrete floor and drag me along as if I’m some kind of hostage. But here we are.” I glanced up and down the space between the buildings. “Now let’s get moving before someone finds us.”
She didn’t speak for a blissful five minutes or so, merely walking behind me. I wasn’t certain whether she’d been thinking and finally come to a decision or had just realized she’d begun to follow instead of lead when her diligent stride turned into a kind of hopping jog to overtake mine.
“Hey!” she spat when she appeared beside me. She reached out to grab my arm again, but stopped just short, narrowed her eyes, and then drew her hand to her side where it fisted against her leg. I pulled back a smile. So that was it, then. She wasn’t about to let me call her on anything. Not this psycho. “Where, exactly, are we going?” she asked.
I sighed. “To find your sister.”
I could see the argument forming, wanting to tear out of her, but she didn’t seem entirely sure what to do.
“That’s what you want, isn’t it?”
She swallowed. Glanced forward, then back at me. When she spoke, it was almost a whisper. “Where is she?”
I turned my eyes ahead, toward the gates that led from the factory grounds. “Safe. That’s all that matters for now.”
It wasn’t answer enough, but Emily was clearly too tired for quarreling. There was a darkness under her eyes and I wondered if she’d slept at all since I’d taken Brianna. And then I corrected myself, because I’d nottakenBrianna. I’dsavedher.
