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“I—”
He walked to her, wrapped his hand around her arm, and led her outside.
I should have been doing that, should have been comforting her, but I was grateful that he stepped in.
He was back in less than a minute.
“Did you get the papers?”
“Yeah. Erik and Paulette are still alive. The others are dead,” I said.
“The bodies will be taken care of, and Erik and Paulette will get medical attention,” Elias said.
He then grabbed my arm and pulled me out of the house as several others entered.
They were good at what they did, and I had to trust that they could handle it.
What else could I do?
Nothing.
I couldn’t even keep my daughter safe.
How could I expect I could do anything else?
I got into the SUV, and Elias got in after me.
We were off, no doubt headed to a safe house.
Amethyst looked practically catatonic, and I reached for her.
She jerked her hand away when I touched her, and I recoiled.
Elias looked away, but I knew he hadn’t missed that.
It doesn’t mean anything,I told myself.
She was out of her mind with panic, worried about Crystal just like I was.
I kept telling myself that, not allowing my mind to focus on the one thing I knew to be true.
My baby was missing because I had failed her.
The ache in my chest almost made me double over. But I stayed upright, didn’t allow a hint of the turmoil that roiled me to rise up.
Instead, I looked at Amethyst and tried to ignore how that pain tripled when she refused to meet my eyes.
Staring out of the car window was preferable to continuing to look at her and seeing my weakness and failure mirrored back to me. So I watched as the neighborhood changed to one I didn’t recognize.
The car turned into the driveway of a nondescript house and pulled into a smallish garage.
When the garage door closed, Elias got out and immediately went to Amethyst and led her out of the vehicle and into the house.
She let him, didn’t even look at me as she did, which only added to my hurt.
I reminded myself that my hurt was nothing, not when I had no idea where my daughter was.
I followed Elias and Amethyst into the house and saw a man there.
