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“No,” he nearly cries into a scream. “No. Goddammit.” He tries to call back, but it doesn’t ring through. A tortured, angered, wounded noise wrestles out of Lo in all his pained fury.
A ball is lodged in my throat, my muscles just strict bands of anguish and determination and sheer utter pain. It’s taking every…fucking…thing inside me not to break down. I’m clinging to my nerve with my fingernails, and I so badly just want to let go and scream for her.
But I can’t…I can’t. I’m security first. Her friend second. Her boyfriend not at all.
Five minutes out, Lo volleys between rage and grief, like he could slaughter the world and then fall to his knees. Then his bloodshot eyes nail on to me.
“Why would they go after them?” he rasps. “Why would they touch Luna?”
I shake my head. The chances my family is behind this is too high. I know that. Unbearable weight has been bearing on my chest, and I try not to picture what Lo said. Their hands. On her. I can’t without losing my shit, and I can’t…
“What are they doing to her?” Lo chokes out.
“I dunno.”
“They’re your family!”
“I DON’T KNOW!” I yell with every breath inside me. “You think this woulda happened if I were closer to them?! You think I woulda let it happen?! They tell menothing.”
We’re too late.
I’d barely even started to get in my dad’s good graces, and then they jump on this opportunity—to what? What are they even doing?!
I grind down on my molars. “Take the next right—the next right!” He almost misses it, but he swerves and we’re still on course to reach them. Lo drives. I’m silent.
Until Xander’s dad says, “I swear to Christ if they rape her, I’m going to burn every one of them alive until nothing’s left.”
Nausea roils in my stomach, and I want to do worse to them. I’m clenching my knee with one hand, and my other is on my mic piece attached to my collar. I click it. “What’s that?”
I misheard something while Lo spoke, and Monroe repeats, “We’re pulling up. Only Lily’s rental car is on the road.”
The guys who jumped them must’ve left already.
I relay this to Lo, and he’s waiting for more info. We’re less than a minute behind Frog and Monroe, but several security SUVs beat us to the scene.
Lo parks and jumps out of the car. I bolt ahead, but he catches up. His legs pump urgently beneath him, face full of panic. We run past security SUVs. Bodyguards spill out and sprint with us toward the rental car. Ambulance and police sirens pitch into the dark sky.They’re on their way.
“Lily!” Lo shouts in the light rainfall.
I shadow Lo, not stopping.Where’s Luna?
“Luna!” I call out, my heart pounding. “LUNA!”
The rental car is still running. Smoke billows out of the exhaust pipes into the night, and our boots crunch over broken glass. The windows are smashed, and I peek quickly inside. No Luna.
“LILY!” Lo sees his wife on the concrete several feet beyond the rental car. Monroe and Frog are crouched around her unmoving body.
The wind is knocked out of me, and I stagger back and slow to a deadened stop.
This isn’t happening.
This isn’t fucking happening. I whirl around, my world spinning three-sixty degrees.
“The Keenes are coming,” Monroe tells Lo, right as he drops down to his wife.
“Lily.” His voice is punctured, fractured…obliterated. “Lily, Lily.”
“She’s still breathing,” Frog says shakily, but she staggers to a stance, her hands to her mouth while she sees Lo shatter completely.
