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“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 me nothing.”
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.
“Lily. No, no, no,” he cries into a scream, his face twisting and his fingers featherlight across her battered skin. The anguished, guttural noises he’s making could freeze rain and time. I almost puke. I pinch my eyes tightly and wince at the wall, the concrete, the sky.
Pain is relentless in my body.
Luna.
Luna.
She’s not here.
The road is small. Construction barrels obstruct the exit and form a dead-end, and Luna. Isn’t. Here. I rest a hand on my wet hair. My chest rises and falls heavily.
“I can’t lose you,” Lo sobs. “You’re okay. Come on, love. You’re okay. Wake up. Please, wake up. Lily…Lily.”
Bodyguards speak around me. “Someone get Ryke on the phone.”
“He’s already on his way.”
I can’t watch Lo being split into a million pieces. Can’t listen to his gutted voice. It’s unbearable, and no one pulls him away from her. I wouldn’t even try. It’d be like separating two halves of one soul.
Luna. Lo is being torn apart, and I don’t think he’s fully here anymore and realized his daughter is missing.
I whirl around again, looking left and right.
She’s not lost among the stars. She didn’t rocket off to another planet like I know she wanted to after her fics leaked. She’s not invisible. ‘Cause she wasn’t supposed to disappear without me.
With a single breath, I dig out my phone and call him.
My dad.
Phone pressed hard against my ear, I hear the ring and ring and ring. He doesn’t answer. I hang up on his automated voicemail and shoot him a text.
Can we meet up and talk?
And another.
Where are you?
He’s not responding fast, so I pocket my phone. My muscles won’t unwind. I brush back my wet hair, pressure not unmounting.
Frog teeters backwards away from Lo and Lily, and she turns and sees me in the dark. As she takes a few steps over to me, pain constricts her face. “Donnelly…” Her voice cracks, and I know she’s searching for solace in a friend.
I know she thinks that friend is me.
And it sounds easy—to just hug Frog. But my eyes sear as emotions barrel into me at caustic speed. I just want to be holding Luna, and I can’t be anything for anyone else right now.
