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Kat pried Holly’s trembling fingers loose of the device. Her eyes met mine, full of dread.
“Text message,” Holly said faintly. “It had a link, and I…I clicked it.”
I hissed under my breath. “Oh God, baby. We talked about this. You should have brought it to me.”
“I know,” she whispered. “Sorry, I just…I couldn’t wait. I couldn’t stand it.”
There it was, in the messages, all caps. I HAVE SOMETHING YOU WANT, then a link. I braced myself, hoping Holly hadn’t witnessed something unspeakable.
“Is this actually your phone, honey?” I asked. “Are you sure?”
“I-I-I thought it was mine,” she faltered. “It has the same cover. I guess someone could have s-s-switched it out. I just don’t know when.”
“Can I look at it here?” I asked gently. “Do I need to take it in the other room?”
Holly shook her head. “No, look now. I want you to see it right now.”
I set the video to play. The camera first showed a beam of light coming from a high-up window, slowly panning down and showing a huge room, metal beams. A warehouse of some kind. The camera shifted lower and focused on a man who sat hunched on the ground, next to a concrete wall. He wore a filthy T-shirt and ragged sweatpants. He was extremely lean, his hair long and tangled, his beard full.
My heart started to thud. The camera bounced as the person holding it snapped his fingers. “Hey, asshole! Look alive! Say hi to the camera!”
The hunched man barely tuned his head, but he glared from under his matted hair at whoever was speaking and gave him the finger.
My heart practically stopped. Shane. Thinner, hairier, dirtier than I’d ever seen him, but I knew that look. I knew those fierce eyes. It was unquestionably my brother.
The camera holder muttered something ugly, and the camera jerked as he manipulated some device. I heard a motor hum, the rattle of metal—and the chain went tight, jerking Shane up onto his feet, and then off them.
Shane grabbed the chain that held him, holding himself up so as not to be hanged. He dangled there, spinning in midair, refusing to beg or plead or even gasp.
Then, whoever held the camera lowered him to the ground. “Okay, then, if you’re so tough. Take this, you dumb fuck,” the voice behind the camera muttered.
Shane’s body arched, jerking uncontrollably as the collar administrated an electric shock. “Learn some fucking manners, ass-wipe.” The voice sounded smug.
Holly pressed her hands over her mouth. Kat glared, saying with her eyes to take the damn phone away and watch this obscenity elsewhere. But the video ended there.
“That’s all there is,” I told her. “Finished.”
My whole mind, body, soul, was all buzzing with rage, fear…and fresh hope, too. Which was the cruelest thing of all.
Shane could still be alive. He had been when that video was shot, which was months after I had last seen him. Long enough to lose all that weight, grow all that hair.
Don’t get your hopes up.That crazy emotional rollercoaster did not serve us.
I crouched down on the rug and hugged Holly. “I’m sorry you saw them hurt him, baby.”
Holly burst into tears. I met Kat’s grim gaze over her head. Then Freya and Jed burst in, dressed in bathrobes. “What the hell is going on?” Jed demanded.
Kat stepped back and let Freya gather her sobbing niece into her arms.
“Someone sent her a video of Shane,” I said.
Freya’s eyes filled with fear. She swallowed. “And was it, ah…was he—”
“Alive,” I said. “Not well, but definitely alive. At least when this was shot.”
The Drakes joined us at door, along with Mick and the rest of them, a cacophony of questions, exclamations.
“Hey, listen up,” I called out, over the din. “Everybody get out of Holly’s room. Meet me in the war room in five. We’ll watch it together on the big screen.” I turned to Kat. “Could you stay with Holly? Make her hot chocolate, or something?”
