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It was late by the time we headed out. Later than I wanted it to be at least. I sat in the passenger seat, staring straight ahead as the bearded bastard drove slower than a fucking eighty-year-old beside me. My thoughts were divided, half savage about the idea of seeing her and half stuck on the image of that training camp they’d inflicted on the Sons.
They weren’t Sons though, were they? They were weapons. Men bred and designed to hunt and destroy.
But what they really were bred for was the Daughters.
Another ‘shipment of Assets is missing’? My own voice invaded.
I still remembered the way Hale had shaken his head, even though the truck carrying fifteen Daughters hadn’t been heard of for the last ten days.
Not missing, Hale had answered. There is nowhere they can hide that the Sons wouldn’t find them.
Nowhere they can hide…or be hidden, he meant.
The Sons somehow felt the Daughters, that I knew. How? Now that was another worry altogether. I didn’t know if it was altered DNA. I sure wouldn’t put it past Hale and those slimy eels he swam with. They could’ve very well infected those women he’d used for breeding. Those…like my sister.
Get away from me, Mel! Why are you always around me? Can’t you see I want to be left alone?
I looked out the window at the endless pine forest as the screams of an eleven-year-old resounded in my head. It was my fault she’d gone missing, my fault she’d been snatched right under our noses. My fault Melody had walked off, sulking, to play at the park down the street from us…alone.
Just like it was my fault Helene was alone.
My fault.
My fault.
My…goddamn…fault.
That ache throbbed in the back of my skull as I stared at the trees. The moment the four-wheel drive started to climb, my pulse flipped and stuttered. A tightness lashed across my chest. I winced and rubbed the ache, desperate to keep my shit together.
“Riven?” Thomas murmured.
I swallowed hard and kept looking straight ahead. “I’m fine.”
I wasn’t fine. None of this was fine.
Because I couldn’t fucking breathe.
I stabbed the button, winding down the window to suck in the cool, pine scent. All it did was trigger me more.
Bang!
The sound echoed, replaying the moment Walker had hit the ground beside me. Blood was neon red against the white of his skull, neon and gruesome and sickening. That cinch tightened around my chest again. Jesus fucking Christ.
“Riven,” Thomas’s snarl behind me was urgent.
I turned my head and the outside world bled to gray until the vehicle turned toward the overcrowded trees along the side of the road. Tires crunched, then slipped into the ruts as the gray Explorer rose. Through the overhanging branches, a camouflaged steel gate slid back.
“I’ll be damned,” Thomas murmured from the backseat.
My grip tightened around the armrest as we surged forward, leaving the mountain road behind. But this wasn’t another private road into nowhere…it was a compound. A massive Hummer sat parked in front of a building which looked to be some command center. I stared at the huge, multi-story house that sat nestled between two towering rock faces of the mountain. Sunlight glinted off the windows, making me catch my breath.
That sure as hell was no prison.
I was already yanking the door handle before the Explorer rolled to a stop. Shadows spilled out of the doorway to the mansion. Shadows that moved. My brother strode forward, dressed in khakis and a scowl, the same one he always wore. But I didn’t care about him. He wasn’t who I’d come here to see.
My breath caught at the sight of her. It took all my strength not to slam my boots against the ground and lunge toward her. Car doors closed with a thud behind me. But I was already searching her face as I strode toward her.
“Riven,” she called my name, sounding unhinged and desperate.
