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As she shifted against the wall, she heard a noise. Like a mouse squeaking. “Do you hear that?” she asked.
Everyone froze, listening.
She heard it again. A squeak. She turned, placing her hand on the wall. “It’s coming from behind here.” Getting on her knees, she held a flashlight in one hand and ran the other along the wall and felt it give. “It’s another false wall!” She pressed until it opened and shined the light inside.
Gasping, she clutched her chest.
“Ahnah!”
She scrambled inside. Her sister was draped in a blanket and her mouth was gagged with a silk tie. Her hands were tied with another behind her back. Bexley pulled out the gag. “Ahnah!”
“Bex.” Tears flooded her cheeks. “Bex!”
Bexley hugged her until she thought she might never let go. Lysander had separated them. For Josiah to play his part in Lysander’s sick plan, he couldn’t let him discover Bexley or Ahnah, and they’d been a wall apart for hours. She untied her and helped her into the bigger room, where they huddled.
“What’s happening?” Ahnah asked, looking at the women. “Who are they?”
“You haven’t been in the cages?” Bexley asked.
Ahnah shook her head. “No.” She draped herself on Bexley.
“How did he find you?”
“He came into a bar I was in one night. At first, I didn’t recognize him, but then he spoke to me. He was shocked and I was shocked. I tried to pretend he was mistaken about who I was, but he knew. Told me it was okay, that he wouldn’t tell a soul, and I believed him because he had never hurt me. We’d been friends. He didn’t want me to tell you because you’d think he was trying to force me back in the Family. He told me he’d left and owned his own real estate company.” She did a double take. “Tiberius?”
“He’s been shot,” Bexley offered, too exhausted to tell the story right now.
“Lysander shot him?”
“Long story.” Bex smoothed Josiah’s hair and tenderly smiled. Josiah hugged Ahnah and held her hand.
“How did he get you here?” Tiberius whispered, his face pale and his lips pasty white.
“I came on my own. We’d been talking awhile, and he invited me out. So I came. We... Anyway, after, he put me in a room with a bed and chained me to the wall. He forced me to take these little yellow pills that knocked me out. He became someone I didn’t know.”
“Well, you’re safe now.” Bexley kissed her and leaned on Tiberius. “Everyone is safe.” If they could weather the hurricane. It could go on for hours—hours they didn’t have. And without power, they had no way to know when the worst had passed. She had no phone.
Ahnah reached over and clasped Ty’s hand. “It’s good to see you. I’m so sorry about the death of your friend Cami.”
Tiberius’s cheeks were sallow and the light behind his eyes dim, but he smiled at Ahnah, then frowned. Bexley touched his cheek. “What is it? What can I do?”
“Hand me the gun,” he whispered, raspy and strained.
“What? Why?” she said as she handed it over.
Tiberius pointed to Ahnah’s shoulder where the blanket had fallen away, revealing her skin. “Because she shouldn’t know about Cami...and she doesn’t have a single tattoo.”
Chapter Thirty
Nags Head, North Carolina
Outer Banks Hospital
Monday, September 10
8:20 a.m.
“Hey,” Asa said, as Ty opened his eyes. “How you feelin’?”
