18. Ren
18
REN
T he baby is crying.
No, wailing.
The baby is wailing, and the sound hurts my ears. I hear the fear in those cries, and I want more than anything to make it stop. To take the fear away. Just like all the other times when I’d pick them up and wrap the blanket tight, and we’d sit in the closet together until everything went quiet again. It isn’t easy reaching over the crib railing, but I’m getting better at it.
I can’t get out of my room this time to help him. I try the door and jiggle the handle as hard as I can, but it’s useless. The door is locked.
Fear pounds at the back of my mind. Dread. I can barely move. I’m so scared. I wish I hadn’t woken up—but the baby. The baby is so loud and louder all the time. There was no sleeping through it. I can imagine the red face and the tear-streaked cheeks.
Why so much screaming?
It doesn’t take long to get an answer.
Because there are more screams—so many more—and from grown-ups. There are heavy footfalls outside the locked door—people running and voices raised in shouts. Angry, scared shouting, too.
Now I don’t know if I want to go out there or not. Except the baby needs help, and I’m the only one who ever cares.
It’s dark and cold, and why is there so much screaming?
The floor shakes, and dust drifts down from the ceiling. Now I’m really scared. Scared enough that it feels like I might pee my pajamas. I scramble back to my bed and dive under the covers, but they don’t help. I don’t feel safe.
Why won’t somebody help me?
The bed’s shaking when I open my eyes to find myself in darkness again. Still. It’s shaking because I shook it. I am trembling, and there’s a cold sheen of sweat covering my skin. But it’s not the cold that leaves me shaking.
It’s always so damn clear. Vivid. That dream, which I now realize, was indeed a dream. How much is a memory, and how much is a figment of my imagination? I’ve never found out for sure, and I doubt I ever will.
My heart thuds in an alarming rhythm, my blood racing, my breathing hard and fast. My skin’s about to split open so I can crawl out of it. That’s how it feels. Like I have to go, get away, get out of here. Like I can outrun what’s tearing me apart.
Remember . River’s voice rises above the fading screams from the nightmare I can’t escape. Remember what they did to us. Remember where this all started .
Normally, I’d shrink away from the sound of him speaking in my head. It’s bad enough my brother plagues my waking hours, constantly pushing and more intense every time we speak because we’re coming close to the final phase of the plan. I feel it. I know it.
And I don’t need to be reminded since I already have enough on my mind, like the girl still sleeping soundly beside me. She hasn’t so much as flinched since I woke up.
The sight of her and the sound of her soft breathing goes a long way toward calming what’s left of the lingering aftereffects of my nightmare. The tension eases, and the dread quiets.
She shifts a little, one hand sliding up until it’s beside her face on the pillow. The angry welts on her wrist are a grim reminder of what happens when I’m not careful. My temper is too easily lost. I’m embarrassed by how little it took to spark frenzy in my gut.
Usually, I can control it or at least hold it back until the storm passes. It’s become a habit over the years. A very necessary one.
But never more necessary than it is now. When she’s here. I can’t risk hurting her—the thought alone is enough to leave my heart aching. Because I have hurt her. The evidence is in front of me. The marks on her wrist tell me I left the restraints on her too long. I have to be more careful.
I reach out, longing to touch her, but stop short at the last second and pull my hand away. I’d risk waking her, but I don’t know if I can stand what I’m sure I’ll find when she looks at me.
Wariness. She’ll try her best to move past my shameful actions, the way she did before we went to sleep, but I see it in her eyes. A flicker of worry. The impulse to shrink away from my touch.
I did that. It’s my fault. Can I undo it?
One thing is for certain: I can’t lie here anymore, beating myself up. I know better than to think I’ll get back to sleep. I’m lucky if I catch a few hours at a time.
And when I do manage to sleep, I end up in the nightmare again. The dark room. The locked door. The screaming baby I can’t reach no matter how I try.
By the time I’m in the living room, with the reminders of real life all around me, the dream has faded completely. I can pretend it wasn’t such a big deal now, distracting myself by checking my email. Immersing myself in anything I can to avoid remembering the cold dread of knowing something terrible is happening and being powerless to stop it.
Only one new message waits for me, and it happens to have come from my brother. Who else? Video call ASAP .
He prefers to keep things as simple as possible over email in case one of us is ever hacked. I strongly doubt the possibility, but he doesn’t trust Xander. After two years of nobody hacking me or coming anywhere near me, I have to doubt it will ever happen.
Before placing the call, I practically tiptoe to the bedroom door and close it quietly, leaving it open no more than a crack before going to the kitchen table and opening my laptop. It’s barely past three in the morning, but I know how River thinks. He’ll be waiting—even if he managed to fall asleep, his Zoom account will be up and running.
It takes no time for him to answer, telling me he’s waited up. This has to be good.
“What took you so long?” The dark circles that ring his eyes tell me he’s been pulling long hours. Researching and doing recon. Always working toward our shared goal.
Though that doesn’t mean I appreciate the attitude. “Sorry. I thought I’d sleep a few hours. I sort of developed a habit.”
He snorts, brushing hair away from his forehead as he leans in closer. “I got a new lead. You know I hate waiting to give you news like this.”
My pulse picks up speed, the promise in his announcement sending a shiver up my spine. The hair on the back of my neck lifts in anticipation. “Tell me.”
“Guess who’s been hiding in the middle of nowhere all this time—her and her son?”
I don’t need to guess. Only one woman is in our crosshairs. “Rebecca.” Nausea threatens to overwhelm me at the mere mention of her name. I see her in my mind’s eye just as fresh and clear as she looked the last day I saw her: groomed impeccably, without so much as a speck of lint or dust on her perfectly smooth, fitted dress. The women always wore dresses, that much I remember. They had to be feminine at all times, and that was Joseph’s unimaginative version of femininity.
She could be standing in front of me now, hands folded before her, a bland expression on her equally bland face. She always carried herself like a queen, though, didn’t she? A queen who controlled all of us even as she pretended to defer to her narcissistic asshole of a husband.
“We knew she and William would be together,” I murmur, glancing at the bedroom door to ensure we aren’t overheard. She hasn’t moved, though. I would’ve heard the bed creaking if she had. “What are they doing? Can we confirm?—”
“There’s been a rash of disappearances in Reno over the past few months,” he offers before I finish my question. “Three runaway teens in the last two weeks alone. Not a sign of them anywhere. Other kids they’re known to hang around with all told stories of a guy in his late teens or early twenties seen around the areas these kids tend to frequent. One night, he handed out bottled water and blankets and shit.”
“Pulling the old benevolent leader act,” I mutter. We were young, sure, but I remember that much about Joseph. Making sure everybody knew all he wanted was to see to their physical needs.
That was how he hooked them. How he hooked our parents and everybody else who were a part of our lives in those days. Provide for people, pretend to understand them in a way no one else ever has, and they’re yours. Especially when the victims in question are too young to identify the stench of your bullshit.
It isn’t difficult to imagine Rebecca raising William in his father’s image.
“That’s where they’re building New Haven,” I muse, staring over the laptop screen into the darkened living room. New Haven , what a joke. There’s nothing new about it. It’s Safe Haven with an updated name and a fresh coat of paint to hide the ugly past.
How far have they gotten? How many people have they suckered in already? How long has this been going on?
“It’s as strong a lead as any we’ve gotten so far,” River agrees, excitement in his voice. He’s more animated than I’ve seen him in ages—when we aren’t fighting over Scarlet, at least.
This is different. This is hopeful.
And grim. So damn grim. I mean, it’s not like we’re planning on having a tea party with these evil, twisted fucks once we track them down.
“Reno’s a big place,” I murmur, looking at my brother in time to watch his face fall.
“You’re not doing this.”
“Doing what?”
“Backing down now when what we need is to take action.”
I hold a finger to my lips before plugging in my earbuds, which I should’ve done in the first place. There was no way he’d keep his excitement in check, regardless of the late hour. “We can’t go off half-cocked,” I whisper into the microphone.
“Half-cocked? What else do you need?” He throws his hands into the air before clasping them on top of his head like he’s afraid it will explode otherwise. I know the feeling. He’s taken me to that place many times.
“Actual proof, for one. Or would you rather go cruising through Nevada without any real idea where we’re heading or who we’ll find once we get there? You don’t honestly think they’re unarmed, do you?”
He rolls his eyes, but his silence tells me more. He knows I’m right. “Going out there now would be like trying to go hunting with a water gun. We’d be way outmatched. It would be hopeless.”
“So what? We wait?”
“We’ve waited all this time,” I remind him, taking pains to keep myself calm in the face of his growing impatience. “So we wait a little while longer.”
His growl is enough to make my hair stand on end. “You can afford to wait. I can’t.”
“Why not?” I demand before pulling myself back. I can’t let him drag me into a fight. Not now. He’ll only end up going off. “Don’t you want to be sure we get this done the right way the first time around? We won’t get a second chance.”
“Fine.” He folds his arms, eyes narrowing into slits. “Since you think you’re calling the shots, what should we do now? What’s your big idea?”
Considering he just hit me with this new information, there’s no idea at the ready, and he knows it. He forgets how familiar I am with his sudden, irritating shifts. Like he wants to blindside me into throwing my hands up the way he does. Hoping I’ll give in and let him have his way.
Not this time. Not when we’re so close. We can’t afford to get greedy now.
“I want them to pay for what they did just as much as you do,” I remind him. If anything, the nightmare only strengthens my hatred and reminds me why this is so important. These people are responsible for destroying our lives and so many others. Killing our parents. Breaking up countless families when they twisted the minds of sons, daughters, sisters, and brothers.
I lower my brow the way he does, staring straight at the camera. “When we make our move, everything needs to be in place. Nothing can be left to chance. I want this over, once and for all, like you do.”
His breathing is heavy. Hard. The sound of a frustrated bull ready to charge, held back by something stronger. He doesn’t have to like it and refuses to hide the fact. No big surprise there. We don’t hide things from each other.
“What should we do next, then?”
I’ll overlook the resentment in his voice in favor of coming up with the next step. “I’ll do more research here. Police reports, missing kids. Hell, even unexplained deaths. Bodies turning up seemingly out of nowhere.”
“Right,” he grunts, nodding. “Anyone who decided they weren’t into the idea of signing over their entire lives to a bunch of maniacs.”
“Something like that. Recent Google Earth images might help locate any random structures in the middle of the desert. We need a location. Something definite.”
He nods again, slower this time. “What about her ?” He can’t be bothered to speak her name.
Reflexively, my gaze darts up, fixing on the bedroom door. “What do you mean?”
“You aren’t planning on leaving her there alone, are you? While we do what needs to be done?” He snorts, lifting a shoulder. “Not that I mind much, either way.”
Don’t. Don’t let him do it .
“No, I can’t leave her here.”
“What’s the alternative?”
“What else? I have to get her on our side.”
His snort tells me all I need to know, not that I have any questions. “I don’t feel like spending the rest of my life waiting for that.”
“Nobody said you’d have to wait that long.”
“Nobody needs to,” he fires back, his voice flat. “She’s never going to understand. A spoiled princess like her?”
I grind my teeth, drawing a deep breath through my nose. It does nothing to cool the indignation burning bright in my gut. “You don’t know the first thing about her, so don’t pretend you do. I’ve already begun to explain what happened. How we ended up where we are.”
“How did she take it?”
“She was sympathetic, of course.”
“Sympathy is one thing. Being willing to do what has to be done is another. It wasn’t her parents who were killed. Her entire life wasn’t fucked up. She wasn’t separated from her siblings like I was.” His voice rises in volume with every word until he’s almost shouting.
The pain I hear helps soothe at least a fraction of my irritation with him. Out of all of us, he suffered the most. “I know. And she’ll understand. She always understands.”
“We’ll see.” No big surprise; he doesn’t have high hopes. His lack of faith in her leaves me teetering on the edge, ready to tumble headfirst into rage born of frustration.
We can’t afford that.
“You’ve never met her,” I remind him. “I’ve known her for years. Give me a week, and she’ll be on our side, ready to do what has to be done. I’m sure of it.”
“A week,” he repeats, quirking a skeptical brow.
“Seven days. In the meantime, I’ll do the work I promised. Everything will be on track by this time next week.”
“You’d better hope it is.”
Dread skitters its way across my heart. “Or what?”
His knowing smile confirms what I already knew. “What do you think? I’ve always preferred to travel light, and your little girlfriend is weighing us down.”
He ends the call, leaving his thinly veiled threat hanging in the air. He has a thing for getting the last word.
There’s nothing for me to do but sit in silence, the room only lit by the glow from my screen. I have work to do and not the first idea of how to accomplish what I promised. Doubt threatens to plant its seed in my head, but I push it out of the way before it can do so. There’s no room for doubt now. I need to have faith in her, in the strength of the devotion she swears she has.
Scarlet. Please, don’t let me down.