Chapter 42
I wake up choking on air that tastes like rust and dust.
My head throbs, a deep, nauseating ache that pulses behind my eyes.
When I try to move, pain lances down my arms. They’re bound.
Wrists tied to the arms of a metal chair with something rough and unforgiving.
Rope. Maybe zip ties layered underneath.
My ankles are bound too, feet flat against cold concrete.
A warehouse.
The smell hits next. Oil. Old machinery. Damp cardboard. Rot.
My vision sharpens slowly, the world swimming into focus under flickering fluorescent lights that buzz like insects overhead.
The space is cavernous, shadows stretching up into the steel rafters and disappearing into darkness.
Crates stacked haphazardly. Tarps draped over shapes I don’t want to think about.
I suck in a breath, chest tight.
Okay.
Okay.
I’m alive.
That matters.
My heart starts to race as my memories crash back in jagged pieces. The crash, the van, the voice in my ear.
You’re exactly the right one.
“Sutton?” I croak.
My throat is raw. It hurts to speak.
I strain against the restraints, the chair scraping loudly across the concrete. The sound echoes back at me, too big, too lonely.
“Sutton!” I call again, louder now. Panic creeps in, cold and insistent. “Sutton, are you here?”
Nothing.
No answering voice. No movement. No other breathing.
The silence presses in, thick and suffocating.
They didn’t take her.
Relief and terror slam into me at the same time. Relief because she might be safe. Terror because it means that I am utterly alone and that this really is all about me. They did come for me.
My gaze darts around the warehouse, cataloging exits, threats, anything I can use.
You don’t grow up with a junkie mom and her abusive boyfriends without learning how to find the exits.
One large rolling door sits at the far end.
A smaller side door half-hidden behind pallets. All of it too far and unreachable.
My pulse hammers harder.
Why here?
Why now?
Why—
Footsteps sound and my breath catches.
They’re slow. Unhurried. Coming from somewhere behind me, out of sight. Each step is deliberate, like whoever it is knows exactly what they’re about to find.
I go still.
The footsteps stop.
Then a voice cuts through the space.
“Well, look at you.”
It’s rough. Familiar in a way that makes my stomach drop.
Ice shoots through my veins.
No.
No, no, no.
A man steps into my line of sight, moving enough for the light to catch his face.
He’s older than I remember. Thinner. Still sharp around the edges, but his eyes look tired. Bloodshot. His dark hair is greasy, sitting limp on his head.
Henry.
My mother’s addiction made flesh.
My chest tightens so fast I can barely breathe. Every instinct screams at me to run, to fight, to disappear, but I am trapped in this chair, staring at the man I buried years ago in my mind because it was the only way to survive.
“You’ve got her eyes,” he says, head tilting as he studies me. His gaze crawls over my face, my clothes, my restraints. “Always hated that about you.”
I swallow hard. My voice comes out shaking. “Where’s Sutton?”
He laughs softly, like I told a joke. “The other girl in the car? No here. This isn’t about her.”
That doesn’t help to settle my nerves.
“Why am I here?” I ask. “Why did you take me? My mother is dead. Buried.”
Henry pulls up another chair and sits across from me, slow and casual, like we’re about to have a conversation over coffee instead of in the middle of a warehouse straight from someone’s nightmares.
“Straight to business,” he says. “You always were like that. Too serious. Drove your mom crazy. Said it reminded her of your father.”
“Don’t talk about her,” I snap.
His smiles fades a flicker, but I see it.
“Oh, I’ll talk about Sadie all I want,” he says cooly. “She and I had a lot of unfinished business.”
My stomach churns. “You ruined her. Now she is dead because of you. If you had never gotten her addicted to—”
Henry snorts. “That’s what she told you?”
I yank against the restraints again, rage flaring hot enough to cut through the fear. “You got her hooked. You drained her dry. You left me with nothing but a shell of a woman as a mother. Then she died because of the junk you hooked her on.”
Henry leans forward, elbow on his knees. His eyes lock onto mine, sharp and unblinking.
“Sadie was already broken when I met her,” he says. “I gave her a little something to help her forget how broken she really was.”
The words hit like a gut punch.
I shake my head. “You’re lying.”
“Am I?” He cocks his head. “She ever tell you what happened to get her where she was? What she did? What she was made to do?”
“Shut up.”
“All her life, she was pressured and then she finally became what they wanted and the moment it went downhill, they abandoned her. They kicked her out and she had you. She became desperate,” he continues, voice low and relentless. “And desperation makes people reckless.”
My chest heaves. Memories surge unbidden. Arguments through thin walls, disappearing money, my mother’s hands shaking when she thought I wasn’t looking. A red truck…
“Why are you here?” I demand, shaking clear of the fog enveloping my mind. “What do you want from me?”
Henry studies me for along moment. Something dark and satisfied glints in his eyes.
“You,” he says simply.
My heart stutters.
“You’re worth something,” he continues. “More than Sadie ever was by the end. People care about you. Powerful people.”
Cold dread seeps into my bones.
“This is about leverage,” I whisper.
He smiles again, wide and ugly. “Smart girl.”
A door slams somewhere deep in the warehouse. The sound reverberates through the space like a gunshot.
Henry stands.
“Rest up,” he says. “We’ll talk more soon.”
“Henry,” I choke out. “Please.”
He pauses at the edge of the light, glancing back over his shoulder.
“Funny,” he says. “That’s what your mother used to say too.”
Then he disappears into the shadows, leaving me bound to a chair in the dark, heart racing, the weight of the past pressing down harder than the restraints keeping me bound to the chair.
And I know—bone deep—that this isn’t about what my mother did.
It’s about what she left behind.
Me.