Chapter 16
Indie
you should see me in a crown - billie eilish
Saint left the Pit a couple hours ago with Rex to pick up his dad from the airport; they’ll both be spending the journey filling him in on our plans to abduct both Louisa and Barry. I sigh up into the water of my shower, pushing the wet strands of hair off my face.
That’s a sentence I never thought I’d say.
Mind you, I also didn’t have literal murderous intentions towards my own sibling, but here we are.
I have until tonight to decide whether she dies at my hands, or Saint’s.
I’m still no further to a solid conviction.
Before any of that happens though, I need to get everything I can out of her first, and I think that’s the reason for my hesitation.
The betrayal I’m feeling is already crushing me, and this could either go two ways.
One, she’ll pull those acting skills out her ass and put on a performance of a lifetime, spinning a tale to try and sway me to spare her life, and I’ll be no further forward to the truth.
Or, she’ll deliver the final blow that might do me in for good.
I have no idea how she managed to get so high up in Omnia, although Saint’s words the morning after I found out keep playing in my mind.
What if Barry really did pull her into this?
But then, what if it was the other way around?
Would it even change anything?
If I find out it’s something that she got into on her own, taking Barry with her, I won’t ask any questions. I won’t even toy with her, or allow anyone else to. The quicker she stops breathing, the less her presence will stop torturing my mind.
I feel like I don’t even truly know her; she’s been pretty fucking good at playing her roles over the years, and for however long. Now, I’m questioning it all.
And whether or not she always knew harm was coming my way.
Fuck, I can’t get rid of this headache.
I step out of the shower, seeing as the scorching water wasn’t providing any clarity to me.
After brushing my teeth, I head through to the bedroom to dry my hair, noticing my phone flashing from the bed.
Saint said he would call, and it’s probably my mom texting me to ask how I’m feeling after my quick escape yesterday.
I leave my hair partially dry, when after a few minutes it flashes again, and I drop down on the bed to read it. The moment it lights up, it feels like time stops.
Slowly swiping my trembling thumb up the screen, I stare down into the message.
It feels as though an arctic wind has sucked me into a vortex.
Unknown: Photo attachment.
Unknown: Your first warning.
Static fills my ears, and the screen shakes violently in my grip, distorting the message as I frantically read it over and over again. As if reading those same three words are going to change what’s fucking happening here.
I don’t need to enlarge the image to know who it is.
“Fuck.”
They’ve got her.
Barry has fucking tied up my mom.
His own mother-in-law.
It’s not only been a day, and he’s already decided he’s going to push my hand to get Saint and Regina. I should have known this wasn’t going to go to fucking plan.
Swallowing hard, I open the photo to see my mom. She’s hunched up on our kitchen floor. It’s dark, but the shadows blotched over her face and arms tell me she’s been hurt.
A sob breaks free, but I’m not upset.
Oh no.
My body is shuddering from violence. From the fucking audacity he has at laying his hands on my mom.
I can feel my blood pressure go sky bound, my breathing coming in quick succession as the wrath threatens to take me in a chokehold.
No.
I can’t let it.
I’m not going to let this shit simmer until I get my hands on him.
I bolt from my bed, shoving on Ultio’s get-up gear and my puffer jacket, yanking my hair in a low pony which takes two attempts with the tremor in my hands. Just when I reach down to grab the phone, it chimes again in my grip.
Unknown: Maybe she needs to die for you to take this seriously?
“No!” I snap, my voice breaking as I drag in a breath.
Think, Indie. Fucking. Think.
I need to buy myself some time. Time is all I seem to fucking need these days but can never get enough. Saint and Rex aren’t here; they’d have a plan thought up in minutes.
I need to do this one on my own.
My fingers fly across the screen, the shaking causing me to correct my mistypes multiple times. He can’t know I’m frantic.
Me: Give me a couple hours, and they’ll be at the manor.
My thumb hovers over the send, and I squeeze my eyes shut as I hit the green button. The whooshing sounds as loud as church bells on a Halloween night.
The reply comes immediately.
Unknown: I’ll keep Mama Grace company until I know for sure.
Unknown: And just for future reference, my patience and my boredom run out very quickly.
Stuffing my phone into my pocket, I charge through the corridor, boots thundering off the tiles as I reach Regina’s room.
Not even bothering to knock, I burst through the door and scan the place.
She springs up from the bed, the book in her hands clattering to the floor. “Jesus, Indie. Are you okay?”
“Where’s your tracker?”
“Wha—”
“Gina, please.” My eyes radiate the scream my throat’s trying to fight. To not ask questions, to not have me delay this any further.
I need to get to my mom.
Reading it immediately, she drops to the floor, dragging open the drawer from her desk and tipping it out, various items colliding with the floor.
I drop to my knees, scavenging through the devices. “Indie, please tell me what the fuck’s going on. Why the hell do you need a tracker?”
I don’t want to tell her, not the entire truth. If she knows my mom’s come to harm, she’ll instantly offer herself up.
I won’t fucking allow it.
“Someone’s broken into my mom’s; I need to get over there.”
It’s the shittest excuse I could think of under immense stress.
Her hand grips the circle device, handing it to me as I stand, rushing out the room to her calling my name behind me. It follows me down the hall, fading the faster I clatter down the stairs.
My hand reaches the entrance doors to the Pit, when a much larger one thumps across it, forcing me to crash into it. “What the fuck’s going on?” Dawson barks, looking from me to Regina, whose footsteps rattle down the stairway over my shoulder.
“Dawson, let me leave…” My voice breaks.
Please can everyone stop asking me fucking questions?
Regina speaks up behind me, breathless as she stops in between us. “Someone’s broken into her mom’s.”
Dawson’s face shifts instantly.
He knows.
He reads between the lines, sees the anxiety in my eyes, and feels the fear radiating off my skin.
“Indie, you can—”
“Please, Dawson…” I drag in a steadying breath, clenching my jaw as I fight to contain the outburst. My words come out in a broken whisper. “He’s going to kill her.”
Regina slowly walks to Dawson’s side, gaze searching mine, and her eyebrows crinkle together. “Oh my God, Barry has her?”
I nod frantically. “I’ve tried to buy myself a couple of hours, but I need to leave now. Or I’ll never make it to…”
I can’t finish that sentence. Can’t allow those words to physically leave my lips.
I can’t lose Mom to them; she’s the most precious, untouched love I have in my possession.
Dawson mutters a curse under his breath, dragging his phone to his ear as he walks into the meeting room. I reach out to stop him, until I hear him saying someone else’s name.
Regina wraps her hand around my arm. “I’m coming with you.”
“No! No, Gina, you need to stay here. Jenna needs you.”
“You can’t do this alone.”
“I won’t be.”
She stares at me, her green eyes watering as she shakes her head. “They want me, don’t they? It should be me that goes.”
My hands grip both her arms. I stare at her before tugging her to me. “They’re not getting you or Saint. Ever. I need you to be my fucking eyes and ears, Gina. Just like always.”
Her hands slide up my back, pulling me towards her. It’s a soul-crushing hug, and I study Dawson as he slips on a bulletproof vest before throwing one to me, catching it behind Regina’s back. “We have a team assembling outside. I’ll come with you—”
“Dawson, you should stay with Gina,” I say, glancing at my best friend, who’s now turned the palest shade of white.
He looks across his shoulder at her, features instantly softening.
Turning towards her, he cups her face in his hands, whispering something in her ear that makes her eyes squeeze shut, and presses a kiss to her forehead. “I’ll be back. I promise, angel.”
He should stay here. I can’t risk anything happening to him, for her and Saint’s sake. He doesn’t need to be dragged into the mess my brother-in-law has created, not like this.
When he turns to face me, the look he gives me tells me otherwise, and arguing just eats away at the time for me getting to my mom.
“Let’s go,” he says, passing me and through the open door. I pause at the threshold, turning to meet Regina’s eyes. “I’ll bring him back, I promise.”
“Stay safe, please.”
Turning for the door, I march through the snow-covered ground. Four SUVs and a large van are already lined up on the pathway to the entrance gate, it slowly creaking open against the grey sky as light snow flutters around us.
Dawson stops at the first vehicle, opening the passenger-side door for me, and I slide into the back. He rounds the car and slips in beside me, Holly up front handing him over a laptop.
Next, two Glocks are passed over, and I take them and place them in the seat between Dawson and I. Taking my jacket off to put on my vest, my hands still tremble.
Fuck, I’d rather have a rifle and go in like Rambo at this point.
“Tell me what happened?” Dawson asks, nodding to the driver to go, and the car crunches through the snow, deep into the single road wrapped within the woods, the denseness plunging us into darkness.
I pull my phone out of my jacket and hand it to him. “These are from an unknown number; it’s obviously Barry.”
He assesses the messages, looking through the text and examining the picture, glancing and hitting the keys on his laptop at the same time. “Where is this?”
“It’s my mom’s kitchen.”
He hands the phone back to me. “Type in the address for the navigation.”
Swallowing, I do as he asks, typing my childhood home address into my phone and handing it to Holly. When she sets the destination, the screen on the dash shows six hours.
Once we merge onto the freeway after an hour of driving in silence, that’s when the cars hit speed.
My phone burns in my hand, the urge to call my mom and ask her if she’s okay. Even Morgan pops into my head, but he’d call the cops, and that would be a sure way to trigger Barry to cause her more harm, if not worse.
It’s not as if they’d do anything to help anyway; they’re in the Omnia’s back pocket.
“Have you told Saint?” I ask, staring out the window and watching the snow-covered trees whip past in a blur.
He huffs a laugh. “No, I tried calling Rex, but it went straight to the voicemail. I’ll get a message to them, get them to divert on their way back and warn them it could be a trap.”
I sigh. “I got a tracker off Regina too; she’ll keep an eye on us from there.”
Saint’s at the airport, which is closer to my mom’s house than it is the Pit. If he finds out too early, this could all go to shit.
They’ll get exactly what they want.
Leaning my head against the cold window, I try to let the ice chill from the glass calm the thunderstorm in my mind, but it’s no use. It could rival the kind we see here in Kingstone all the way until we reach my childhood home.