She grabbed hold of me, crying, pulling at me. “You’re better than this!”
Her step-dad’s limbs were going limp. I shook my head at her. “No. I’m not.”
She pushed her tear-streaked face close to mine. “But I want you to be!”
I stared at her for three long heartbeats. I remembered what she’d said, back at the compound. I believe in you too. She still believed I could be her hero.
I hauled her step-dad out of the tub and hurled him down on the tiles. He drew in a huge lungful of air, coughed up some water and then lay there groaning.
Hunter appeared in the doorway. “You two go downstairs,” I told them.
Annabelle looked at me with huge eyes.
“I have to find out where Volos is,” I told her. “But I won’t kill him.” When I glanced at her step-dad, it took everything I had to say it, but I said it: “I promise.”
She nodded, biting her lip, and took Hunter downstairs. I picked up her step-dad by the neck.
“Now, you sick son of a bitch. You and me are going to have a conversation where I ask the questions and you tell me exactly the fuck what I need to know.” I paused. “I promised I wouldn’t kill you. But I am hoping, fucking praying that you try to hold out on me because then I get to beat it out of you. Understand?”
He nodded, terrified.
“Then let’s begin.”
A half hour later, I came downstairs. Hunter and Annabelle were sitting on the couch in the living room. Annabelle looking scared and Hunter was giving me a reproachful glare—probably for taking off on my own again.
“I’m done with him,” I told them. I held out my hand to Annabelle. “C’mon. Let’s get anything you want from your room.” I figured she wouldn’t want to ever come back here again.
Upstairs, she slowed as we passed the closed door to the bathroom. A faint groan came from inside. She swallowed and continued along the hallway.
In her room, she stopped and frowned at the empty closet. “Don’t worry,” I said. “I know where your clothes are.”
She turned to the bed and started gathering up the books. Then she froze as she saw the diary lying on top of them. Her gaze snapped to me, first accusing and hurt and then ashamed.#p#分页标题#e#
I opened my arms and she ran to me, slammed into my chest and nestled there. “I’m sorry,” I told her as I wrapped my arms around her. “I shouldn’t have read it. I couldn’t stop.” I squeezed her tight as she started to cry. “But that bastard can’t hurt you anymore.”
I held her like that for a long time. The press of her warm body made me feel human again, after the cold violence in the bathroom. After what I’d nearly done.
When she moved back from me, she gathered the books into a pile and hefted them, then added a framed photo of her and her mom from the wall. We both looked around. The room was pretty much empty. “Anything else you want to keep?” I asked.
She looked into the empty closet again. And then, bending, she pulled something from the shadows down at the bottom. The brown, threadbare rabbit from when she was a kid. She clutched it to her chest and led the way downstairs.
Outside, I led her and Hunter into the backyard, then looked around for the place her step-dad had told me about. I finally found the patch of loose dirt and sent Hunter for shovels from the tool shed. Annabelle looked at me blankly but it was easier to show her than to explain.
Hunter and I dug together. It only took us a few minutes to uncover the suitcase and the sports bag, heave them up into the sunlight and shake off the worst of the dirt. Annabelle frowned at them, then opened them up.
I grabbed her hand, because I knew what she’d find.
Her clothes. Her purse. Her phone and its charger. All the things someone would pack, if they ran off to New York. Annabelle drew in a shuddering breath, squeezing my hand for strength. I understood: when her step-dad had told me this part, I’d nearly broken my promise. It was sickening, how well he’d planned it.
“No one would ever have looked for me,” she whispered.
I pulled her into my arms and held her so close that I could feel her heartbeat. I didn’t want to let go of her and that was the only thing that stopped me from marching into the house and killing the bastard for destroying her faith in mankind.
Hunter backed off, giving us some space. I held Annabelle tight, the guilt filling me, choking me, until I couldn’t take it anymore. I drew back and looked into her eyes. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there,” I blurted. “I’m sorry I didn’t come back.”
“I chose not to call you,” she said. “I was keeping you for when I really needed you. And you came then.”