I throw open the door, and see her fetchingly posed in the doorway to the parlor. A swooping, sequined white tank top hugs her breasts, and dark skinny jeans hide nothing but the freckles on her legs. I know where they are anyway.

  And none of that will matter, not one iota of our history, if she hurt Maya or Gabe. I stay in the doorway. If I take a single step inside, I’ll kill her, or at least I’ll try. She can see the violence in my aura and bites down on her lip. It’s something she does when she’s excited.

  “Oh, your face,” she says. “You look terrible.”

  “What did you do?” I work hard to articulate the words, to keep the trembling rage out of my voice. Did she follow them last night after I let her escape? Swoop in and attack when Gabe was drunk and Maya distracted? Has a single moment of my weakness killed my brother and my sister?

  Danielle drops her coquettish manners, and her expression hardens. “The only thing I did was save your idiot brother’s life. He’s the one who walked into a snake pit of angels, and your sister after him.”

  I struggle to process her words and all their implications, but I can only focus on one. Life. She saved Gabe’s life, which means that he’s…

  “Where is he?” I can barely get the words out.

  “You know where.”

  I’m moving, trying not to run toward the parlor. We’ve done this before. Danielle waiting for me, teasing me, while Rain lay unconscious in the next room. That night she’d stood, arms extended across the entryway into the parlor, and demanded a kiss in exchange for entrance.

  She thinks better of trying that today, and it’s a good thing.

  She turns aside, and when I pass through the doorway into the parlor, I see Gabe immediately, laid out on the leather couch. The sun from the window lights him up, all pale skin. His clothes are strewn on the floor. He only wears his boxers.

  “Oh, whoa, he was fully clothed last time I checked on him,” Danielle says behind me. “I didn’t do anything rapey with him.”

  Her words are distant and meaningless. I go to the couch, drop to my knees, and lay my ear on his chest. Every part of me is hollow. A gust of wind could tear me open. Then I hear it, the steady drum of his heartbeat. It fills me, pushing away the fury, the terror. I feel his soft breath feather through my hair.

  I stay just another moment more, to listen, to feel, to know Gabe is alive and I am not alone. When I open my eyes, Danielle is watching. I read the disappointment on her face, but it doesn’t matter. I have no pride, no ego, nothing that I wouldn’t sell for Gabe’s life. Or for Maya’s.

  I sit back on my heels and carefully review Gabe’s body. His pulse is steady, his coloring good, but why is he unconscious? His knuckles are scraped and bruised, and an angry red mark curves along his rib cage like a crescent moon. I bend over him and touch the spot to see if I can feel a fracture.

  “I threw him in the car a little rough,” Danielle admits. “You know, risking my life to save him.”

  Gabe shifts under my probing. “Stop,” he mumbles, and his hands weakly push against my arm. The ribs seem solid. Only a hairline fracture at the worse.

  “Head wounds?” I ask.

  “Only the ones he came with,” Danielle responds. “Your sister hit him with a tranq dart or something. That’s why he’s all la-la.”

  I check anyway, running my hands through Gabe’s hair, feeling his scalp for any abrasions or contusions. Gabe opens his eyes and stares at me without understanding.

  “Go way,” he slurs. “Mad at you…I think.” He turns his head away.

  Danielle lets out a short laugh. I turn and rush her, shoving her so hard into the wall that I hear the plaster crack. She laughs again even though I have a hand wrapped around her throat. I’m losing control, and I know it delights her.

  I try to pull in my emotions, but there aren’t enough polished metal boxes in the world. “Where is my sister?”

  Her teasing smile falls away.

  That’s how I know.

  “I could only save one.”

  I tighten my grip around her neck. “Is she alive?”

  Danielle can only manage a whisper. “I hope to god she isn’t.” Her hands come up and wrap around my forearm. I feel the miniscule pricks of her nails. “And for yours. She’s gone, Tarren. At least you got him.” She motions her head toward Gabe. “I didn’t have to do that. I could have let them both die.”

  “Where is she? What happened?” I’m close enough that I can smell her cherry lip balm, the floral scent of her perfume.

  “No, we don’t do this.” Slowly, she pushes my arms away. I fight, putting all my strength into my grip around her throat, but little by little my hold loosens, until she gracefully slips from my grip. “We don’t mix business with pleasure. Those were your rules.”

  I lean my hand against the wall, automatically aware that I’m pressing my fingerprints onto the surface, that I need to clean them away before I go.

  “You saved my life yesterday. Broke the rules. So this is your payback. Him.” Danielle gestures toward Gabe. “We’re even now.”

  “Where is she?” I ask again, but this time when I look into her eyes, I show her my desperation. No ego. No pride. Nothing I wouldn’t sell…not even to the woman I despise as much as I desire.

  “Don’t grovel,” Danielle says. I’m disappointing her again.

  “I will,” I say. “Tell me, or I’ll get down on my knees.”

  She sinks into the leather armchair with a sigh. The possibility of pity scares her more than my gun ever did. “I don’t know,” she says finally. “I swear I don’t know. If she wasn’t smart enough or lucky enough to get herself killed, then War has her.”

  I don’t move, don’t allow my expression to change, but her eyes jump to me, searching. She saw something in my aura.

  “You know him,” she says.

  “Yes.”

  “He was meeting with a…with a friend of mine. Brought his whole crew with him. Body guards crawling around like ants at a picnic. Your sibs decided to crash the party.” Her hands push into the sides of the armchair as she leans forward. “If he has her, she’s as good as dead. More than dead.”

  “Where?”

  “I. Fucking. Don’t. Know,” she enunciates. The sunlight shines in her black hair, almost glinting off it. “He’ll be on the move after that not-so-quiet gun battle. He has hundreds of followers all over the country willing to host him. Like I said, she’s gone. G.O.N.E.” She stands up. “Go. This has been disappointing.”

  A small picture in a silver frame sits on an end table next to the armchair. I haven’t seen this one before. It must be new. Tammy. I glance at it for just a moment, long enough to memorize the changing contours of our daughter’s face. Danielle follows my gaze. Only Tammy can give her that wistful, almost vulnerable expression.

  I gather up Gabe’s clothes and then pick him up in my arms. He mumbles but then is quiet. If Maya hit him with the tranq over an hour ago, he’ll be out for at least another hour. That will give me enough time to clean out the Jeep and find a new vehicle. And when he wakes up?

  Then we’ll find Maya.

  Danielle opens the front door for me and presses her crimson lips together. “We’re even now,” she says. “The rules are back in play.”

  I nod.

  “Don’t come back here until that pretty face is healed up.” The door swings closed behind me.

  Part Three

  Chapter 24 – Maya

  I don’t know where I am. Only that it is far away. The room is small, and a single window set high on the wall lets in a watery light. I smell rain and the faint scent of wet roots. The wind claws against the glass to get inside. It’s nothing like the dry, dusty smells of Nevada.

  I work to keep my mind detached, to pack away my emotions into a box, the way Tarren taught me. When I first awoke here, my head throbbing so much I could barely open my eyes, I methodically searched for an opening, a weakness in my restraints. But my captors are clever, or, more likely, practiced. I don’t know how long I’ve been out, but I doubt they could have installed reinforced steel plates in the floor on the fly or purchased the heavy chains and steel clamps attached to each of my ankles at Walmart.

  I am not the first who has been in this room. I carefully stretch my legs out on the weathered wooden floor – every movement sparking flames through my right thigh – and wonder if things like fear and anxiety can soak into a room and create some sort of psychic imprint. It’s stupid, but I can almost hear the weeping of the ones who were in these chains before me.

  As the hours trickle by – it must be hours by the way the shaft of light from the window crawls across the floor – I remind myself that I am dead over and over again. It’s important to fully accept this, to believe, because then I won’t be afraid. I won’t feel the panic creeping up my spine. Won’t see Rain’s face in my mind and ache to curl up against his body.

  I am left alone for a long time. Long enough to thoroughly test the ankle chains, to follow the sharp slant of the roof with my eyes from its highest point near the door on the other side of the room to the lowest point where my chains hold me. Long enough to probe the tight bandages around my right thigh with feather touches. I can feel the heat of injury through the bandages, but since I am alive, they must have sewn me up, otherwise I would have bled out. It doesn’t surprise me that War would keep a doctor close or that he would save my life just so that he could take it.

  I wait and listen to the slight shift of weight outside of my door. They have posted a guard, and as the ray of sunlight crawls across the room, I start to know this person, the pop of his knees, the soft sighs of his breath, the shuffle of his feet when he paces to keep his legs awake.

  Then, finally, when the light from the window has crawled halfway across the room, I hear footsteps down the hallway outside. The wooden floorboards keep no secrets. Voices bleed through the small door on the other side of the room as someone speaks to my guard. Now I know the sound of his voice.

  My corner of the attic, where the steel plates and chains bloom from the floor, is small and cramped, almost like a coffin. I’ve already discovered that if I crawl and then walk the full distance that my chains will allow, then I can stand. And this is what I do when the door to my room opens. The ceiling is less than an inch from the crown of my head with my chains fully extended, but I stand. My right leg throws big gusts of pain all the way up my body, and I can’t put much weight on it, but I don’t let the pain show in my face. They left me wearing only my black sports bra and black boy cut briefs, but I keep my chin up. Eyes forward.

  I expect my visitor to be War, clutching knives and drills and red-hot firebrands in his thick hands. Instead, the mentalist enters, his excited, close-together eyes almost hidden behind a mop of blond hair. The rat-like aspects of his thin, long-nosed face are enhanced by his slow, cautious steps. He glances around, as if he smells cheese but senses a trap. I remember the pain he created, how it felt like my brain was boiling, so I paint imaginary whiskers on his face to try and staunch my terror. His name, I remember that too.

  Max.

  He creeps farther into the room and stands a foot behind the crisp, white line of tape on the floor. The tape looks like the blocking for a high school play, but I understand its purpose. Even stretched out on my belly, my fingertips didn’t come close to the white line. Somebody bigger, taller must have been in these chains before me.

  Max hunches to keep from bumping his head on the roof. We look at each other. I pretend that I am calm. Not aware of the thin layers of fabric covering my body, or how his traveling rat eyes make me feel dirty.

  Then he starts.

  His ability crosses the white line, passes through my skull, and hits my brain with blunt, scrabbling fingers. Max is not as strong as Gem and not nearly as gentle. I automatically push back against his invasion.

  Max uses his power as a sledgehammer, pounding, pounding, pounding against my mind. We fight. Each strike of his power breaks through a little more, releasing whispers of my memories. I feel them seeping through, bright flashes of faces, colorful memories. Max’s breath wheezes out. He takes a step forward, and I watch his feet as they move toward the white line.

  Pounding. Pounding. Pounding. My mind feels bruised.

  I switch strategies and begin tossing small, harmless memories at him like bread crumbs. I show him a night staring up at the popcorn ceiling of a particularly cheap motel room. Lying on a bus bench for hours in a chilly drizzle while watching an angel’s apartment. Watching the endless nothing landscape through the window of the Murano, one of our older vehicles. Tugging the last stitch in my cross stitch and feeling the smallest thrill thinking of how I will put it to use.

  I let Max tear away these useless bits of my life, memories and musings that don’t include my brothers or Rain, our home, Lo or Francesca, or the Jeep even though I know Tarren must have taken care of everything by now. Against Max’s onslaught, my mind grows numb. My thoughts tangle, and the cracks in my wall get bigger, allowing out small rushes of colors and words and bright emotions.

  Max’s foot edges over the white line. Then he notices, scrambles back, and his sledgehammer retreats. The room is filled with our hoarse breathing. My right leg trembles with the effort of keeping me upright. Everything is knotty and tender inside of my brain, my memories thrown around in disorganized shambles.

  But I am standing, and I can still look Max in the eyes. I do my best to gather myself in case he tries again. He wipes his hair out of his eyes, and then he speaks for the first time.

  “I’m sorry.”

  His admission surprises me, because he doesn’t like me. I feel his disgust in the residual connection.

  “I’m sorry I hurt you,” he says.

  I focus on the whisper of his feelings that I can still catch from our fading connection. I can feel his ardent belief, his unabashed willingness to fight for the cause. Hurt for the cause. Kill for the cause. But I do not think he is an evil person, just misguided. Ironically, I get the sense that this is exactly how he feels about me, too.

  “War isn’t sorry,” I tell him. “War likes to hurt people.”

  Max frowns. I feel the fleeting pulse of his anger through our mental connection. “They should give you water,” he finally says.

  “And a bucket,” I add. “At least a bucket.” The urge to pee is beginning to niggle my bladder. It’s stupid to care about this. I need to not care, but I do. And this is how I know that deep in my heart of hearts I still haven’t given up. That I still somehow believe that I am alive.

  Max nods just once, turns, and walks out of the room. I wait, listening to his steps down the hall. And when he’s far enough away that I don’t think he’ll hear, I take two wobbly steps back to put slack in the chains and collapse to the floor. I shelter my aching head in my arms and listen to the pain from my jostled thigh ride all the way through me until I can feel the pain in the back of my teeth.

  But I don’t cry.

  “You’re dead,” I whisper to myself. “You’re dead. You’re dead. You’re dead.” I don’t know how many times I’ll have to say it until I believe it, but I’ll find out.

  Chapter 23 – Gabe

  “She isn’t coming home,” Rain pipes up from the backseat. “She made us, somehow.”

  “We’re staying right here,” Tarren says. “It’s only been six hours.”

  I glance up from my phone at the modest blue split level down the street. I am so damn tired of staring at that house. The normalness of it makes me want to vomit. We’re right in the heart of suburbia land, Idaho edition, and I can almost feel my soul being crushed. Why do I suddenly have a craving for khakis and a mini-van?

  I glance back down to the Facebook feed on my phone. I have to. Otherwise my eyes will land on the dashboard clock, and that’s an even worse sight than the empty blue house. Every flip of the digits is one more minute we’ve lost. One more minute Maya’s in the hands of our enemy. One more minute War gets to be real creative with his torture.

  And it’s my fault.

  I want to scream, fry my vocal chords. And break things – every single thing, to be exact. And lay my stupid, worthless self down on the nearest set of train tracks. But none of that is going to get Maya back, so I hold in all the anger and all the poison and keep studying Abigail Peterson’s Facebook feed.

  Basically her Facebook life can be divided into three major eras. The majority of her stream falls into Era One, which I’ve dubbed Kittens, Smiles, & Jesus Era. Abby is bubbly and happy during this time and posted adorable cat videos almost faster than the internet could make them. I can actually watch as the first pictures of Mark crop up. The inevitable “In a Relationship” posts with lots of happy emoticon responses from her friends. Loads of selfies. Sometimes Mark gets dragged into these. He always wears the same tight little smile that says, God, another picture? Abby’s smile is real. Big. Cheesy. Beautiful. Sprinkled throughout the cat videos are a few Bible quotes. The nice ones, mostly from Jesus. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.

  Then gobs of wedding pictures. Abby’s big, brilliant smile. Even Mark has a grin or two. Her dark hair is done up in long curls. In the pictures, they wrap their arms around each other and seem drunk on their own love. It’s real nice.

  And then, two years ago, Era Two begins – The Big Quiet. It starts with a short, terse announcement written by Abby’s mom and then floods and floods of condolences. A few short reports. Dates and times of the funeral. And then nothing. A stretch of quiet for almost a year, where Abby’s wall is painted by sappy memes, quotes, and support from her friends. Nothing from Abby except the aching silence of loss. Nothing until Era Three started about a year and a half ago and leads into present day. I call this the Crazy Abby Era.

  No more videos of kittens getting their heads stuck in Pringles cans. No more cheesy selfies. And, of course, no more husband with the indulging smiles. Now Abby’s feed is all Bible quotes, but not the nice ones. Jesus is on hiatus. It’s like she went through the entire book looking for the darkest, meanest, bloodiest quotes she could find. Her latest one is this beaut -- My determination is to gather the nations to My assembly of kingdoms, to pour on them My indignation. All My fierce anger; all the earth shall be devoured with the fire of My jealousy. For then I will restore to the peoples a pure language, That they all may call on the name of the Lord, to serve Him with one accord. Zephaniah 3:8