Page 74 of Manacled Hearts

“You want me to talk, Finnigan.” She speaks my name like an ethereal chant. “You want me to be vulnerable. Meet me on even ground then.”

I take one slow, deep breath, and I don’t release it until it tightens my lungs and pressure grows in my temples. Evelyn doesn’t push. She waits patiently for me to reach the decision she desires.

She’s not giving me a choice.

“Eight years ago, Bartiste came here chasing people who conned him in a black-market deal. Annika, my brother’s wife, was involved. A lot happened, it was violent, and Bartiste kidnapped her moments after she told my brother she was pregnant. We tried really fucking hard, but we couldn’t get to the—her in time.” I correct myself before I get too vulnerable with the plum-haired woman. “He had her for a few days, tortured her, and we couldn’t find him. When we finally did, a whole-ass battle erupted. We know Bartiste was shot. More than once. But in the whole commotion and after all was said and done, we couldn’t find him. We assumed one of his men took his body, because the last we saw of him he was all but crawling. Even his men came to us days later, thinking we had him, and months after we were still finding men who used to work for him who swore they thought he was dead. After Ronan got Annika back, he decided to leave The Sanctum, Queenscove, and start a new crime-free life somewhere else.”

There, I said it. Kind of.

Evelyn narrows her eyes on me.

“That’s terrible.” She offers, but there’s uncertainty in her tone. “And you were so broken up about your brother’s wife being taken?”

Wait, I don’t think that came out the way I thought it did.

“The whole situation was intense. We were almost too late,” I add.

She’s not convinced, her darkening eyes tell me as much. But she takes a deep breath, her shoulders drop, and I think she relents.

“I’ve already told you all I remember that’s relevant to you,” Evelyn says.

“You can’t make that decision. We don’t see things the same way, and every detail could help us.”

She turns away, shaking her head slowly, and even though she tries to hide them, I can see the emotions she blinks away. They’re raw, and the brutality of them awakens something in me I thought died with Hanna all those years ago.

“I’m sorry.”

She whips her head around at my quiet words. Her eyes are narrowed, the question lingering without spoken words.

“For doing this. For asking this of you. I know reliving this must be… hard,” I clarify.

“It’s fine.” But her tone says otherwise. She sits at the edge of the bed, and I join her.

“Have you started remembering more?”

She hesitates and I already don’t like this. “Bits and pieces. Nothing that could help you.”

“Walk me through it from the beginning,” I insist.

“Nothing has changed about when they took us. They were swift, violent, and they only wanted my sister. They grabbed me by the hair and hindered me useless. I fought them as much as I could and jumped in the nondescript van myself. Only, I failed to get us out. I failed to save her. All they said were curses that they couldn’t get rid of me and deemed it safer to take me with them. I didn’t even really see their faces. I didn’t get the chance to.”

“Did you notice anything about the van? Like a smell? Or the way it looked on the inside? Did it feel new or well used? How did it sound?”

My questions took her by surprise. Because she squints and her gaze drifts somewhere in the distance as she ponders.

“Actually, it was pretty quiet. It didn’t have the new car smell, but there were some scratches and dents inside, like it transported things in the past. It was used, but barely. There were some food wrappers around, actually.”

“So, it’s possible it wasn’t a rental. What color?”

“Black.”

“Did you hear any names? Did they talk at all?” I ask.

“Barely. We were maybe an hour away from the docks, and all they mentioned was that taking me too would cause some trouble. After that we were sedated, and I woke up in the darkness of the container.”

They didn’t even speak of directions to the docks, so they are familiar with the city and the area in general. We already know they took a few children from Fleeton and neighboring ones, but not needing even one direction is a bit peculiar.

“Nothing else happened the time we traveled. Then we met you, and half an hour after all that, I met him.”

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