Page 71 of I Will Mend You

I shake my head. He didn’t see her kill an attacker and hide his corpse, all while thinking she was hallucinating the man she murdered. Amethyst is resourceful.

“The moment we’re in range, I want you to send out drones in both directions. If she isn’t on that bus, I want a team storming the asylum and shooting everyone in sight.”

The next several minutes are tense as Tyler helps us intercept the vehicle. I’m holding on to the chance that Amethyst’s encounter with Dolly and Father has unlocked her survival instincts, and she’s escaped alone. Alternatively, she might have left the asylum with another captive. Anything is possible, but my gut tells me she’s on that bus.

I turn to Jynxson. “What’s the update from the penthouse?”

He shakes his head. “Just Dolly talking about coming out of retirement to star in one last movie. The investors are lapping it up, not knowing she’s set up her twin to die.”

“We’re seven miles away,” says the helmswoman. “Drones are ready to deploy.”

My breath hitches. “Launch them.”

Moments later, the drones take off into the sky, spreading out in a fan formation, racing toward both the asylum and the bus.

“Call me when you get a visual.” I rise off my seat and walk out onto the open deck. Wind assaults my senses, and I squint against the glare of the sun and the relentless spray of the sea.

I grip the railing, watching the drones disappear into the horizon. They’re military grade with gun capabilities, but will take at least seven minutes to reach their targets. Seven minutes of waiting before all hell breaks loose.

My heart pounds a staccato beat, drowning out the roar of the sea. This is the closest I’ve gotten to Father in at least five years, yet all I can think of is Amethyst. What will I find when I reach my little ghost? Have they shattered her already fragile mind?

They were working on her long before my execution, with constant death threats disguised as online trolling. I don’t know if that first man she killed that night was sent to capture her or to test her skills, but they never stopped trying to torment her.

When they couldn’t get to her through the pictures and poison pen letters, they remade the graveyard scene and sent it to Melonie Crowley.

Her mother would have watched the entire thing, thinking Amethyst had branched into violent porn. After all these years, Melonie probably assumed Dolly was long dead. It was unfortunate that Melonie didn’t tell Amethyst she’d been gang-raped while unconscious. We would have watched through the footage and pieced together the truth.

When they couldn’t use Melonie to tear us apart, they sent a link to the video, making Amethyst think she was the victim, and I was a predatory ringmaster. That everything that happened between us was part of some kind of revenge against her for trying to make money from her relationship with me. If I hadn’t completely forgiven her for that yet, I have now.

“Xero,” someone says from behind. “Over here.”

I hurry back to the bridge, where Jynxson and a few others are gathered around a quartet of laptops displaying the drones’ feeds.

On one screen, officers stand beside a police patrol car parked at the asylum’s entrance, exchanging tense words with a pair of young men. I turn my attention to another screen, where a yellow school bus races down a lonely stretch of road.

The drone slows to peer through its windows, and I hold my breath to find a small figure crouched between the seats. She’s instantly recognizable from the blond curls on one side of her hair.

My heart lurches. It’s Amethyst.

She’s wearing a straitjacket with bandages covering her legs. Her head turns, looking like she’s in conversation with someone beneath the seat.

“Zoom in on that image,” I say.

The feed sharpens, bringing into focus the bus’s interior. Amethyst’s face is swollen and encrusted with a mix of blood and dirt. What the hell did they do to her?

“She’s hurt,” Jynxson says.

Rage sears through my chest, burning the back of my throat. “Who’s taken her?”

A second drone flies over the bus, capturing the driver’s face. He’s a large, dark-haired man, dressed in white. With half his face obscured by a white mask, it’s difficult to tell if that’s Father or one of his lackeys.

“She’s on the move,” Jynxson says.

I switch back to the first drone, where Amethyst crawls between the seats toward the driver. My brow furrows as she occasionally glances to the empty space at her side. Is she seeing things or communicating with another captive?

“Did she stow away?” Jynxson asks. “Looks like she’s trying to sneak up on the driver.”

I grunt. “That, or he told her to keep low so as not to get shot. How many minutes until we intercept the bus?”

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