Page 93 of Cherry Auction

“Brooke,” I yell, sprinting towards her.

She’s still standing where I first saw her. She’s unhooked the fuel line from the plane but is frozen, staring at me. She looks at me like she doesn’t know me, confused. Like she’s trying to remember why she recognizes my face.

“Mati,” her father yells from the steps of the plane. Her face snaps towards her father at his voice. “That’s right. You’re Daddy’s good girl. Now come. Don’t start being a bad girl now. Get on this plane.”

She hesitates just a moment. She’s standing equidistant between us, as easily able to run to him as she could turn and run to me.

She takes a step towards him.

“Don’t you dare,” I call out. “You’re not his. You’remygood girl. Mads. Brooke. It’s me, Donny. I love you.”

She freezes, her head swinging back towards me. It’s as if I can see the haze clear from her eyes.

Donny. I see her mouth my name.

“That’s right. You’re my best girl. Come back to me, kitty. I love you and you love me. It’s our chance.”

I hold my hand out for her to come to me. Will my control over her hold? Have I done my job well enough? Just fifty feetseparate us.

“Our time is now.” I make her the same offer she did to me all those years ago. “Let’s run away together.” Except I’m not going to let anything separate us this time. “Now. Come with me now, kitty..”

I see light come into her eyes. She’s about to take a step in my direction when her father shouts, “You’reDaddy’sgood girl. You know what happens to bad girls, Matilda. How many times have I told you? I willneverlet you go.”

She freezes and the brightness that entered her eyes seeps out just as quickly.

And I suddenly see how cruel I’ve been. Trying to own her at all.

Oh god, I’m such a fucking fool.

I thought that control had to be taken before it was taken from me. But I only thought that because it was the lessonhetaught me.

What Brooke needed the whole time was for someone to trust her enough to choose for herself. Only in choosing me of her own will would she ever be free of her father’s monstrous grip on her mind. Right now, he’s just using her like a puppet between us.

She’s going to be ripped in half.

When he shouts again, “Be Daddy’s good girl, she turns away from me and begins hurrying towards the plane.

I all-out sprint to get to her.

I’m not a scrawny seventeen-year-old anymore. I train at the gym five days a week so that if it evermattered again, I’d be too big a motherfucker foranybodyto hold down. If I can just get my hands on the old man, I won’t stop until I’ve bashed his head into the concrete so many times he no longer has any teeth.

But Mads has a shorter distance to go, and once her father claps his hands sharply at her she starts to run. Feck me but she’s fast.

As soon as her foot touches the bottom stair, the stairs start lifting back up into the plane. She jogs up them as they go. By the time I reach it, the stairs are almost all the way up. I leap as far as I can, as if I’ll be able to catch the foot of the stairs before they disappear. But no, they close solidly into the smooth wall of the plane.

“Brooke!” I jump up and pound the bottom of the plane with both fists. “Madison! Open up. Open up this goddamn door. I’m not going to lose you again!”

But the plane’s engines have been roaring this whole time, probably one of the reasons they didn’t hear our car pull up until the last moment. Now they roar even louder, and the plane starts to taxi.

“Get out of there!” comes Quinn’s voice from behind me.

But I can’t move, just staring at the door of the airplane as it moves away from me. It’s Isaak again to the rescue, tackling me out of the way before the Cessna’s engine on its forward wing catches and drags me into its whirring blade.

Isaak keeps dragging me backwards until we can see the Cessna’s windshield.

The bastard himself is sitting there in the cockpit, grinning down at me.

I see him reach down to push the gear to start the plane down the runway, taking off with the woman of my dreams forever. I’ve never felt more powerless in all my life. If I thought running up and jumping on the plane would do anything, I’d try.

---