Page 43 of What Lies Within

“Not for me.” The woman sighs before her footfalls exit the room, the front door slamming in her wake.

There’s no crunch of gravel, which means she must be on the porch. No doubt sucking back on a cigarette to ease her nerves. Within earshot if the walls are thin enough.

“You’ve got eyes still,” I whisper to Rae. “We got a way out of here?”

She exhales. “Maybe. But it’s a long run across open farmland to get help, Maddie.”

“You got your phone on you?”

“It’s in the truck.”

"Has Turnip put the app on your phone yet?"

She hesitates. “Considering I don’t know what app you mean, I’m going to say no.”

Shit.There goes the hope of Daddy tracking her location. "We gotta get out of this Rae."

"I know." Slight scuffs sound from her. "How far away do you think Fox is?"

"If he's at home, we've got at least fifteen minutes before he arrives." I twist my lips. "But Sweetie's probably smoking, so we'll have minutes at best before she’s back on us."

Rae huffs. "We could take her down one-handed. It's the gun I have an issue with."

“She’s a dead shot, too,” I admit. “Fuck.”

“Can’t hide near the door to ambush her because she’ll see we’re not kneeling here the second she comes inside.” Rae pauses to think it over. “We’ve got to run, Mads, and hope for the best.”

“Can’t do that until you get this fucking blindfold off me.”

She heaves a sigh and then rustles around beside me. I startle a little when her fingers brush my face, clumsy and awkward, considering they'll be behind her back. Rae catches a stray lock of my hair, tugging it with the material, but she manages to get the fabric off my eyes and over my jaw.

I jerk my head around, coaxing the material down to my neck, and take stock of the room we're in.

“What do you think?” Rae asks. “We got a way out of this? Sweetie’s just there.” She nods to the left of the boarded window. “I can see her shadow in the slip of light coming through.”

My gaze locks on my best friend, stoic and calculating. It dawns on me that she hasn't broken down. No eruption of emotion at finding me alive and relatively well. No panic at where we are.

Just the cool, calm exterior of a person whose mind works at lightning speed to figure out the problem presented to them.

“I’m fucking glad you’re here, bitch,” I tease.

She smiles, lop-sided and unsure. “Could be better circumstances.”

“Ain’t that the truth.” I heave to my feet with a stifled groan and tiptoe around the room to get my bearing better now I’ve got my sight back. “Fuck, I hope he’s not bringing Ronan with him.”

The windows above the kitchen sink are clear—no boards blocking our escape. Likely why I could pick the changing hues of the day. But they're hard to get to with my hands bound how they are, and the small square panes mean we’d have too much timber to contend with should we smash them out.

“Ronan?”

No quick escape, at least.

"Yeah," I keep assessing, moving through the room. "He helped Fox get me here." I give the back door another test—just to be sure—and find it still locked. Same as last night. "We have to get past her," I say with a sigh. "Everything else is either boarded up or locked." Fucking bastard did a good job.Shit.What if this is it? What if he takes Rae and delivers her to Terry?

I sweep back into the room where she's stood near the window, peering through the thin gap between the board and the panes. The colors on her back catch my attention, the rockers stating that she's the official property of my fatheranduncle.

A strange pang of jealousy twists in my gut at the loss of attention from two of my favorite men. But it’s laced with a deep-set pride that swells my heart.

They’ll be good for her. And she for them.

---