Page 251 of Keep This Promise
“Garage door opening,” the sniper says. “One man approaching. The other is still on the backside.” It’s quiet again. “He’s twenty feet from the car. Fifteen. Ten. Approaching it now. He’s looking around. Stay silent.” My heart is pounding so fast I swear it’ll bruise my chest. “Perimeter guy just said something.”
The other sniper speaks now. “I have a shot.”
“Hold your fire,” the first sniper orders. “Something has him spooked. He’s on his phone. Something was just tossed in the garage. Everyone! MOVE!”
Then all hell breaks loose, and the silence I hated becomes deafening.
ChapterThirty-Four
SOPHIE
“Holden! Talk to me!” I am beside myself. Everything is happening so fast. People are running around, there was a loud bang in the distance, and Holden is moving.
“I have to go!”
“Go where? They told us to stay here!” I yell back.
“To them! Fuck! No one is responding!”
I reach for his arm as he’s grabbing something from the ambulance. “Stop! You have to tell me what’s happening!”
He runs his hand through his hair. “I don’t know, Sophie. They are trying to get anyone to talk, but after the explosion, there is nothing. Emmett, Spencer, Zach, Blake, Jackson . . . none of them are responding! I have to go there.”
“You can’t! You don’t have a gun or anything! There are cops everywhere who can go in. We can’t go in there and make things worse.”
“They could be hurt!”
“And I don’t want you to be either!”
No. No, no, no! We can’t lose all of them. My whole body is shaking, and Holden takes my face in his hands. “I have to go.”
I nod because I can’t speak. I can’t breathe.
“I have to find them . . . and search for Eden.”
I want to beg him to stay, but he’s not listening, and that little shred of hope at hearing her name holds me back from arguing more. So, I say the only thing that matters in this moment. “I love you.”
“I love you.”
He kisses me quickly and then grabs the bag before he rushes toward the smoke in the distance.
I stand here, alone and terrified, watching the world around me move. It’s like a dream as the outside edges of my awareness blur and fray.
My mind is being pulled, stretched to its limits. My daughter could be dead. My friends, the people who lifted me up, cared for us without hesitation, and ran into the fire to try to save Eden, could be dead as well.
I have no idea what’s happening, which I think is the worst part of all of this.
Someone bumps into me from the back, but I don’t go anywhere, I just stand there, staring at the last spot I saw Holden.
Time moves, I have no idea how long I’m here, but finally, I see Spencer running toward me. “Sophie!”
I blink, but I can’t seem to get my limbs to cooperate.
He comes to a stop in front of me, shaking my arms. “Sophie, we found her!”
That unlocks me, and I take his hand, moving through the throngs of people, desperate to get to her. We approach the garage, people are in handcuffs, and over to the right, Blake is putting pressure on Jackson’s arm.
“Fuck, that hurts!”
