Page 200 of Somebody's Watching Me
Annabeth tensed. She hated guns, and rightfully so. Rowan hauled her into his arms, ready to block the sound as best he could. “Wouldn’t the alarms have already done that?”
Will shook his head. “They would have been conditioned to expect it.”
Liam disappeared through Jamison’s doorway and returned, gun in hand. Aiming high, he let off a single shot.
The women’s song wavered, with one or two on the line hesitating.
“There we go.” Rowan lessened his hold on Annabeth so she could get some air. “Do it again.”
Before Liam could fire off another shot, everyone’s phones buzzed with an incoming text.
Ready or not, here I come.
“H-he sent a text right before Jan cut her throat,” Jamison said, looking like she might throw up. “It said we had something of his.”
The sister and the nephew. The pair were being held at some undisclosed location by Klausen until they figured out what they were going to do with them.
The singing abruptly ended, and everyone’s head snapped up from their phones. The women were entering the grounds of the estate, their formation solid once again.
Ben stepped slowly back from the railing with Will. “Girls, get in the house. I don’t want you out here.”
When neither budged, Liam snatched Jamison to him, forcing her behind him as Rowan did the same with Annabeth.
“Stubborn,” he muttered, unable to tear his eyes from the line of white. “Just go inside.”
“If you stay, I stay,” she replied, her voice muffled from being pressed into his back. “Isn’t that what we said?”
The women stopped a few feet onto the property, close enough for Rowan to see their faces. Old and young, each held the same blank expression.
“What are they doing?” Jamison asked.
Liam aimed his phone at the group, zooming in with his camera. “They’re eating something.”
Everyone gathered around to look, and it was Ben who recognized the fruit first. “Manchineel,” he whispered. “They’re eating Manchineel apples. This is a suicide mission.”
Rowan forgot how to breathe. Manchineel. The same fruit CeCe Miller ate to escape her brother, allowing its poison to kill her rather than face him.
At the end of the row, a single woman dropped her fruit and screamed, releasing a piercing howl that echoed in the night. One by one, the others joined, lifting their arms high in the air so the metal blades in their hands caught the moonlight just right.
“They’re going to break in.” Remaining surprisingly calm, Will headed for the balcony door. “I need to get Bernie and Simone up here. We have a better chance of getting through this if we’re all upstairs in one room.”
“Wait!” Annabeth shushed everyone before he could leave. “Listen.”
At first, Rowan heard nothing except the insanity playing out on the lawn. But then the whine of a police siren blended with the women’s screams, and the relief that hit was so strong, it had himgrinning at Jamison. “You’re going to take back every awful thing you’ve ever said about Taylor.”
Jamison sagged against Liam’s side. “I’ll even give her a raise.”
The women’s cries reached a higher octave, building into a fevered pitch of delirium and drowning out the sound of help on the way. They just had to hold on for a little longer.
At least that’s what Rowan thought.
But then a second text hit their phones simultaneously. A parting message from Sinclair before he unleashed his madness on Haven House.
“Run, run, run as fast as you can.”
Chapter 45
Perhaps this whole idea of sharing a bed wasn’t his best.
