Page 125 of Spooked

“Give me a hand?” he asked Brax.

I didn’t want him to go, not when I still felt so fragile, but we had to work as a team. He must have understood because he leaned in and kissed my hair.

“I love you. And when I come back, we can start the rest of our life.”

“Please hurry.”

Then we were alone again, and I kept checking out of the windows in case a bunch of Cass’s men materialised from the darkness. Logically, I knew Brax and Chase wouldn’t have left us if there were any danger, but the fear was still very real.

“Who are these people?” Elsa whispered.

I wasn’t sure how much I was allowed to tell her. “They’re friends.”

“You brought them here?”

“Yes.”

Meera hugged me tighter. “I thought nobody would come.Hesaid the cops didn’t care.”

“ButIcare, and I finally found a man who does too.”

“That’s Brax? That’s your boss?”

“He’s been amazing. Even after I lied to him about everything, he helped me, and…and…” The events of the past few days overwhelmed me, and I blinked back tears. “I don’t know what the future holds, but I do know I want him to be in it.”

“I just want to go home.”

“Back to Massachusetts? Or to Rhode Island?”

She stiffened. “I…I’m not sure. My parents… What am I gonna tell my parents?”

“We’ll worry about that later. First, let’s focus on getting through today, okay?” In Brax’s absence, I had to be the strong one. “Elsa, where are you from?”

“Alabama. But there’s n-n-nothing for me to go back to.” She gave a sniffle. “Just…just a man who ruined my life and a whole lot of bad memories.”

Another challenge.

“We’ll deal with that after you’ve recovered, okay? What happened to your leg? You said Cass threw you against a fireplace?”

“I f-f-fell and landed on the hearth, and I heard something crack in my thigh.”

She’d fractured her femur? If that was true, it was a serious injury that usually required surgical intervention.

“How long ago?”

“Almost a month, I think? It was hard to keep track of time in that place.” She began sobbing again. “I thought I’d die there.”

“Hey, hey, it’s okay.” I reached between the seats and squeezed her hand. “You’re safe.”

As soon as the words left my mouth, the trunk opened, and I jumped out of my skin. But when I twisted in the seat, it was just Brax and Chase coming back.Way to give a girl a heart attack.They were carrying the mangled remains of the drone, and it had some kind of electronic contraption duct-taped underneath it.

“What is that thing?”

Chase dodged the question. “You didn’t see this, and we were never here.”

I was still curious, but I could live with not knowing. The important word there?Live.I was still alive, and so was Meera. Against all the odds, we’d succeeded on this rescue mission. The healing process would be long and bumpy, but we’d get through it together.

CHAPTER45

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