Page 72 of Playing By Their Rules

It’s only nine p.m. It feels like midnight. Everything is so quiet. The silence presses down, smothering the wilderness.

I walk next to the road and amass a big bundle of grasses. My feet ache. I must have gone miles.

I walk until I can’t walk any longer. Then I sit on the side of the road and pull the grasses over me like a blanket. If Mina comes to look for me, hopefully I’ll remain hidden.

It isn’t in my plans to sleep. I’ll just rest here for a little while and listen for cars that I can wave down.

But no cars come. All of my fatigue, pain, and stress tug on my eyelids until I close my eyes and sleep.

21

THE RACE

Ethan

Chance, Bradley, Roman, and I are crowded into an Ironwood office with Leonie, a woman with a long, gray braid and dark brown eyes. She alternates between asking us questions and typing at her keyboard, her fingers flying with efficiency.

“What other details do you have about her history?” Leonie mostly watches Bradley as she asks questions, rightly figuring out that Chance and I know next to nothing about Maisie’s past. We haven’t had an opportunity to learn everything we want to learn.

When we find her, I’ll be changing that. We can make it fun, if she wants. We’ll exchange life facts for sexual favors.

But first, we need to find her.

“They lived outside of Clear Springs. They talked about their foster dad being a dick,” Bradley says.

“Do you have a name?” she asks.

He squints, thoughtful. “Yeah…Percy, I think. I don’t know the last name.”

“The first name isn’t super common,” Leonie says, typing it into a search engine. A moment later, she says, “Percy Hamilton. He died in a house fire four years ago. Survived by his spouse, Tara Hamilton.”

“What’s the address?” I ask.

Leonie hesitates. “Well, we don’t know for certain that this is where—”

“Please.” I don’t want to shout at this woman that Roman introduced us to, so I keep my voice low, but my desperation is clear.

For his part, Roman can tell I’m hanging on by a thread. “It’s okay, Leonie,” he says. “We’re going to check it out and you and Bradley can keep working on other angles, maybe?”

Bradley looks grateful. “That sounds good to me.”

He wants Maisie and Mina to be okay, but he doesn’t want any trouble. I don’t blame him, but absolutely nothing’s going to keep me from going to Maisie.

Nodding, Leonie says, “Sure. Here’s the address.”

As she recites it, I’m typing it into my phone’s navigation system.

Chance thanks her as we hustle out of the office. Chance’s face looks as grim as I feel. Our girl is out there with a mentally unwell individual. And we don’t even know for sure that we’re going in the right direction to find her.

Roman grabs a red-haired guy he introduces as Squid as we hurry along the corridor and down to the parking garage. The two of them climb into a company SUV. Chance and I get into my car, and then we’re speeding out of the city toward Clear Springs. As we get on the freeway, Chance gets a text.

Chance holds up his phone even though I can’t read it while I’m driving. “Roman’s telling you to slow down.”

I shoot him a hard look. “You want me to slow down?”

“Fuck, no. Drive faster. What if she’s scared?”

I can only imagine the worst, and I don’t need him urging me to speed.

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