Page 177 of Heresy

Of course, we’re going to fight against that.

We don’t want to acknowledge the weakest part of ourselves.

It occurs to me that Shane never finished admitting what he was trying to tell me at the hotel, but if I have to guess, it’s the fact that what I feel for him is also alive and well in his heart.

So how do I play this game between two opposing forces and manage to protect the players on both sides that I love?

If ever there was an impossibility in my life, this is definitely one of them.

I’ll play the game and hopefully figure out the rest of it as I go.

“Okay, so how do we end this?”

“You get your damn friends moving faster on that flash drive. That’ll be a big help. Where the hell are they anyway?”

Spittle flies from Dad’s mouth on the response, his face red and eyes bloodshot. Every answer he gives me is done in a tone of voice that is aggressive and threatening.

I don’t know who this man is.

He’s not my dad.

I keep my mouth shut because that’s the one thing I have that he doesn’t: information about who is decrypting that drive and how to contact them.

Even the governor doesn’t know.

Sure, the governor saw Ames, and I even told him her first name, but that’s it. And good luck to him if he’s trying to find her. Shane and his friends have her guarded, and there’s no doubt in my mind that they’ll keep everybody away from her.

However, if the flash drive is the key to all this, then it might be the key to me escaping my father.

He won’t hurt me. I know that. But he’s not exactly sane anymore either. This war or battle or whatever it is that’s going on has driven my once gracious and gentle father mad.

“They’re still working on it,” I answer. “I’ve been a little too busy to check in for a status update given everything that’s going on.”

“Well, whose fault is that? I’ll tell you who. That man you ran off to. Don’t think I don’t know what happened. Governor Callahan told me about them stealing your car. And then after that, nobody could find you. I assume that’s when you decided to run back and believe the lies he must have told you.”

“I was…”

I stop before telling him I was abducted.

Something is off in what he just said.

“What do you mean nobody could find me?”

There was a crash report. A missing person’s report. You would think if they were looking for me, they would have run across that.

And then it hits me…

They would have discovered Ames’s full name as well because she’s the person who reported me missing in the first place.

I toss up a silent prayer to the universe that Damon got to her first. For all I know, the governor is still searching for her.

“What do you think I mean? Governor Callahan sent people to your dorm on Tuesday morning. They searched around your school at the classes you apparently decided to skip. I thought, in that at least, you would have enough sense to show up. It’s not like you to risk failing.”

Remaining silent, I fight to put the pieces together. Is it possible Governor Callahan somehow missed the police report?

Rather than carrying on over this issue, I change the topic.

“Why do you think Shane killed Luca’s dad?”

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