Total pages in book: 144
Estimated words: 130761 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 654(@200wpm)___ 523(@250wpm)___ 436(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 130761 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 654(@200wpm)___ 523(@250wpm)___ 436(@300wpm)
She fought.
Little Grace fought, kicked and thrashed against her capture, but the man was too big and too strong. I tried to break free. I scratched and clawed at my captor’s arms. Then the end of a gun plowed into my face, making my vision blur and my head spin. I was thrown into the back of the van, my cheek smashing against the hard floor with a thud.
“Aunt Phebe!” I lifted my head, ignoring the lights dancing across my vision to see Grace being thrown in beside me. I scrambled to where she was and took her in my arms.
“Grace,” I said, tears beginning to pour down my cheeks.
“Wh-Who are these men? I thought we were playing hide-and-seek.”
“We’ll be okay,” I said, not knowing what else I could say.
“Call Meister. Tell him we got her,” one of the men said as they slammed the doors shut and plunged us into darkness, all except a small light above us. I heard the front doors open and close and the engine turn on.
“Aunt Phebe?” Grace’s small, scared voice asked from in my arms.
“Come here, sweetheart.” I pulled her into my arms.
“You’re bleeding,” she said and I heard her voice tremble.
I smiled. “I am fine.”
“Where . . . where are we going?”
I held Grace tighter, fighting back my tears. “It will all be fine,” I said softly, knowing that every word was a lie. “I will not let anything happen to you, I swear.”
Then the van drove away.
Chapter Eighteen
AK
“AK! You here?”
Someone was hammering on my cabin’s door. I got up from the table and opened the door. Tanner stood there, rocking on his feet.
“She here?” he asked as he came inside.
“Phebe?”
“Yeah.”
“No, she’s gone to see Lilah. Why?”
Tanner pulled a sheet of paper from his pocket. He held it in the air. Ash came out from his bedroom, looking on. “No such thing as a fucking old folks’ home in that cult.”
My jaw clenched as Tanner sat down. I sat down opposite and waited for him to continue. “Though I’ve found a Sapphira. Age fourteen. Blond, brown eyes, ninety pounds, Five foot one.”
I frowned, wondering how he knew so fucking much about her. “Where?”
He slammed down the paper and pushed it toward me. It was a spreadsheet, like an inventory or some shit. Shipping forms to Mexico, private accounts.
“Meister ain’t just trafficking these bitches as hookers in the ghost town. The asshole is selling them. He gets them, uses them as whores, then ships them to Mexico to be sold to who-the-fuck-ever for whatever-the-fuck-ever” Tanner pointed to a row on the sheet. “Sapphira. Cult bitch. Sold by ‘Prophet Cain’—Judah—to Meister months ago. Meister has reels and reels of these order sheets. And he’s making a fucking mint selling these whores off to some dick in Mexico. Sapphira is getting shipped out soon. She’s on his latest form.” I felt the anger sweep through me like a storm. “Guessing the date Meister purchased Sapphira is about the time Judah told Phebe he’d sent Sapphira to the old people’s home, yeah?”
I nodded, unable to speak. Then I got my shit together and slammed my fist down on the table. “She was in that ghost town with her all that time? She was there with Phebe and neither of them fucking knew it? Drugged. Out of their fucking minds.” Then the storm turned into a motherfucking hurricane. “And I was there! I could have gotten her out too!” I pushed my chair back, jumping from my seat. “Fuck!” I roared and ran my hands through my hair.
“We gotta tell Ky and Styx. I need to go back in, I need to—”
The door to the cabin flew open, cutting me off. “Is Grace here with Phebe?” Ky was fucking panting, his face red, breath fast.
“No.” My eyebrows pulled down. “Phebe’s with Lilah.”
Ky shook his head. “No she ain’t. I’ve been with Li all morning. Phebe never came.”
As his words hit me, I felt my breathing sound in my ears. “She said she was going to Lilah’s.” Ky stared at me. “We got cameras on that fucking road, right?”
Ky took in what I said. “Fuck! Grace disappeared playing hide-and-seek in the woods.”
I didn’t think any further, just pushed out of my cabin and jumped on my bike. I heard my brothers do the same behind me as I raced up to the clubhouse. I jumped from my bike and ran through the door.
Hush and Cowboy were in the bar. They were on their feet in seconds. “What’s wrong?” Hush asked.
I heard Ky, Tanner and Ash run in behind me. “Cameras!” Ky shouted and ran behind the bar to the small side room where the security cameras were kept.
Smiler came to work the monitors. “What you wanna see? And when?”
“Perimeter road. ’Bout two hours ago,” I said, thinking of when Phebe left. I looked at the clock on the wall and felt my blood turn to ice. “Around eleven a.m.”