Page 117 of Sticks and Stones (Shadow Valley U)

My father’s head tilts as he draws closer. “That’s not the Wrenny-girl I know, showing all her worries firsthand.” He tsks and reaches out to tuck my hair behind my ear. “Seems you need a wake-up call.”

My chin is stern when I move away. “Nothing is more of a wake-up call than you kidnapping my boyfriend.”

He can tell by the sound of my voice that I’m willing to do anything he wants in order to get Stone back.

That’s why I don’t run.

I’m not running anywhere unless it’s into Stone’s arms.

“Where is he, Jessie?”

His lips flatten. “Jessie? You’re refusing to call me Dad now?”

Anger surges, and I want to kill him. My hands shake, and my legs are wobbly. I’m both angry and afraid, and it’s an unsettling feeling.

Fuck, where is Stone?

“Where is he?” I ask again.

A pleased smile creeps onto his sunken face, and I instantly feel like a child again, fearful for what version of him I’m about to see.

“Why don’t we take a ride, Pumpkin.”

There is no use in refusing.

Omar is off to the left, resting his shoulder along a tree with his gun tucked into the back of his pants, and Kerrigan is prowling the perimeter with his ravenous eye creeping in my direction.

Vomit hits the back of my throat when I look at his hands. I remember the way they felt like it was yesterday.

“Okay,” I say. My dad jerks me toward a van, and I stumble over my own feet.

I’m not as afraid as I should be.

But that’s only because I know I’m headed toward Stone, and one way or another, I’m getting us out of there.

This entire time, he thought he needed to protect me. But it turns out, I’m the one who has to protect him.

CHAPTER40

STONE

It’s goingto be okay.

It’s going to be okay.

It’s going to be okay.

I resurface slowly. Kind of like swimming up from a great depth. My head throbs, but I crack my eyes open without moving the rest of my body.

Survival instinct maybe?

“It’s going to be okay.”

I blink rapidly, focusing on the girl a mere ten feet from me. Her attention is on the glass beakers in front of her, a counter full of equipment I don’t understand. She’s wearing one of those white lab coats and plastic glasses. But even obscured, it’s obviously Wren.

And she’s talking to herself. Over and over, saying, “It’s going to be okay.”

I lick my lips. My mouth is dry. The base of my skull feels like there’s a knife in it, scraping away at my brain. But before I call out to her, I take stock of the rest of myself. My hands are hung over my head, my wrists taped together and attached to a pipe. I’m sitting on an ugly, tiled floor.