He looked at me grimly. “I dunno, man. I just don’t know.”
Sometimes the thought that we were too late crept into my mind and it took all my mental strength to cast it aside. I would not give up on finding Indy alive. I’d lose my mind if I did.
The other thought was that we were walking into a trap. For that reason Bull had brought the others along. Elias was ex-military and it was more than likely he knew a thing or two about booby traps. Grunt was also ex-military and we were hoping he knew more.
Maverick and Caleb came along for the extra firepower if we needed it.
“There!” Davey pointed to an old billboard on the side of the road. It was faded, the image weathered and neglected by time, but you could just make out the smiling faces of two children eating watermelon pieces and the words declaring, Juicy Watermelons Ahead. Visit Fassbender Farms.
“I remember Elias pointing it out when we drove past. Said he and his sister used to sneak out at night and climb the billboard to smoke pot.”
Hope flared in my chest. We were close. Davey was looking around him, and judging by the expression on his face, things were looking familiar.
I thought of my queen and I prayed she was still alive.
I’m coming for you, baby. Just hold on. Please, hold on.
INDY
Elias rose to his feet and towered above me as he continued on with his craziness.
“You’re probably feeling sorry for her right now,” he said as he began to pace again. “But in the end, Talia got exactly what she had coming to her.”
He stopped pacing and a look of disgust swept across his face.
“She was my twin. But she was a slut. Do you know why we moved to Destiny?” He looked at me and his eyes were bright with madness. “Because my slutty sister got herself in trouble back in Alabama. Messed around with a teacher at our high school. There were photos. An abortion. And it was a huge shit storm of bullshit, I’ll tell you. So we moved to Georgia for a fresh start, and things were good until the story caught up with us again. The photos, they were circulated throughout the high school, and I’ll tell you, Indy, kids can be assholes. They were cruel. Brutal. Not just to Talia, but to me, as well. We were socially ostracized. Bullied. And it got so bad that we had to up and move again to another town in another state. It didn’t matter that I had met a girl who saw me for something other than the twin brother of Talia Bennett. It didn’t matter that leaving her was like ripping my heart out of my chest. Nothing mattered but Talia, Talia, Talia!” He sucked in a deep breath to calm himself. “So we came to Destiny, and after a while it felt like we had finally found a place we could settle down. But then she had to go and ruin it again. After what she did …” He ran a hand through his hair. “Everyone would know. It would be all through school and I would be forever known as the brother of the town bike. Again. Can you imagine what that that felt like to an eighteen-year-old boy? What it felt like when we had finally found a place where we could lay down some roots. The selfish little bitch. I couldn’t let her ruin everything.” Spit flecked his lips. Sweat formed on his temples and dribbled in rivulets down the side of his shiny face as his emotions got the better of him. “Why did she get to ruin everything because she couldn’t control herself?”
“What did you do to her?” I asked.
“I saw her leave the house that night. Saw her flee in tears. So I went to her room. I knew she kept a diary, knew she wrote down all her stupid thoughts and feelings. She had left it sitting on her desk, so I opened it and started reading her last entry. Read all the things she let them do to her. Read all the things they did to my sister.” His face twisted with disgust. “I knew it would be all over school come Monday morning. It was going to be Alabama and Georgia all over again.”
“You went to the water tower?”
“Of course, I did.”
When he confirmed it, I knew what was coming.
“I confronted her. Asked her what she’d done. She told me to go away, told me I didn’t want to know what happened. But I already knew what she’d been up to in that cesspit of a clubhouse with those bikers. Knew what she had let them do to her. It was going to be hell for us again. People would look at us like the white trash we had been back in Alabama. Because of her. Because she couldn’t keep her panties on.”