“Because as far as he’s concerned, you don’t know about this place and that’s the way he wanted to keep it. I only found out because I followed him home from Anton’s one night, and believe me, he wasn’t exactly thrilled about it,” she explains. “As to why he didn’t tell you. I can’t answer that, but my guess is that he’s ashamed. He doesn’t want his friends to be involved in this life. You guys have it good and he would never want to take you away from that. He believes he’s covered in darkness, and you Tully, are his light and he’s terrified that if he lets you in, he’s going to cover your world in darkness too.”
“Doesn’t he realize that my world is already covered in darkness without him?”
Lacey just shrugs as I push up from the chair and wrap my arms around Tully. “Come on, let’s go home and order pizza.”
She sighs and gives in before finally snapping out of it. “Fine,” Tully says before looking to Lacey. “Did uh…did you want to come?”
Lacey glances around the mess that is Rivers’ home before slowly shaking her head. “Nah, I think I’m going to stay and tidy this up a bit. Thanks though.”
Tully nods and makes her way out the door with me following behind, only I stop in the doorway and look back at Lacey, the girl who’s apparently my cousin. “I guess I’ll see you around.”
“Yeah,” she says with an awkward smile, probably feeling as weird about this as I do. “I guess so…and um, I’m sorry about your sister. I heard she went missing.”
Lacey cringes and I try to shake off the feelings that tear through me with that reminder. “Yeah, she did, but we’ll get her back. How did you hear about that?”
“Nate and Jesse Ryder heard it from Kaylah and well, ever since then, they’ve been treating everyone in Broken Hill as a suspect. They’re kind of scary, you know?”
“Yeah,” I say as a strange sense of pride pulses through me knowing that the Ryder brothers have my back. “Thanks for letting me know, and uh…the other things.”
Lacey gives another awkward smile and with that, I step out the door and close it behind me, wondering how many more lies and secrets I could possibly uncover about myself.
Chapter 6
A week and five days.
I don’t know how much longer I can go on not knowing where she is.
The first week was torturous but the past five days have been absolutely horrendous. That first week, I had a little ray of hope shining within me, telling me that somehow Anton will find her, but too much time has passed and that little ray of hope has burned within me, leaving nothing but pure devastation behind.
He can’t find her. Hell, I’m not even happy that it means I won’t have to spend my life as Anton’s sidekick. I just want my little sister back, but it’s clearly not possible.
She’s gone forever.
“Stop that,” Noah growls beside me. I look across at him and let out a heavy breath, doing my best to ignore him, but naturally he won’t allow it. “We will get her back. Anton is not going to give up on the chance of taking you as his prize.”
Tully and Spencer quickly look at each other and a second later, Spencer places his hand at Tully’s lower back and leads her out the front door, realizing that whatever’s about to happen in here, needs to go down in private.
“How can you say that?” I demand. “It’s been a week and five days. The more time that passes the less chance we have of finding her. She could be anywhere. Kelly could have stashed her in any part of the world just to keep her away.”
“No, she couldn’t. Unless Kelly has found a sugar daddy worse than Anton, I highly doubt it. Kelly doesn’t have the means to hide somebody or send her away. She’s just laying low and the second she steps a foot wrong, we’ll get her. The whole fucking town is looking for her, Anton is looking for her, and Broken Hill is looking for her too. We will get her back. Don’t you dare give up on her, Henley. She belongs here with us.”
My head sinks into my hands as I force myself not to cry. After the number of tears that I’ve shed over the past week and a half, I wouldn’t think that it’s possible to keep crying, but every single time, I prove myself wrong.
“I’m trying,” I tell him as his hand falls to my back and begins rubbing small circles. “I don’t want to give up but the more time that passes, the harder it gets.”
“I know,” he whispers. “But you need to have faith. She’s so damn strong. She made it through the first time and somehow found her way to you, and she’ll do it again because now she knows how it feels to be loved. She’s going to fight, Spitfire, just like you would.”