Series: Like Us Series by Krista Ritchie
Total pages in book: 177
Estimated words: 174544 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 873(@200wpm)___ 698(@250wpm)___ 582(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 174544 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 873(@200wpm)___ 698(@250wpm)___ 582(@300wpm)
I don’t know how to be.
“I’m sorry,” I say quietly to Frog and walk away, both hands on my head.
Breath is caught in my burning lungs.
I squat down and grip the brick wall out in front of me, the other hand shielding my face. They took her.
I need to find her. It’s a desperation now. I need to find her. Except, my dad isn’t answering and I’m stuck here for more than a second, trapped in a tornado of people. Police. More private security.
“Donnelly!” Price shouts and catches me by the shoulder.
I’m being whisked off to the side, near a black security SUV and the brick wall. Alpha bodyguards huddle around me.
Ryke Meadows is rushing past us, his motorcycle helmet beneath his armpit.
“LO!” he calls out to his brother.
The Keenes (the med team)—Edward, Tripp, and Farrow—are already surrounding Lily and shouting to the paramedics as ambulance doors swing open. My head rotates in each new direction.
Police say crime scene and push most bodyguards outside the rental car’s perimeter.
“Where’d they go?” Price asks for the fourth time, drawing my gaze back to him. “Who was involved?”
I shake my head. “I didn’t—”
“How many were here?” Bruno asks me.
“Who did this?” someone else questions.
“We need answers.”
I don’t fucking have them! I wouldn’t still be here if I did!
“Hey, back off!” Akara shoves into the huddle.
“He’s our only in to finding her quickly, Akara,” Price retorts. “I don’t care about his feelings right now. We need answers.”
“He doesn’t know anything.” That’s not Akara.
Oscar Highland-Oliveira has pushed into the cluster of bodyguards. Severity edges his assertive posture.
“You can’t be sure of that,” Price shoots back.
“I legitimately can,” Oscar retorts, rain droplets slipping down his golden-brown skin and stubbled jaw. Curly pieces of his brown hair are wet against his forehead, and he’s squinting through the storm. “Because if Donnelly knew where Luna was, he wouldn’t be standing here listening to you. He’d already be gone.”
“I’ll find her,” I suddenly say, knowing what I need to do.
“Where?” Price questions.
“I gotta go.” I turn out of the huddle, but multiple hands jut out and grab me. For fuck’s sake.
“You do this with us,” Price retorts and looks to my boss. “Akara.”
Akara stares into me. “He’s right. We do this together.”
“I can’t wear a wire, and there’s no time. Just let me go.”
Let me go.
“Give us three minutes,” Akara says, almost pleading. “That’s all. Just three minutes to form a plan.”
What if that’s three minutes too long?
Oscar squeezes my shoulder, and I end up nodding. “Alright. Three minutes.”
It takes four, and as the huddle breaks and a plan is set, we split off. I move towards the middle of this narrow road. Farrow’s father, Dr. Edward Keene, is climbing into the back of the ambulance with the stretcher, Lily strapped on—her face bloodied, beaten.
Sickness burns my throat again. Lo is the next to board the ambulance, but as he twists around, his destroyed gaze catches mine.
“Donnelly?” he calls out as wind whips through this dead-end. I approach, just as he says, “Luna—”
“I’m gonna get her. I promise you.”
Lo has no clue I’ve broken every promise I’ve ever made to him, but this one, I can’t break. Because this is the promise that will break me if I do.
A shred of hope is in his amber eyes—hope that I’ve ignited, hope I can’t let extinguish—and the paramedics close the doors on him. The last thing of Loren Hale I see is his hope in me.
Sirens ring in the air. Red strobe-lights flash against the brick walls, and I watch the ambulance speed off on to Philly streets.
Someone sidles next to me. I already know who. His calm, readied demeanor resets mine, a trauma bag slung on his shoulder. There is no wait. No yesterday. No tomorrow if she’s not here.
There is only now.
Farrow watches the ambulance disappear. “We’ll be with you.”
We.
Oscar comes up to my other side, dangling the keys. “I’m driving.”
21
PAUL DONNELLY
Miniature pink boxing gloves dangle on the rearview mirror of an old Ford. I’m in the backseat of Joana Olivera’s car, and I’m hunched forward, hands cupped and knees jostling beneath me.
Oscar is driving towards South Philly. I check my wrist for the time, but I have no watch on me. Luna has it.
The blue kyber crystal necklace lies heavier against my sternum. Did I kiss it before tucking it in my Van Halen tee? Better believe I did.
“Why the fuck does my baby sis have her steering wheel positioned so low?” Oscar is trying to adjust the wheel while he’s driving.
Could say a lot about that, but I don’t speak.
Farrow’s annoyance is visible. “Man, stop fucking with it. Just pick a position.”
Oscar locks the wheel in place and tries to peek back at me. “No comment back there?” He’s concerned since I’m not ribbing him about sex positions. I see the joke alright. Just don’t wanna make one right now.