I swallow down the bile that has threatened to come up.
Acidic and fermented.
The thought of countless victims.
I was born and raised in a town built on the suffering of others.
“Then what?” I ask.
“Then AgentFranz, offered the brothers a deal they couldn’t refuse,” Grayson murmurs, his arms wrapping around me.
I can tell, in this moment, he needs me. That this is harder for both the brothers than either expected.
My arms reach around him, squeezing him to me, my fingers stroking his back.
“What was it?” I’m not sure I want to know.
“That if they could secure more evidence, find where her daughter was, they would reduce my sentence,” Axel answers. Except, again, I can feel it isn’t the whole truth, but I don’t push him. Not yet.
I contain the well of emotions that attempts to bubble up as his words sink in and understanding slaps me across the face. “She used two teenage boys to find her daughter. Threw them into the lion’s den. She got them both killed.”
Axel’s outburst in the hospital makes more sense now. How he blames her for everything that has ever happened.
She is the reason Auggie and Tripp are dead.
But no.
Even still, I can’t blame her.
“Who ran them off the road?”
“Mark and Maxwell. We found out with certainty about the thirtieth go round. They used Maxwell’s car, and then just replaced his vehicle with the exact make and model, but his crushed vehicle is in the sheriff’s garage too. Sometimes you stumbled on it, sometimes you didn’t.” Grayson strokes my hair.
“Axel, we need to finish this. Once and for all. Maybe that’s why I was meant to live. Maybe fate is trying to help me wrap up what they started.”
Axel stomps back to the bed, he ignores Grayson entirely bending until his face is inches from mine. “Or maybe you deserve to live. To not get caught up in the mess that you had no right being a part of.”
Except that isn’t true and we both know it. “If Auggie and Tripp didn’t do anything when they first found out. If they let it rest for as long as theydid. What changed? What could have happened that would make them go to the FBI?”
Neither Grayson nor Axel speaks. In fact, they both freeze entirely.
Axel’s half-truths swirl in my mind and then it strikes all at once.
An instance of clarity.
“It was me.” I know it with certainty. “They were protectingme.” Maxwell’s threat makes more sense now.
No more big brother to keep her safe
It takes several heavy minutes before Grayson answers. “They were. They knew you were garnering interest. They knew that even if you escaped this town, its evil would follow.”
“Then even more reason to stop everything once and for all.”
Axel opens his mouth to argue, but I level him with my meanest glare.
“Darius is your brother. He is our family. You two are going to come up with some half-cocked scheme without me, just let me help. Use my temporary fame to our advantage and besides that…” Embarrassment shoots through me, but I continue on, “I know how to find him.” The third purple glimmering thread is leading straight through the far wall. I want more than anything to chase it down, right here and now. But I know better.
“Yes, he’s with the Thornes. We know where he is too.” Axel narrows his eyes, clenching his jaw in frustration.
