“Yeah?”
“I just spoke with one of my people at the hospital. Lucy is out of surgery and in the ICU. She had serious internal bleeding from her spleen being ruptured. They had to take it out. Her liveris very bruised as well. She’s lucky it wasn’t lacerated. She could have bled out in minutes.”
“Did you find out about Will?”
“He’s got a nasty concussion and some lacerations on his face, but he’ll be fine.”
“I don’t trust that.”
“What do you mean?” Barry cocks his head, frowning. “The young man was severely injured.”
“Was he?” Dylan asks, clearly on my train of thought after hearing about his injuries. “Compared to Lucy, his injuries are minor and he’s a football player. Who’s to say he didn’t call asswipe and alert him as to when Daisy and Lucy got back from the game? He would have had to be injured for it to look like he had no hand in it.”
“Do you two really think that?” he asks.
I shrug. “I don’t trust anyone who’s a football player outside of Mitchell right now.”
“I’ll have Baas look into it.” He turns and goes back into the living room.
“Here, honey, you need to eat something.” Mom puts a plate with a sandwich down in front of me. “I know you don’t want to, but you need to.”
“Ah, Mama Kathleen, we’re not supposed to eat anything with meat in it.” Collin looks pained as he looks at his own sandwich.
“What?”
“Plant based diet,” he explains and pushes the sandwich toward Dylan. “Here, at least one of us should eat as much as we want to.”
“I…”
“It’s fine,” Barry calls. “Unusual circumstances. You boys eat what you want tonight. You need to keep your energy up.”
Mom beams at him.
Where the fuck is she?
“I don’t know,” Mom says softly, “but we’ll find her.”
“I said that out loud?”
She nods. “You’ve been saying it since you got here.”
I didn’t know.
“What if he kills her before we find her?” I whisper hoarsely. “I never even told her I love her. I was afraid it would send her running.”
“A woman knows when a man loves her,” Mom says gently and hugs me around the shoulders since I’m sitting. “We can tell by your actions and that’s why we’re willing to wait to hear you say it. We already know.”
“You think?”
“I know,” she affirms. “I am, after all, a woman.”
I hope to God Mom’s right and Daisy knows how much I love her. That it gives her strength while she waits for me to find her.
“Do you know someone named Brody James?” Gloria asks.
The name’s familiar, but I can’t place it. I know I know it, though.
“He’s a sophomore.” Dylan’s frowning, trying to remember. “Why?”
