It occurs to me then that I’ve left the phone Tess gave me back at Whitehall Prep. It also occurs to me that it’s been about … I check the time on the laptop and feel the blood drain from my face … five hours since I last texted Tess.
“Shit.” My stomach twists with nerves as I give Chasm a pleading look. “I haven’t texted Tess in hours. Has she messaged you?”
Chasm pauses and picks up his phone, glancing at the messages and going just as pale as I must be. He looks like a ghost. Not a good sign.
“Dakota,” he starts, which is an even worse sign. He’s not calling me ‘Little Sister’ so it must be serious. Chas hands over the phone so I can look for myself.
I know that you have my daughter, Kwang-seon McKenna. I can’t begin to say how disgusted I am with the both of you. Call me. Now.
I wet my suddenly dry lips, flicking my eyes to the side like I’m searching for an escape. Only … there’s no escape from this, is there? And it’s intentional. It’s all intentional. This is what Parrish’s kidnapper—whoever he is—wants. Could he really be Mr. Volli? It seems way too obvious. Like, this guy is confident enough to video chat and not worry about getting caught.
Considering that even Chasm—a seventeen-year-old boy—could figure out how to run the audio from that video through voice recognition software, that means that Mr. Volli must be a patsy. He must be.
Anyway, I have—weirdly enough—a more pressing matter to worry about.
My bio mom, the queen of true crime and suspense thrillers: Tess motherfucking Vanguard.
Who’s scarier? The Slayer or Tess? I’ll leave that up to debate.
“You know Tess better than I do,” I admit, scooting the chair closer to Chasm. He watches me in a way that I can’t describe. If I were Tess, I might say … Oh, fuck it. I’m using my own words. Chasm looks at me like I’m something he wants more than anything in the world but won’t allow himself to have. The expression on his face, it kills me. “How do you think I should handle this?”
“If she hasn’t seen the video you just posted, she will soon,” Chasm begins, letting out a long exhale. He’s wearing black joggers and no shirt, as per usual. I do my best not to look at his tattoos. It’s too painful right now, thinking of Parrish tied to a chair and suffering. That’s his art, carved into his friend’s flesh by his own hands. He did tell me that some of his own ink was done by Chasm, but I haven’t exactly had a good chance to ask about that. “We tell her we’re working on our own investigation. It sounds stupid as hell, but maybe it’ll make us look like dumb teenagers or something?”
I sit there for a moment, tapping my fingers on the edge of the chair. I shot a dead body today. Like, I actually picked up a fucking gun and fired shots into someone’s corpse. That’s … that’s a lot to think about. He was a rapist, Dakota, just a rapist. Rapists don’t matter.
Still, I’m going to need mad therapy after this.
A strange sound, like the chiming of a bell, rings throughout the room and Chasm frowns.
“What was that?” I ask as he grits his teeth and stands up, scooting my chair out of the way so he can access his laptop. He punches in a bunch of keys and then squints at a collage of squares, each one showing what must be a part of the house. Security cameras.
There’s someone in the house, storming through the front door and taking the main steps two at a time.
Uh-oh.
It’s Maxx—and he looks pissed.
I stand up suddenly, turning to face the door. Without even realizing what I’m doing, I’m backing away while Chasm steels himself, rising up to his full height with his hands clenched into fists by his sides. I have no problem standing up to bullies or assholes or online trolls, but … someone that I like or care about? I hate it—especially when I know I’m in the wrong.
Maxx throws the door to Chasm’s room open so hard that it knocks a picture off the wall, cracking the glass. It’s a picture of nothing, really, just some generic floral design that I highly doubt Chas chose. But still, holy crap.
“What the actual fuck is going on?” X demands, so angry that he’s sweating, his dark hair stuck to his forehead. He looks to Chasm first, as if he suspects him of being the ringleader in all of this. “Are you two insane? Tess is panicking. Her son is missing—after she just got her daughter back after fourteen fucking years—and now that same daughter is missing again?” He whips that sharp emerald gaze of his over to me, and I cringe.
