Page 212 of Between Passion and Revenge: Part Two

It would have been easy for her to take the guards unaware. Who expects a teenage girl to have aim like a fucking assassin?

“Well done, little baby. Did you get rid of everyone?”

“Yes, Daddy,” she says, her words flat and slow like a robot. “I did exactly what you asked.”

“Good,” Lakeland says, smiling down at her. “And did you bring my gift?”

Skai’s face remains flat, but there’s just a flicker of something in her gaze. I don’t know what it is, but what I do know is it’s proof that she’s alive in her mind.

Somewhere.

But analyzing Skai ends when she pulls on a chain I didn’t notice, and Shae stumbles into the space.

“Shae!” I yell at Lakeland, straining against the hold around my body. “I swear to God?—”

Lakeland bursts out laughing, getting close to Shae, who leans to the side as if she’s been drugged or knocked out like I was.

“She’s a pretty one, Storm,” he says, grabbing Shae’s face. She wrenches away from him, and hetsks. “Feisty, too. I like it when they fight.”

He pauses and looks at Skai, who stands so still, it almost looks like she’s in a trance.

“Here’s your present, Daddy,” she says, tilting her chin up with a dead smile crawling across her face. It’s like she’s sleepwalking, lucid dreaming.

She’s here, but she’s not.

“And you did so good, little baby,” he replies, patting the top of her head when she preens. “But where are the two bastards?”

Skai blinks.

“Huh?”

The smile falls from his face, going cold. He punches Skai square in the face.

The wet smack of Lakeland’s fist against Skai’s jaw echoes off the walls like a gunshot.

“Thekids, you stupid idiot! Where are the kids?” He leans over his daughter, shouting in her face, as she sprawls on the floor.

“I-I don’t know! I didn’t see them. Maybe they ran away?”

My heart thuds in my chest. If she doesn’t have them, then….

Lakeland sighs and takes a step back, looking at his knuckles in disgust.

“You got my hands dirty,” he says, holding his fist an inch from Skai’s face. “Lick it clean.”

Skai hesitates, which seems to send Lakeland into another stratosphere of anger.

“Now, slut!” he shouts, and I look away when Skai scrubs his hand clean of the strangers’ blood.

I give my attention to Shae, whose eyes droop low. The quiet slurp of Skai’s tongue cleaning Lakeland’s knuckles turns my stomach.

Lakeland sighs, and I return my gaze to him when he takes a step back from his daughter.

“You are so fucking dumb, Laura,” he says on a breath. “Go find where they’re hiding and bring them to me.” Then, he moves away from the girl, winding a hand in Shae’s hair just as the rope around my wrist starts to give way. I finally slip one wrist free, curling my fingers around the rope binding my chest.

Skai stands…and surprises the fuck out of me.

“Why?” she whispers. Lakeland pauses, giving her a deadly glare.