Page 20 of Darkness of Mine

“You can override it though, right? You made it.” Panic flickers in Freya’s eyes and I hate that she’s still trying to get away from us.

Carmen pokes her tongue into her cheek. “I can...”

“But what?” Freya asks, picking up the unspoken words.

Sighing, Carmen sits down on the large, upholstered footstool in the center of the couches. “But you’re probably going to end up going back with them and I don’t entirely hate the idea of knowing where you are in case your brother decides to go all psycho again.”

Freya shakes her head, deliberately avoiding eye contact. “I’m not going back. I can’t.”

“Freya,” Carmen starts but Freya cuts her off.

“Why would I go back?”

My gaze lands on Freya with the weight of an anvil, anger surging past the numbness. “Because your ours,” I snap. “Because you never should have left in the first place.”

Freya’s eyes widen. “Jude?—”

“Because your brother has taken a ten-year-old girl, and we have three weeks to find her before she turns up dead.”

I squeeze my fist.Fuck.That wasn’t how we were supposed to tell her.

“What?” Freya’s voice trembles, the color leaching from her face.

Oz sits forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “Freya, some stuff has happened while you’ve been here.”

“Why three weeks?” Freya looks at us now, her gaze landing on each one of us, searching for answers.

Eli pushes up off the couch. “Why don’t we take a break, get some drinks?”

Freya snaps, her foot kicking out to knock over a small side table. “How do you know we only have three weeks?” she shouts.

The room falls silent. The only sound Freya’s breaths as she waits for the answer, her hands clenched into fists.

I watch her, part of me selfishly relieved that she’s clearly hurting, that she’s not come out of this unscathed when I feel like my heart is scarred.

Her eyes flick to the upturned table only to quickly shift away. She presses her lips together, holding herself back even as her body vibrates. Her shaking fingers fiddle with the cuff of her sleeve.

When I realize it’s my hoodie she’s wearing, that gauze separating me from the world falls away and my voice is soft when I answer her question. “Because this isn’t the first girl he’s taken since you ran. And three weeks is how long he kept the last girl alive for.”

Freya crumples before my eyes. She folds in on herself, a chilling, distressed cry falling from her open mouth. She chokes down a breath but then starts hyperventilating and I reach out to her.

“Freya, you’ve got to breathe. In and out, Angel.”

“He promised.” The words claw out of her, tears spilling down her cheeks as she curls up into a fetal position on the couch. “He said if I left, he wouldn’t hurt anyone.” She digs her nails into the leather, her voice torn and ragged. “He said he just wanted to hurt me.”

I’m still angry. I’m still not okay. But my heart squeezes back to life. I scoot across the couch and lift Freya onto my lap. I brush her wild curls off her face and press my lips to the top of her head. “I think thisishim hurting you, Angel.”

She burrows into my chest, clinging to my hoodie. All this time I’ve been mad at her, and it never occurred to me she might be struggling too. I’ve been lost and hurt, not understanding how she could walk away from us so easily after everything we’ve been through. How she could give up onus. Only now, I’m starting to realize that maybe it wasn’t so easy. Maybe, running away was destroying her just as much as it was destroying us.

I hold Freya tight and lift my gaze to meet Carmen’s. “You should have called,” I say. “You shouldn’t have let it get this bad.”

Carmen’s jaw ticks. Her gaze goes to Freya’s trembling form, and she dips her head in acknowledgment. “I know.”

10

FREYA

It takes me a while to put myself back together. Jude wanted to come with me to my room, but I said I needed space. It was the wrong thing to say. His face fell, his usually bubbly aura muted and dark. I add it to the long list of my mistakes.