Page 4 of Judas (The Lito Duet #2)

The stout lid shatters the pane, throwing shards of glass along the small window seal, as more clink and clatter down into the tub.

My hands ache momentarily from the force and the same painful ricochet.

Takes me a second but I repeat the motion, the discomfort a little less now that I’m not going to town on it.

Once the majority of the glass is cleared out of the way, I drop the ceramic cover into the tub, grab the window ledge and pull myself up.

It’s a bit of a struggle but I don’t have the freedom, to fuck around and find an easier way to do this. It’s now, or get my ass pulled back into a house with dead people, thrown into a cell for interrogation, and losing Sadie to the fray.

Feeding my feet first through the jagged opening, I finally wiggle out and drop down to the ground.

Losing my balance as the uneasy landing practically throws me onto the dirt and wilting grass outside.

A slightly panicked huff, forcing its way out of my nose, is the only sound I hear beyond that of the screeching sirens.

A few of them fall silent, indicating that they are now at the front of the house and barreling towards me.

“Run!” I hear Ra bark through the phone.

Sure is bossy for someone I just met. Either way, I scramble to my feet and take off in a sprint.

With his direction and guidance, I narrowly miss the cops. I don’t stop until I’m far enough away that the chatter of their radios and shouting can’t be heard anymore. Needing to catch my breath, I look around me without stopping, on the hunt for a place to hunker down.

I worked out while incarcerated, more than I ever did when I was a guard, and it’s paying off.

The increased stamina, and the ability to fight pain and exhaustion from exertion is invaluable.

Never dawned on me why the men I used to guard hit the outside gym so often, but now I understand.

Prison breaks are not as rare as the public might like to believe, therefore inmates stay in shape not only to survive prison but to escape if the opportunity ever presents itself.

A fact I learned in one of the most painstaking, and traumatizing ways anyone could ever imagine.

Once I’ve cleared several blocks, the sound of rushing water catches my attention, pulling me away from the road. Slowing down, I dip back behind random brush and trees—allowing it to keep me mostly concealed as I walk parallel to the road.

Eventually, the ground begins to slope and leads me down onto the embankment of a small river.

Storm runoff rushing over the rocks and downed branches that must have fallen during the winds a few days ago.

I remember hearing the thunder from my cell, and wondering if there was going to be any point in this that I’d have to deal with the remnants.

Not that it matters, it just makes running and hiding more difficult when you decide that breaking and entering is off the table.

Welp, here we are.

Carefully, I slide down the still-wet rocks and creep under the bridge that keeps the road I left suspended over the water way.

Just as I crouch down under it, I hear a car drive over, the wheels rolling across the grooves and the seams in the road.

Giving a slight beat to the echo before the car drives away.

Everything goes quiet after that, except for the roar of water, which reminds me…

the phone! Now that I am packed away in a hidden area, away from the cops, I drag the damn thing back out and place the single-screen brick like device to my ear.

“You took too long. You should have hung up and called me back. I could hear you huffing and puffing like you were running a five-k marathon. Also, what’s wrong with your leg? I noticed a difference in the way every other step sounds.”

“Excuse the hell out of me. I was trying to evade the cops and didn’t consider that we may need to play a game of ‘you hang up first, no you.’ Especially not with some random fucking man.” I snap back.

“I’m not random, so watch your mouth. Your leg, what’s wrong with it?” Ra presses.

“Old injury, not your Goddamn problem.”

We are going to get on like cats and dogs, I guess.

“Don’t let it be a problem or I’ll walk away from this shit. Dealing with a convict is one thing, but an injured female? Give me a break.” Not hiding his exasperation at all.

“Charming. You going to keep up with the misogynistic prick act or help me out? I’m on a time constraint.”

Silence settles in for a moment. I can’t tell if he hung up or if he was sitting on the other side of the phone, stewing over what I said. Most men don’t take lightly to being called misogynistic. Bet I struck a nerve. Poor thing, and his feelings.

“Speak ass, mouth won’t.” I clip.

“Choose your next words wisely.” Ra growls.

His petulant behavior yanks a smirk across my lips, of course I’m going to bite back.

“You’re hiding behind the screen of a phone, and am I supposed to be threatened by your tone? I’ve dealt with far worse men, your little growl does fuck all. Now, what do you need from me?”

Low and behold, I’m met with more silence.

This guy lacks patience, well, that’s evident in how he speaks to me. I wonder what has him so riled up that he has to take an actual break between listening and speaking—just so he won’t blow a fuse.

“Tell me what you saw in the house, I can get a time line going. See if I can get you a direction or some form of visual for who you’re searching for once I hack the city’s mainframe.

And, Nadia?” His voice was much calmer this time.

Either this is a whole different person, or he is very good at compartmentalizing.

“Yeah?”

“I know your type.” He begins, nonchalantly.

Whiplash anyone?

“You ought to watch your mouth with the people who are extending free help to you. I’m not a fan of broken families.

Which is the only reason Fury talked me into assisting.

However, you keep on with your smart mouth, I’ll lead you in the opposite direction and you will lose everything. Do you understand me?”

Yanking the cellphone away, I scowl at the stupid thing for a second, who the hell did this guy think he was talking to?

Some things you can’t take back and threatening my daughter is one of them.

I’ve never been someone ready to kill another human being but if anyone, and I mean ANYONE gets in the way of me finding Sadie…

Gritting my teeth, about to dish him a verbal beating, I stop myself and nod.

You’ve always been a hard ass, Nadia, don’t make the mistake of not being a better person.

Once I am done re-centering myself, I launch into the description of the crime scene and what I was able to find so Ra could do his damn job.

Recounting everything from the overgrown grass, to the built up mail on the porch, the missing persons notice I received from my lawyer before my release and then some.

The strength of the decay smell, the flies I could hear buzzing around, the mugginess of the atmosphere in the house—indicating that the temperature was not low enough to prevent rapid decomp.

“You said the bodies were bloated?”

“Yes.”

“You have about a four to ten day window, outside of the missing persons report. Did you see anything else? I need to narrow this down as far as possible. Being so far north, the guy that has your girl may already be across the Canadian border. If that is the case, I’ll need to reach out to another contact. ”

“Uhm, the male was far more bloated than the woman. She was dressed in comfortable clothing, as if she had just come back from a trip of some sort. Can you see what her credit card trail looks like? It could give us the exact date she got home. If Lucien killed them both on different days, then he was there with Sadie for a long time.”

The thought of that almost makes me physically ill. That absolute fucking monster with his claws in my child… Maybe I need to revisit the ‘don’t kill other people’ thing and put him at the top of my damn list.

I remember how he would invade my bubble at Darkwater.

The day he stood behind me and breathed in my scent still gives me chills.

That’s not to say the other creepy shit he did didn’t put me on edge either.

He had his eyes set on me and seventeen years later, I still don’t know why.

If there’s any truth to the letter he sent Sadie, which I doubt it, then that could very well be why he locked on.

“Stop speculating. Tell me more about the woman, how did her skin look?” Ra asks, interrupting my thoughts.

“Glossy, a few blisters, little bit of discoloration. The man's skin was brown, leaking around the sides.”

“Gotcha, sounds like the woman is just now going into putrefaction, so she’s right around day three or four. Give me about thirty minutes and I’ll call you back.”

“By—”

Click.

Takes me a second to come to terms with him hanging up on me but I eventually pull the phone away.

I roll my eyes once I see the empty phone screen.

Little prick doesn’t know a damn thing about me.

Claiming he ‘knows my type.’ He wouldn’t know his ass from his elbow, let alone enough about me to get a read over the fucking phone.

Unfortunately, I can’t do this by myself.

I need all the help I can get. There is no way in hell I can find Sadie on my own.

Not with that psychopath having hold of her.

17 years ago

“Push, Nadia, the baby is in distress and we need to get her out now” The nurse said bluntly—oddly calm.

Which weirds me out, why isn’t she worried like I am?

I have been in labor for fifty-eight hours and we are both suffering.

Truth be told, I don’t want to let her go.

The longer this takes, despite how tired we both are and the pain I am in, I don’t want it to end.

The moment I push Sadie out, they’re going to take her from me and I may never see my baby again.

There is not a single atom of my being that wants to let my daughter, our daughter, go. Not after everything we have gone through. Not after carrying the last bit of Kace so close to my heart for the past several months. I can’t lose her, not here, not now, not ever.

At a point in time, I didn’t think I had anything left of my heart to break but now as my body instinctively begins to push—no longer able to stall—I know I have to let her go. Even if it is only temporary.

Potentially hurting her is far scarier than letting her go to a couple who would raise her to be a better version of Kace and myself.

She deserves a chance at a normal life and the longer I stranglehold, the more I put our little girl in danger.

I promise I will come back for her, I swear to God…

to Kace… that Sadie will know me. She will know everything about him, but right now… I have to stop fighting the inevitable.

It’s okay, baby. Let us go.

I hear him say. Figments of my imagination but it’s him.

The only thing I can do is nod, my hands gripping onto something firm as I scream and push. I don’t stop. Fuck the correctional officer hanging out at the door. Fuck Bluitt. Fuck Darkwater. Fuck the handcuffs that have left my wrists raw. Fuck everything.

I don’t stop. Not until the medical staff pulled her little body away from mine and I fall apart.

Present day

With a sudden jolt, I realize I’ve zoned out and tipped back against the stone wall of the bridge's underbelly. The abrupt tilt must have been what yanked me out of that memory. I am thankful, honestly. Many times, recalling my labor sends me into one hell of an endless abyss. A time or two I was left incapacitated in my bunk where one of my family literally had to drag me out of it. I would stay in my bed all day, wouldn’t sleep, eat, talk, nothing for days afterwards.

Punishing myself for what I have done to an innocent child.

If it wasn’t for Fury and the other girls, the prison shrink would have had a field day analyzing me.

Try to use me for some med students experiment while refusing my basic right to consent.

Luckily, they all kept me out of that chair—along with my personal counselor too. She was protective as hell.

Funny how karma works.

Rising up from where I toppled over, I brush my hands down the front of my clothes and pat my pockets.

Checking to make sure the few things I stole from Sadie's weren’t missing—old habits die hard.

Prison fucks with you like that. Feeling them still tucked into the denim, a breath of relief leaves me.

They’re only what I would consider ‘odds and ends,’ nothing special to the random person but they called to me. And I had to have them.

One of the items is a small plastic bottle of the same fragrance that I smelled throughout her room—a body spray I’m sure she wears.

It’s everywhere there. I also snagged a T-shirt, we’re almost the same size from the looks of it.

It might be a little on the smaller side, since I don’t have the frame of a sixteen year old girl, but that’s alright. All that matters is that it’s hers.

Reaching for the hem of the shirt I have on, I drag it up and over my head, toss it to the side and pull on hers instead. It hugs me around the chest but the rest of it fits well. An old and worn image of The Police stretching across the black cotton as it strains over my tits.

Ironic, little girl. I’ll give you that.

The last thing I swiped looks like a key chain. I guess kids still collect those nowadays? It’s circular and rubbery with Batman’s signature gold logo on it.

Oh, her dad would get a kick out of that.

Flipping it over, I get another good look at it before putting it into my pocket with her body spray.

I need to get moving, staying here too long can bring heat down on me.

The possibility of the cops having my name, all because I was on the neighbors cameras, is grave.

Ra said he scrubbed them, assuming that means he deleted the footage, I still don’t know him well enough to put all of my eggs in that basket.

Climbing up the slope, I make it back to the road and head away from the direction I once came. There is a store down the way from here, I saw it when the Uber driver drove by earlier. I can regroup there with Ra, discuss the plan, and pray Lucien hasn’t done the unthinkable.