Page 37 of Never Lost

I turned away, reeling, already barely hearing him. Heart pounding, blood rushing through my head, I didn’t wait for the rest of the story, or ask who she’d been with or who’d been driving. Did it matter?

“Fuck,that’swhat Resi was talking about. When she said she wasn’t going to let them get away that easily. What happened to her, Max?”

“I’ll tell you, but you have to promise not to freak the fuck out.”

“Idon’tpromise that, and you’re gonna fucking tell me anyway,” I snapped, trying to focus my eyes on something, though I could no longer see much. None of what Max had said earlier seemed to matter now.

What if—All this way, and?—

“Where is she?”

“She’s fine,” Langer assured me. “She wasn’t hurt. Okay?”

“But then?—”

“She’s been detained.”

“Detained?” The word mowed me down like a rogue wave. “You’re telling me my sister’s injail?”

“Fucking hell, kid, will you let me finish?” Langer cut in. “It’s the safest place for her to be right now because it’s the one place Resi can’t get to her. Yeah, it’s not exactly Tivoli Gardens in there, but she’s alive. And like I said, my lawyers are getting her released as we speak.”

“So what are you saying?” I demanded.

“What I’m saying is that they’re presenting evidence that her last owners abandoned her, and then I’m buying her. Legally. If all goes well, she’ll be there to meet us at the airport.”

What had started as a rogue wave had become a storm, waves hitting me one after another, each with a new and astonishing revelation.

After seven years, I was about to see my sister again?

Right now?

My heart kept racing.

Because as much as I’d wheeled and pushed and plotted and planned for the past seven years, her face and her fear a constant fluttering presence in the back of my mind, never, not even once, had I let myself speculate on the details of our reunion when and if it came.

Like freedom, it was something I had, in the interests of keeping my wits sharp from day to day, honed the ability to think about with only half my mind.

Fuck, would I even recognize her? What would Isay? “Then you mean?—”

“That’s right,” Langer said. “Looks like I’m getting a daughter, too.”

I just stood there, mouth open.

How could I possibly not go? Well, let’s start with the obvious. “Speaking of Resi’s goons, there’s one parked right down there.” I pointed.

Langer cleared his throat and motioned to the sky. “You. Me. Helicopter. Jet. Rio Dulce. Now. Unless he’s got anti-aircraft artillery mounted on that shitty little Datsun, I like your chances for a clean getaway.” He placed his hands on his hips.

“Well, that takes care of me, but what about Resi? And the other girls? They aren’t safe.”

“Maybe not, but there’s nothing you can do about it dead, and she’s going to go foryoufirst.”

Langer gave me another pointed look and turned, his eyes drinking in the long line of a hundred miles of desert lights twinkling in a semicircle around us.

Lights I could choose, right this second, to never see again.

And if I did, why would I care?

I hated this place.