Page 55 of Redemption

Rip pushed himself against the wire as Talon stepped over to grab his arm.

O then did something no one expected, she whispered to him, “I-I’m sorry, Rylan. I'm so sorry.” She turned the knife on herself.

Rip gasped as he realized what she was intending to do and he tried to reach her.

Stepping back, she raised it up and plunged it into her chest. “Jacob will not come again. No, no, he is dead. He never will come again. God a mercy on his soul.” With a gasping breath, she sank to her knees.

“Fuuuuccck!” Talon shouted as he tried to get the cage door open.

Liv and Jarret came running into the barn. My brothers too. Everyone halted as if they were afraid to interfere.

Rip dropped to his knees and stared at his birth mother through the cage weave. “Tell me where Glory is. Do one right thing, mother.One good thing.”

Gasping, O spat out blood and whispered, “Behind the bridge a house…Conner.” Then she stared at him as tears ran down over her scars. “I am s-sorry, son.” She slumped over onto her side.

Talon was inside the cage now and he knelt down beside her to check her pulse. He paused for a full minute then looked up and shook his head.

“Fuck!” I shouted. “We have nothing to trade.”

“God damnit.” Jarret seethed.

“We won’t be making a trade,” Rip said as he stood to his feet.

“The hell, Rylan?” my dad exclaimed.

Rip slowly shook his head. “I shouldn’t have come in to see her,” he whispered. “I don’t know what happened.”

Talon stood up. “Man, no one can blame you.” He looked over at me and glared as if daring me to say something different.

“Man, I get it,” I told him. “I do. But what are we going to do here? Glory…” I shook my head in disgust.

“She told me where Glory is,” Rip said.

We all looked over at him.

“Behind the bridge,” Rip added.

“What fucking bridge?” I asked. “We saw eight damn bridges on the way here!”

“Connor House,” Rip said as he looked over at Talon.

“Yeah, I thought that's what she said.” Talon nodded.

“She’s a psychopathic liar, Rip,” Liv finally spoke up as she stared down at O on the ground. “You don’t know if that is true.”

Rip shook his head. “I think she told me the truth…” He let out a long breath. “Finally.”

“So where is this place?” my dad asked.

“It’s three miles away,” Talon replied. “So if she was telling the truth, we need to set up a ground search. Stay hidden and find out what we will be up against before we go in.”

I knew what he meant. That was how the military did it. I nodded.

“Logan can get a SAT of the area,” Liv said.

“He’s got SAT ability?” I asked her.

Nodding, she said, “He’s got all of it. Night tracking, facial recognition, the works. We can even listen in, if we get within 300 feet.”