Page 90 of The Lies We Steal

I can feel as Briar’s hand rushes to cover her mouth, muffling the sound of a gasp as a revelation we both were not expecting comes out.

“That’s where Coraline went. She was taken.” She mumbles, fear shaking her voice, I can even hear the tears that are threatening to fall down her cheeks.

I’d only heard about Coraline Whittaker being missing in passing a few weeks ago. Thinking exactly what everyone else did, she hit the road and left this cursed town. I was going a million miles a minute, were there more missing girls?

“The boss doesn’t want to be too greedy, so he’s being nice here, Frank and is only requesting one of your daughters. You give one of them up and you can consider your debt paid.” Greg places his hands on the arms of the chair, leaning his face towards the mayor, “In full.”

The battle of Heaven and Hell attempts to tear my soul in half. A war I was never expecting to go on rages in my head.

I was going to crush Frank Donahue.

Every bone would be dust beneath my hands and when I was done making sure he’d never walk again, I’d let Thatcher slice him up real nice and serve him to this fucking town on a gold platter.

“You want one of my girls?” His voice shakes.

“Or the money. Your choice.”

“What will…will you kill her?”

I’m sick that he even needs to ask that question. I’m sick that he’s even debating it. I’m even more sick that I know what he’s going to do, because this answer leads directly to Rose’s death.

Sweet, innocent Rose who never deserved any of this shit. My friend, my best goddamn friend who stayed up at night worried something he did, someone he crossed was the reason his girl wound up dead.

“Don’t be naive, Frank. You’d be selling one of them to a sex operation. We sell and trade girls. What their owners do after we collect them, well, that’s out of our hands.”

“Oh my God.” Briar whimpers.

Greg pulls out a gun, holding it to Frank’s skull, making it clear he isn’t waiting for an answer.

“Wait, wa…wait! I need a second, just a second!”

“We’ve given you plenty of time. Your time is up.” I hear the tick of the gun being cocked back, the brief silence before Frank says the statement that changes the course of everyone’s life,

Forever.

“Rose. Take Rosemary.”

Briar

The next several minutes of my life go by in a blur of hasty decisions. Moments ago I’d witnessed Alistair almost combust from the video we’d both watched. My stomach was queasy just thinking about it.

It made me nauseous to think he’d hugged Lyra, how sorry she’d felt for him when in reality he’d done all of this to himself. The reason he’d lost a daughter to death and drove his other one to the brink of self-insanity.

Yet even in my state of utter shock, I couldn’t quit follow Alistair. The way he paced a hole in the floor, sleeves rolled to his elbows. His blood was pumping so strong that the veins in his forearms were thick vines asphyxiating a tree.

There were links in my head chaining together. I pieced the narrative in my head, weaving all the parts I’d witnessed and what I’d heard. It all finally coming together to make one shocking image.

They weren’t just killing people for the hell of it. They weren’t murdering teachers and abducting girls because they could, they were doing it so they could figure out what happened to Rosemary.

I saw the way his black eyes fragmented, cracking like the earth above lava. The glow from the magma below blazed through the obscurity when he listened to Frank give up his daughter like she was some pig for sale.

It had evoked this real, raw, vulnerability I’d never seen on his face before. Even if he tried to mask it with anger and wrath. I could still feel his hurt as he stared at that screen.

Rose had been important to him.

And she’d been taken away.

I of all people should know what happens when you take something from Alistair Caldwell, it almost always doesn’t end well.