Page 80 of Waiting For A Girl Like You (Haven House #4)

S omeone was singing.

A mixture of humming and words floated through the fog, telling the story of a girl being led to her death by a man. A man who wanted to bury her deep down in the earth so her soul wouldn’t make a sound.

Cecilia.

Someone was singing about Cecilia, and how Tobias killed her, and all the other women.

But then, the song changed, telling those who listened that Toby would be the next to die.

One at a time, Jamison’s eyes opened and connected with the two women traveling next to her. She was being carried yet again, and while the women’s faces were upside down as she hung in someone’s arms, she still knew exactly who they were.

Her mama was so pretty.

Laura Jean must have been something to see in life because even in death, Jamison was left speechless by her beauty. Her mother smiled down at her, a soft, silver light surrounding her body.

“You’re going to be okay, my princess.”

Beside her mother was CeCe. She was the one singing the words to the song Claudia hummed. Two steps ahead, with Madison wrapped firmly around her and Emily at her side, Jamison tried to focus on her cousin’s melody, but it continued to evade, drifting in and out of her brain’s reach.

Claudia was humming to soothe Madi. That much was clear. But it didn’t make sense. Why hum at all? They were running for their lives, and keeping calm should be impossible.

Another wave of dizziness slammed into her, and her mind tilted toward unconsciousness again.

But it was okay.

She was in Liam’s arms.

Safe.

He would always keep her safe.

Snuggling close, she curled against his chest, liking the way his heartbeat sounded. The organ pounded as he carried her, drumming in time to his hurried footsteps.

“That’s enough, my sleepy princess,” Laura Jean crooned, brushing the hair back from Jamison’s eyes. “It’s time to wake up now.”

As it had been this entire time, her mother’s touch lit her veins, burning through the haze caused by Parker.

He was dead. That she knew with absolute certainty.

Directly before she was knocked out, Liam’s gun had gone off, and Jamison was pretty sure she had seen Parker’s head half explode when the bullet hit.

Blinking a few times, the fire and ice touch of her mother disappeared, and she tried to straighten. Liam’s heavy breathing penetrated her brain first, and lifting her head to see him better, Jamison realized the fog wasn’t only in her mind, but everywhere.

“Where are we?” she rasped.

“Almost to the property line,” Liam told her. “Can you walk?”

Reality returned in a rush, pouncing on her like a wolf in the mist as she tried to comprehend what she was seeing.

Liam was bringing up the rear, carrying her with long, swift strides.

Ahead, Claudia held Madison draped around her, stroking her daughter’s head as she hummed, the tune losing steam the faster they jogged.

Emily was at her side, the women working together to keep Madison calm.

Leading the group—barely upright—was Michael, dragging Damon along with Emmett Watson bracing the other side.

Wait.

Michael wasn’t in the lead .

With one hand, Michael held a gun aimed squarely at the back of Taylor’s head as she stumbled forward. Hands cuffed behind her back, she struggled to walk, her tight skirt and heels hindering her progress.

Jamison tapped Liam’s chest. “Let me down.”

He set her down without pause, urgency tightening every movement. Behind them, the house loomed tall and proud, yet hardly discernible through the dense wall of white.

Already breathless, she fell into step beside him. “How long do we have?”

“Twelve minutes. Give or take.”

Movement flared at the edge of her vision. Phantom flickers that had her whipping her head around, only to see that nothing was there. “What about the people inside?”

From somewhere behind them, a shrill alarm wailed, echoing across the compound.

“Pick up the pace,” Liam shouted the order so the others could hear him over the sound. “Sinclair, is that the ten-minute alarm?”

“It is.” Michael stopped and turned his head to address Damon, slumped between him and Emmett. “You’ll have to go the rest of the way alone.”

Damon nodded, but when released by both Michael and Emmett, he collapsed forward onto his hands and knees.

“I’ve got it,” he wheezed as his sisters tried to help him. “Get Madi out of here.”

Emily tugged on Damon’s arm, her hysterical state causing her to scream. “We are not leaving you, you big asshole. Now get up!”

Emmett helped haul Damon upright, but Emily pushed the man away when he tried to follow. “Leave us alone!”

“I’m coming with you. You’re mine, Emily,” Emmett yelled in her face, his pot belly pumping hard after all the effort he’d put in to carry Damon. “That was what we said.”

Michael didn’t even look at Emmett, his attention solely on Taylor as he spoke. “I said if you helped me get them out, I’d let you go. And I meant it, Emmett. Now go, or I’ll change my mind.”

Emmett’s gaze bounced from Michael to Emily, then onward, striking each of them until his gaze landed on Taylor, who swayed where she stood. Hair disheveled, her clothing clinging to her sweaty skin, she stared at him with open contempt.

“Go or stay, Emmett. I don’t care.” Taylor jerked her head back, attempting to knock her hair from her face as if appearances still mattered. “You were never worth anything to me.”

He only hesitated for a second, but finally, Emmett turned and darted into the fog, leaving them for good.

Michael gave a short nod toward the trees ahead. “This is where we part ways. The fence line is just there, running adjacent to a side road. When you reach it, take a left, and it’ll take you into town, but you’re going to have to haul ass.”

Not waiting any longer, Claudia shifted Madison to her back and helped Emily with Damon. The three siblings hustled through the mist, never looking back.

“Let’s go,” Damon’s booming voice called as their forms disappeared. “We don’t have time.”

Michael dug into his pocket and produced a folded slip of paper. He held it out for Jamison to take. “When it’s over, this is where you can find me.”

Glancing at the paper, she didn’t know if it was the hit to her head or the adrenaline roaring through her, but she had no idea what she was looking at. The scribbles appeared to be just a bunch of numbers.

“It’s where I proposed to Cecilia,” Michael told her. “Right down by the lake.”

Liam took the paper from her. “We’ll see what we can do.”

But neither of them moved.

Despite everything—the countdown, the danger—Jamison couldn’t leave without knowing what was going to happen to Taylor. And from the stillness that had come over Liam, she knew he needed to hear it, too.

Understanding, Michael lowered his gun, and Taylor took a stumbling step back, nearly falling without the use of her arms to balance her.

“Tell me about Cecilia’s final moments.”

The raw desperation in Michael’s demand saturated the air, covering the very mist surrounding them with his anguish. There was no need to hide from the pain, not here at the end, and to hear him release his torment with a few simple words brought tears to Jamison’s eyes.

“What do you want to know? Hmm ?” Taylor’s face twisted in macabre delight.

Mascara ran in black rivers down her cheeks, her body shaking with excitement over the idea of inflicting more pain.

“Do you want to hear how, when we arrived at your place, she really thought it was over between you two? How she was so sure she would never see you again, because who would ever want her? Who could ever want boring, dull CeCe? ”

“You and Toby knew otherwise.” Michael slid the small backpack he was carrying around to his front. Jamison hadn’t noticed he was wearing it until now, and she glanced at Liam, who shook his head for her to remain silent. “You two knew I would never leave her.”

“Yeah, but you were off playing soldier.” Taylor popped her bottom lip out. “And poor CeCe. All alone in the world with only her brother to love her. She was so pathetically lost without you that she listened to whatever nonsense we put in her head.”

“She was your friend.”

Taylor threw her head back and cackled up at the treetops. “She was my toy.”

Hand poised to retrieve something from inside the backpack, Michael stilled as a second alarm—this time coming from the main house—wailed louder than the first.

Taylor took a step forward to hiss directly in his face.

“Why don’t I tell you about how when we were out there playing in the swamp, CeCe thought she might be able to escape?

And how, when she saw me, she ran like a frightened animal, going straight for the shore and directly to Toby.

They usually try to fight, but not CeCe.

She was dead the moment she woke up in that swamp, and she knew it. ”

Jamison gasped, and Liam tugged her arm, knocking her out of her trance. “We need to go.”

She shook her head. She had to hear this. A part of her needed to hear it. Simone would want to know. Annabeth would need the truth. Will would dissect the moment for years.

And it was up to them to listen. It was up to them to play witness to the end of the story for themselves and everyone else.

“But then she killed herself, ruining all the fun.” Defiant even now, Taylor held Michael’s icy stare. “Toby had been so easy to work up that night that I almost got bored with the whole thing. ”

Michael tucked his gun in the waist of his pants and extracted a roll of duct tape from the backpack. He ripped a piece off with his teeth, his stare never wavering. “Keep talking, Taylor.”

Eyes wild and entire body trembling, Taylor braved another step forward. “Oh, I know what you want to hear. You want to know how CeCe never once believed you would come to save her? How she ate that manchineel fruit because her Michael was always the hero for others, but never for her?”

“We need to go, baby,” Liam whispered in Jamison’s ear. “Time is running out.”