Ducking down below the front window, I put my ear to the wood and listen. I can’t hear anything except the slamming of my heart. No voices. No movement. Where is Parvati? Adam and I exchange a glance. He makes a motion like he’s suggesting we split up, each of us going around one side of the cabin. I nod. I creep around to the near side and listen below the bedroom window. Still nothing. I do the same in the back, just outside the small kitchen. Silence.
I look to the right, expecting to see Adam’s broad form approach. Nothing. Where did he go? Through a window? The back door? Did someone snatch him? My eyes scan the tree line, looking for movement, gun barrels, for the glowing red dots that mean snipers. I don’t want to lose my friend right after I got him back.
Suddenly I wish I still had the gun Parvati gave me, or that I was a kickass martial artist like she is, or that I was good at anything besides surfing. Focus, Max. Once upon a time I survived on the streets. I was brave. No, screw that. I’m still brave. I don’t know if Parvati and I will be together when all this is over with, but I’m not going to let her die.
I wrap my fingers around the doorknob. I turn it just a half inch to see if it’s locked. The knob twists freely.
I swear at the moonlight. Unless everyone is tucked away in a bedroom, they’ll see the back door open when I try to enter. The best I can do is wait until a cloud passes in front of the moon and be as quick and quiet as possible. I lower myself into a crouch and look up at the sky. My heart rattles in my chest. Every beat feels like a lifetime. It has to be after midnight by now.
Just as a ribbon of gray clouds starts to blot out some of the light, something presses hard against my back. A gun.
Someone clamps a rag over my nose and mouth. It smells sweet, like incense or pipe smoke. I try to pull away, but my body won’t obey my brain’s commands. My attacker holds the cloth tight over my mouth. My lungs are burning. I gasp for air. My fingers blur on the doorknob. My knees start to buckle and my muscles all go slack. I end up on my back in the gravel, the stars twisting and spinning in the sky above me.
THIRTY-EIGHT
MY STOMACH CONVULSES THE SECOND I open my eyes. I swallow hard and take a deep breath. I’m inside the Colonel’s cabin, sitting slumped on the vinyl sofa. My hands and ankles are bound with duct tape. A blurry form sits next to me, dressed in flowing white. Parvati. Her eyes are closed.
“P,” I hiss. “Are you okay?”
Her eyelashes flutter, but she doesn’t respond.
Adam appears from one of the bedrooms. “Did you know you can actually make chloroform out of stuff just sitting around in chem class?” He twirls a gun around on his finger before pointing it at me.
“Adam, what the hell are you doing?” I glance around, looking for DeWitt’s men, looking for anyone else.
But it’s just the three of us.
And a gun.
Adam chuckles. “You always were kind of slow.”
The haze of drugs begins to fade and the ugly truth becomes clear. “You lying, psychotic son of a bitch. It was you who set me up, wasn’t it? Not DeWitt.”
Adam claps slowly, the gun still aimed at my chest. “Good job, Maximus.”
“So all that stuff in the truck was just more lies.” I shake my head in disgust. “I can’t believe I fell for your bullshit.”
He shrugs. “Most of what I told you was true. Well, except for DeWitt’s thugs killing my whore of a mother. I set that fire when she told me to go back to California. She didn’t want me in her life. She just wanted the money I got from blackmailing the DeWitts. The bitch deserved to die.”
“Along with some random guy? He deserved to be burned to death?”
“That guy was so drunk he didn’t even wake up the whole time I was switching clothes with him and starting the fire. He probably never even knew what hit him.” Adam smiles to himself. “Alcohol is a fabulous accelerant.” He glances down at his wrist. “I do miss my watch, though.”
“Look,” I continue, glancing over at Parvati. “What your mom and the DeWitts did to you is some seriously messed-up shit, but why are we here? We’re not the ones who abandoned you or tortured you or took away your identity.”
Adam’s jaw tightens visibly. “No, you’re the one who took away my fucking family, Max.”
Okay. Now I know he’s totally lost his mind. I never even met his real mother. And he just admitted to killing her. “What are you talking about?” I focus on his gun while I lean against the back of the couch and slip my hands down between the cushions, feeling for the sharp edge of the exposed sofa coil that kept stabbing me and waking me up last time I was here. Got it. Slowly, I saw the tape around my wrists back and forth across the metal, trying not to move my upper body. Now I just have to keep Adam talking for a while.
“You don’t remember me, do you?” he asks. “From Rosewood? We didn’t really hang out.”
So we were there at the same time . . . “I didn’t really hang out with anyone. I only remember Henry,” I say. “And Anna.” The tape loosens slightly as I feel individual fibers fray. I pull my ankles apart, twisting my feet slightly, trying to loosen that tape too.
The hard line of Adam’s mouth softens for a second and then goes tight. “Anna. She was good to me,” he says. “She told me I was going to get adopted. A nice couple named Cantrell. A family.”
Shit.
My family.
I stole Adam’s family? Darla’s favorite story plays in my ear, the one about how they were going to adopt a boy but then she saw me, and she just knew I was the one. Darla and her goddamn savior complex.
I stole Adam’s family.
Next to me, Parvati stirs. Her eyes open. Her pupils dilate as she turns to me. “Max,” she says softly. “I almost wish you hadn’t come.”
“I didn’t know what had happened at first,” Adam continues. “They seemed to like me, but then they disappeared. Later, I saw you with them on one of your follow-up visits. You. With my family.”
“I’m sorry.” I try to keep my expression neutral as the tape continues to tear. Getting my hands free is only the first step. I still have to outmaneuver a guy with a gun, probably with my ankles still bound. I scan the entire living room looking for weapons. There has to be something I can use.
But there isn’t.
I keep sawing.
“Anna felt terrible for getting my hopes up. She was new. She probably didn’t realize people might just change their minds like that. She told me their paperwork hadn’t gone through. That it had nothing to do with me.” He clenches his jaw again. The muscles in his neck strain against his skin. “But I knew the truth. After they met you, they didn’t want me anymore.”
“That’s not true,” Parvati interjects. “If they had more money, they probably would have taken both—”