Series: Webs We Weave Series by Krista Ritchie
Total pages in book: 147
Estimated words: 145038 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 725(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 483(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145038 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 725(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 483(@300wpm)
“Their three children,” she says shakily. “Evan. Griffith.” Her glassy, anguished eyes lift. This time, to her brother. “Brayden.”
We all turn to Rocky.
“The baby,” Hailey cries. “You were the baby in the backseat. You’re Brayden Wolfe. The only real Wolfe that survived.”
THIRTY-EIGHT
Rocky
I’m a battlefield of raw opened wounds. There’s no suturing them back together. There’s no medic waiting in the wings. There’s only pain on pain on pain—and only three people in this entire godforsaken universe can staunch the bleeding.
I grip the phone in my fist.
It’s not only about what I just found out. It’s that Hailey is back to being unresponsive. She’s lying on her side, her head in Phoebe’s lap, who strokes her platinum hair. Hailey mutters, “I wasn’t in the backseat. I’ll never know…I’ll never know who I am…”
I can handle the trauma of my childhood. But I can’t watch my sister fade away like this—I can’t fucking do it anymore.
I start dialing a number I know by heart. Putting the phone on speaker, I lift it up to my mouth as the line clicks. “It’s me.”
“Beds and pillows?” Addison asks, a phrase that means is it safe and sound? Her voice is tensed, full of worry. She knows we’re pulling the rope this weekend, and it’s too early to be calling.
“No beds and fucking pillows,” I grit out, my lungs on fire. “Here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to get in your car and drive to my coordinates. We’re in a storm shelter on the Konings’ property. And before you tell me you can’t—before you say you’re not going to step foot in Victoria—you need to know your daughter is having a mental breakdown. She’s not sleeping. She’s hallucinating. Because she doesn’t know who she is. So if you love her at all, if you have even a semblance of care for her, you will come here. You will come here right fucking now and give her what she needs. And if you don’t—you will lose her. You will lose me. You will lose every last one of us. Got it?”
I don’t think I’m breathing. My fingers are numb on the cell. My eyes blister. My heart is in my esophagus, waiting for a response to the ultimatum I just threw down.
There’s no real reason she should agree to come here other than maybe she does love Hailey. Because there’s a good chance she loses us anyway with the truth.
“Bray,” she breathes out, and hearing my name from her—one I never really cared for, one that I didn’t realize had any greater meaning—it nearly breaks me from the inside out. There’s a long pause. My eyes sear as I fix my gaze on Phoebe. She mouths, I love you.
It settles the tortured parts of me. The pieces that threaten to crack. I blink for a long second and then Addison says, “Send me the coordinates.”
I do. She’s a half hour away, she says. Then we hang up. “Trevor,” I say to Nova. “We have to find my brother.”
“I’m not a guest,” Nova says. “I can’t waltz into the mansion and look for him, Rock.”
“I’ll go.” Jake pushes forward with the flashlight. He touches my shoulder and tells me, “I’ll search for him on the grounds and then in the house. Stay here with Phoebe and your sister.”
I nod stiffly in thanks.
He nods back, then climbs the stairs, disappearing into the night. I scrape a hand against the back of my neck.
“How do you know Addison won’t lie?” Phoebe asks me, caressing Hailey’s head.
“Ol,” Nova calls out, and Oliver goes to his brother. Nova is unzipping a first aid kit out of the side pocket of his backpack, and he immediately grabs his brother’s wrist to check out his badly banged-up, bloodied hands.
I look back to Pheobe. “I don’t know if she’ll lie. But I believe she loves Hailey enough to offer the truth.” This all banks on a mother’s love of her daughter.
Have Addison and Elizabeth manipulated their daughters? Yes.
Have they also loved them throughout their lives? Yes. I believe both can be true in some twisted, crooked way, and it’s the only hope we have.
“Get down,” Nova tells Oliver hurriedly. “Go.”
Oliver shuffles down the stairs with bandaged knuckles, and Nova points his shotgun at a figure at the top of the shelter.
“Whoa, whoa.” Everett Tinrock appears, still in a tux, and he raises his hands at Nova. “It’s just me. I got a call from Addy. She said to meet you all here. She’s on her way with Beth.”
“Let him in,” I tell Nova.
“Let me in?” Frown lines crease his forehead. “Were you thinking of not letting me through?” Nova shifts out of the way on the stairs but never drops the shotgun, allowing Everett to pass with tenser confusion.
“What the fuck is going on?” he asks me between his teeth.