Held (Gone #2) (19 page)

"Don't you think?" Luke asked.

Macy's cheeks burned. "What?"

Luke gave her an amused look. Her stomach twisted in knots.

"How much did you miss? I said that Jonah wanted to return with your dad as soon as he found him, but your dad wasn't going to leave the world without you, so we had to wait."

Instead of replying, Macy looked up at the sky. A cloud reminded her of a sleeping cat. Macy and Zoey had spent countless afternoons finding shapes in clouds, and even going as far as creating elaborate stories to go with them.

A lump formed in her throat. Would she ever see Zoey again, or would she live out the rest of her days in the community? Worse, would she one day succumb to it?

Macy blinked away tears. Images of her being part of Jonah's inner circle flooded her mind. She would never let that happen. She was Macy Mercer, not Heather Woodran. Chester was not her dad. The community was not her home.

She looked over at Luke and saw him looking at her, his eyes full of concern.

"Are you upset, Heather? Do you want to talk?"

Her heart sunk at him calling her Heather. She looked deep into his light brown eyes. Could she trust him? She wanted to believe she could, but the truth was that she didn't know who she could trust.

"How did you end up here?" Macy asked. "In the community, I mean."

"We were down on our luck, and Jonah met my mom. My dad died and we were about to lose our house."

Macy gasped. "I'm so sorry. That's horrible."

"Thanks. It was a long time ago. Anyway, my mom's job was already on the line because she couldn't focus after losing my dad. Not only that, but she was dealing with me and my anger. She was waiting for an appointment to learn about state housing when Jonah approached her. The rest, as they say, is history."

"Is that what happens usually? Jonah goes out and finds people who are having a rough time?"

"Sometimes. He likes to find people who need hope. People like my mom. It's not the people living the high life who are looking for hope."

Macy studied his face again. "Are you glad to be here?" she asked.

"I'm grateful to be off the streets. Mom says that's where we were headed. She might have lost me otherwise. Who knows where I would be if we weren't here? And at least I'm still with her."

Macy felt like she could trust him—and she had to tell someone that she really wasn't Chester's daughter. Her heart pounded nearly out of her chest as she decided to open up to him.

She opened her mouth to say something, but Rebekah came out, announcing they needed to come back inside.

Revenge

Alex rolled over, waking again. It was getting hard to tell the difference between dreams and reality. Was he really awake or was it just another dream? He pulled the blankets up over himself. He kept kicking them off despite being cold.

Weeks had passed since the body had been found. Alex wasn't sure how he had made it through them. He couldn't stop thinking about the body. Why did it take so long to get the results? They had sent it to Seattle because they were supposed to have more advanced equipment.

With three weeks, they should have been able to figure something out. What was wrong with them? Didn't they care? Or were they just stupid? The local cops had said that it might take months before they could get DNA results.

Why did it have to take so long? Three weeks was way too long to figure out if the body was his sister or not. How was he expected to wait even longer? Another month of this? He didn't want another hour of it.

Alex wanted answers, but on the other hand he wasn't sure. Did he really want to know if the body was Macy? What could be worse than losing his big sister? He hadn't even been able to say goodbye.

Alex pulled the pillow from under him and put it over his head trying to stop the tears that threatened.

Waiting sucked, and in this case, it really wasn't fair. Why couldn't they just have answers? They'd been waiting so long already.

It was enough to make him want to turn on the news or the computer, but he knew he would either end up depressed or angry. Some of the things he'd heard and read had really pissed him off. He knew he needed to avoid it now more than ever.

He rolled over again, keeping the pillow on top of him. What he needed was to think about something else. What else mattered, though? The things he used to enjoy only brought him more misery.

If he caught himself having fun, he was plagued with guilt, instantly remembering Macy. He shouldn't be having fun when she was probably out there somewhere not having any fun at all—or worse.

What would she think if she saw him? Would she think he was a jerk? Or would she be glad that he wasn't wallowing in pity?

A tear escaped, landing on his sheet. Why hadn't he been able to do anything to stop Macy? Had he pushed her away? She was always annoyed with his teasing. He knew that kids at school picked on her, even after losing her weight. Why had he been so insensitive?

Not that he was anywhere as mean as anyone at school, and he wasn't trying to be mean to her. He'd just been a normal brother. Brothers teased—even his dad told him that.

If he would have had any idea that she was going to disappear, whether running away or being kidnapped, he would have stopped. But there was nothing he could about that now.

Did she really know how he felt? She had to know how much he loved her. It wasn't like their entire relationship had been about him teasing her. They still talked and stuff, but obviously not enough.

This was getting him nowhere. Why couldn't he just sleep? Because his guilt wouldn't leave him alone even there. He should have been able to do something. What? He didn't know, but he could have done
something
to stop Macy from disappearing.

He closed his eyes tighter, trying to push the thoughts away. He focused on the black behind his eyes. He could feel more tears slipping out and all falling along the same path, pooling around his face.

He sat up. There was no way he could stay in bed. He couldn't stop thinking, and even if he could stop thinking about Macy, he would probably start thinking about Zoey and the baby, and he couldn't deal with that, either.

If Macy was dead, what would he do? How would he go on? Could he go on? Would he live with the guilt for the rest of his life? What would life be like? He didn't want to be an only child—he wasn't supposed to be. Macy was supposed to be there. They were
supposed
to bicker and bug each other. It was their job as siblings.

It was also his job to protect her. Even though he was younger, he was still her brother. He should have gone over to the high school and confronted those stupid jerks who were giving her a hard time.

He still could. It wasn't too late.
They
weren't missing. All of them were still at school, and Zoey knew them by name. He probably knew most of them too.
They
were the ones who had caused this. If they hadn't been so mean to her, Macy wouldn't have felt like she had to meet some guy online.

Alex had stopped working out after she disappeared, but it probably wouldn't take him long to get back into shape. He threw on a sweatshirt from the end of his bed and got up.

He went down to the garage to the punching bag and balled up his fists. He punched it. It felt good. He punched again. It felt even better. He imagined the faces of the jerks who had tormented his sister. He felt even better still.

Alex hit it until sweat poured down his face and back, and was breathing hard. He felt great. He would have to remember to use it daily. Taking deep breaths, he found that he had more energy. He went to his dad's weights and grabbed some dumbbells—the ones he was sure he had used last and did reps.

The muscles burned in a good way. He was doing what he needed and once he got himself back into shape, he was going to confront every person who had made fun of Macy. He didn't care that he wasn't supposed to hit girls—those ones had it coming.

He grabbed a different set of dumbbells and did some squats. He had to strengthen everything. It shouldn't take him long to get back to where he was. He'd only missed a month; it wasn't like he'd stopped for a year.

He grunted his way through the last set and put everything back in place. Not that his dad would notice anything had been moved out of place. He'd also stopped working out.

Alex went back to his room, allowing himself to enjoy the burn of his muscles. He felt powerful and he would face the ones responsible for pushing his sister away. Even if he didn't lay a hand on them—and how he wanted to rearrange their butt-ugly faces—he would at least know that he
could
.

Someone needed to stand up for Macy, and he was going to do it. Better late than never, as his dad always said. Those girls needed to pay, and they would. They probably thought they'd gotten away with it, but they were wrong.

In fact, he would find a way to make them pay in ways that would hurt worse than a good beating. They'd hurt Macy emotionally. Those horrible excuses for humans had nearly destroyed his sister.

He could still see the pain in Macy's eyes, which he'd pretty much ignored at the time. He felt bad, but instead of asking what he could do, he did what any twelve-year-old boy would do. He teased her. He thought if he could just get her mind off what the kids had been saying, she would forget about it.

Obviously, he hadn't understood just how much it had hurt her—or the lengths she would go to because of it. Going vegan was pretty extreme. Meeting a guy online, that wasn't so strange. But meeting him alone at night, that was pretty crazy. Even he knew that much.

He went to Macy's room. Hopefully she still hid her diaries in the same places she used to. He went to her bed and pulled back the mattress and felt for the loose fabric. When he did, he pulled it back and dug his hand around until he felt the diary. If Macy hadn't had such good hiding spots, the police would have found and taken them.

Alex pulled the diary and looked at it. He didn't recognize that one, so it had to have been new. At least newer. He hadn't read her diaries in a long time. He pulled it out and looked around for one of her hair clips. The clip was perfect for picking the lock—they always were.

He skimmed through the first pages; mostly she was griping about school. Then the whole tone changed when Snowflake, the family cat, died. Macy had loved him the most, always calling him a beautiful baby. Apparently, she had been so upset about it that her grades slipped.

Then the entries got even darker when she talked about the kids calling her "Muffin Top Macy," and she couldn't even eat lunch in the cafeteria without people mooing at her. Alex balled up his fist again, taking note of the names mentioned.

This was the type of crap that kids killed themselves over.

Those losers would pay—they would pay dearly. Alex would see to that.

He took the diary back to his room. Where had he put his phone? He dug around his messes until he finally found it.

Alex got the camera ready, he opened the diary to the pages about the girls at school and took pictures of the entries. Then uploaded them to his profile. He set them to public so the world could see.

Having the pictures was proof that Macy had written them. No one could argue.

Then he wrote a little intro to each picture, tagging as many of the girls as he could. He was "friends" with most of them, making it easy. Fury ran through him as he looked at the post button. With any luck, other kids would turn around and give them a taste of their own medicine. Those bitches were going to pay.

He pushed post.

Fretting

Macy's mind raced as she did her copy work. She was all too aware of Luke sitting next to her. She kept sneaking peeks at him through the corner of her eyes. He was busy with his own work, appearing to be unaware of her.

The last three weeks she had tried to tell Luke the truth about her situation, but she had chickened out each time. In a way she was glad, because it gave her time to get to know him better—as well as she could only speak with him during their ten minute breaks twice a day.

Even though it wasn't a lot of time, it had been enough that she knew she could trust him. He wouldn't rat her out to Jonah or Chester. He wanted to help her, and even seemed to know that she wanted to tell him something.

Could things get worse if she told Luke that she'd been kidnapped? Maybe he would even help her.

But what if she was wrong about him? If Macy's desire to escape got into the wrong hands, she could get into trouble again. If she was publicly shamed, what letter would they pick? Would they give her B for blasphemy? Speaking out against Chester, who the almighty Jonah had received so many visions about? Or would it be an L for liar? They might just think she was making everything up about being kidnapped.

She sighed, louder than she had meant to.

Luke looked over at her, giving her a curious look. He was so cute Macy couldn't think of anything else when she looked at him.

Macy turned back to her papers and focused on her copy work, pretending he wasn't sitting there. The room felt like it was spinning out of control around her. Macy set her pencil down and took some deep breaths. White dots speckled her vision.