Amelia Allen feels stuck.
To an outsider, her life must look beautiful. She has a steady job, a relationship, and several years of her twenties left to figure out what more she wants out of life. But nothing is as shimmery as it appears from the su...
Henry was waiting for them in the living room, looking equal parts relieved and wary when Liam walked through the door looking like Amelia had taken a sledgehammer to his heart. Her eyes floated to the coffee table, where he had spread out a bunch of paper and pens—anything she might need to illustrate her plan to them. The sight of it struck her with a burst of adrenaline and left her completely terrified for at least twenty different reasons.
They were really doing this.
And so, under the light of only their Christmas tree, Amelia sat on the sofa and had the boys join her on either side. She picked up a pen, knowing that she would need to try to draw a map of the property at Hollow House if they were going to understand her at all, and began to explain.
The house is over the county line, she said. That would work to their advantage. It meant that the police force that responded to them wouldn't be Colton's.
As soon as he hears sirens, he's going to run. That meant no calling 911 until they had eyes on Lily, until they could guarantee that they weren't going to get separated from her. This was their one and only shot—if he heard trouble coming and managed to escape with her, Amelia had no idea where he would go next.
One of us is going to stay in the car. They obviously couldn't just pull up in front of the house and expect to not be seen. The back of the property, however, was close enough to the nearest road that Amelia was fairly confident it'd only be a short walk through the woods, maybe fifteen minutes. While two of them snuck through the woods towards the back of the house, their getaway car would lie low.
As she talked, she was quickly jotting down a rudimentary diagram for them to see.
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When and only when we have eyes on Lily, we'll signal the driver by text to call 911.
(You're sure there's service out there? Liam asked.)
(I'm sure, Amelia said. But if there's no response after twenty-five minutes, I vote whoever's in the car calls 911 anyway. The others in the house might be in trouble.)
He's going to try to mess with our heads. He was going to threaten them, probably guaranteeing more harm to Lily if they didn't do what he said. They couldn't afford to believe it. Their priority was getting her out of there, even if it meant letting him go free.
Remember that we're just stalling. There was never a chance of them getting the final word on what happened to Colton—they just had to ward him off until he was in a pair of handcuffs.
"When you put it like that," Henry said under his breath, glancing over at her with both awe and trepidation. "It almost sounds simple."
"Almost," she grimly agreed, clicking the pen shut. "But we have no idea what it's going to be like in there—who will even be there. It's completely possible that it'll be totally empty..."
