“Well?” she prompted, tilting her head to look at me.
I abandoned my half-eaten slice of pizza and dusted flour off of my hands. “Do you remember last night when I told you I’d seen my fair share of gruesome things?”
“I’m surprised you remember it, to be honest.”
“I’ve been a lot of places,” I told her, drawing my legs up to my chest and wrapping my arms around them. “I never stayed too long in one city. I didn’t want to feel like I was settling somewhere. I needed to keep moving.”
“To keep running.”
“Pretty much,” I admitted. “I kept everything I owned in a backpack. Wherever I was, I did odd jobs to pay for room and board. Cleaned toilets, shucked corn, rolled pasta dough. You name it. I didn’t care if it was gross or hard work. I just wanted to keep going.”
Mac, sensing that I didn’t share this sort of information often, rolled over onto her stomach to listen.
“When I was nineteen, I went to Paris.” Bile rose at the back of my throat, but I washed it down with a swallow of soda. “It was normal to make friends along the way. I met a lot of people my age at hostels or during excursions. But in Paris, I fell in with the wrong sort.”
“This Fox guy.”
“Yeah. It got me into trouble. I got stuck, and I did things—” My voice cracked, and I ducked my head so that I didn’t have to look Mac in the eye. “I did terrible things to keep myself alive.”
She didn’t ask me to elaborate. Somehow, she understood that I couldn’t. “No one else knows about this, do they? Not even Holly?”
“Especially not Holly.”
“And you think Fox is behind all of this?”
I hiccupped, my ribs tightening around my chest. “That’s the thing. He can’t be. Fox is dead.”
I spent the following morning in a haze of disassociation, doing my finest work in mental instability in yet another attempt to forget about my appearance in this world twenty-six years ago. I ate cold pizza for breakfast, stayed in bed, and aimlessly channel surfed, ignoring the constant ping of the cellphone as calls and text messages came in. When the maid knocked, I yelled at her to go away and turned up the volume on the TV to drown out everything excluding my intrusive thoughts. I read over Ani and Holly’s notes again, desperate to piece together the mystery of Holly’s disappearance, but there was no new information to glean from the scribbled circles. I slept through the afternoon. In the evening, a pounding knock jolted me awake.
“I know you’re in there, Bridget!” Autumn called through the door. I watched her silhouette as she tried to catch a glimpse of me through the curtains on the window. “Get your ass up! We’re going to The Pit.”
I stayed quiet, hoping that she would get the hint and move on, but Autumn was a persistent soul. She hammered on for another five minutes, ranting about how it would be good for me to get out of the motel room and that if I didn’t go to the show, I’d be breaking yet another promise to her. I buried myself deeper in the sheets, covering my head with the pillow.
At long last, her persuasive speech died off with a deep sigh. I peeked out from under the comforter to watch as her shadow leaned against the window.
“Fine, Bee,” she said wearily. “Don’t come. I’ll just—oh.”
Her hand moved to her stomach, cupping the little baby bump in a protective cradle. Her breathing quickened. Short, labored gasps penetrated the thin wall of the motel room.
“Bridget,” she squeaked. “I think—I think something’s wrong.”
I leapt out of bed, sprinted across the room, and yanked the door open, completely unashamed of my pantless attire. “What it is? What can I do? Should we go to the hospital?”
I stopped dead at the grin on Bridget’s face.
“Gotcha,” she said.
“You’re an asshole.” I made to close the door again, but she stuck her foot in the jamb. “Autumn, seriously. Leave me alone.”
“No.” She pressed her face to the crack in the door and pouted. “You wouldn’t leave a pregnant woman out on the streets, would you?”
Reluctantly, I let the door drift open. “You’re milking this.”
“I knew it was the only way you’d let me in.” She wrinkled her nose at the sight of the wrecked room, kicking aside the empty pizza box. “Jesus, Bee.”
“I told you. I can’t deal with today.”
For a moment, as Autumn stared at me with a haughty tilt to her lips, I thought she might finally see the wreck that I was and realize that the ten years without me had been far less stressful than the last week had been with me. Instead, she picked her way across the mess on the floor and wrapped her arms around me.
I fell apart in her grasp, and she let me. We stood there, my neck bent an odd angle so that I could rest my forehead on her shorter shoulder, for several minutes, and for once, there was no expectation as to how long a hug should last. Autumn squeezed me tighter, and my heart released desperate streams of relief that flowed to the tips of my fingers and toes in an effort to mend what was broken.
“Come on,” Autumn murmured. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”
She stuck around as I showered, leaning against the bathroom counter and blathering about the woes that came along with pregnancy. As she went on and on about her swollen ankles and morning sickness and having to pee every ten minutes, I washed my hair, feeling oddly grateful that she wasn’t trying to analyze the problems I had with my birthday.
We walked to The Pit together, her arm linked through mine just like high school. Night had fallen, but Main Street was lit up with fairy lights and fun. People were out to celebrate their Friday night, milling about under the stars and filtering in and out of restaurants and shops. Soulful rock music pumped from the speakers of the Pit as we approached, but it was just a radio playlist to get the crowd going before the band went on. Autumn kept me close as we joined the crowd inside, weaving her way toward a table at the rear of the room where the stage was. There, Christian and three other people—two guys and a girl, who I assumed made up the rest of his band—were already nursing a few drinks. He caught sight of us and raised his glass.
“Hi, baby!” he shouted over the pumping music, pulling Autumn close and landing a kiss on her cheek. As her hand detached itself from mine, Christian said to me, “Glad you turned up!”
“Thanks for inviting me.” I claimed one of the empty stools at the table and flagged the bartender down for a drink. When it arrived, it gave me an excuse not to talk to anyone. I drank and watched as Autumn settled in with Christian. He and his bandmates chatted excitedly about chord progressions, their set list for the night, and how the soundcheck went. I tuned it all out, turning my attention to the rest of the bar. Across the room, I caught sight of Mac, who nodded when she noticed my gaze.
“Will y’all excuse me?” The contraction slipped from my mouth before I could stop it. I’d been in Belle Dame for too long. Christian didn’t notice as I sidled off my stool, but I felt Autumn’s eyes on my back as I pushed through the crowd.
“Bee! Bridget!”
I turned to see Emmett struggling through the sea of people and waited for him to catch up. “Hey, what’s up?”
He caught his breath. “I didn’t expect to see you here. Happy birthday.”
My stomach flipped. “Thanks.”
He ducked his head and tucked his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. “Listen, Bridget. About last night. I’m really sorry. Things got a little heated—”
“Emmett, it’s fine,” I interrupted, unwilling to sit out his entire awkward apology. “We were both getting into it. I find it particularly easy to fall back into old habits.”
His face twisted into a quick scowl before rearranging itself again. “Well, I wouldn’t say it was just an old habit.”
I laid a hand against his chest. “Look, it won’t happen again. I need to focus on getting Holly home. Enjoy the show, okay?”
I stepped around him before he could reply, dodged a few wayward dru
nks, and finally made it to Mac, who looked over my shoulder at Emmett with an amused smirk.
“You kicked the puppy,” she said.
“What? Oh, Emmett.” I sighed, lifting myself onto the stool next to hers. “He’ll get over it. I’m sure he remembers what it’s like to be disappointed in me.”
She craned her neck to follow Emmett’s path toward the stage. “I don’t know. He looks pretty put out.” She glanced at me. “And so do you. Are you okay? Did something else happen?”
I folded my arms on the bar and rested my head on them. “It’s my birthday.”
“Okay…”
“Coincidentally, it’s also the anniversary of the car crash that killed my parents and wrecked the rest of my life,” I added.
“I’ll get you another drink.”
An hour later, the crowd was getting restless and rowdy. A steady headache pounded between my ears, and when yet another drunk bar patron accidentally bumped into me as they picked up their drinks, I wondered if Autumn would notice if I gave The Pit the slip. Suddenly, the crowd released a celebratory cheer, raising their drinks as Christian and his band finally made their way to the stage. Feedback pierced the air as they plugged in their instruments, causing me to wince.
Christian sat behind the drum set and adjusted his mic so that he could reach it over the snare drum. “Hey, everyone,” he said, and the crowd roared again. “We’re the Outskirts. Enjoy the show.”
He clicked his sticks together four times, and the band launched into their first song. The lyrics were unintelligible over the noise of the instruments, but Autumn, now alone at her table, faithfully sang along. A fresh wave of guilt washed over me. I turned to Mac.
“Hey, I’ll catch you later, okay?” I told her. “I kinda promised my attention to someone else tonight.”
She tipped her hat. “No problem. Stay out of trouble.”
As I slid off the barstool, my phone buzzed in my pocket. I took it out and checked the screen. Unknown number. My heart pounded. I swiped to answer it.
“Hello?”
No one replied. I dug my finger into my opposite ear, trying to block out the loud music and cheering crowd.
“Hello? Who is this?”
“Brigitte?”
My throat tightened. “Noemie?”
“Brigitte!” Her voice cracked over the phone. I heard a small sob of relief before her thick accent continued on. “I don’t have much time. If they realized I’ve called you, they’ll kill me. They’re back. They know what we did in Paris. Your sister—”
The song crescendoed, drowning out Noemie’s words.
“Noemie!” I shouted over the line. “Hey, can you hear me?”
“Run, Brigitte.”
The line went dead with a click. I stared at the phone, unable to process the call or what it meant. Suddenly, someone else called my name.
“Bridget Dubois?”
I looked up. It was the bartender, the same curvy girl from my first night back in Belle Dame. “Yeah?”
She passed a small envelope across the bar. “Someone left this. Said to give it to you.”
I took the envelope with shaking fingers. “Who?”
She shrugged. “No idea. I’m a bartender, not a carrier pigeon.”
As she disappeared to serve someone else, I lifted the corner of the envelope flap, which wasn’t sealed shut, and drew out a yellowing Polaroid picture. An icy chill stole over me. It was a familiar photo, one that I hadn’t seen since I’d left France three years ago. I never thought it would’ve followed me all the way to Belle Dame.
It was a picture of the group of people I’d met in Paris. There were thirteen of us in total, each a self-designated duke or duchess of the crime group that we served. I stood smack in the middle of the group, unsmiling in the arms of a man whose face I’d come to loathe. Fox was beautiful, and at twenty-five, he had been as handsome as a lion and as cunning as a snake. He was the king of our crowd, a benevolent dictator on the outside but a violent opponent to anyone who crossed him.
I turned the photo over, not breathing. A message had been scrawled along the back, and I’d read enough letters from Holly to immediately recognize her handwriting.
Want me back alive? Play along.
Little Girl Lost: Book 0 Page 13