PART 2:
Please, she cried, her voice breaking. Please, I’m begging you. Inside the car, Maddox’s Harley stared at her as though he was looking at a ghost. The soft interior lights revealed his face, composed, distant. The face of a man used to controlling storms in boardrooms and bending markets to his will.
Yet in this moment, his control shattered, his fingers tightened around the stem of the single wild flower he still held, its petals wilting, fragile from the rain, and from the long journey from the cemetery. The girl outside the window was drenched, bleeding, desperate. And in her eyes he saw Amara, not as she had died, but as she had once been, terrified, small, abandoned by the world, Lena knocked weakly on the glass, tears mixing with rainwater on her face.
“Please, sir, you have to help me,” she sobbed. “You didn’t see me. You hear me? You didn’t see me. If she asks, “Promise me you never saw me?” Maddox’s breath caught in his throat. “Who is she?” he asked quietly, though his voice barely carried through the thick glass. Lena shook her head violently. “She’s coming. She’s coming for me.
Please, I don’t want to go back. I can’t go back.” The driver turned to Maddox, confused and uneasy. Sir, should I call the police? Lena’s eyes widened in horror. No, no police. Please don’t call them. She will lie. She always lies. She will say I am crazy. She will say I am a thief. She will take me back.
And her voice broke into sob she could no longer control. Maddx felt something inside his chest tear open. He remembered another night, another storm, another girl who had begged for help that never came. His fingers trembled as he reached for the door handle. “Open the door,” he said quietly. “Sir,” the driver asked.
“Open the door.” The door unlocked with a soft click. Lena did not wait to be invited. She yanked it open and practically fell into the seat. soaking the lever, curling into herself like a frightened child. “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you,” she whispered over and over again, her teeth chattering.
