Chapter 10 - The Truth Comes to Light
Mommy’s eyes blinked rapidly against the dim red light of the van’s interior, trying to focus. Her lips parted, dry and cracked, and a soft, confused groan escaped her throat.
"Sarah...?" she whispered, her voice sounding like dry paper rubbing together.
I dropped Lily and scrambled up onto the cot, throwing my arms around her neck as gently as I could so I wouldn't disturb the tubes taped to her arm. "Mommy! You're awake! You're okay!"
Mommy blinked again, her hand coming up slowly to touch my hair, her fingers trembling. "Where... where are we? What happened to the street? The car..."
"We're in a van, Mommy," I said, tears spilling over my lashes again. "We're crossing the bridge. We're going somewhere safe."
Mommy tried to sit up, but a sharp hiss of pain escaped her lips, and Brenda immediately pushed her shoulders back down onto the pillow.
"Don't move, Anne. You've internal stitches that need to heal," Brenda instructed gently, handing her the bottle of water and helping her take a few small sips. "You're safe. Vance is driving. We crossed the county line ten minutes ago."
Mommy drank the water, her eyes darting frantically around the van before locking onto the open partition curtain leading to the front cab. A wave of stark, unadulterated terror washed over her pale face.
"The hospital..." she choked out, her fingers gripping the edge of the blanket. "The men from the Syndicate... they found us, didn't they? How did they find us?"
Brenda exchanged a heavy, complicated look with me before looking back down at Mommy. "They didn't track the hospital, Anne. They tracked the serial numbers on the nine hundred dollars Sarah found on the street."
Mommy froze. Her breath caught in her throat. She stared at me, her eyes wide with shock and horror. "Sarah... what money?"
Before I could explain about the wallet I had found on Aldridge Street, the front partition curtain was pulled back sharply.
Vance’s broad shoulders filled the opening. He wasn't looking at the road anymore; he was staring down at a secure satellite phone mounted on the dashboard, his face pale and grim.
"Anne," Vance said, his voice unusually quiet. "You're awake."
Mommy stared at him, her chest heaving. "Vance... where is Matthew?"
Vance didn't answer right away. He reached out and clicked a small toggle switch on the dashboard, routing an encrypted audio transmission through the van's overhead speakers.
A burst of static filled the back compartment, followed by the sound of heavy gunfire, shouting voices, and the unmistakable crunch of splintered wood.
And then, cutting through the noise, came a voice we both knew better than anyone else in the world.
“This is Matthew Sullivan,” the voice crackled through the speaker, calm, steady, and entirely unafraid. “To whoever is listening on this frequency... the debt is paid. Let my family go.”
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A loud, deafening explosion ripped through the speakers, followed by a wall of absolute, suffocating silence.
Mommy let out a piercing, heartbroken cry that tore straight through my chest, and as the van raced forward into the misty mountain dawn, I knew our lives would never, ever be the same again.
