I liked bigger cities. It was easier to disappear. And there was always something to do.

“Hey,” I said to her, and flashed a grin, wondering what she’d think if she knew there was a Browning Hi-Power stuffed in the back of my pants. It was a reassuring weight, the cold metal a reminder that I was only inches—seconds—away from a weapon. I felt safer with a gun.

“Can I help you locate anything?” the girl asked, tilting her head to look up at me as I approached.

I felt her scanning me appreciatively. “Well,” I started, and leaned in to the waist-high counter, closer to her. “I don’t come to the library very often, so I’m kinda an idiot about how to use the stuff around here.”

When she laughed, her eyes lit up, and a fake smile spread across my face.

“It’s okay,” she said. “I can definitely help you out. What are you looking for?”

I told her the dates of the newspapers I was hoping to find, and she led me to a glass-walled room. The door was labeled RESEARCH.

“Everything is digital nowadays and much easier to find,” she explained as she brought up an archive program. “You just type in the newspaper name here”—she pointed at the screen, at a search bar—“and add your dates and hit search.”

In a matter of seconds, several selections popped up.

“Thanks,” I said, and took the seat she’d just vacated. “You saved me.”

She threaded her fingers together and shrugged her shoulders. She was cute. And nauseatingly innocent. “It’s no biggie. If you need help, just call for me.”

When she was back at her post, I started opening newspaper selections. The first two weeks of newspapers brought up zero info. Nothing about a girl being injured or killed.

Then, on the Thursday newspaper for the following week, the front headline pulled me upright.

MISSING GIRL DELIVERED TO ER

I selected the clip and started reading.

Elizabeth Creed, who’s been missing for the last six months, was brought into Hallowell General early this morning by an unknown man.

When Creed arrived, she was covered in blood and barely conscious, but after the ER doctors performed an examination, she appeared to have no injuries. She remained unconscious through the night and the next day. When she woke, she had little to offer police as to the details of her disappearance.

Creed’s mother, who disappeared at the same time as her daughter, has not been located.

Police are still looking into the identity of the young man who brought Elizabeth into Hallowell General. He’s said to have been sixteen or seventeen years of age. Tall, dark-haired, muscular in build, and reported to have been wearing jeans, a black T-shirt, and a black jacket.

If you or anyone you know has any information on the young man, please call the sheriff’s department.

I read the article several more times, something cold creeping up my spine. The article said the girl hadn’t been injured, but in my flashback, she’d been shot and cut up. Was this the wrong girl? Wrong article? Although the details didn’t match up, something told me it was the right girl. But it still didn’t explain any of the other shit.

So I’d shot her, then saved her months later? After her initial injuries had healed? I had no concept of time in the flashback. For all I knew, the gunshot wound could have taken place after I saved her.

I scrubbed at my eyes. None of this made sense. And I wasn’t as good at piecing together research clues as Anna. Even Trev, the lying bastard, was better at this stuff than I was. If he hadn’t double-crossed us, I would have gladly taken his help right now.

I spent the rest of the afternoon reading every article I could find, starting a year prior to and leading up to the day I’d taken Elizabeth Creed to the ER.

There was an article about her and her mother going missing. Elizabeth hadn’t shown up for school for three days straight, and when the principal called her mother and got no response, he called the police.

They found the house torn up, like it’d been robbed, but only a few things had been taken. There was an investigation into the disappearance, but nothing turned up. The whole thing reeked of the Branch. Three months after the Creeds disappeared, Elizabeth’s father was found dead in his apartment. He’d shot himself.

I did a search on Jonathan Creed, Elizabeth’s father, and found tons of shit about how he was the number one suspect, that the police were building a case against him, despite the fact that he wasn’t even in town when the disappearance occurred, and that the little town of Trademarr had turned him into a pariah.

No wonder he shot himself.

Which left Elizabeth with no one after she’d been found.

I skimmed the newspapers after the date of Elizabeth’s return, but she was never mentioned again.

The problem with the information I did have was that I didn’t have any concrete dates to go off of. I had no idea how long I’d been in Trademarr. For all I knew, I could have been the one to kidnap Elizabeth on the Branch’s orders, and she could have been injured in the process. Then, months later, maybe my moral compass started working again and I saved her. That would explain why she’d been found uninjured once she was delivered to the ER.

That made a lot more sense than anything else I could come up with.

When I was done in the research room, I headed back to the librarian—the blond girl—and asked her if she knew Elizabeth. She gave me this look like, Who doesn’t know Elizabeth Creed? And then she went on for a good twenty minutes about Elizabeth’s life after the rescue. How she hopped from foster home to foster home, had several mental breakdowns in public, and was later diagnosed with PTSD.