He backed toward the stairs slowly as I blinked at him, trying to come up with something to say to convince him to help us. Nothing came to mind. He was right; no matter what he did now, he was dead. “Now, if you’l excuse me, I have to go cal Mom. I’m sure she’s had a rough morning, and wil need someone to talk to.”

“Don’t do it, Ryan,” I said, dismayed by the desperation in my voice. “Don’t spy for them.” But I knew it was useless; he’d already made his al iance. He was more scared of our father than of Miguel. And so help me, I couldn’t real y blame him for that.

“It’s al I’m good for, Faythe,” he said. Without another word, he jogged up the steps and into what I assumed was the kitchen, slamming the door shut on the dark, and on us.

Twenty-One

Alone with Abby again, I dropped onto my mattress and unwrapped my burger, determined not to dwel on Ryan’s betrayal. I had no doubt he’d get what he deserved in the end, whether from my father or from Miguel. Or from me.

My burger was tasteless, in spite of the tantalizing aroma of gril ed onions, but I ate it anyway. “You should eat that,” I said to Abby between bites.

“I’m not hungry.” She lay on her stomach on her mattress, her chin resting on one arm. Her other hand hung over the concrete at the end of the mattress, tracing a swirling pattern in the dirt she’d scraped from the bottom of her shoes.

I drank from my water bottle, stil watching her. “Yes, you are. Eat. You can’t fight them off if you don’t.”

“You can’t fight them off anyway.”

“The hel I can’t.” I tore into the burger again, pretending it was Miguel’s throat.

“You don’t understand,” she said, staring at me with haunted eyes. “If they can’t make you cooperate, make you play their game, you’re no use to them, and they’ll kill you.”

Like Sara, I thought, finishing her sentence in my head. As badly as I wanted to know what had happened, I wouldn’t ask. I had to wait for her to bring it up on her own. So I said the only thing I could think of to comfort her. “Ryan said we were too valuable.”

“I don’t care what he said. Miguel wil kil you if you push him too far.”

I plucked a fry from its cardboard carton, miming a sword fight with an imaginary foe. “I’d like to see him try,” I said, lunging to slit my invisible opponent’s throat. Abby didn’t even crack a grin. Tough room.

“If you die, I’l be alone with them again.” Her voice cracked on the last word, and tears formed in her eyes.

Damn. Stuffing the fry in my mouth, I watched her expression grow from fear to terror as I chewed. “He won’t kil me,” I said. “I won’t give him a chance. And he won’t touch me, either.”

Abby sat up, brushing moisture from her cheeks with dust-streaked palms.

“Faythe, you can’t fight him. You don’t know what he did to Sara.”

My heart pounding, I froze, waiting for her to continue. But she didn’t. She wasn’t ready to tel me yet. I took another swig of water, trying to wash down the lump in my throat along with the last bite of hamburger. “Yes, I do.”

Abby’s eyes widened, her mouth forming a silent circle. “How do you know?”

I hesitated, but she looked desperate for information, and I knew the feeling.

“They took her home and propped her against a tree in her own backyard. Vic found her.”

Blood drained from her face, and even in the dim light, I saw her bottom lip tremble. “Wasn’t kil ing her enough? Why did he have to humiliate her like that? Her poor family…Why would anyone do that?”

“Because he’s sadistic.” I dropped my carton of fries back into the bag, my appetite gone. “He had to know a stunt like that would make the council even more determined to find him. And punish him. But he doesn’t care. He thinks he’s invincible.”

Careful of my skinned right hand, I rol ed down the top of the fast-food sack and tossed it into the far corner of my cage. “So what do you think they real y want?” I asked, gently touching my injured skin with one finger. The bleeding had stopped, but the edge of my palm was stil an angry shade of red.

“What do you mean?”

“This can’t be it.” I waved my battered hand around the basement. “If this was their grand scheme, they wouldn’t need Ryan because they wouldn’t care what the council was doing. They’d have their fun with us, then kil us, like Miguel did with those human girls.”

Abby’s hand clenched around the hamburger she’d been staring at. “What human girls?”

I exhaled slowly, trying to decide how much to tel her. “Dr. Carver’s office received the body of a girl raped and kil ed by a cat. A jungle stray. Owen went to investigate and came across another murder fitting the same pattern. It happened three days earlier in New Mexico.” Where Ryan had said he’d met Miguel.

“I knew it,” she moaned, squeezing her burger until juice from the beef ran down her arm. “They’re going to kil us.”

“No, that’s just my point. They’re not. Not intentional y, anyway,” I amended, thinking of Sara. “If Miguel was looking for disposable playthings, he’d have picked a couple of human girls. But he didn’t. He went through a lot of trouble to snatch us.

Ryan said we were too valuable to kil , but too valuable for what? Or to whom?”