GRAY SUNLIGHT EDGED THE oaken planks. The morning was cold and crisp, and I was convinced I’d never slept more soundly in my life. A smile crept on my face as I remembered why.
Hope.
I went to give a morning stretch . . . but couldn’t. Odd. I tried again, but with the same result. I looked around and discovered why: My wrists were bound together with a piece of rope—and they were tied to a joist that stretched from loft to ceiling.
“What the . . .”
Someone had snuck in during the night and tied us up. But who? A Brown Shirt? One of Chancellor Maddox’s thugs? How had they gotten past Argos? And why had they left us here?
I turned to Hope and the bottom of my stomach dropped out. Her side of the bed was empty, and there was only a vague indentation in the hay. She was gone.
Even as I struggled to free myself, I racked my brain, seeing if there was anything I could remember about getting tied to a barn pole in the middle of the night. Outside of the good memories—and there were plenty of those—I could think of nothing.
That’s when I noticed the symbol on the other side of me. The hay had been swept away and someone had etched a giant heart in the dust, with the letters HBT in the middle. Hope and Book Together.
“Hope!” I called out, my voice echoing off the rafters. “Little help up here.”
Argos barked from down below, but that was the only response.
“Very funny, Hope. You got me. Now would you mind untying me?”
Still no response. I yanked and tugged until the hemp bit my skin and turned my wrists raw.
When I rolled over to my side, my face landed on a crack and I was able to see to the ground floor below. There was Argos, sitting on his haunches and looking back up at me. Next to him was where we’d parked the Humvee. Only now the space was empty.
Hope was gone.
I called out her name a few times more, but I knew there was no point. She had driven off sometime during the night, wanting to stop Chancellor Maddox on her own.
That’s when I realized there was no way I could save Hope—I would never see her again.