Free Darkening Chaos: Book Three of The Destroyer Trilogy by DelSheree Gladden

Braden’s gift to remind me of our connection,
to remind me that he would never leave me. I finger the bracelet and realize
that destroying the Guardians isn’t what I want most.
    “We’ll
talk about everything when we get back, okay?” I say.
    His
response sounds somewhat confused. I guess that wasn’t what he was expecting me
to say. Milo looks over at me strangely as well. He looks like he’s trying to
figure out what the other half of this conversation has been about. He’s just
going to have to wonder. Lying to Milo is what got me in trouble with him in
the first place, but this isn’t one of the conversations I’m going to share
with him. I say goodbye to Lance, for now, and spend the rest of the drive
hunkered down in my seat, silent.
    Thankfully,
Milo doesn’t push me. Even when we get back to my house half an hour later, he
doesn’t try to stop me from jumping out of the Bronco without saying anything
to him. I want to go hide in my room and stare at my wall of drawings, the ones
Braden hung for me only a few days ago, but I only get halfway up the drive
when I spot Helen and her family getting out of Dean’s Xterra. I know what
they’re about to go through. Abandoning them to face it alone isn’t an option.
I hurry forward before I can change my mind and hold out my hands to Helen. She
takes them without really looking at me, holding on like she’s afraid the world
will tip at any second and dump her into oblivion.
    “Helen,
I’m Libby Sparks. Are you and your family okay?” I ask.
    Helen
shakes her head slowly as if she’s not really sure. Tears spring to her eyes as
she makes herself meet my gaze. “My father’s dead, isn’t he?” she whispers.
    “I
…” Did Dean already tell her?
    “He
told me when the Guardians let him see us to prove we were still alive that if
you came to rescue us it was because he was dead,” she says. Tears slip down her
cheeks, but she stiffens her body and tries to hold them back. “Is he really gone?”
    Eight
months, that’s how long she and her family have been the Guardians’ prisoners.
Every day she must have sat there hoping to be rescued, but also hoping not to
if it meant her father’s life. That had to be worse than anything the Guardians
could have done to her. Her strength honestly floors me, but it shouldn’t,
because I knew her dad. He was strange, and a little twisted, but he was also
one of the strongest people I’ve ever met. Helen’s eyes beg me for an answer.
    “Yes,”
I say, a simple answer to such an agonizing question. I brace myself for her
reaction, but except for a momentary tremble, she holds her grief inside. It
will all come spilling out eventually, it always does. For now, though, she
simply nods.
    “Thank
you for coming after us,” Helen says. “I think my dad was a little worried you
wouldn’t after what he had to do. After everything he’s told me about you, I
knew you would come. Thank you, Libby, and I’m sorry about your friends.”
    “Thanks,”
I say, “so am I.”
    Knowing
she and her family most likely just want to lie down and maybe forget
everything for a few hours, I start to let go of her hands. I stop when I
really think about what she just said. She was sorry about my friends. She was
down there with them, maybe even saw what happened—I pray she didn’t have to
endure that—and I wonder who else she might have seen.
    “Helen,
I know you want to rest, but can I ask you something?”
    She
nods, but I can see the wary quality in it. Please, I hope she didn’t have to
watch the Ciphers die. I shake that thought away quickly.
    “Was
anyone else brought into the cell block where you were kept besides the Ciphers?
A man, tall, dark hair, his name was Braden?”
    “No,”
she says, “I’m sorry, I didn’t see anyone else.”
    My
hope plummets to my toes. “It’s okay, why don’t you and your family go inside
and get some rest?”
    “Actually,
we’d like to go to my dad’s house. One of your