Chapter 6 - The Bait
The gunshot deafened him. Glass showered over Marcus’s head as the window behind him disintegrated.
She missed.
Marcus lunged. He tackled his wife to the linoleum floor, pinning her wrists. He wrenched the hot metal from her grip and threw it across the hall.
"What is wrong with you?" he screamed in her face.
Sarah collapsed into a sobbing, broken mess. "She made me do it. Eleanor made me."
Marcus grabbed her shoulders. "Made you do what?"
"Adopt him," she choked out. "Austin isn't my son either. Eleanor forced me to bring him into the house. She said she'd kill Chloe if I said no."
Marcus froze. The pieces were colliding, but nothing fit.
"Austin?" Marcus asked. He suddenly remembered the boy in the dark basement of their house. Austin always hummed the same haunting lullaby whenever the lights went out.
Marcus's phone buzzed in his pocket. A video message.
He tapped play. The screen showed his biological daughter, Chloe. She was tied to a wooden chair in a damp, concrete basement.
A figure stepped into the frame, leaning close to the lens.
It wasn't Eleanor. It was Austin.
The teenager’s eyes were dead. Cold. Empty of any fear.
May you like
"Come find us, Dad."
