Colette leaned forward. “Yeah. Besides, you couldn’t have—”
“Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!” All of our heads turned at the sudden exclamation, followed by the pounding of feet down the stairs. Sicily jumped down into the living room, skipping until he was dead center in the group, and then he started to dance. “I’m good. I’m so good,” he sang. “I’m good. OH! Who’s good?”
He pointed at Brayden, who apprehensively said, “Uh, Sicily?”
Sicily did a pelvic thrust. “That’s right! It’s Sicily! I am so good.”
“Hey, Mr. Good?” I asked. “Why are you so good?”
“I’m glad you asked, gorgeous.” He held up a piece of paper. “I found Deon.”
I jumped up. “What?!”
“Are you serious?” Nathan asked.
“Yeah!” Sicily yelped. “He’s in Maine!” We all stared at him blankly. “What?” he asked.
I walked over to Sicily and punched him in the arm. “We already knew he was in fucking Maine!”
Sicily rubbed his arm, beyond used to my tendency to swing when I got annoyed. “You didn’t let me finish.”
I backed away from him a little bit. “You have five minutes.”
“Alright, so. Anisa and Cobalt brought me the phone of the two guys we captured—cakewalk to break, by the way—I found messages from some people who had captured him at some point, but he got away,” Sicily said. “The places they were discussing are near a handful of the pings from when Deon was calling you and Nathan, meaning he started in that area and stayed in that area. About an hour from here, near the prison. At first I was afraid that the calls may have stopped because he went back to prison, but I searched the database, and he’s not listed. More than likely that means…”
“He visited,” I finished.
“Exactly,” Sicily said. “So I’m thinking he might have made a plan to go there and get some help and then ditched his phone.”
“Venom,” I said.
Sicily nodded. “That’s what I’m thinking. So technically, I don’t know exactly where he is, but I’m guessing he does.”
“Who?” Nathan asked.
“There was a guy who took Deon under his wing when he was locked up and made sure he got his education so that he could rejoin high school when he got out,” I explained.
Sicily nodded. “Deon told me Venom was like a dad to him. I hate that it took all of this for me to realize it, but if Deon needed help and he couldn’t come back here for it, he’d go there for sure.”
“But Deon’s on the run. He couldn’t just walk into a prison,” Colette said.
“From what Deon told me, Venom sort of has his run of the place. He might have known who to talk to in order to speak with Venom without being tagged,” Sicily said.
“It’s worth a shot,” I said. “We should go and talk to him and see if he knows anything.”
“There are visiting hours tomorrow,” Avery said, and I looked over to see she was already clicking rapidly through her phone, “but only one person can visit at a time.”
“Shoot,” Nathan said. “I hate the one-on-one thing lately. It always feels like there’s some information that gets missed when only one person can represent.”
“I get it, but there isn’t anything we can do, and because I’m the crux between you guys and Deon, I feel like I should be the one,” I said.
Colette shivered in her seat. “At the risk of sounding like a spoiled, rich princess, I can’t imagine going and sitting in a prison. You’re so much braver than me, Cherri.”
“Believe you me, the thought doesn’t inspire sunshine and rainbows, but we don’t have any other choice. Venom could be the one person who can get us in touch with Deon, and for him, I’d do anything.” I imagined being able to see Deon soon, or even just hear his voice. There was nothing that could scare me enough to keep me away from following that lead.
“Next stop, prison?” Kyle said with a chuckle.
I nodded. “Yep. Next stop, prison.”
20
Deon
I was trying to decide how long I should wait before going out and looking for Felicity myself. Yes, I’d promised her that I would stay in the house and not risk anything else happening to me, but I also promised Venom that I would look after Felicity just like she promised to look after me. I never should have let her go to visit Nico on her own. I could appreciate what she was doing, especially because she was doing it for me and for Venom, but regret was a washing over me like poison.
The sun had been up for hours, and it was getting close to twelve hours since the absolute latest I would have expected Felicity to come home. Something was terribly wrong.
It was a good thing I’d fallen asleep at the table, because otherwise I wouldn’t have gotten any sleep. I still felt groggy as I stood up off the couch in the living room and patted my leg to call Concrete to me. He rushed over, tail wagging, excited to get out, but I was bringing him along as backup. I imagined Felicity had to have guns of some type hanging around her house, so I did a sweep of the place looking for one. I checked every nook and cranny I could think of, but nothing turned up.
Maybe in her car.
Rushing out into the garage, I grabbed the keys for the more ‘suburban mom’ car that Felicity had and ran over to the door. I unlocked it and climbed in with Concrete right behind me and started to search all over the car for a weapon of any kind. Worse case scenario, I could run back in for a butcher knife or the axe she kept to chop wood for her fireplace, but I didn’t relish walking into a possible fight without something that would help me long range. Any of Connor’s thugs would be strapped to high hell, and it didn’t make me comfortable to imagine literally bringing a knife to a gun fight.
“There has to be one in here, Concrete,” I said. “I wish you could help me look.”
Concrete just stared at me, though some of his jovial mood had left him—he must have been able to read my panic. I dug my hands into the glove box, under the seats, in the center console, and even checked the trunk, but there weren’t guns of any kind.
“Dammit,” I growled. “The axe it is, I guess.”
Sliding out of the car, I started back towards the door into the house, when suddenly the garage door started to open. If someone snatched Felicity, they’d have her keys and garage door opener; hell, that car was programmed to take her straight home just by asking it to. Anyone with access to her car would have no trouble getting in. My eyes scanned the garage for the best weapon to defend myself with, and landed on the barbell to my bench press. I rushed towards it, pulled the weights off as quickly as I could, and whipped around with the barbell in hand.
Just to see Felicity driving her car back into the garage.
I didn’t know if I was angry, relieved, or stunned. Her hair and makeup were a mess, almost as if she had run into some trouble, but when she parked the car, pressing the button to close the garage as she did, she looked over at me like I was the lunatic.
“What are you doing?” she asked, stepping out of the car. “You gonna hit me or something?”