Stephanie's POV
The gunshot snapped the last thread holding my broken memories back.
It all crashed into me at once, a wave of cold, terrible truth.
The strawberry field. The empty rows. The hours of searching, screaming their names. The plane seat shuddering beneath us. The slam into the water. The salt, the cold, the dragging Cane onto this damn beach.
My kids were gone. Not at a hotel. Gone. Taken.
And my own mind had hidden it from me. To protect me? To torture me? I didn't know. But the pain was here now, sharp and real, and it felt like my chest was cracking open.
But the man in the trees shooting at us gave me no time to scream, to cry, to fall apart.
A switch flipped. The Sparrow didn't feel pain. The Sparrow just acted.
I yanked the knife from the belt of the sobbing man we'd just questioned. Cane was already moving, a dark shape flowing to the right. I went left.
