Amelia pulled the phone from her ear, her mother's accusations still ringing in her head. Her fingers tightened around the device as she tried to make sense of the words that had sliced through her calm. Sophie in the hospital, stomach being pumped, and somehow it was all her fault. The kitchen around her felt distant, as if she were watching herself from the outside, frozen in a moment that refused to pass.
Jacob stood nearby, his thin lips pressed together in a grim line, his knuckles white around the head of his cane. The old man's voice was steady, but there was a tremor of fury beneath it.
"I am calling in some favors," he said, already turning toward the hallway. "We will find out where they took her."
