Surrender A Section 8 Novel - By Stephanie Tyler Page 0,16
hanging up.
He put the phone back in his pocket, fingered the silver pick hanging around his neck and looked out at the dark bayou that lay beyond the house.
He remembered green grass, sticky air, the long, lazy summer days that rolled into easy summer nights when breezes were scarce and lightning bugs floated around like flickering magic.
Darius would play the guitar, the notes wafting along the thick air, and Dare would listen and pick up the guitar the next day, trying to play the notes from memory, sometimes succeeding.
But the days for being lazy were few and far between. Darius always had a mission for Dare, wanted his son to be mission ready, and Dare wouldn’t not be.
His mother . . . he had vague memories of her, singing in the tiny house in North Carolina that was just off base. She had a small vegetable garden too.
Later, all he remembered was the crying . . . and then she was gone.
Darius went off the rails after that.
Darius left the Army, although he’d never stopped working. It was then that the other six men and Adele began to circle his space. They were at various times friendly and angry and serious and silly. But no one ever took anything out on him.
Not idyllic, but he knew there were much worse ways to grow up.
He stared at the back of Grace’s head. She’d turned when he first started tuning the guitar, but she couldn’t see him, no matter how hard she tried.
Interrogation had its uses, but he’d have to soften her up first. She was strong and angry, and she would not go down easily. If she was left alone, her mind would take over. He wouldn’t have to do much more than that, let her get hungry and tired.
By the time he interrogated her, her own fear would’ve done more to her than he could’ve ever brought himself to do. She’d be working over her options in her mind, tiring herself out like a hamster on a wheel.
Will you be doing the same damned thing out here?
He answered himself with a snort and picked up the guitar, balanced it on his thigh.
The choices were pretty simple. If he turned Grace in, he could very well have his life back. More important, so could Avery.
Worst-case scenario: Richard Powell got Grace back and killed all of them. What could Dare do? He couldn’t kidnap and hold her as collateral for the rest of her natural-born life.
No, he needed something else on Powell to ensure this trade went smoothly. Grace had to know something he could use against Powell—and in turn, against her.
She’d spill if she thought it would save her from going back to her father, and that was just what he was counting on.
And then he’d have to decide if he could live with himself if he made that trade. A life for a life, Avery’s for Grace’s.
His palm curled around the smooth wood, his fingers playing along the strings. It would have to be tuned because no one had been here to play it in a long while.
He began to do that, hitting each note, tightening or loosening each string.
He’d never learned to play well with the pick, preferred strumming with his fingers since he could find the rhythm more easily that way. The vibrations under his rough fingertips spread through his hands, causing them to ache a little more. But hell, at least he felt something.
* * *
Grace heard the low notes of the guitar float through the screen door.
Dare was on the porch. She hadn’t heard him move for hours, but she’d heard him talking. And now this.
She didn’t turn around, hadn’t the entire time, no matter how difficult it was to stay put. Instead, she concentrated on keeping herself together, because he was counting on her falling apart.
What if she could share everything with him? Was he the one she was supposed to tell her secrets to? Didn’t everyone have one person in their lives they could trust, or did that only happen in movies?
The guitar continued now—he’d stopped the practice strumming and was playing a song.
Darius used to play on the old porch, but he wasn’t half as good as Dare was. Dare was a natural—he played from the heart. She listened to the chords as they built to a crescendo. She recognized the song—“Plush,” by the Stone Temple Pilots—and filled in the hauntingly beautiful lyrics in her head.