the entire town. We want to know what she’s hiding.”
“And we want to know if this deception has anything to do with Sheriff Vicram’s five-day disappearance that resulted in a hushed pregnancy.”
“Where is my remote?” the teacher asked, tearing through her desk to find it.
The shot of the sheriff’s station popped onto the screen again, and the camera panned back to Lynelle. “Del Sol is teeming with rumors. Some say the sheriff ran off with a drummer who dumped her at a gas station in Truth or Consequences.”
“Others say she was kidnapped and held for ransom by a depraved predator,” Liam said with way too much enthusiasm.
“Whatever the case may be, we will stop at nothing to uncover the truth about our new sheriff, but for now, we must stress that none of this is poor Auri’s fault. Whether her mother is a law enforcement officer or a con artist.”
“Whether her father was a war hero or a violent criminal, we all need to welcome Auri Vicram with open—”
The broadcast stopped, the TV went black, and the only sound Auri could hear was the rush of her own blood in her ears. A sea of faces stared back at her. Some sympathetic. Some mortified. Some triumphant, relishing the moment.
“Auri,” the teacher said, rushing toward her. “I’m so sorry. Those televisions are controlled by the AV department and the plug is in the ceiling and I couldn’t find my stupid remote. I couldn’t just turn it off.”
Auri pushed off her desk and stumbled toward the door, her vision blurring so much she couldn’t find the handle. Her fingers finally curved around it. She shoved open the door only to fall onto the tile floor in the hall.
A man was running toward her, Principal Jacobs, but her stomach heaved. She was going to be sick. She scrambled to her feet and fought the darkening of her vision to make it to the girls’ restroom.
She felt nothing but the vise around her chest, cracking her ribs and squeezing the air out of her lungs.
She closed the bathroom door and wedged the doorstop underneath it to keep him—no, everyone—out. After falling twice, she managed to get to the last stall. She locked the door, dropped to her knees, and emptied her stomach into the toilet.
Her body expelled the coffee and breakfast cereal she’d had that morning, but she hardly took note. She was numb. She couldn’t think. She couldn’t process what had just happened.
As though she were a thousand miles away, she wiped her mouth with toilet paper, flushed the commode, then wedged her body between it and the wall. She felt more tears and pressed her palms over her eyes to stop the flow, like putting pressure on a wound.
Noises drifted toward her from the hall, and a deep sob echoed off the walls. Then another, and another and she finally realized they were hers.
Which was odd because she didn’t realize she was crying.
A sharp thud sounded at the bathroom door followed by three more until the door opened and crashed against the wall. She heard steps. Breathing. Then another loud bang as the stall door almost flew off its hinges.
But she was still applying pressure. She had to stop the onslaught before she flooded the bathroom.
She felt hands wrap around her legs. They slid her out of her haven. She considered fighting, but if she released the pressure, the floods would start again.
At that precise moment, back in the clearing, Sun felt hands on her shoulders. She thought about fighting them off, but that would take effort, and she worried she would vomit again.
Auri felt herself being lifted.
Sun felt herself being lifted.
When another sob racked her body, Auri heard a soft shushing sound.
When she tried to push out of her rescuer’s arms, Sun heard a warning growl.
“You’re okay,” Cruz whispered in her ear as he cradled Auri against his chest and carried her out of the bathroom.
“You’ll be okay,” Levi said as he lifted Sun into his arms and carried her to his ATV.
And the next few moments were a blur of backpacks and trees and kids’ faces and law enforcement officers and arms. His arms. Wrapped around her in the best way possible.
Sun sat in the back of the ambulance that had been waiting to transport the DB to Albuquerque, still reeling from her rather humiliating experience.
Levi had carried her to his ATV and sat her on it. After being awake for over forty-eight hours and conducting a search-and-rescue operation in