23. Theo
TWENTY-THREE
THEO
My eyes flew open to the lapping night.
Darkness all around and Piper in my arms.
Her soft breaths were panted against my chest as she remained lost to sleep.
With my mind spinning, I tried to orient myself, and I squinted as I shifted enough so I could see the clock that glowed from the nightstand.
5:02
Fuck.
Had I really slept until five a.m.?
Soundly and without waking?
I ignored the whole onslaught of thoughts, refusing to evaluate how it was even possible, since I was realizing quickly there had been something that had actually pulled me from sleep and it wasn’t just the typical nightmare that had me jolting awake.
No.
This was a sound or a movement, or maybe it was just intuition.
The turbulence that vibrated through my insides and had me carefully untangling myself from Piper and easing off the side of the bed.
A very reckless part of me wanted to climb right back beside her and never let go.
Find a way to bind myself to her permanently.
And I didn’t know why.
Didn’t know why this one woman who I’d found stranded in the snow could hold such a power over me.
This feeling like…I belonged.
Not as a penance.
Not as an atonement.
But because she felt like a gift.
I gritted my teeth against the reckless thoughts that were invading and quietly slipped back into my clothes and jacket. I left the laces of my boots untied as I tiptoed to her bedroom door. I carefully opened it, being sure not to disturb her as I pushed my head out so I could listen.
Stillness echoed back, but there was still something in the air that had me silently edging down the steps and to the front door.
Guarded, I opened it and let my attention sweep the area out front of her cabin.
Snow was falling again, not quite a blizzard like last weekend, but it was still coming down thick.
Cold wind lashed through the trees, and I braced myself against the frigidness as I stepped out and crossed her porch.
The darkened sky sagged low, the heavy clouds so close it felt like I could reach out and touch them.
In it, I swore that I could taste the ominous.
Something not quite right.
Ducking through the storm, I ran for my truck, clicking the locks before I unlatched the back door and swung it open so I could grab the flashlight where I kept it on the floorboards.
Spurred by the disorder that thrashed in my soul, I flicked it on.
I swished the beam back and forth, searching through the glinting fall of white for anything amiss.
My attention went directly to Unit A.
Exactly where it should be.
My whole fuckin’ purpose when somehow I was losing sight.
Diverging course when my only concern should be the safety of Alicia and Lucy.
There were no lights on inside, and I moved forward, going first for the door. I pressed down on the latch, making sure it was locked, before I crept around the entire perimeter, checking that the windows were locked and untampered with.
Clear.
Still, there was something in my guts that had me itching.
I pulled out my phone and made the call to Kiel, my security guard on duty tonight. He answered on the first ring. “Yo, man, what’s up?”
It wasn’t like he wasn’t used to hearing from me in the middle of the night.
“Anything out of sorts?”
“Did a full perimeter twenty minutes ago. Everything was clear.”
“Just…keep an extra eye.”
“Something up?” he asked.
I warred, wondering if I was losing a piece of my rationality. If that piece of me that was getting stuck on Unit B might be fucking with my senses.
“Nah. Think everything is good. I’m just going to do a sweep of the back lot.”
“Will take an extra jaunt around the front,” he said.
“Good.” I ended the call just as I swore something flickered in my periphery to the left.
A glimmer of light coming from within the trees.
I swung my beam that way, and I squinted as I peered into the forest.
That sense struck me again, and I could barely make out what looked like a bare glint against the snow.
Heart jumping into my throat, I took off in that direction. Feet pounding against the pavement before I belted into the snowbank that hedged the woods.
My boots sank deep, but I propelled myself forward, fumbling through it and up into the line of the trees where the snow was shallower.
I swept my flashlight back and forth, trying to pick up the trail of whatever I’d seen.
Jagged breaths jutted from my aching lungs as I hurtled through the tortuous terrain. Weaving around the trunks and ducking beneath the branches.
Searching for anything.
For any sign.
Nothing.
There was only the sense that I was trailing something evil.
The stench of wickedness riding on the harsh, cutting gusts of wind.
Alicia and Lucy’s faces flashed behind my mind. Sickness gripped me as I thought of that monster finding them.
Piper’s face was right behind it. The scars I discovered on her back a trigger at the back of my brain.
What if it was someone after her?
I increased my pace, near frantic as I ran through the forest, ducking against the violent lash of the storm.
Following that feeling that warned something horrible was about to happen.
I fumbled out of the woods at a curve in the long drive that led to the motel.
Gasps raked out of me as my attention jumped in every direction.
No one was there.
There was nothing to find.
No movement or shadows of an apparition.
There was only the sticky sense that something was lurking.
Something wicked.
I let my gaze roam the entire area again.
Silence howled back as it rode on the wind.
And I wondered if I was really losing my grip. If after everything, I was becoming paranoid.
If Piper’s presence and the way she made me feel was making me imagine things that just weren’t there.
But I’d always had the gut instinct.
The thing that had kept me alive for all this time.
It was right there, begging me to protect Piper and her family, too.
I inhaled the frozen air into my lungs as I scrubbed a palm over my face, hoping to break up the disorder.
Then I climbed down through the bank and onto the road.
Still, I kept searching as I followed the lane back around to the motel.
Wondering what the hell I thought I was doing.
I knew better than getting involved.
My involvement was only ever superficial.
A sentry who stood guard over those we brought under our protection.
Sure, I cared. But it wasn’t this .
This thing that had me dragging my pathetic ass back toward Unit B.
Staring at it as I stood in the middle of the swirling fall of snow.
Trying to convince myself I wasn’t falling.
Trying to convince myself Piper’s son wasn’t twining himself into the frayed threads of my heart.
But I guess ultimately, I was the liar, and the only person I was lying to was myself.