Chapter 19 Here Lies Atticus’s Sanity
HERE LIES ATTICUS’S SANITY
ATTICUS
"Where are you going, Trouble?"
I watch as her car takes a right at the lights instead of the left that would've led her here.
She had the basket when she left, right?
I click over the footage of her leaving the apartment with her laundry and frown. She's probably going to get takeout first. If she turns left at the lights ahead of where she's at now, I'll know it'll be for a quick pit stop at Chick-fil-A.
But she goes straight instead.
"The fuck?"
When she turns down a road that's flagged on my map as a road closure zone, something sinks in my gut. Her car stops for a beat, and I sigh with relief. She probably took a wrong turn.
But my guts are still twisting when her car starts to move again and I wait for it to stop glitching and show that she's coming back. Because she can't be continuing down this road how it looks on the map.
They're building a new bypass for the highway there, but it's not finished. I know because I drive past it every fucking time I drive into town. But does she know that? Did she not notice?
I grab the monitor as if I can will her little blue dot to turn around.
"Fuck!"
I snatch up the phone and dial the number for the burner I gave her.
"Pick up. Pick up, pick up!"
The phone goes to voicemail as the blue dot picks up speed, and I throw the phone, my skin electric as I grab the keys for my bike and almost break the office door down in my rush to get outside.
I kick-start it, and the engine roars as I jump gears, peeling out into the street.
She won't do it.
She won't.
Why the fuck would she?
Aurora isn't suicidal.
I would know it if she were.
No. This has to be something else.
My mind races, jumping from possibility to possibility as my bike runs three consecutive red lights and scrapes against the side of a Tesla as I turn sharply onto the street she took.
The road closure sign is moved out of the way, just enough for a car to fit through and continue up the unlit, unfinished road.
Did Ambrose somehow figure it out? How? We were so careful. I was so careful.
I don't believe what I'm seeing as I push the Ducati to its limits, making the engine whine as I close in on the billow of black smoke lifting from the incomplete end of the bypass.
My stomach heaves with bile, and there's horror in every fiber of my being when I smell hot metal and gas fire. It prickles over my skin, making me scorching hot despite the cold, cold dread pooling in my stomach.
The bike screeches when I hit the brakes, and I'm off before it's even fully stopped.
It falls and skids on the pavement, throwing sparks over me as I dart to the edge of the road.
Hoping beyond fucking hope that she's somehow there, dangling over the edge like this is some action movie and I can still save her.
I recoil as something explodes from the pile of wreckage below, making the fire grow in earnest as distant sirens begin to fill the night.
I search through the smoke, eyes burning, coughing as I try to see somewhere, anywhere she could've landed that wouldn't result in immediate death, because this isn't happening.
This is a bad dream, like one of Eli's night terrors, and I'm going to wake up.
I taste vomit in the back of my throat as I fall to my knees, hands vibrating against the rough asphalt. Guilt, raw and heavy, screams with an oppressive weight on my shoulders.
No.
No.
Wake up, asshole.
I slap my palms against my head, trying to jar myself from this fever dream. My throat burns like I've swallowed acid and the smoke stings like hellfire in my eyes.
I can't breathe.
Oh god, I can't breathe.
"Wake…the fuck…up," I gasp out, clutching the tension that circles my chest like an iron band getting tighter by the second.
"You sure got here fast."
My head snaps up and I whip my head around, searching for the voice as I stagger to my feet and cold air puffs into my lungs.
I find her through the haze of smoke in my eyes. Aurora leans against a parked cement roller to one side of the incomplete road. Is she hurt?
The relief at hearing her voice is so fucking immense that it threatens to send me right back to my knees, but I don't let it.
I race over to her.
"Are you all right?" I hear myself ask. "Are you hurt?"
But when I reach for her, needing to feel her in my hands, to know that she's really here and not down there, she moves out of my reach.
"Oh me?" she asks, and there's a note of something in her tone that I can't make sense of. "I'm fine."
Where the fuck is the threat? Who did this to her?
"Aurora, what—"
"Can't say the same for your tracker, though." She clicks her tongue. "Hope it wasn't expensive."
"My…what?"
All at once, I recognize the look on her face. The rage in her eyes and the way she has her arms crossed over her body. Defensive. Hostile.
Below the bypass, red and blue lights converge on the scene, painting her in alarming shades as she glares at me.
This was no horrible accident, or a suicide attempt, or even a setup by Ambrose's people; this was her.
Because, what? Because there was a tracker on her car?
Rage, hot and flooding, rushes through me and I'm powerless to stop it.
"Are you fucking insane?"
"I've never felt more sane, actually."
I throw an arm out, gesturing to the still billowing smoke, now glowing with shades of red and blue. "You drove your car off a fucking bypass, Aurora!"
Anger knots between her brows. "I wouldn't have had to do that if you didn't lie to me."
"Lie to you?"
"You said there weren't any more tracking devices I needed to know about. You swore to me, Atticus, and like an idiot, I believed you."
"Jesus fucking Christ," I mutter to myself, pushing a clawed hand through my hair, yanking it out of the band holding it back.
"Of course there's a fucking tracker on your car!
There are trackers on all our cars. I need to know where you are.
How the fuck am I supposed to keep you safe, hmm?
How the fuck am I supposed to find you if shit goes bad? "
Her green eyes flash. "This isn't about that," she growls. "I don't care about the tracker, Atticus. I care that you didn't fucking tell me about it! I care that you lied to me."
I recoil from the venom in her voice, and something Sev said to me comes back. Something about her needing to be in control. Make her own choices.
There's real hurt in her eyes. The sort of hurt I didn't think I'd be able to inflict on her ever again because it's the kind that can only exist if she cares. And she's made it clear that she doesn't.
But wait…this isn't the point.
I still feel like I might vomit after thinking she was in that burning car.
And this crazy bitch blew up a fucking car.
I shake my head, fighting to separate logic from fury and fury from guilt. I wipe a palm over the stubble on my jaw, reining in the urge to scream at her. When I do speak, it comes out deadly calm, and by the way she pales, I think maybe that's worse.
I consider telling her I wasn't thinking about the tracker on her car when she asked me to swear, because it's the truth, but I know she won't believe it. How is she supposed to know I have a standing order with Jack, our mechanic, to put them on any vehicles we use?
"Do you have any idea how hard this is going to be to clean up?"
She shuts her mouth.
"I can't just make it go away, Aurora. There's going to have to be a story here. One you're going to have to corroborate. And stories like this," I hiss, gesturing wildly to the wreckage. "Come with suspicion."
She works her jaw.
"And we can't afford any more suspicion if this is going to work." By the end of the sentence, I'm shouting, and I can't even help it.
God, this woman. This woman is going to be the death of my sanity.
Her brows lower and her lips part, and I can't wait to hear what sort of defense she has for a move like this.
But it's like watching a dark veil as it's lifted from her face.
I know the look. I've seen both Eli and Sev when that veil is pulled back.
I'm sure it's exactly how I looked the moment I got the call from my contact confirming Chris was no more than a dude in his fifties who legally adopted Aurora as a teenager with his wife, Grace.
The rage bleeds from her face, and she's trapped in a state of quiet guilt in its absence. Her breaths come a little quicker as she casts her gaze toward the pavement and digs her fingers in where she's gripping her arms.
I tip my head to the sky as if some higher power can give me the patience I don't have.
But whether I'm in the wrong here or not doesn't erase the fact that she put herself and this entire operation at risk. And she needs to understand that we can't afford any mistakes.
"What if that had been Ambrose's tracker?" I ask, and she finally deigns to look at me again, confusion twisting her face.
"It was yours." Her defense is weak and her voice is only above a whisper.
"It was," I admit, knowing I have to take responsibility. "But you didn't know that. Not for sure. What if it wasn't? What if after you reached out using the Find Delilah form, he decided to look into you? Follow you?"
"Why—"
"You still don't get it." It's so hard to keep the frustration from my tone, but I really fucking try.
"You need to understand what we're up against, Aurora.
Ambrose is smart and cunning. Before, he was always a step ahead.
This time, we need to be the ones a step ahead, and I can't fucking keep us there—keep you safe—if you're pulling shit like this. "
She blinks and gulps, and I can see her pistons firing, windows on the desktop of her mind opening and closing as she struggles to figure out how to respond.
"I—I…"
I sigh heavily. The police are already at the crash site below us. We don't have time for this. I have to get her out of here and figure out how to fix this before it gets out of control.
I can't help asking, though, "Did you think this through at all?"