Chapter 4 Emma
EMMA
Bones approaches the front desk of the motel while I stand near the door, dripping onto the worn carpet and trying not to shiver.
Bones’s leather jacket wasn’t enough—my clothes are soaked through.
My hair is plastered to my skull, and I’m pretty sure my mascara has migrated somewhere south of my cheekbones. I probably look like an addict.
This is not how I pictured today going.
Then again, nothing about the last couple of days has gone according to plan.
The clerk—a woman in her sixties with reading glasses on a chain and a name tag that says BARB—looks up from her computer and takes in Bones’s soaked form with the expression of someone who’s seen it all and hates all of it equally.
“Help you?”
“Need a room,” Bones says.
“Uh, two rooms,” I call from my spot near the door.
Bones glances back at me, a muscle in his jaw flexing, then turns back to Barb. “Two rooms,” he repeats, like he’s humoring a toddler.
Barb, carved entirely out of managerial apathy, sniffs and starts tapping at her keyboard.
“We only have singles left.”
Bones sighs. “Two beds, then.”
She gives us a long, assessing look—somewhere between Are you running from the law? and Please don’t bleed on the carpet.
“Smoking or non?”
“Non,” I say, right as Bones says, “Don’t care.”
Barb clicks her tongue like she’s judging us on a cosmic level. “Only have one non-smoking room left. King bed.”
Of course.
“What about the smoking—” I start, right as Bones pulls out his credit card and says, “We’ll take it.”
Barb’s eyebrows lift, but she doesn’t comment. She just swipes his card, prints the form, and slides it over for him to sign.
“Room 237,” she says, handing us the key card. “Up the stairs, end of the hall. Check-out’s at eleven.”
“Thanks,” Bones replies.
We trudge back outside, and Bones grabs my bag and a backpack of his own from the bike. I try to take mine, but he just gives me a look that says, not happening and starts toward the stairs.
Room 237 is exactly what you’d expect from a roadside motel in North Carolina: dated furniture, questionable carpet, and a truly spectacular painting of a lighthouse that looks like it was purchased at a going-out-of-business sale in 1987.
Also, inexplicably, there are heart-shaped throw pillows on the bed.
And—oh god—is that a mirror on the ceiling?
“Are we in a honeymoon suite?” I ask, staring up at my damp, raccoon-eyed reflection.
Bones follows my gaze and lets out an actual laugh. “Looks like it.”
“Why does a random motel off I-85 have a honeymoon suite?”
“Maybe it’s romantic?” He sets our bags down, looking around at the red velvet curtains and the champagne bucket that’s currently housing a dead fly. “In a ‘murdered by your spouse’ kind of way.”
Despite everything, I smile. “Very romantic.”
“You should shower first,” he says, nodding toward the bathroom. “Warm up. I’ll figure out food. Order a pizza.”
My instinct is to argue—he’s just as soaked and cold as I am—but my teeth are already chattering, and the promise of hot water is borderline holy.
“OK. Thanks.”
The bathroom is small but clean, with those tiny soaps wrapped in paper and towels that have been washed about ten thousand times. I lock the door—not because I think Bones would intrude, but because I need the boundary—and peel off my wet clothes.
They hit the tile floor with a disgusting squelch.
I turn on the shower as hot as it’ll go and step under the spray, letting it beat down on my shoulders and back. The warmth is immediate and blissful, and for a solid five minutes I just stand there, eyes closed, trying to process everything that’s happened.
Got kidnapped. Got rescued. Fought with Bones about the tracker. Had the best sex of my life with said Bones. Ran away. Had a panic attack at the airport. Accepted a ride to New York from the man I’m furious with but also can’t seem to stay away from.
Cool. Normal. Very well-adjusted behavior.
I wash my hair with the tiny motel shampoo—it smells like generic ‘ocean breeze,’ which is to say, chemicals—and try to figure out what the hell I’m doing.
This morning I was so sure. Get away from Stoneheart, away from Bones, back to my real life where things make sense.
Except standing under the shower in this ridiculous honeymoon suite, my body feels loose in a way it hasn’t in months. Like something that’s been wound too tight finally exhaled. Which makes no sense. I should feel tense. Scared. I was kidnapped less than a day ago.
But instead I feel . . . alive.
I shake my head, flinging droplets. It’s just adrenaline.
Endorphins from being around Bones after a night of insane sex.
My body trying to cope with trauma by focusing on the fucking instead of the facts.
Tomorrow I’ll be back in my studio apartment, back at the barre, and this will all feel like a fever dream.
Except I can’t stop thinking about the way his voice cracked when I asked why he went against Stone’s orders. About the way he chose me over his president’s direct command.
The same way he’s been choosing me for thirteen years.
I turn off the water and grab a towel, wrapping it around myself. My reflection in the mirror is slightly less raccoon-like now, but my eyes are still red-rimmed and my hair is a mess.
And somewhere under my left shoulder blade is a GPS tracker.
I turn, trying to catch sight of it in the mirror—crane my neck, twist my torso—but the angle’s all wrong. There’s no scar. Nothing visible at all. But I remember the day it happened now, the memory unfurling like film pulled taut.
Bones and I were sitting in the sunshine during one of his random check-ins. I’d just finished rehearsal and was stretching on the grass. Then something bit me.
At least, that’s what I thought. A sharp sting, a yelp, a slap at the air.
When I checked, there’d only been a faint red dot.
No bump, no welt, nothing that suggested anything more sinister than an angry insect.
I’d forgotten about it immediately—because why wouldn’t I?
I was with the guy who always protected me.
There was no reason to even consider it could have been something else.
I trusted him.
That’s the part that keeps hitting me. I trusted him completely, and he used that trust to put something inside my body.
And yet.
He also saved my life because of it.
Shit.
I’m standing there, towel clutched to my chest, contorting myself in front of the mirror like a deranged flamingo, trying to locate the invisible chip, when there’s a knock at the door.
“Swan? You OK?”
“Yeah. Just—” I open the door a crack. “I didn’t bring in any dry clothes.”
“Hold on,” Bones says. “You want me to get your bag? Or they’ve got those fluffy robe things out here. They’re covered in plastic from the dry cleaner. So I’m guessing they’re safe to use.”
“I’ll take the robe,” I say, letting the door swing open and feeling weirdly shy about standing in front of him in just a towel, despite all the things we’ve already done together—or maybe because of them.
“Here,” he says, his eyes not even slightly subtle about drinking me in as he holds it out.
“Thanks.”
As I take the robe, his knuckles brush the back of my hand. For one suspended second, neither of us pulls away. Something sparks—like static, but heavier. Not quite desire. Not quite anger. Something older. Deeper. A pressure that’s been building for years and has no name.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Does it involve you dropping that towel on the floor while I watch? Because if it does, the answer is yes.”
I roll my eyes. “No, it does not involve my towel. It’s about the tracker.”
Bones’s mouth twists. I can see him bracing—ready for a fight, maybe even preferring one to the weird emotional vacuum we’re both standing in. “Fire away.”
“Where is it?”
He looks at me for a long moment, arms folded tight across his broad chest, before answering. “Turn around.”
I do, clutching the robe and towel against me. His hand comes up—warm, rough—and gently sweeps my hair forward over my shoulder. His fingers skim down my shoulder blade, barely there, until they stop at a spot a few inches below.
Before I can think, my body leans into him. Thirteen years of instinct overriding common sense. I catch myself too late, going stiff again.
“Right there,” he murmurs, his fingertips pressing lightly. “It’s subdermal. You won’t see it, but if you know what you’re feeling for, you can touch it.”
His hand is still on my bare skin. I should move. I should step away. Put space between us.
But I don’t. And it pisses me off how much I don’t.
And it pisses me off more that my whole body is lighting up under his palm like it’s been waiting for this.
It doesn’t mean anything, I lie to myself. It’s just conditioning. Habit. Safety.
I twist, trying to catch the spot in the mirror, reaching back awkwardly—but I can’t quite get there.
“Here.”
He takes my hand in his, guiding my fingers.
“Feel that?”
He presses my pointer and middle fingers to my back, moving them in tiny, controlled circles.
There’s a dense little bump under my skin about the size of a grain of rice, maybe less, almost invisible if you don’t know it’s there.
My skin tingles. Not from the spot—well, sort of from the spot—but mostly from Bones touching me.
“Do you want me to take it out?”
He steps back just enough that cooler air hits my spine. His voice is gruff, but the way he’s still holding my hand contradicts every rough edge.
I know I should say yes, demand it. What kind of psycho wants a tracking device living under her skin?
Me, apparently. Or at least the version of me who panics in airports and can’t breathe in crowds and secretly needs a failsafe. The version that’s furious at him—and grateful to the point of shaking. The contradiction is exhausting.
I swallow hard and shake my head. “No,” I whisper. “Not yet.”
His hand lingers at my back a moment, then slides down, steadying me like I’m about to tip over.
I hug the robe tighter, heart pounding. It’s a physical thing, how much I hate and need what he’s given me.
I want to yell at him, and I want him to never leave my side again.
Maybe that’s what love is. Or codependency. Either way, I’m screwed.
“You sure?” he asks, low.
“No,” I whisper. And for a second I’m afraid I’ll fall apart all over again. But I don’t. I just stand there and let the silence bloom between us.
Finally, I turn to face him.
He holds my gaze, his expression careful. “I’m not sorry,” he says.
“I’d be surprised if you were.”
“I mean, I understand that I violated your trust. I understand that I crossed a line. I understand that what I did was fucked up.” His voice is rougher now, raw.
“But swan, if something happened to you and I couldn’t find you—if you disappeared and I had no way to track you, no way to know if you were OK—”
His voice cracks.
Actually cracks.
“I can’t,” he continues, and now there’s something broken in his eyes.
“I can’t lose you. I know that’s not an excuse.
I know it doesn’t make it OK. But the alternative—not knowing where you are, not being able to find you if you need me—I can’t live with that.
I’d rather you hate me and be alive than—”
He stops, jaw tight, and I realize he’s fighting tears.
Bones. Who can break a man with his bare hands. Who never shows fear. Who has always shown up—every time, without fail and without question.
He’s coming apart in a shitty motel bathroom because the thought of losing me destroys him.
And I—
I grab his face in both hands and pull him down to kiss me.