Chapter Five #2
She shook her head, looking out the window. “He rarely speaks to me, Hals.”
“Kay, you have been here for months,” I said in disbelief.
A sigh escaped her. “He is never here, and when he is…How’s Jer?” She was changing the subject.
“Going crazy,” I admitted in a whisper. She deserved to hear the truth. “He lost it when he found your letter.”
She huffed a laugh, her eyes dropping to her lap. “Sounds like Jer.”
“None of us listened to you, by the way. Your plan is shit,” I explained, sitting back onto my pillows. She looked up at me, and then her eyes scaled down the length of my bruised body as her nostrils flared in anger.
“Did Col—”
“No, Kay…he saved me.”
At that, she broke, falling against me, clinging to my shoulders. Her body shook as she cried his name into my chest.
My lip trembled, and I let myself have this, this moment of sadness that overshadowed my gratefulness.
We cried together for some time, some moments louder than others.
Hours or mere minutes could have passed; we didn’t know or cared.
She held me and I her, relishing in the safety of each other.
When she broke the silence, I couldn’t help but laugh.
“Oh, Dean Connors is alive! Does G know?” she gasped, sitting upright once more. I laughed, wincing after a moment due to the pain.
“You have missed a lot,” I coughed, trying to regain composure. So much has happened in the last few months, and Kay had missed it all. We needed to get on the same page, and then we needed to formulate a plan.
“Tell me everything,” she begged. My eyes snapped up to the corners in the room, scanning for cameras. Kay put her hand on my shoulder.
“He doesn’t have cameras here. This is his home.”
My eyebrows rose. “He lives here?”
“Yeah, he built this like three years ago, I think. When he's gone, I just wander the halls or read. I was in my room healing for weeks. Bella usually takes care of me,” she explained, running her hand through her hair to get it out of her face.
“What happened?” I pressed. Her pink lip trembled, and my hand shot out to grab hers. “You don’t have to…”
Her head shook. “No. You need to know.” She sighed, closing her eyes for a moment as I waited patiently.
“I was at my coffee shop downtown, you know the one,” she began. “It was raining. Good study day. Anyways, I looked up from my tablet and he was there, Hals. God, I thought I had imagined it when he glided past the window. He was my worst nightmare, but you want to know the funny thing about it?”
I nodded, not finding any part about her kidnapping funny.
A small whisper of a small traced across her lips as she looked out the window.
The rain was still coming down, harder than before when Collin was in here.
“He was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. He looked like a completely different man; hell, I barely recognized him. But I swear, I thought time stopped,” she whispered, looking at her hands, “My mama used to say that when your soulmate was near, the world would slow down for you, so you could appreciate the magic.”
My heart cried out for my soulmate. James. I understood what she was referring to…time stopped when he approached my table for the first time. “Do you think he could be—”
She huffed a sharp, emotionless laugh. “The irony,” she murmured. My brows came together.
“Anyways, he passed the window, and I didn’t even think.” She looked back to me then, meeting my eyes as she shrugged her shoulder. “Uncle Sullie is going to kill me when he finds out I ran after a serial killer, but I had to.”
“Kay, what did he do to you?” I asked, my voice thick with fear. Collin may have saved me, but he is still a cruel man. We both knew that.
“He knew I followed him,” she finally said, looking away from me. “He cornered me in an alley, and we had a conversation.”
“What kind of a conversation?”
“I insulted him.”
“Of course you did,” I mumbled, sitting back into the pillows. I was getting tired of this fucking bed. I wanted out—I wanted this over with.
“He drugged me, and I woke up in an abandoned building sometime later.”
I swallowed as her words settled into the room, sinking into the walls. That was the thing about walls…they didn’t forget. “Did he—did he do that?” I asked, gesturing to her wrist.
She held it up. “Nope, that was all me, although, I don’t remember doing it.”
My brows came together. “What do you mean?”
“My body was in survival mode, and I was trying to get out of the chains.”
I felt all the blood drain from my face. “What?” I breathed, my eyes going wide with shock.
“The man who saved you is not the same man who kidnapped me, Hals,” she urged me softly. “He's changed.”
“What did he do?”
“He left me, Hals. He chained me to a wall, questioned me when I came to, and when I didn’t give him the answers he wanted, he left me. But then he came back and brought me here. He watched over me like a hawk. That is one thing I do remember.”
I sat up. “Karina,” I gasped, touching her face.
“I’m fine,” she brushed it off.
“He—he abandoned you!”
She looked to the door and then back at me, her eyes pleading. “He didn’t have the strength to kill me himself, Hals."
“That doesn’t make it okay!” I yelled, and her hand shot out covering my mouth.
“Dean Connors faked his death, leaving Gwen alone with Aiden,” she snapped, “Your beloved agent lied to you for months, Hals. Your relationship is based on lies, so don’t you dare.”
She wasn’t wrong. Fuck me.
“That man is complicated, okay? He didn’t hurt me, I promise,” she said quietly. She was lying, though. He did hurt her.
He crushed her heart five years ago.
She removed her hand and ran it through her hair, the golden strands framing her face. “I want to know everything. I told you my story; now you tell me what the fuck is going on.”
I got right to business.
“So, when Gwen and Aiden moved to New York…”