Chapter 28
CONSTANCE
My body feels detached, like it hasn’t caught up with everything that’s happened.
All I have is a heavy numbness and a haze that fills my mind.
The car ride passes in fragments, streetlights sliding across the glass, the faint hum of the engine, the quiet way Morgan keeps one hand steady on the wheel while the other rests over mine.
I notice everything and nothing all at once.
My reflection catches in the window when we pass beneath another light, and for a second I don’t recognize the woman staring back.
My eyes look too wide, skin pale beneath streaks of dried blood near my hairline, a darkening bruise blooming along my cheek where Abi struck me.
Panic flickers through the fog in my head.
I turn slightly toward him. “Do you have a wipe or something?”
Morgan glances over immediately, concern sharpening his expression. “Yeah.”
“I don’t want to scare Chance,” I whisper, swallowing hard. Saying his name makes everything feel suddenly fragile again.
He reaches into the center console without taking his eyes off the road for long, pulling out a small packet and handing it to me. I clean my face slowly, watching the red smear away, wincing when the cloth brushes the bruise. The sting grounds me more than anything else has tonight.
When I look back at my reflection again, I still look shaken, still not entirely like myself, but at least I look like someone a little boy won’t be afraid to run toward.
We don’t go to a hospital. We go straight to Mr. Bartholomew’s. I love that Morgan knows Chance is the only thing I need right now. Until I see him with my own eyes, this nightmare won’t end.
He pulls into my driveway. The lights are still off in my house, except for the porch light.
My eyes drift over to Mr. Bartholomew’s and in an instant, I sling the car door open and I’m running across the yard to his porch.
I barely register the steps, the door, the sound of voices inside, before I’m pounding on the door.
Mr. Bartholomew opens it, his eyes wide, and he scans my body, taking me in, then he steps to the side. Chance appears in the doorway, and all my restraint collapses.
I drop to my knees, arms open wide, and Chance runs straight to me. His small body is solid, real, and the sound that tears out of my chest surprises me. It’s raw and broken. I can’t help the eruption of tears that spring forward. I’m safe, Chance is safe, Morgan made sure of it.
“I’m sorry,” I sob. “I’m so sorry…I’m here, I’m here, I’m here,” I keep repeating, unable to form any other words.
Chance clings to me almost like he thinks if he lets go I’ll vanish again.
He buries his face into my shoulder. He’s crying too, and he doesn’t even know why.
He never will. As far as he knows, I was late at work.
All I want is to make Miles pay for what he put my son through.
I hope that Morgan made Abi and the other man suffer.
I can feel Morgan’s intense stare on me without even seeing him. But he doesn’t try to end this moment or pull Chance away from me. Neither does Mr. Bartholomew. It’s like they know we both need this.
Instead, Morgan crouches beside us, voice calm and steady. “Your mom’s safe now,” he tells Chance. “She isn’t going anywhere.”
Chance nods against my shoulder. That’s when a full understanding of what’s happened today hits me. Morgan didn’t just find me. He made sure to protect Chance. He went to him first and made sure he was somewhere safe where no one could hurt him.
He protected my child.
“Thank you for watching over him,” I hear him tell Mr. Bartholomew.
“You never have to thank me for that. They’re my family.”
“Come on, Constance, let's take the two of you home.” Morgan’s voice is calm and soothing, and I nod my head. Chance pulls away, his small hand wiping away the tears as he retreats out of the room to grab his things.
Morgan takes hold of my arm, helping me to stand, and I step toward Mr. Bartholomew, wrapping my arms around his thin frame. “Thank you,” I whisper. “You’re my family too.”
I pull away and Chance comes back into the room, jacket and book bag in hand, and heads straight to me. I take his hand and Morgan slips his arm around my waist and together we walk across the yard to my home.
Later, when Chance is finally tucked into his bed and sleeping, the adrenaline drains completely. The borrowed strength that I’ve been clinging to since I was taken,slowly seeps from my bones.
That’s when I start to shake. It’s the kind of trembling that comes from your nervous system finally believing it’s allowed to feel. Delayed terror rises now that it’s safe to do so, flooding through me in cold, unstoppable waves.
What if they come back? What if this time he takes Chance?
Morgan’s still here. He doesn’t try to fix what happened with pretty words, or command it away. He simply remains present, grounded, and unmoving.
My voice is barely there when I finally speak. “I thought about him the whole time,” I admit, resting my head on his shoulder as we sit on the couch. “Every second. Everything I did… every word I chose… it was all just to survive long enough to get back to Chance.”
Saying it out loud makes the weight of it real.
“I knew you would. I wish I had put the pieces together earlier. Knowing he had you and that I could lose you killed me. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind I'd find you, but I needed Chance somewhere safe first.” He squeezes my shoulder and kisses me on the top of my head.
Morgan doesn’t minimize what happened. He acknowledges it. He acted just the way I would have, made sure Chance was safe first, before all else.
The night settles around us, and that’s when something finally clicks. I’m not bracing myself for Morgan to leave me any longer. I let my eyes finally drift closed, content in the thought that Chance and I are safe.