Chapter 5 #3
“Not…” I’m not sure if the word makes any sound as it kisses its way across my lips. “This time.”
Madi elbows me in the ribs.
Elle barely suppresses a squeal.
Chief grins like he’s watching his favorite TV show.
“Valen—” I don’t know how to finish this sentence.
Thank you seems inadequate.
“There’s something else,” Valen says, pulling a small notebook from his pocket. “I have a journal…from when I was a kid. About my summer at—” He scratches at his palm with so much force I’m afraid he might draw blood. “At Roots of Salvation.”
Everything stops.
“I wrote about you. A lot.” He holds up the notebook, and now that I can see it, my pulse begins to jackhammer, an aggressive beat that makes me lightheaded. “I called you Bee Girl. Then—” His voice drops with his chin. “Then Honeybee.”
Tears burn, and I blink them back.
He’s watching me carefully now. “I wrote that we deserved to be free.”
“Valen—”
“I don’t remember writing those words. But I—I did…and I want to remember why.”
No one moves. Or breathes. Or even blinks.
It’s just him and me—in a house full of people—with fourteen years’ worth of ghosts hanging between us like a bridge I don’t know if I’m strong enough to cross.
“Neither of you has to figure this out right now,” Chief says, breaking the spell. He pauses, something shifting in his love-weathered face—a softness we rarely get to see. “But we should open that package before Roman’s van gets here. You know, see what we’re dealing with.”
Right. The package.
The one that proves that Savvy’s ex is not my stalker.
The one that proves someone else has been terrorizing me with my own words for months.
I should be used to these emotional ice baths by now, but each one stings more than the last.
“Don’t touch it,” Valen snaps as Chief reaches for the package. “Fingerprints.”
Valen pulls gloves from his pocket and slips them on—he does seem like someone who would carry gloves—then he carefully unties the twine.
The elegant shimmering paper falls away to reveal a plain white cardboard box.
I bite my bottom lip as Valen lifts the lid.
My friends gasp in unison, and I call on my remaining reserve of strength before looking down.
Someone pinned a honeybee to a velvet board as though it’s a specimen in a museum. There’s a note under it with the same elegant writing.
Honeybee, Honeybee, we’ve come to play.
But who protects the Queen when the King’s forgotten his way?
Ticktock, Miss Styx…it’s time to pay.
My knees give out, but Valen catches me before I hit the floor, his arms solid and sure around my waist.
“I’ve got you,” he murmurs into my hair.
I do believe he thinks that, but there’s a reason I can’t control the full-body wave of terror rolling through my veins.
Whoever’s doing this—whoever’s watching me, studying me, tormenting me—knows everything.
They know about Valen.
My books.
They know…me.
“This…this is different,” Elle says. “This isn’t a quote from one of your books, is it, Clover? This is…personal.”
“Chief,” Valen says, his voice deadly calm. “Call the police. Now.”
“Already dialing.”
Valen attempts to shift Madi out of his way with me, cradled against his side. “Madi—”
“I’m not leaving her, Valen. I don’t care who you think you are. I’m the one who’s been here for her. I’m. Not. Leaving.” She places a hand on my shoulder and presses her forehead to the side of my face. “Not for anything.”
Valen stares down at us, and I see it—the moment his professional mask cracks. The moment the boy I knew peeks through.
“Clover,” he says softly. “Who knows you as Clover Styx?”
Guilt makes the acid in my gut crawl up into my throat when Madi stiffens beside me, but I can’t look at her.
“No—no one. My foster family helped me change it legally to Danforth when they adopted me. They’re the ones who helped me get all my paperwork too.
And since ROS didn’t report official records to anyone, Clover Styx never existed. ”
He’s nodding, and I get the impression his brain is working like a high-tech computer. “So only people who knew you…before, would know that name.”
“Right,” I whisper.
“How many people would you guess know that name?” he asks.
I’ve been so careful. So private. I don’t do signings or interviews or public appearances. I keep my author life separate from my real life whenever I can.
“Who could possibly—”
“Miriam,” I whisper. “The Danforths were an older couple. He passed away when I was in high school, and she passed away a few years later. Miriam is the only other person who knew I even went into the foster system. She’d have been the only one who knew who to contact.”
Valen is eerily still. “Miriam is Terra’s twin sister?”
“Yes, but she’s not like Terra. She helped me escape. She—she was helping us, but I never heard from her again after she drove me to Virginia. She said it wouldn’t be safe.”
“Would she…” Madi looks from me to Valen. “Would she do this to you?”
All eyes are on me. I’m truly the key here. Valen doesn’t even know what happened that night, so it’s up to me to explain…it all.
“I—I don’t think so. She loved Valen.” I turn to him. “She did, you know. She loved you, and she wasn’t like Terra at all. In fact, they couldn’t have been more different. Where Terra was loud, Miriam was quiet. Terra was brutal with every word she said, but Miriam was thoughtful and kind.”
With each word I speak, his frown gets deeper, more defined. And suddenly, I see what he isn’t saying. This is someone from our collective pasts—someone who might be even more dangerous than Valen’s own mother—and we don’t even have enough information to make a list of suspects.
Terra passed away when I was nineteen, so the only connection we have is…Miriam.
I slip out of Valen’s hold and fall ungracefully into a chair.
“If this were one of my thriller novels, I’d make a list of everyone from our past. Anyone who had any kind of power.
Anyone who…wanted to punish us back then.
” There’s a nick in my table, and I run my finger over it. “Anyone with something to gain by—”
I can’t finish. I don’t want to. Because there’s only one explanation here—someone from Roots of Salvation is here.
They know where I live.
They’ve been to my home. On my porch. Close enough to leave packages.
They know who my friends are.
And they’re close enough to hurt me and those I care about.
“They won’t get close again,” Valen says, and there’s something in his voice—something fierce and protective and absolute. “Just because I don’t remember the pain inflicted doesn’t mean I don’t bear the scars too. I won’t allow it to happen again.”
“You can’t just—”
“Watch me.”
A horn honks outside, startling me.
“That’ll be Roman,” he mutters. “With the lockdown.”
The five of us move as a unit to the front window as an absolutely ridiculous vehicle is parking outside. It looks as though someone crossed an RV with a tank. It’s matte black, has tinted windows, and is probably even bulletproof.
“That’s not what we agreed to,” Valen mutters under his breath.
“You’re really going to live in that?” I ask. This entire day is giving me emotional whiplash, but I can’t fight a smile when he rolls his eyes.
“Until this is over. Yes.” He’s not asking for permission, and I’m too tired to fight it. I’m not even sure I want to. “Until we find out who’s messing with our past and destroy them, I’ll be your shadow.”
“Valen—”
“It’s not negotiable, Honeybee.” He holds my upper arm, his grip steady and warm, and it’s a good thing because my brain isn’t ready for the reintroduction of the one name that always made me feel safe.
He called me Honeybee. Again.
“I guess there are some things even memory loss won’t allow me to forget.” He lowers his head until our foreheads are nearly touching. It’s savagely intimate. “And if you’re one of those things, I will figure out why.”
Our peanut gallery makes varying sounds of drama, but me?
I stare at this man—this stranger who will never be a stranger to me—who’s parked a tank on my front lawn because he read in a childhood journal that he wanted to protect me once—and I smile.
He doesn’t remember me, but he’s choosing me anyway.
“Okay,” I whisper.
His eyes widen slightly. “Okay?”
“You can stay.” I take a fortifying breath. “But only if you let me help. I can tell you who we were. Let me—” My voice breaks, but there’s not a stinking thing I can do about it. “Let me give you back the pieces someone took away.”
His expression softens, the frown lines easing into a gentle smile. “Deal.”
For the first time in fourteen years, I let myself hope.
Just a little.
Just enough.
Because maybe—just maybe—some things really do run deeper than a memory.