CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
“Where are you taking me?” I asked, breath already thin from the climb. My calves burned, my palms stung from grabbing at roots and rocks, and Tristan—damn him—just kept going, glancing back with that infuriating half smile that said trust me without using the words.
“We’re almost there,” he called over his shoulder. “Promise.”
I wanted to joke that his promises didn’t make the incline any less vertical, but something in his voice kept me moving. Kept me from turning back. Maybe because I was tired of turning back. Tired of running from everything, including myself.
By the time we reached the final stretch, my lungs felt scraped raw. The trail narrowed, then widened, and suddenly the trees fell away. Light opened over us.
I stepped forward.
And there it was.
The lookout stretched wide above the valley. Mountains folded into one another in blue-gray layers. Wind rushed up from below, cool and clean and nothing like the stale air I had lived in for years.
I didn’t speak. I couldn’t. My throat tightened with emotion.
Tristan came up beside me, close enough that I felt the heat of him.
“It’s beautiful,” I said.
“Yeah.” He looked out over the valley. “I come up to places like this when I need to make noise and don’t want anyone asking questions.”
I glanced at him.
He shrugged. “You’ve been swallowing everything since you told me. Thought you might like somewhere big enough to give some of it back.”
My hands tightened. Oliver’s voice moved at the edge of my mind, followed by Rowe’s face at the bus window and June laughing in a kitchen that no longer existed.
“I don’t know how,” I whispered.
Tristan stepped back, giving me the lookout. “Start ugly.”
I looked out at the valley, too wide to care what sound I made.
My heart hammered. I thought of Rowe, of June, of the first time Oliver approached me while I studied.
The hope he crushed inside me. The fear he instilled deep, leaving me paranoid that he would find me no matter where I was and end me.
My throat ached. Something inside me cracked, a seam splitting after years of pressure.
I inhaled deeply.
And then I screamed.
It tore out of me, raw and shaking, pulled from a place so deep I didn’t know it still existed.
The sound ripped through the air, carried by the wind, swallowed by the mountains.
I screamed again, louder, until my voice broke, until my knees trembled, until the weight I’d been dragging behind me finally loosened.
Tears followed. I screamed until my voice broke, then dropped to my knees and gripped the soil because it was solid and I needed something solid beneath me.
Tristan did not touch me. He stayed several feet away and let me be loud without rushing to soothe me.
When I stopped, the valley gave the sound back in pieces.
After a while, Tristan said, “Better?”
I wiped my face with the heel of my hand. “No.”
He nodded. “Honest, though.”
I exhaled and then took another breath in. The air hurt my throat, but it felt clean.
Oliver had not taken these months from me. Whatever happened next, he could not erase the roads, the music, or the man standing behind me.
It was mine.
The stars shimmered against the black velvet sky, and the thin mountain air was cold enough to make my breath visible. A sliver of moon hung low, casting a pale glow through the tall pines. Crickets chirped in the grass, and somewhere in the dark, an owl called low and long.
We’d wandered far today. It felt like an eerie walk in the dark woods getting back from the lookout.
I was relieved when we emerged from the trees slowly.
Wrapped in one of his flannel shirts over my spaghetti strap top, my hand brushed against his every few steps.
The storm that had raged between us lately was quiet now, replaced by something heated and fragile… yet I felt solid with Tristan.
The Volkswagen camper sat just ahead in a small clearing, its rims catching bits of moonlight. A few CDs lay scattered on the dashboard, where we’d left them before we’d gone out. I had listened to “Nights in White Satin” by the Moody Blues to death this morning before we’d headed off.
Without a word, I put the song on again on low volume while Tristan took me on the bed.
That song whispered in my ear while he grunted his pleasure, his movements unrushed but desperate all the same.
I unravelled, exploding with feeling and ecstasy as he held me tightly.
Joined together, coated in his release, I never wanted to let him go.
I felt like crying, but I laughed silently instead as the euphoria worked its way through me.
I was finding myself again. I could feel it.
Hope sprouted within me from a seed planted by the man who was wrapped around me, kissing me, whispering how much he loved me.
I had spent so long believing love was supposed to hurt that I still did not know what to call this. Whatever it was, I wanted more of it.
I woke to a loud, sharp bang. Too close. My heart lurched as Tristan sat up beside me, already alert and scanning the windows. The camper was cloaked in silence again.
“Probably another animal again,” he murmured, tiredly. “I might have left some food out.”
“Let them have it, Tristan.”
“Our gear’s out there, too. Was too tired when we got back to pack it away. My fault.”
I couldn’t settle as he rummaged around.
He didn’t bother throwing a shirt on as he made his way across the camper.
I cracked my eyes open again. My pulse throbbed in my ears, every shadow outside seemed alive.
Tristan reached for the knife he kept by the steering wheel.
“I’ll check the perimeter and see if they made off with anything,” he said, and before I could protest, he slipped out into the night.
Minutes stretched, and I slowly relaxed into bed, closing my eyes. Half of me was still alert, waiting for sounds of his return. Every creak of the camper magnified. I let out a yawn and buried myself deeper under the covers. Warmth returned—
The crack of a gunshot split the air, seizing me in place.
Close.
Very close.
My eyes whipped open. My breath caught, and Tristan’s name tore silently from my lips.
I bolted out of bed, tripping over my feet as I made it to the door and hovered there, torn between terror and the need to run to him.
My throat itched to scream for him, but I bottled it in, my instincts telling me to be quiet.
My hand shook as I gripped the handle. I knew it wasn’t safe, but the waiting was worse. Finally, I pushed the door open quietly, grabbed the flashlight on the passenger seat, and stepped into the night air.
I didn’t turn the light on straightaway. I stood in the stillness of the night, peering around, trying to make sense of my surroundings.
“Tristan?” I whispered, my voice breaking.
Maybe there were hunters.
Maybe Tristan was just scaring away whatever animal we heard.
But I didn’t believe any of that. The gunshot was close enough to hurt my ears, and he’d been out here. My heart squeezed painfully as I helplessly stood there, peering around me for signs of him.
Then I heard it.
A faint groan.
Heart jumping, I didn’t think. I turned the flashlight on, and aimed the beam of light at the sound, my legs weak beneath me, until the light fell on him.
Tristan lay still on the ground but breathing, his skin pale in the glow.
“Tristan,” I whimpered.
I rushed forward, but before I could reach him, arms seized me from behind. I was thrown down hard; pain shot down my body as the breath was knocked from me. The flashlight flew from my grip, landing nearby. Dizzy, I shook my head to clear it as footsteps crunched, drawing closer to me.
When I looked up, a large figure loomed over me.
My eyes widened.
Oliver.
His face was twisted, unrecognizable: wild eyes, bearded cheeks, hair matted, his body hunched as if he carried both rage and pain.
He stared at me with a hatred so raw it froze me in place.
This wasn’t the Oliver I knew. Something happened to him while I was gone.
I couldn’t have been entirely at fault for his rabid state.
Whatever transpired left him a hollow shell.
Nothing but the sinister man stared back at me, no longer hiding behind layers of charisma and refinement.
Something else caught my attention just then.
A familiar knife lay between us, glinting faintly in the dirt.
Tristan’s blade. He must have fought him and now…now he was groaning behind me.
My stomach clenched with fear as I realized Oliver had done what he always promised he would: he had found me.
The night felt eerily still as we faced each other. His words weren’t needed; the threat had already come true. He held that gun tightly in his grip, and I knew it was only a matter of time before he aimed it at me.
I tried to breathe, tried to think, but I was caught. There was no way out. Even if we’d laid in that camper, Oliver would have broken through.
The days had led up to this.
The inevitable end.
And Oliver—
He looked nothing like the man I had once known. His eyes were feral and unhinged.
We stared at each other in the pale light. Taking each other in. His eyes drifted over my large shirt and barely there shorts, my bare legs now bruised up and filthy. I didn’t have to hear him say the word whore—I felt it and trembled in response.
Even in the dim glow, I could see he was badly hurt too, blood staining his side, his breath ragged. Blood flowed steadily down his arm, down his hand, along the gun, and to the ground. I stared at the growing puddle between us, knowing he had only so much of it in him.
“You thought you could run,” Oliver rasped, his voice low, almost broken. “But I warned you I would always find you. There is no escaping me. I know you. I remade you, Daisy.”