CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
I eased the front door open, the hinges groaning faintly, and slipped inside. The air was cooler than outside, heavy with the faint scent of detergent and air freshener. My pulse thudded in my ears. Tristan was out front, waiting in his camper, trusting me to be quick.
I had one goal in mind.
Take what remained of Rowe, collect the bag I had hidden, and get out.
The last of Rowe’s pictures. The ones that weren’t locked away from me. The only ones I could access before I fled from here forever.
Oliver had been gone since yesterday morning. After what Tristan had seen at the cabin, I had no idea where he was now.
It didn’t matter. Whatever Oliver had done, whatever trouble was closing in around him, it was no longer my concern.
He would come home and I’d be gone. He would detonate. His rage wouldn’t reach me, though.
The thought made me queasy regardless.
The hallway stretched ahead, dim and silent.
I moved fast, feet whispering against the floorboards.
Rowe’s photographs occupied every room. Frames lined the mantel and crowded the shelves.
My hands shook as I reached for them. One frame, then another, the glass cool against my fingertips.
His smile, his eyes, captured forever. I slid them into the satchel Tristan had let me take, the fabric sagging with their weight.
Rowe’s bedroom hit me like a blow. Oliver never cleared it out because he needed me anchored to this grief.
He needed me fragile, predictable, contained.
He knew that taking this room would destroy me in a way that slipped beyond his reach.
So he left it untouched. It wasn’t for me, but for his control.
And now I saw it.
And now I was leaving.
The dragon stuffy lay on Rowe’s bed, limp and waiting. I picked it up, pressing it to my chest. For a moment, I couldn’t breathe. Memories of him hit me all at once. I could see him running around me right now, screaming up a storm, his excitement contagious and wonderful.
“I have to go,” I whispered to him, throat tightening.
I forced myself to move. I couldn’t stay here. Not now.
Back down the staircase I went with the final destination in mind.
I hurried into the laundry room. The linen basket sat in the corner, half-buried under folded sheets.
I dug through, heart racing, until my fingers closed around the pillowcase full of crumpled bills and birth control pills.
I shoved the pillowcase deep into the bag.
That was when I felt it.
The shift in the air, the weight of another presence.
He was there.
Oliver.
Heart in my throat, I slowly turned around.
He stood in the doorway, face blank, eyes hollow. A void of emotion. It was worse than anger; it was nothingness.
“What do you think you’re doing?” His voice was flat, chilling.
My breath caught. “I…”
The words caught in my throat. I glanced at the camera, wondering if he’d watched me come in. Wondering how long he’d been here, waiting for me.
“The cameras aren’t recording,” he said. “I never said I couldn’t watch them. And what was your explicit order, Daisy?”
To stay in the nook area all day.
To be perfect.
My lips trembled. I couldn’t speak.
“Now tell me,” he continued. “What do you think you’re doing right now?”
“I…”
“You what?”
I drew in a breath. “I…I need to leave.”
He stepped closer. “Leave?”
I shook, and the frames rattled in the satchel. His eyes darted toward the bag.
“You didn’t think I’d know you were sneaking around with that dirty busker?” His eyes traveled over me with cold disgust. “You fucking whore.”
“Then let me go,” I pushed out. “If that’s what you think of me, why do you still want me?”
“Want you?”
Something almost amused touched his face.
“You think what you did changes what you are to me?”
I tightened my hold on the satchel. “It changes everything.”
“No, Daisy.” He stepped closer. “It changes what happens next.”
My skin broke out in sweat.
“You made a mistake,” he continued. “A humiliating, disgusting mistake. But mistakes can be corrected.”
“I’m not one of your students!”
“No. You’re far more important than that.”
“Why?” My voice broke. “Why can’t you find someone else to torture? Why does it have to be me?”
The emptiness finally cracked. The veins in his neck rose as he moved toward me.
“Because you. Are. My. Perfect. Fucking. Wife.”
“I’m not perfect!”
“You are exactly what I made you.”
“I slept with him, Oliver.”
His jaw flexed, but he didn’t look away. “And you think that makes you less mine?”
“Yes.”
“No.” He spoke with frightening calm. “It means you’ve forgotten what you are.”
I backed against the wall.
“I’m leaving.”
“You’re upset. Confused. You need to calm down.”
I knew what those words meant.
The kitchen.
The glass of water.
The pill placed carefully against my tongue while Oliver watched to make sure I swallowed.
“No.”
“You’re not capable of making decisions in this state.”
“I said no.”
“You are my wife, Daisy.” His voice sharpened at last. “You don’t get to stop being mine because some boy made you feel special.”
Before he could reach me, I bolted around him, trying to get past him.
But his hand shot out, gripping my arm with bruising force.
I screamed as he tore the satchel and pillowcase from me, discarding them on the floor.
Then he dragged me out of the laundry room and toward the kitchen.
I fell to my knees, my arm burning from his hold.
“Stop! You can’t do this, Oliver! Stop! He’ll come for me!” I screamed, thrashing against him.
Oliver’s voice dropped to a venomous whisper.
“I’ll take care of that boy. He’s nothing. A distraction. You’re mine. I chose you. I built you. I created you. You are my fucking wife!”
The kitchen loomed ahead, dread sinking into my stomach. I knew what he wanted.
The pill.
“No!” I cried, clawing at his arm. “Stop! Stop, Oliver!”
He stopped and bent down, leaning close to my face, breath cold against my ear. “You’re not leaving. Not ever.”
And then—
Something crashed into Oliver.
The force sent us reeling. I twisted, heart hammering, and only then saw who had struck him.
Tristan.
The scuffle was violent, chaotic. Oliver’s fists swung, Tristan grappled, the sound of bodies crashing against the counter filled the room. I stumbled back, bottom slamming into the floor, breath ragged.
“Tristan!” I shouted, voice breaking as Oliver fought with brutal force. Despite being hurt, Tristan fought back with desperation, fueled by something raw and unyielding.
Oliver fell back, his body slamming to the floor with Tristan over top of him.
He growled and grunted, his body animalistic as he delivered punches across Oliver’s face.
Blood sprayed. I saw blood on Tristan’s fist. On his face.
Heard the pained grunts as he rained down violence on a fighting Oliver.
Then, with a final blow, he slammed Oliver’s head against the floor.
A crack sounded in the air.
Oliver crumpled, unconscious.
Stunned, I stared at Oliver’s unmoving body. His chest still rose and fell, but he wasn’t fighting back. He wasn’t—
Tristan hurried to me, bloodied, chest heaving, eyes wild.
“Come on! We have to go.”
My legs were wobbly as he stood me up. I stared in horror at Oliver. At the blood pooling from his head. Tristan gathered my things. He gave me the stuffy and I cradled it to my chest, dazed and unfocused.
Together, we fled the house, Oliver’s chilling void of a face burned into my memory.
**
Tristan drove until the road blurred into darkness, until the house and Oliver’s shadow were hours behind us. Night fell when we pulled into a random campground. He cut the engine, and silence pressed in.
I sat curled in my seat, clutching Rowe’s dragon stuffy so tightly my knuckles ached. My body wouldn’t stop trembling. Every sound outside—the wind in the trees, the camper creaking as it settled—felt like him.
Oliver.
I kept seeing his face in the glass, blank and hollow, waiting.
Tristan drew the curtain across the window, then reached for me.
“He doesn’t know where we are tonight,” he said quietly. “We’ll be off the island by morning.”
I shook my head, staring at the floor. I couldn’t tell him that I didn’t believe him. In my head, Oliver had already found us.
He was here.
Tristan’s hand covered mine. His voice tugged me back into the camper.
“Listen to me. He’s hours away.”
My breath came shallow and uneven. Even if he was hours away, I didn’t feel freedom. I felt like I was waiting for him to reappear.
The feeling was familiar. Of thinking I might be safe and then finding out we’d been found. It was so vivid—so real.
Tristan leaned closer, his voice firm. “He’s got too much heat on him already. Like you said, the police are circling him over that student. We’ll make a report in the morning. Let them know about the cabin. And even if he comes looking, Daze, he has to find us first.”
I wanted to believe him. I wanted to let those words sink in, but Oliver’s voice echoed through my head.
You belong to me.
The memory crawled beneath my skin.
“I can’t stop hearing him,” I whispered. “I can’t stop seeing his face. It’s like he’s carved into me.”
I wished it would stop.
Tristan’s arm slid around my shoulders, pulling me against him. I pressed my face against his chest, breathing in the faint scent of his shirt. His heartbeat thudded steadily against my ear, its rhythm anchoring me to here and now.
“You don’t know what he’s capable of,” I murmured. “He dragged me like I was nothing. He was going to—” My voice broke. “He was going to take me back there.”
Tristan’s grip tightened. “And I stopped him.”
I shook my head, tears burning my eyes. “He doesn’t let go, Tristan. He’ll twist everything. He’ll make me look like the one who’s wrong.”
“He can say whatever he wants.” Tristan’s voice remained low. “You’re still gone.”
The words settled over me.
I wanted to believe that leaving the house had been enough. That every mile between Oliver and me meant something.
The trauma would have to ebb away.
I was just terrified.
I needed to breathe.
Just breathe.
The campground was quiet except for the wind moving through the trees.
The shaking eased a little. I clutched the dragon tighter, tears burning my eyes. Rowe loved this dragon. He couldn’t sleep without it. And now I was the one holding it like a child.
I wish I could have him back.
I wish he was here.
I wish I had fought harder.
The thoughts broke something inside me. I sobbed quietly against the stuffy, the grief and fear tangling together until I couldn’t tell them apart.
I cried hard because I could. Because there were no cameras watching my grief.
I finally let it out. All of it. Tristan held me through it, his hand moving through my hair, his chest steady against mine.
Was this it, then?
Was escape possible?
“What comes next?” I finally whispered, my voice hardly above a whisper.
Tristan’s breathing told me he’d been awake longer than I had. He let out a slow breath.
“We get off the island.”
The ferry groaned as it pulled away from the dock, the water churning beneath us.
I stood at the railing with Rowe’s dragon stuffy held against me, watching the shoreline shrink into the distance.
The house, Oliver, and everything I had endured were behind me now, slowly disappearing into the horizon.
Tristan came to stand beside me, his hand resting lightly against my back.
“This is it,” he said. “Once we’re on the mainland, we’ll head to my hometown. It’s a nasty drive—”
“Can’t we travel first?” I cut in. “Like you’ve been doing? Just…move.”
Tristan’s blue eyes darted toward mine. He held my stare for a long moment before his lips stretched into a smile.
“If that’s what you want, Daze, we can drive. Spend the summer living in the wild.”
“Just you and me?”
He nodded slowly. “Just you and me.”
My heart jumped at the thought. Excitement moved through me, small but unmistakable.
“A new start.”
“A new start,” he confirmed.
I nodded, but disbelief still clung to me. The wind whipped my hair across my face, and I pressed the dragon tighter against me. I closed my eyes, letting the salt air sting my skin. For one moment, I allowed myself to imagine something beyond surviving the next hour.
“I used to have dreams,” I said quietly, almost ashamed. “Before him. Before all of this. I wanted to go to nursing school. I wanted to help people. I wanted to stand on my own two feet.”
“You still can.”
I laughed bitterly, shaking my head. “It feels so far away, Tristan. Like another life.”
“It doesn’t mean it’s gone,” Tristan replied. “You choose what comes next, Daze.”
I looked down at the dragon stuffy, the fabric worn from Rowe’s small hands. My chest ached, but beneath the grief was something lighter.
“I want to start over,” I admitted. “That’s my choice. I want a life that belongs to me.”
Tristan’s hand found mine.
“Then we keep driving,” he said, eyes bright. “And when summer ends, you start to live your dreams.”
The mainland rose slowly ahead of us while the island thinned behind.
My heart still trembled with fear, but Oliver had not found us during the night. Nor did he stop the ferry, or stand nearby, hiding in plain sight.
Now, I pretended it was Rowe against my chest as I watched the distance grow.
It wasn’t enough. Not without him. Without June. But…
“I’m going to try to live, Rowe,” I whispered to him.
I had no other option.