Chapter 30
Annabelle
My heart thumps as I jolt awake, sitting upright and bringing Ethan with me, who wasn’t sleeping.
“What is it?” he asks.
“Nothing,” I mumble. “Usual. Move. I need to use the bathroom.”
He moves quickly, helping me off the bed. I, of course, leave his room to go to mine because I need my bathroom, but he follows me.
“Stay,” I say. “I need to do this myself. I can’t keep relying on you.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t want to forget how,” I say.
Ethan stands in the doorway of my bedroom, naked, tempting. His expression doesn’t soften. If anything, it gets more intent.
“You aren’t forgetting,” he says. “You’re being looked after.”
“I don’t need you or Aidan to change my tampon.”
“You don’t seem to mind it, though,” he points out with a smirk.
“I mind. I was just happy not to think and act before. Things are changing. Does that bother you?”
“Why would you say that?”
“Because maybe I’m not completely helpless like you all seem to think I am.”
“No one thinks that, Tinks.”
“So you don’t want me completely dependent on you?” My voice comes out hoarse from sleep and whatever nightmare dragged me out of it.
Ethan studies me for a long second. “Do I like taking care of you? Yes. Do I want you completely dependent on us? No, of course not. But just because you can doesn’t mean you have to. Not anymore.”
The blunt answer knocks the next words out of me for a second. I stare at him, at the hard line of his mouth, at the complete lack of apology in his face. He means it. He would happily wait on me hand and foot if I let him. Them.
I look away first. “I’m going to the bathroom on my own. You can stand there and brood if you want, but you’re not coming in.”
His eyes flick over my face, measuring. “Fine. Door stays unlocked.”
I almost laugh. “You are unbelievable.”
“You knew that about me already.”
I glare at him, then turn and walk into the en-suite, head held high.
After sorting myself out, I flick on the shower and crack the door open. “I’m showering.”
“Need any help?”
I purse my lips. “Well, seeing as you are already naked, we might as well save water.”
“That’s the spirit,” he says and pushes the door open wider.
He grabs my hand and pulls me into the steam with a rough little smile that makes my stomach dip.
The door shuts behind him. Warm air wraps around us. Water patters against the tiles, loud enough to drown out the thoughts still scraping around my skull. Ethan steps under the spray first, then reaches for me again. This time I go without making him drag me.
The second the water hits my skin, I exhale.
It has been too much. The messages. The truth.
Their father. My mother. My own head. Everything keeps piling on top of me until I cannot tell where one horror ends and the next begins.
But this is simple. Heat. Water. Ethan’s body is close to mine.
His hands on my waist, steadying me as I step fully under.
“You’re shaking,” he says.
“I know.”
“Nightmare?”
I nod once. “Didn’t even remember it properly when I woke up. Just that panicked feeling. Like something was right there.”
His jaw tightens. “Nothing gets near you.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because it’s true.”
His certainty is terrifying. It is also exactly what I need.
I reach past him for the soap, and he catches my wrist lightly. “Let me.”
“I can wash myself.”
“I know.” His fingers slide over mine and take the bottle anyway. “Humour me.”
I let him. That is the dangerous thing with Ethan. He says things in that calm voice of his, and before I know it, I am giving in because fighting him feels exhausting and being looked after feels good. Too good.
He pours shower gel into his palm and works it into my skin with slow, thorough strokes that have nothing to do with urgency and everything to do with possession. My throat goes tight. He is careful with me in a way that sinks under my skin and stays there.
His hands move over my arms, my stomach, my hips. Everywhere he touches, my body wakes up. I hate how quickly it happens. I hate that I can be half-broken with fear and still ache for him. Maybe that is the worst part of all of this. Maybe it is the best. I don’t know anymore.
When he drops to his knees to wash my legs, I stare down at him, and a thought slips into my mind that I can’t push away. “What’s his name?” I ask.
Ethan’s hands freeze for a second before he carries on. “Jack. Jack Deveaux.”
“Jack,” I murmur. I have it. I have the name I’ve been crying out for after four years of agony.
And I can’t even go to the police with it.
Four years of not knowing, and now it sits in the steam between us, ugly and real. Jack Deveaux. A man with a name, a face I have never seen, blood tied to the man in front of me. To the men keeping me alive.
I close my eyes.
Ethan rises slowly and takes my face in his hands. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Disappear on me.”
I open my eyes again. “I’ve spent four years wanting a name, Ethan. Now I’ve got one, and it changes nothing.”
“It changes plenty.”
“How?” I ask, harsher than I mean to. “He’s still out there. My mum is still dead. I’m still trapped in this fucking nightmare.”
His thumbs brush beneath my eyes. “Now he’s a man. Not a ghost. Not some faceless thing you can’t fight.”
“I can’t fight him.”
“No. But we can.”
That possessive little word burns. We.
I want to reject it. I want to throw it back at him and remind him that his blood made this mess. Instead, I stand there under the hot water, naked and tired and weak enough to let him hold me together.
“Some part of me wants to thank you,” I say. “Some really sick, depraved part.”
“Thank me for what?” he asks, stepping back and picking up the soap. He washes himself as he waits for my answer.
“Telling me. The way it has all come about is so fucked up, but thank you for telling me his name.”
His expression changes in a way I feel more than see. Something quieter. More dangerous.
“You never have to thank me for the truth,” he says. “You get that as standard now.”
I let out a breath that catches in my chest. “Bit late for standards.”
“I know.”
The easy admission disarms me.
Water runs down his chest, over hard muscle and ink.
“Do you really think you can kill him?” I ask.
Ethan rinses the soap from his hands and looks at me straight on. “I know I can.”
“And your brothers?”
“We all can.”
The certainty in him presses against my skin harder than the water. It is not bravado. It is not some macho fantasy. He means it with the same calm he uses to tell me to eat, sleep, and take my tablets. It makes my stomach twist.
“Aidan threatened to kill someone in front of me,” I blurt out. “Some driver who nearly ran us over.”
“I’m surprised he showed so much restraint.”
“You mean he’s killed before?”
“We all have. We are what Jack made us.”
“Jesus,” I mutter, stepping back from him. “Who?”
“Who what?”
“Who have you killed?”
“Arseholes who get in our way.”
I don’t know what answer I was expecting, but that’s all I’m getting. That’s all I’m asking for.
“Does that scare you, Tinks?”
I swallow and force myself to hold his stare. “It should.”
“But?”
I hate that he hears the rest before I say it. “But you don’t scare me the way you should either.”
His eyes darken. Satisfaction, maybe. Possession definitely.
“That’s because you know the difference,” he says. He brushes wet hair off my face and rinses shampoo into his hand. “Tilt your head back.”
End of conversation.
I do as he says. His fingers work through my hair, slow and firm, massaging my scalp until my eyes flutter shut.
The pads of his fingers drag over my scalp, and the sound that leaves me is soft. Needy. Embarrassing.
Ethan’s mouth curves against my temple. “That good?”
“Mm.”
He rinses my hair carefully, keeping the water out of my eyes, one hand braced at the back of my neck. He is annoyingly competent at this. At everything. Feeding me, bathing me, calming me down while he ruins me in the same breath.
When he is done, he reaches for the conditioner.
I catch his wrist. “Ethan.”
“What?”
“I mean it. I don’t want to lose myself in this.”
His expression stills. The teasing drops out of him at once. “In me?”
“In all of it.” I gesture uselessly between us.
“Being looked after. Being told what to do. Having every decision made for me. It feels good, and that’s the problem.
I was barely functioning before, and now you’re all here doing everything, and it has reminded me that I’m alive and capable.
I’m not a fucking basket case. I’m not back to where I was before she died.
Not by a long fucking shot. I may never be.
But I’m not helpless. Thank you for reminding me of that. ”
“You’re thanking me a lot this morning.”
“Yeah, well…” I huff out a breath. “Apart from all the lying, I guess there is a lot to be thankful for.”
“You’re perfect, Annabelle. Anyone ever tell you that?”
“Fuck off,” I mutter. “Don’t start with that. I’m not, and we both know it.”
“In my eyes, you are,” he says. “Not because you’re flawless. Because you’re you.”
I roll my eyes, but it lacks any real force. “That is disgustingly earnest.”
“I have layers.”
“You have control issues.”
“You know me too well.”
I don’t respond. If I do, this will lead somewhere I don’t have the energy for. All this talking and doing is exhausting.
He works the conditioner through my hair with patient fingers, and I let him because he heard me. I don’t need him to stop taking care of me. I need him to know I’m still in here. Still capable of standing on my own feet, even while I let him hold me up.
When he is done, he rinses my hair again and then turns me under the water, his hands warm on my hips.
“Listen to me,” he says.
I look up at him through wet lashes.
“You are not helpless. You never were. You were in pain.”
My throat tightens. “I still am.”
“I know. Hungry?”
I inhale deeply, relieved the subject has changed. “Yes.”
His mouth lifts at one corner. “Good. Progress.”
He turns off the shower and reaches for a towel, drying me before I can protest. It is intimate in a way that gets under my skin. Not sexual, but thorough, careful. Possessive. By the time he hands me a second towel for my hair, my pulse has settled into something less frantic.
I dry myself properly, put on clean knickers and a bra, then a soft blue tee from the pile Callan put away yesterday.
The thought of him organising my drawers still annoys me, but the irritation is blunted by the fact that I know where everything is.
Another trap. Another kindness that does not feel kind enough.
A pair of cut-off pants is next. My hands freeze on the zip.
Work.
I’m going out to work while there is a serial killer who murdered my mother on the loose and is hunting me.
What am I doing?
“Second thoughts?” Ethan asks, reading my mind.
I let out a shaky breath and force my hands to move. “Massive ones.”
Ethan steps closer behind me, not touching yet. “You don’t have to go in if you can’t.”
The words surprise me enough that I turn to look at him. “What?”
He picks up the hairbrush from the dresser and holds it out. “If today is too much, you stay here.”
I stare at him. “I thought the whole point was to act normal. Bait him. Draw him out.”
“It is.” His eyes stay on mine. “But not at the expense of you breaking apart. We’ll adjust.”
That eases my nerves and makes my head ache at the same time. “You’d really let me stay?”
“Annabelle.” His voice drops. “I’d lock this whole city down if you wanted it.”
I take the brush from his hand and drag it through my damp hair, wincing at a knot. “If I stay in, I’m hiding.”
“Hiding isn’t a bad thing.”
“It is, though. If I stay in because I’m scared, then he wins. He doesn’t come out of the woodwork, and you don’t kill him. He doesn’t pay for what he did.”
“So you’re doing this for your mother?”
“I’m doing this for her, for your mother, and everyone else’s loved ones who got brutally snatched from their lives. If I can’t do that, if I can’t play my part to end this monster, then that makes me as bad as him.”
“Slight exaggeration, but I admire the execution. You could never be as bad as him, even if you tried.”
“I’m doing this. But you have to promise me you won’t be far away. I don’t think I can if you aren’t there.”
His face hardens, fierce and absolute. “I won’t be far away. Not for a second, none of us will be. You can fall back anytime you need.”
Relief hits me so hard that my knees almost give out. “I can’t believe I’m doing this.”
“I can believe it,” Callan says, coming into the room. “Because you are stronger than you know.”
I stare at him and hope that’s true.