Oakley
Twenty-One
Iwait a few minutes with bated breath until the rumble of Levi’s truck fades before I round the front of the complex and take off down the sidewalk.
The walk to the motel from the apartments is only a short distance, and the night is still a little warm, so honestly, I’m not too upset about having to walk there alone. I spent the whole day walking, so I might as well finish off strong.
As for safety? I’m learning that there might be no safer place for me than here in these mountains. They make me feel invincible.
Embarrassment and bewilderment fight for dominance as I recall the sudden change in Levi’s mood, and have to pretend I actually live in one of the apartments. I was fully expecting us to continue our normal pattern of banter on the ride home, and honestly, I had been looking forward to it.
Especially after that near kiss under the waterfall today.
Heat rushes to my cheeks when I remember the way his lips hovered over mine, seeming to beckon me forward, tempting me to capture them with my own.
Or the way his arm wrapped around my waist, holding me captive against his muscular chest, the evidence of his arousal trapped and burning between us.
Even now, I can still feel the brand of his touch on my skin, tingling and making me desperate for more.
And yet, despite the heat coursing between our two bodies, tonight ended differently than I had hoped. A part of me was hoping he’d close the distance between us, and I’d get to feel the press of his lips on mine. I know he was thinking it too.
So what stopped him?
“Fancy meeting you here.”
I startle at the shadow that peels itself away from the side of a truck parked outside my motel room.
The wind rushes from my lungs in a startled gasp, and I skid to a stop in the middle of the sidewalk.
He closes the distance between us until he’s standing less than a foot away from me.
The scent of fresh air and pine wrap around me, and my heart rate skyrockets as I peer into a shadowed set of dark green eyes.
“Levi, wh-what are you doing here?” I stammer, unable to come up with something more intelligent to say. I heard his truck drive away. Had counted the seconds after the noise disappeared into the night until I emerged from my hiding spot, having deemed the coast clear.
So how did he manage to get here undetected? Clearly I was too lost in my own swirling thoughts that I didn’t notice him pull the truck around. Idiot.
“I could ask you the same thing. I dropped you off at your apartment. Well, what I thought was your apartment.” His words are accusatory and his tone holds a bite.
Levi isn’t mad at me. Instead, his anger seems to be directed at my current living situation, if his glare at the upside-down number four is any indication.
His barely contained fury boils under the surface.
He crosses his arms over his chest as he waits for my response.
I stay quiet, knowing I have no logical explanation for my deceit.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Embarrassment burns the back of my throat. I deflect, scoffing and rolling my eyes, making to move around him, but he blocks my path to the door with a muscled arm on the doorframe.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Bullshit. Try again. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Levi, please.” The fight leaves my body, exhaustion taking its place.
The next time he asks me, I’m not going to fight him on it.
He lets me push past him, and I duck under his arm to fit my key into the lock on the door.
He stands at my back, the heat from his chest seeping through my thin clothes and reminding me of earlier, when I could feel the heat of him pressed fully against me beneath the pounding of the waterfall.
I start to insert the key into the lock, but frown as I watch the door give way and swing inward a few inches.
A sliver of light peeks through the space, and my brow pinches, my breathing growing more frantic as my worst-case-scenario brain gets straight to work.
Stumbling backwards a step, I’m met with the hard planes of Levi’s chest, and his arm wraps around me instinctively, steadying my shaking legs before I topple over onto the pavement.
That door was locked this morning.
The ringing in my ears grows louder with each second that passes, the sound locked in a vicious battle for dominance with my ragged breathing and heaving chest. Levi tenses behind me and drops his mouth to my ear.
“Oakley, what is it?” Warm breath fans over the side of my face, and the intoxicating smell of lake water and pine wafting off of him does nothing to abate the dread coursing through every cell of my body like a current of electricity.
I was a bundle of anticipatory excitement this morning as I flitted around the small room, getting dressed and gathering the few items I needed before tossing them into my backpack.
Maybe in my haste to meet Jessie for our hike, I forgot to pull the door shut all the way.
Right? My mouth goes dry as I try to recall and realize I have absolutely no fucking idea.
I gesture to the slightly ajar door. His focus shifts from my trembling form to the sliver of light pouring out through the crack in the door, and everything changes.
Without a word, he pushes me behind him, and I clutch his flannel with both hands.
He turns his head until he’s glancing at me over his shoulder, and the reflection of the light from the room on his face highlights the worry lines creasing his forehead.
“Stay here.”
I swallow around the lump in my throat but give a slight nod at his command.
His eyes soften a fraction as warm hands cover my own and gently pry my fingers open, releasing the bunched material from my death grip.
Stepping back, I stare with wide eyes as Levi steps over the threshold and disappears behind the weatherworn door.
What if he found me?
As soon as the thought crosses my mind, I shove it away and slam my mental doors on it.
But I’m too late. I was conditioned over the last year, and the fear associated with his memory threatens to cripple me right there on the sidewalk.
He’s like a ghost. I can’t see him, but his menacing presence is always there, lurking in the shadows and haunting me in the daylight.
You can run, but you can’t hide.
It’s only one of many vaguely threatening messages I’ve received from Travis since leaving.
I saw it briefly on the hike back from the waterfall, but instead of dwelling on it, I shoved my phone into my bag and resumed my conversation with Jessie.
Now those words feel like the shock of the ice-cold lake as they pinball through my head, drenching me in fear.
My heart thumps in time with the sound of Levi’s steady footsteps as he moves through the room, my ears straining to pick up on anything to indicate someone hiding in the room, but I can’t hear anything over the thundering of my pulse.
The seconds tick by as the adrenaline ebbs and flows, my feet twitching with the effort it takes to stay where I am and not run screaming for the hills.
Fuck, when did I become such a coward? Humiliation joins the onslaught of too many emotions, and my cheeks heat when I think about how pitiful I must look right now.
Dad would be ashamed of me if he could see me like this.
I’ve always been his headstrong girl, ready and willing to speak my mind whether someone asked for it or not.
I think it’s one of the things that made him most proud of me growing up.
I wasn’t afraid to tell it like it is, and I never apologized for who I was and what I believed.
It’s right now, as I stand with shaking limbs outside of a seedy motel in a town I found by pointing blindly at a map, that I realize I’ve lost that part of myself.
No, fuck that. I didn’t lose that part of me. Travis ripped it from me with jagged teeth.
I’d reached into the darkness, trying like hell to fight for who and what I was, as maniacal laughter filled my ears and drowned me in the suffering of the wounds he inflicted.
Little by little, he stole pieces of my mind, my heart, my body, and twisted them into something I no longer recognized before shoving them back into my chest with a wicked smile.
He reveled in my pain and laughed at the wounds he caused, rejoicing in his own sick and twisted masterpiece.
I’d never felt so dirty. I’d never felt so utterly empty, and it isn’t until right now, on this stupid cracked sidewalk, that I recognize the extent of all he took from me.
And it makes me furious.
“All clear.” Levi emerges from the room, the light from the doorway shining around him.
I breathe a sigh of relief at his words, but the metaphorical fist around my throat hasn’t loosened its grip yet. He steps aside for me, and I enter the room, scanning it quickly. At first glance, nothing seems out of place.
The click of the door and jingle of the deadbolt chain behind me further soothes my racing heart, and I drop my bag at the foot of the bed, looking around again with my hands on my hips.
The moment of relief is short-lived when my eyes catch on the cabinet that holds the ancient television. My eyes trail down to the small safe that sits on the shelf below, its door hanging wide open, and dread pools in my stomach.
The safe is empty.
I drop down onto the edge of the bed, staring at the empty safe in front of me in disbelief. All I want to do is crawl under the covers and hide. How is it that only hours earlier, I was so free, and now it’s like I’m back at square one?
Levi follows my gaze to the empty safe, and I know he’s not noticing it for the first time. He inhales deeply. I lie back on the ratty comforter and let my eyes close. A moment later, the bed dips beside me.