Chapter 19 #2
Andrei doesn’t slow down. “He’s been like this since Prague,” he says, steering them through the doorway. His accent is Eastern European—flat, clipped, stripped of anything that isn’t necessary. “Wouldn’t let us touch him. Barely let me get him on the plane.”
Reth’s head drops forward, chin to chest, then jerks up again in a spasm that looks more reflex than intent. “She knew what they did. What aaaaall of them did. She liked to watch, too. Did you know that, Ian?”
“It’s okay. I got you, man.” Ian tries to calm him as they move from the foyer and past the kitchen.
“They gave her money…for me. Said I was pretty.” He lets out a maniacal laugh that penetrates my spine. “Until I made myself…unpretty.”
Made himself? What the hell is he talking about? The scars on his arms?
“Real unpretty,” he mumbles, and there’s a faraway look in his eyes as his gaze sweeps the room in slow, dragging increments—first the floor, then the wall, then the couch, then—
Me.
Something moves across his face. Recognition, maybe. Blue eyes lock on mine and hold, pupils blown so large the irises are just a thin ring of navy.
“She—” His voice is wrong. Too dozy, too slow, dragging like it’s moving through water. “She can’t see…me.”
Reth’s arm comes up, the busted hand, fingers reaching for something at his collar. His buff. He’s trying to pull it up over his face, but his fingers won’t cooperate, and I watch him fight with the fabric with a specific helpless fury that makes my throat close.
“Stop.” Ian’s voice is firm and quiet. “Leave it. It doesn’t matter.”
“It fucking matters,” he blurts, words slurring. “I’m a freak and she’s…she’s beautiful. Me?” He manages to pull the fabric up to his nose. “I’m violence.” His eyes find mine. “She’s…porcelain.”
Ian swears under his breath, voice cracking. “Get him to the couch—now.”
They half-carry, half-drag him forward. Reth’s head lolls once, then snaps back up as if the motion alone is enough to keep him conscious, his eyes remaining on me like I’m the only thing tethering him to whatever’s left of himself.
My stomach lurches, and my knees lock. I want to move—forward, backward, anywhere—but my feet are nailed to the floor.
The sight of him like this hits me in the throat, in the chest, in the place where breath should come easy but doesn’t. It’s not pity. It’s worse. It’s fear…fear that he’s not okay.
They lower him onto the couch, and he collapses more than sits, head tipping back against the cushion, letting out a sound that isn’t quite a groan. His chest rises and falls in shallow, uneven bursts, and again I try to say something, but I can’t even get air into my lungs.
Ian drops to one knee in front of him, fingers prying his one eye open. “How much did you take, huh?” He looks at Andrei. “How much did he take?”
“I don’t know, man. He sobered up on the plane—mostly. Kept staring out the window like the clouds were gonna bite him. We landed, and he got in the car, tearing out of there like the devil’s riding shotgun.”
“Where’d he go?”
“Some dive club downtown. I tracked him there after he peeled out from the airport. Found him with some dealer.”
“Fuck,” Ian bites out, shoving his hand under the buff to feel Reth’s pulse.
“He was out of it, man. Some drunk fuck bumped him, and Reth put the guy through a table. Dealer tried to step in, and Reth snapped his wrist, then his nose, then keeps swinging until the bouncers piled on. I dragged him out before the cops rolled up. He was still throwing punches. Took three of us to get him in the car. He fought the whole way. Wouldn’t stop until I clocked him cold. ”
“You hit him?” I snap, and Andrei looks at me like it’s the first time he notices that I’m here.
“It was either that or sedating him. And since I didn’t know what he took, I decided to knock him the fuck out.”
“Good call,” Ian states. “Help me get him in the shower.”
They carry him up the stairs, and I stand frozen in the middle of the room, listening to their heavy footsteps until they fade and the house swallows itself in silence.
That’s when I see it.
The front door. Wide open.
My heart slams so hard, making it impossible to breathe. Outside, a black SUV sits crooked in the driveway, driver-side door still ajar. I’m willing to bet the keys are still in the ignition, too.
This is my chance.
No Reth. No Ian. No locked doors. No one to stop me.
This could be over. Right now. Today. Police station, bus station, airport—doesn’t matter. Freedom is twenty steps away. Twenty fucking steps. All I have to do is walk.
My legs move before I’m ready. One foot. Then the other. The floorboards groan under me, each creak like a warning I pretend not to hear.
My mouth is dry as ash, my pulse pounding in my throat, in my ears, in my fingertips. I’m shaking so hard my knees threaten to buckle, but I keep moving—slow, mechanical, like someone else is pulling the strings.
“You gotta trust him.”
Ian’s voice slices through the noise in my head.
“Somehow, you became a weakness to him.”
Another step, and my bare toes brush the threshold. The breeze hits my face—pine, diesel, open air. Freedom smells like possibility and terror all at once.
“You’re the only fucking thing left that makes him want to do more than just existing.”
My hand lifts toward the doorframe. Fingers hovering. Trembling. One push, and I’m gone. One sprint, and I’m in the driver’s seat. One turn of the key, and this nightmare ends.
But my hand doesn’t move. I have no idea if it’s cowardice or something more masochistic, but I can’t move.
I just stand there, breathing winter slow and shallow into my chest. There’s a part of me that’s already in that car, halfway down the icy road, hands white-knuckled on the wheel.
But the rest of me is here, ankles ringed with an invisible leash, but it’s made of something that isn’t fear. Not anymore.
I have no idea when it happened, but something deeper has taken root.
Something stronger, something that was planted the night he gave me a blanket and silently turned up the heat so I wouldn’t be cold.
It started growing when he pulled the sheet across my shoulders while he thought I was asleep.
It spread faster, deeper, the day he gave me a bedroom I’d only ever dreamed of having.
And its roots anchored hard that morning in the seasons room, pressed against the wall, when he whispered against my ear like a confession he couldn’t take back.
“I’ve never been a threat to you.”
My heart expands, and something inside me slides into place and locks—something that’s been the wrong shape…until now.
My fingers curl into a fist against the frame. I could run. I should run. But I don’t, because it’s no longer about survival. It’s about…what if?
What if he’s telling the truth?
What if he is protecting me?
What if I leave and never know why he built a house that feels like mine?
What if…he needs me?
On a deep exhale, my hand finds the door, fingers trembling between push and pull, freedom and captivity, sense and madness. For one suspended heartbeat, I’m still running, still escaping, but I’m not moving. And I need to know why. I need to know what it is that makes it so damn hard to walk away.
My fingers curl around the edge, logic losing its war with uncertainty…and I close the door.